“I don’t hate you.”
“You can’t keep your hands off me and you hate yourself as well as me for it.”
Her heart was racing as his brows lowered ominously, his expression becoming darker. “Morganna. That has nothing to do with this operation—”
“Of course it does.” She lifted her chin defiantly. She was not going to cry over him again. She had spent weeks crying a year ago when she made the mistake of going to his apartment to comfort him after his buddy’s death. “It has everything to do with it. How can a party girl, one step above a tramp, possibly contribute anything worthwhile to such an important cause? I’m a hazard to the entire operation, aren’t I, Clint? It doesn’t matter that I’ve been training for this for years. That I fought for this assignment and that it means something to me. All that matters to you is that you can’t handle it.”
“Because you’re inexperienced and that will get you killed.” His jaw clenched almost violently. “You’re not cut out for this life.”
She stared back at him silently for long moments. She didn’t fight the pain he could cause her. It would rise and ebb, like the tide. What tore at her heart now would ease to no more than a dull ache in a few weeks.
“Taking me off this assignment isn’t going to make a difference,” she finally said. “When I return to the agency, the commander will find me something else. Perhaps not something that means as much to me, but something I believe in. What will you do then, Clint?”
He didn’t answer her. Clint rose slowly from his chair instead, his expression blank, though his eyes churned with emotion as he watched her.
“Don’t make the mistake of coming back to one of those clubs tonight,” he announced, his voice hard.
She tossed the donut to the top of the box as she stiffened defiantly. “Don’t make orders you can’t enforce, Clint. It is a free country here, you know.”
“Don’t you underestimate me, Morganna.” He towered over her, glowering down at her from his lofty height with arrogant confidence. “I will put a stop to this.”
“Why?” Her fists clenched as anger enveloped her. “Why do you even care, Clint?”
“Because it’s no more than I would expect from Reno if it were Raven acting so damned foolishly,” he growled. “I won’t let you risk your life, Morganna.”
“And you don’t? Has either Raven or I demanded that you leave the military and take a nice safe little job shuffling papers? Your double standards suck, Clint.”
“Then they suck,” he retorted, his voice harsh. “Dammit, Morganna, you’re asking too much of me.”
“And you’re a liar,” she raged back rashly. “This isn’t about Reno, or friendship, or anything else. The fact of the matter is that you can’t admit how much you care about me, so you’re just going to jerk me out of something I’ve worked my ass off for. Your selfishness amazes me, Clint.”
“Bullshit!”
“The hell it is.” She was in his face and didn’t even realize how she’d gotten there. Her finger jabbed into his chest as she stared up at him challengingly. “You won’t work with me because you know if you did, you couldn’t keep your hands off me or your stone-cold heart safe. That’s your problem. Walk away like you always do. But no, you have to destroy my dreams while you’re at it.”
“My problem is spoiled little girls who think they’re bulletproof,” he snarled, catching her wrist and holding it in the manacle of his fingers. “My problem is your damned stubbornness. I can’t even talk to you.”
“Because you never see anything beyond your own needs,” she cried out raggedly. “You think you can lay down laws and I’ll obey you like I did when I was a child. I’m not a child anymore.”
“That’s more than obvious every time you parade around half-dressed in one of those fucking clubs,” he bit out. “You’re a walking, talking signal for sex and you know it.”
“And you hate it because you can’t ignore me. Because it just makes you hungrier. You can’t stand it, Clint, because you want me just as bad as I want you. Until it’s like a sickness you can’t get rid of.”
“Damn you,” he groaned. “God damn you, Morganna.”
He jerked her into his arms, his lips slamming down on hers, grinding against her as the breath tore from her chest. Desperation fueled his kiss, desperation and fury. She could understand that. She had enough of it herself.
Rather than fighting him, her arms wrapped around his shoulders as she arched to him, certain she could crawl right beneath his flesh if he continued to consume her with his lips as he was doing.
She moaned with aching need as a growl of hunger tore from his chest. His hands were on her hips, lifting her to him as her back met the wall and his cock notched heatedly between her thighs.
The rough denim of his jeans and the fragile material of her pajama bottoms did nothing to protect her from the hard shaft pressing against her. She could feel the dampness flowing from her, the tight clench of her vaginal muscles, and the flaming need that overtook her.
Morganna wrapped her arms around his neck, her hands spearing into his hair to hold him closer to her, to relish every inch of the hard body pressed into hers and the calloused palms clenching against her rear.
“Open,” he growled against her lips as she held them closed. “Now.”
His tongue pressed against the seam of her lips before one hand left her rear, his fingers gripping her jaw and exerting just enough pressure to force her teeth open.
A shiver of debilitating arousal shot through her at the dominant forcefulness. She shuddered in his grip as his tongue forged past her lips and sent fire rushing through her body. The heat of his touch, his kiss, seared her, tore through her senses, and enveloped her in a need so intense she didn’t know if she would survive it.
She wrapped her legs around his lean hips as they ground against her, moving her body in counterpoint to his, the friction against her clit sending impulses of pleasure so intense throughout her body that she knew climax was only seconds away.
His lips devoured hers, slanting against them as his tongue fed from her. Morganna met his kiss with a greater demand of her own. Years of aching, unslaked arousal were like an animal clawing at her womb. She needed him, helplessly, desperately.