Her fingers trembled slightly against the tape. Soap’s low brogue cut through the sterile smell of antiseptic, his blue eyes sharp on her face.
“Careful, lass.” His voice was a rough scrape, softened by the Scottish roll. “Ye’re touchin’ me like ye’ve never touched a man before.”
Sam froze. The white medical tape stuck to her thumb, half-peeled from the roll. The concrete walls of the bunker seemed to press closer, the hum of the emergency light suddenly loud in her ears. She kept her gaze on the clean gauze pad taped over the graze on his side, the skin around it pink and angry.
“I haven’t.”
The words were out, quiet and damning, before she could call them back. A medic’s clinical admission, stripped of all context. She felt the heat flood her neck, burn up to her cheeks.
Soap went utterly still beneath her hands. The teasing lightness vanished from his face, replaced by a focus so intense it felt like a physical touch. His eyes—a sharp, assessing blue—didn’t leave her.
He shifted on the edge of the cot, the movement bringing him closer. The space between them evaporated. Sam could smell the gunpowder and sweat on his skin, see the faint scar through his eyebrow, the dark blond stubble along his jaw.
His hand came up, not fast, but deliberate. He cupped her jaw. His palm was broad, callused, warm. His thumb brushed the corner of her split lip, a touch so gentle it made her breath catch.
“Sam.”
Just her name. In his mouth, it wasn’t a call sign. It was a question. An offering.
She should pull back. Should make a joke about blood loss and painkillers. Should finish the damn bandage. Her medic’s mind listed the reasons, each one clear and logical.
Her body didn’t listen. She leaned into his hand. A fraction of an inch. A surrender.
That was all he needed.
Soap closed the distance. His mouth met hers.
It wasn’t gentle. It was sure. A firm, warm pressure that erased the sterile air, the concrete, the lingering ache of her bruises. His lips moved against hers, coaxing, asking. Sam’s eyes fluttered shut. A sound escaped her—a soft, shaky exhale she didn’t recognize as her own.
Her hands, still holding the medical tape, came up and pressed flat against his bare chest. His skin was hot. She could feel the solid muscle beneath, the steady, strong beat of his heart. Her clinical precision dissolved. Her fingers curled, nails lightly scraping through the coarse hair.
He deepened the kiss, his tongue tracing the seam of her lips. She opened for him. The taste of him flooded her senses—coffee, adrenaline, something uniquely male and sharp. His other hand came up to cradle the back of her head, his fingers tangling in her hair, holding her there. Not trapping. Anchoring.
He pulled back just enough to breathe, his forehead resting against hers. His breath was warm on her wet lips. “Alright?” he murmured, the brogue thick and low.
Sam could only nod, her eyes still closed. Her whole world had narrowed to the heat of his palms, the solid wall of his chest under her hands, the frantic drum of her own pulse.
“Look at me.”
She forced her eyes open. His gaze was dark, the blue almost swallowed by black. There was no teasing there now. Only a raw, focused intensity that made her stomach clench.
“Tell me to stop,” he said, his voice gravel. “Say the word, and I finish the bandage. We pretend this was the morphine talking.”
He meant it. She could see it in the set of his jaw, the tension in the hand still cupping her face. He was giving her the door. A clean exit.
Sam swallowed. Her throat was tight. She looked from his eyes to his mouth, back to his eyes. The words wouldn’t come. The only word in her head was his name.
She shook her head, a small, desperate movement.
A slow breath left him. Something in his eyes shifted, softened and hardened all at once. “Okay,” he whispered. “Okay, Samantha.”
He kissed her again. Deeper. Hungrier. This time, her hands moved with a will of their own, sliding up over the hard planes of his shoulders, feeling the flex of muscle as he pulled her closer, until she was standing between his knees. His arms wrapped around her, one hand splayed wide on her lower back, pressing her against him.
She could feel him. All of him. The hard ridge of his erection straining against his tactical pants, pressed firm against her stomach. The reality of it—the size, the heat, the implicit promise—sent a jolt of pure, liquid need straight to her core. Her hips jerked forward involuntarily, a silent, aching answer.
Soap groaned into her mouth, the sound vibrating through her. He broke the kiss, his lips trailing down her jaw, to the sensitive spot below her ear. “Easy,” he breathed, his teeth grazing her skin. “We’ve got time. I’ve got you.”
His hands moved to the hem of her shirt. He looked at her, a question in his raised brow. Sam nodded, her own hands fumbling for the buckle of his belt. Her fingers, so steady with a scalpel, felt clumsy and foreign.
He helped her, his larger hands covering hers, guiding the leather through the buckle. The metallic click was obscenely loud in the quiet bunker. He made quick work of the button and zip of his pants, then turned his attention back to her.
He pushed her shirt up, his palms skimming over the lean muscles of her abdomen, over the dark bruise blooming on her ribs. He paused there, his thumb feather-light over the injury. “This hurt?”
“No.” It was a lie. Everything ached. But the ache was different now. It was heat. It was want.
He lifted the shirt over her head, tossed it aside. Her sports bra followed. The cool bunker air hit her skin, raising goosebumps. Then his hands were on her, warm and sure, cupping her breasts, his thumbs brushing over her nipples. They tightened instantly into hard, sensitive peaks.
Sam gasped, her head falling back. The sensation was shocking, electric. It arrowed straight down, making her clench empty and wet between her thighs.
“Christ, yer beautiful,” he muttered, his voice thick. He bent his head, took one nipple into his mouth.
The wet heat of his tongue, the gentle suction, the scrape of his stubble on her tender skin—it was too much. Her knees buckled. Soap held her up, his arm a steel band around her waist, his mouth working her with a focused intensity that stole the air from her lungs.
He switched to the other breast, lavishing it with the same attention. Sam’s hands were in his hair, gripping the damp strands, holding on as the world tilted. She was making sounds—small, pleading whimpers she’d never heard herself make.
He straightened, his lips glistening, his eyes wild. “Need to see you,” he growled. His hands went to the button of her pants.
He pushed them down, taking her underwear with them. She stepped out of them, kicking the tangled fabric aside. Now she was naked, standing in the dim light between his spread knees, while he was still half-dressed. The vulnerability was terrifying. Exhilarating.
Soap’s gaze raked over her, from her flushed face, down her bruised torso, over the flat plane of her stomach, to the thatch of dark hair between her thighs. His expression was one of pure, reverent hunger. “Come here,” he said, his voice rough.
He guided her forward, until she was standing flush against him. His hands slid down her back, over the curve of her ass, pulling her tight. The rough fabric of his pants scraped her inner thighs. The hard, hot length of him pressed against her belly.
One hand slipped between them, his fingers sliding through her folds. She was soaking wet. The touch made her cry out, her hips jerking against his hand.
“Fuck,” he breathed against her neck, his fingers circling her clit. “Yer drenched for me, Sam.”
She couldn’t speak. She could only feel. His clever, callused fingers, exploring her, learning her. The slow, torturous circles that built a pressure low in her belly, a coil winding tighter and tighter. She rocked against his hand, chasing the feeling, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
He slid a finger inside her. Just one. A slow, deep invasion that made her muscles clamp down around him. She was tight. He felt huge. He stilled, letting her adjust, his mouth on her throat, whispering Gaelic she couldn’t understand but felt in her bones.
He began to move his finger, a slow in-and-out that was a devastating mimicry of what was to come. He added a second, stretching her gently. The burn melted into a deep, full ache. Her nails dug into his shoulders.
“Soap,” she gasped. It was a warning. A plea.
“I know,” he murmured. He withdrew his fingers, brought them to his mouth, sucked them clean. His eyes held hers the entire time. The raw, carnal sight of it made her cunt clench around nothing. “Taste yerself. All that need.”
He stood then, his height forcing her to look up. He shoved his pants and boxers down in one rough push. He was free. Thick. Veined. The head flushed dark and leaking. Sam’s mouth went dry. She’d seen anatomy textbooks. She’d never seen this.
He guided her back onto the narrow cot. The canvas was rough against her bare skin. He followed her down, covering her body with his, supporting his weight on his forearms. The heat of him was everywhere. His cock lay heavy and hot against her thigh.
He kissed her, deep and slow, as his hand found her center again. He positioned himself, the blunt head of him nudging at her entrance. He broke the kiss, his breath ragged against her lips.
“This might hurt,” he said, his voice strained with the effort of holding still. “Just at first. Tell me. We go slow.”
Sam wrapped her legs around his hips, her heels digging into the hard muscle of his ass. She pulled him closer. The tip of him pressed against her, a promise of stretch, of fullness, of a line about to be crossed forever.
She looked into his eyes, saw the storm there, the control he was clinging to for her sake. She nodded, a sharp, final movement.
Soap pushed inside.