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Her gentle observation sliced right through hi its mark It certainly wasn’t the first time he’d been accused of that Just as he’d been accused of using his career and tours of duty to keep fro down roots back home

He could still recall every stage of his father’s cycle of self-destruction when his mother had died His father had lost all control, all reason, and he hadn’t cared who he hurt in the process Even a six-year-old boy as trying to cope with the loss of his mother

Ash couldn’t remember how old he’d been when he’d sworn to himself that, whatever happened to him for the rest of his miserable life, he refused to becoh to be so torn apart by their loss That way, he’d never be in so much pain that he’d hurt anyone, and he’d never, ever lose control

‘I don’t want to have to think about someone else,’ he lied, the proxi up the sexual tension another intolerable notch ‘I’irlfriend or a wife, and certainly not a family’

‘Rubbish,’ Fliss retorted evenly, her hands finally raising to his chest, her fingers running gently over the contours of his body, tracing the ridges of the shaliness behind them

‘You protect yourself because you had an appalling childhood and you got hurt But I’ive, Ash I’ it will only ever be this moment between us’

He needed to shut this do Keeping things as just sex would be one heck of a task It would be so easy to fall for a woman as unique as Major Felicity Delaunay

He moved to step away fro his hands on her hips and drawing her close, her skin decadently sers beneath her chin, tilting her head up to his as he lowered his mouth to finally claim hers the way he had back in that supply rooo

Her lips parted for hirow heavy as they fluttered closed and her body moulded to his, skin to skin but for her insubstantial bikini and his shorts For now he resisted the urge to peel either away; he was barely holding onto his self-control with his fingertips as it was, and he could already feel Fliss’s nipples through the material as her chest rose and fell with shallow breaths Ash rubbed his thu the hair elastic froers into the silky curtain as it tuined it would be

‘So beautiful,’ heto her hair

The clipped sound shehis ed in the kiss without reservation, tasting every ue danced with his in perfect synchronicity She was clinging to his, and it only made her feel all the more delicate in his arms

Tantalisingly slowly, he allowed his hand to trace a line back to her chin, gliding slowly down her neck to the fluttering pulse, the senerous swell of breasts he ached to touch, to lick, to tease With deliberate precision, he glided his hand down to cup one full breast and let his thu peak

Fliss trembled beneath his touch as she breathed his name with such bliss that he couldn’t help himself He lowered his head and took one peak in histhe other As she rocked her lower body against his there was no h the thin layers of material from her very core

‘Ashplease’

White-hot need tore through Ash, infinitely hotter than the sun beating down on their bodies It would be so easy to tear off what res of hers around his hips and thrust inside her But if this was the one chance they were going to get then he owed it to both of them to make sure they didn’t rush it