Free A SEAL's Kiss by Tawny Weber

off that she was about to get into a whole lot of trouble if she didn’t take a very careful step backward.
    Her heart thumped faster. And, like everything else she’d ever encountered that offered the possibility of delight and bliss, she couldn’t resist.
    She had to see how it felt. How he felt.
    She pressed her hands against his chest, her hands flat to better explore the delicious expanse of muscles under his shirt. Oh, my, they built them hard in the navy. So deliciously hard.
    She wet her lips, then gave a low husky sigh of appreciation.
    “Sage...” Aiden warned.
    But he didn’t move.
    So she did.
    Closer. She slid her hands over his shoulders, her fingers tickling the back of his neck. He gave a slow shake of his head. She took that as a sign to move faster, before he sped up the denial.
    So move she did. Her lips brushed his. First a soft caress. Just a sweet hello from her mouth to his.
    His body tensed. She’d like to think it was passion, but more likely he was going to push her away.
    So she stepped up her game. And pressed her body closer. The tips of her breasts grazed his chest. She almost moaned as desire swirled from her quickly hardening nipples to her belly. Her thighs felt heavy, loose. Her breathing grew deeper and the blood slowed as if everything in her body were preparing for how great this was going to feel.
    Always willing to give her body what it wanted, she curled her fingers tighter around the back of Aiden’s neck. She slid her tongue along the crease of his lips, tasting.
    Testing.
    He tasted damned good.
    For a second, she thought he was going to just stand there. Stoic and sweet, simply tolerating the move but not rejecting her so as not to hurt her feelings.
    Then he gave a low growl.
    The sound sent those tingles into high gear. Sage’s heart sped up. His mouth opened over hers.
    Hot and swift, his tongue swept in. Took over.
    This was a man used to command.
    Sage liked it.
    His lips molded, his tongue thrust.
    Her body melted.
    Then, slowly, as if not wanting to send her system into instant withdrawal, he slowed it down.
    He changed the kiss, so just his lips were sweeping over hers. His fingers loosened. His body shifted, just a little, as if inviting air in to cool things off between them.
    Whew.
    Talk about acing the test.
    “Well,” she breathed slowly. “That was fun.”
    Sage had to step away from that delicious body in order to get her body’s circuits to connect to her brain again. She felt as if everything had gone haywire, all her systems sparking and zinging with passion unlike anything she’d ever experienced.
    Something to think about, she promised herself. Later. Much later. After she’d had a few hours away from Aiden and a lot of meditation to neutralize her reaction.
    “You play with live grenades for fun, too?” he asked quietly, his expression neutral, with a hint of something intense, something ferocious beneath the surface.
    She wanted to touch again. To see what that passion felt like. What he’d do with it. How he’d use it on her body. She shivered at the prospect, then carefully took one more step away from temptation.
    Not out of fear, she promised herself.
    Just good judgment.
    Something she liked to try out every once in a while for a change of pace.
    “That was a thanks for the donut.” Sage laughed again, and delicious bag-o-magic swinging in her hand, made her way to the kitchen. Leaving the grumpy pessimist to find her father on his own.
    * * *
    T WO HOURS LATER , she wasn’t quite as amused.
    Seated by the swimming pool, an umbrella shading them from the afternoon sun, two of her best friends were plotting to drive her crazy.
    “Look, it’s really not a big deal,” she told them, trying to sound cheerful and calm instead of panicked and worried. “Let’s talk about something else. Like Nina’s eloping.”
    “Not a big deal? Are you kidding, this is huge,” Cailley protested, ignoring the subject change and spreading her hands