At that particular moment, I felt like the sexiest woman on the planet. It was hard not to as I watched the hot, covetous look in his eyes.

  Any hesitation I may have had about not having a model’s body melted away. Chase definitely liked what he saw, and there was no denying that he wanted…me.

  I gasped as his mouth came down to my breast and he bit lightly on my hardened nipple. I sucked in another breath as he soothed it with his tongue.

  I closed my eyes, lost in a sensual world where only Chase and I existed.

  “Chase, please,” I begged as he teased the other nipple with his fingers. “I need…”

  “I’ll give you exactly what you need, sweetheart,” he assured me as he moved lower.

  Oh, sweet Jesus! I was sure he would.

  “Oh, my God,” I hissed when his tongue finally found my needy pussy.

  I thrust my hands into his damp hair to try to keep myself grounded.

  I couldn’t believe any of this was happening, and it was so much better than any fantasy I’d ever had.

  Longing overwhelmed me as I cried out, “Yes. Please.”

  I moaned as his mouth devoured me leisurely but thoroughly, like he had no plans of stopping any time soon.

  “Chase,” I said insistently as I tugged on his hair, my body screaming to be satisfied.

  I was on fire with a nearly painful, primitive desire I’d never felt in the past, and it was eating me alive.

  I moaned as he finally stopped teasing and focused on my clit, his tongue flicking across the sensitive, engorged nub over and over again until I was ready to lose my mind.

  I was surprised when my orgasm started to build, each wicked pass he made over my clit stoking my desperate need for release.

  I was frantic to come, but Chase was completely in charge of when that happened, and he seemed hell-bent to draw out the event as much as possible.

  “Now,” I pleaded.

  He moved a little bit faster, but he didn’t quite push me over the edge.

  “Oh, God, I can’t take anymore,” I said, my voice shaky with desperation.

  All I wanted was the release my body craved.

  Immediately after I spoke those words out loud, Chase sped up the pace.

  When he slipped two fingers into my channel and started fucking me while he was still tormenting my clit, I completely shattered.

  My climax consumed me as I lifted my hips and tried to press my pussy harder against his hungry mouth.

  Chase lingered like he was trying to make sure he drew every drop of pleasure he could get from me.

  The climax went on and on, lingering for so long that I didn’t think it was ever going to stop.

  My whole body trembled as I slowly came back down to Earth.

  “Wrap your legs around me and hold on,” Chase said in a demanding voice.

  I’d barely lifted them into position when he rose and my back suddenly hit the wall.

  Instinctively, my arms went around his neck.

  “I can’t wait any longer, Vanna. Not this time. I want you too goddamn much to go slow right now,” Chase growled as he lifted me higher and brought me down over his rock-hard cock.

  “I don’t want you to wait,” I whimpered, my body responding to his urgency.

  It was exhilarating to know how much Chase wanted me, and I was ready to take the wildest ride possible with him.

  Even though I’d already had an orgasm, my body wasn’t fully satiated. I knew it wouldn’t be until Chase was inside me.

  Some primordial, elemental desire for him to join our bodies was so strong that it was painful.

  I sucked in a breath like I was oxygen deprived as he buried himself to the hilt inside me.

  “Yes!” I screamed, urging him on.

  He was big, but I wasn’t going to complain about the momentary twinge of pain that I felt before I was absorbed in the complete bliss of finally having him inside me.

  I nipped his earlobe as my body stretched to accommodate his size, frantic for him to soothe the ache that wouldn’t leave my body alone.

  I’d craved this ultimate closeness with him, and now that I had it, the carnal satisfaction was almost more than I could take.

  “I need you, Chase,” I told him, my voice raw with emotion.

  “You have me, Vanna,” he said roughly as he started to move. “Fuck! I’d love to stay like this forever because you feel so damn good around my cock, but I can’t.”

  “Then fuck me. I need it, too,” I said in a sultry tone I’d never heard come from my lips before.

  He started to move, slow and deep at first, but his movements got more and more fierce as I submerged myself into erotic bliss all over again.

  This was what I’d craved, this tumultuous, obsessive possession that rocked my body until I was in a frenzy.

  “Good. So good,” I chanted, knowing the words couldn’t begin to explain what he was doing to me right now.

  Chase grasped my hair and pulled my head down so he could ravage my mouth as our bodies undulated to an insane, frenetic beat that only the two of us understood.

  “Yes. Yes. Yes,” I said in a hoarse, agitated voice after he released my lips. “Harder.”

  He wanted to possess me, and I wanted to be claimed by him.

  “Come for me, Vanna,” Chase urged as he slammed inside me over and over again.

  My legs tightened around him and I felt my climax looming. It was like a tightly wound knot in my stomach that slowly started to unfurl, reaching out to encompass every nerve cell in my body.

  It was a pure and utter ecstasy that sent me reeling.

  “Chase!” I screamed as my orgasm began to move through me so powerfully that it was almost frightening.

  The pulsations were intense as I reached the pinnacle.

  “Fuck!” Chase groaned as my release set off his own. “You’re mine, Vanna. Say it. I need you to tell me.”

  “I’m yours, Chase,” I said obliging, panting my way through those words, my breath harsh and my emotions raw. “I have been for a very long time.”

  That was a truth that made me realize that no matter how long it had taken, this kind of passion was always meant to be, but could only happen with him.

  I collapsed into his strong form, trembling from the sheer force of what had just occurred.

  I felt wrecked, but freer than I’d ever been in my entire life.

  I laid my forehead against his shoulder and closed my eyes, my body still humming from the ferocity of my climax.

  If this was what post-coital bliss felt like, I wanted to experience it over and over again.

  “Okay?” Chase asked, his breathing still slightly ragged.

  “More than okay,” I replied, not ready to move as I smiled.

  “Baby, that was…” his voice trailed off like he didn’t quite know what to say.

  “Unexplainable?” I suggested.

  “Exactly,” he rasped.

  Yep. This man got me—he really, really did.

  Chase

  “Are your scars the reason you blew me off whenever I asked if you wanted to use the hot tub with me?” Vanna asked as the two of us lounged lazily in my outdoor jacuzzi several hours later.

  Luckily, Vanna had turned the oven to warm before she’d followed me upstairs, so we’d still had edible lasagna for dinner. We’d both devoured the food like we hadn’t eaten in weeks. Not surprising since we’d moved to the bed after the shower and hadn’t surfaced for hours.

  I was certain we’d satisfied that ugly problem of her never being satisfied by a man. I wasn’t sure what kind of guy wouldn’t care about her pleasure, because watching her come was a beautiful thing that I could never get enough of myself. I’d wanted to see it over and over again.

  “Yeah,” I confessed. “I don’t exactly get naked with women anymore. Haven’t in a long time.”

  I had to admit that it was surreal to be nude in a hot tub again. Especially when I was holding the only woman I really wanted against my bare-assed naked body.

  Hell, if I was dreaming, I hoped nobody ever woke me up again.

  I still had a hard time believing that Vanna had accepted my scars like they didn’t even exist.

  All this time, I’d been a fucking idiot to think she’d react any other way.

  I knew her, yet I’d almost let my insecurities chase her away.

  Her happy sigh washed over my battered soul like a healing balm as she said, “I wish you would have told me. I could have reassured you that you’re still the hottest man on the planet. Obviously, some other female missed that opportunity.”

  I winced, but I confessed, “I tried dating about a year after I got out of the military. Without thinking about the possible consequences, I changed my shirt in front of the woman I was dating at the time because we were going out to dinner. She was so horrified that we never did make it to the restaurant.”

  Vanna turned her body until she was straddling me on the seat and we were face-to-face. “She must have been a total nitwit,” she said in a scalding tone. “I’m not going to lie to you because you’ve never lied to me. Your scars are definitely visible, but I’m not sure what woman could resist the body underneath them. Are you going to tell me more about what happened?”

  I threaded a hand through her hair and pulled her head down to kiss her because I couldn’t resist. Fuck! This woman could undo me with a couple of words.

  She wasn’t filling me with a bunch of bullshit, either. I could see the genuine adoration in her eyes every time she touched me. And every fuck-me look she sent me made me absolutely insane.

  She laid her head on my shoulder after I released her mouth, waiting patiently.

  There was only so much I could tell her, but I could do a lot better than my previous explanation. “I wish I had seen it coming for even a second or two, but I didn’t,” I disclosed. “One minute I had my head down discussing the operation and the next it was lights out. One of the RPGs slammed into a junk vehicle nearby where we were standing. My helmet, and the fact that I had my head down, probably saved my life. I didn’t even know the fate of my crew members until I finally woke up in Germany. Wyatt was there. I don’t know how in the hell he knew what happened or how he got there so fast. Torie was on a hiking trip in a remote location. She didn’t find out until I was actually able to talk to her on the phone a few weeks later, after multiple surgeries to try to remove all the shrapnel from my body. She wanted to come, but I asked her to just wait until I got back home. I never got to do another mission. I was discharged soon after I got out of the hospital and back to the States.”

  She stroked a hand over my jaw. “I’m so sorry you lost a teammate.”

  I swallowed hard. “Me, too. He was a good man with a couple of kids back home. I didn’t make it to the funeral, but I stopped to see his ex-wife and the children once I was back home to see if there was anything I could do to help. My co-pilot made out a little better than I did. He got back to his wife in relatively decent shape. We still talk once in a while.”

  “So Torie doesn’t really know how bad it was? She mentioned that you were injured not long before you were discharged, but she didn’t sound like she knew the full extent of it,” she said contemplatively.

  “Hell, no,” I balked. “What guy wants to tell his little sister about every scar on his body and how it affects his sex life? She knows I was injured in a blast, and I generally stick with long sleeves so no one asks a lot of questions. Do you remember how mortified you were to be afraid of the dark?”

  She lifted her head and nodded.

  “I feel the same way about having my younger sister seeing my shrapnel scars. She thinks I’m a goddamn hero, and I like to keep it that way.”

  “I think you’re a hero, too,” she murmured as she ran her hands down my chest. “And I’ve seen all of your scars.”

  Even though I loved to hear her say that, I knew it wasn’t true.

  “For fuck’s sake, I wasn’t even engaged in the operation at the time. Like you said, I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” I grumbled.

  “Wherever you were, you were there because you were getting ready to go fly a helicopter into a dangerous situation. Please don’t downplay what you did in special forces, Chase. Or the importance of what you do in Last Hope. I would have died out there in the jungle if you hadn’t come after me,” she said irritably. “And I’m sure you did it without a single thought to your own safety.”

  “I’d come after you a thousand times if that’s what it takes to keep you safe, Vanna,” I answered hoarsely. “Knowing you were out there somewhere being held against your will made me half crazy. Once I knew the whole situation, I wasn’t even sure if you were still alive.”

  “I was, and you saved me,” she said shortly. “So don’t try to tell me you’re not a hero. It’s bullshit. I’m also certain I was one of many people you saved.”

  I grinned at her because she was getting adorably testy, and I knew it was because she was trying to defend me.

  “I sure as hell hope I never fall off that pedestal you have me on, sweetheart. I’m really just a guy who went after a woman he cares about,” I drawled. “It was a gut instinct that would trigger most men into action.”

  She punched my shoulder. “Only the ones who think they can save the world singlehandedly. I’m not sure if that’s arrogance, ego, or insanity, but I’m pretty glad you’ve got it, whatever it is. I can’t complain because it saved my life.”

  My grin got even larger. “Hate to say this, but I don’t think it’s really cockiness. It’s confidence. We all just know what we’re capable of doing after intense training. Our limits are being tested almost constantly in special forces.”

  “You’ve always been a little bit cocky,” she informed me. “You hate losing a debate when you think you’re right. But your kindness keeps you from being totally obnoxious. Honestly, maybe it was that effortless confidence that was one of the things that made me so attracted to you.”

  “Damn!” I said with pseudo chagrin. “I thought it was my handsome face, hot body, and my status as one of the richest guys in the world.”

  “Stop it,” she said with a delighted laugh. “I’ll admit, there was that, too. Well, not the billionaire thing. I’ve never really cared about your money. That’s not what made me flustered every time I saw you again.”

  It was bizarre to have a woman say she didn’t care about my money, but in Vanna’s case, I knew it was true.

  She’d been Torie’s best friend for a long time, and she was accustomed to being around people who had an obscene amount of money. Never once had she treated me any differently just because of my wealth, nor would she let me win an argument just to appease me.

  “Tell me what else gets you flustered, and just how many times have you had that affliction when we met up in the past?” I asked, wondering exactly when she’d realized I was a guy she wanted to get naked.

  Fuck knew she’d never shared that knowledge with me.

  If she didn’t need or want my money, I wanted to figure out how to keep her happy.

  She seemed to have no problem being blunt as she answered, “It’s been a while. Probably since the party your dad had for Torie when she finished her PhD. That’s probably when I noticed that my best friend had a brother who had grown up to be incredibly gorgeous. Back then, I didn’t have a lot of problem brushing it off. You were my best friend’s brother, a guy I’d known for most of my life, and I didn’t want to make a fool of myself.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me, or at least give me some kind of hint?” I questioned, wondering what I would have said to her back then if she had.

  “Please,” she said drily. “I was still like your honorary little sister. You would have thought it was pathetic.”

  I mulled that comment over for a moment before I replied. “Honestly, I’m not sure I would have. Maybe I wasn’t ready to admit that you were the most remarkable woman I’d ever met, but I probably would have with a little encouragement.”

  “I wasn’t ready to take that chance,” she admitted.

  “And when we saw each other at Torie’s wedding? What really happened there, Vanna? By that time, I knew I was attracted to you. I think you felt that connection, too. But you ran away and broke my heart.”

  She shrugged and ran a gentle hand through my hair. “I got scared. I thought I was imagining it, and I didn’t want to lose the only people who were like family to me. I didn’t think you’d ever really see me as anything else except Torie’s best friend. And you know I didn’t break your heart.”

  “Oh, I saw you,” I informed her. “And I’m not gonna lie, I was a little heartbroken. You took off that day like just the thought of spending time with me was off-putting, and you hadn’t even seen my scars. It was pretty deflating.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said regretfully. “I had no idea you offered for any reason except sympathy that I was on my own in Vegas.”

  “And if you had known that wasn’t the reason?” I asked huskily.

  Our eyes locked and hers were full of a romantic affection that made my chest ache as she answered, “I’m not exactly sure. By that time, I wanted to be with you so much that I might have thrown caution to the wind. I almost did. If I’d known you felt the same way, it might have been different. I wasn’t really worried about Torie not approving. She’s been begging me to take one of her brothers off her hands for a long time.”

  I raised a brow. “Has she really? Wyatt, too?”

  Hell, I didn’t like that idea. At all.

  “Absolutely,” she said with a smile. “Whichever one I was willing to take. She wasn’t picky.”

  “Brat!” I grunted with very little animosity. “She didn’t need to offer up Wyatt, too. I don’t think I would have handled that very well.”

  “I adore Wyatt. But there was always only one Durand brother that I really wanted,” she purred, her voice suddenly as sultry as a temptress.

  “Which one?” I asked gruffly.

  Yeah. Okay. Maybe it was pathetic that I was asking for reassurance, but I was still stunned that Vanna wanted me at all after seeing all the damage my body had suffered.