Cannon (A Step Brother Romance #3)

I stir when the sunlight shines through the window in Addy's bedroom, bathing everything in golden morning light. I'm on my side turned away from her, but she's pressed against me, her body lengthened alongside mine, and her arm is wrapped around my waist. I can hear her snoring softly behind me, her face nuzzled against the middle of my back.

All I can think about is how completely and utterly disappointed Addy must be in me for flipping out over a goddamned fireworks display. A wave of humiliation washes over me, and I lie there, unmoving, thinking about how to best extricate myself from the bed without waking her up. But then she nuzzles her face against my back, her lips on me, applying gentle kisses in the middle of my back. And I'm instantly hard.

I roll over and she smiles, the expression radiant. "Morning," she says, her voice thick with sleep.

"Hey." When I run my hand through her hair, she closes her eyes, pressing her face against my palm. "About last night…"

Addy snuggles up close to me. "You don't need to say anything about last night, Hendrix." She kisses me softly on the lips.

My tongue finds hers, but she pulls away, shielding her mouth with her hand and complaining of morning breath. "I don't care about our morning breath," I whisper. And I don't. I kiss her greedily.

I cup her breast and Addy melts against me, her voice breathy when she speaks. "I want you inside me, Hendrix," she whispers. She's wet when I reach between her legs and the fact that she wants me, even after last night, makes me irrepressibly happy.

I reach for a condom on the bedside table, and I'm on top of her, inside her quickly. I don't want to be anywhere but inside her. Addy wraps her legs around me, pulling me tighter, arms around my neck as she brings her lips to mine. "More, Hendrix, more," she whispers, and I give her more, riding her until she's swollen around me, her pussy demanding.

I don't speak, no dirty-talk of fucking her or how much I want to come inside her. She's quiet, the only noise now the sound of her moans, louder in the morning stillness until she cries out my name. "Oh God, Hendrix!"

I tilt her jaw up toward me so I can watch her come, the face she makes one of complete ecstasy. When I finally let go, it's white-hot pleasure as I come inside her. Afterward, I don't move. I just stay there in her, watching her chest make little heaving movements as she catches her breath. She puts her hand against my face, and I close my eyes, turn against her palm, into her soft touch.

We lay there in the bed for what seems like an eternity. "I tried to email you a thousand times," she said. "When you were gone."

I nod, stroking her hair. "Me too," I lie. I never tried to email. But how do I tell her I wrote her a thousand letters I never sent? It seems like too little, too late.

She's quiet for longer, like she's gathering her thoughts, and when she speaks, her voice is soft. "What happened last night, it was about your deployment, right?"

"Yeah," I admit. "I don't know what to say, Addy. I froze up. It doesn't make me the best bodyguard."

Addy grins. "Schtupping the client doesn't make you the greatest bodyguard either, you know."

I can't help but laugh. "Fine," I agree. "I'm a shit bodyguard."

"You're the worst," she says, giggling.

We're silent for a minute, lying in the bed, and I reach out and run my finger absently down her arm. I don't want to stop touching her. "You're so… light, Addy," I tell her. Each word I speak makes me feel like I'm risking everything. "I don't want to contaminate you with my bullshit."

Addy raises an eyebrow. "You think I'm na?ve."

"I think…" My voice trails off as I trace a finger lazily down the middle of her cleavage. "Sometimes I think darkness is the only thing I brought back from that place." I don't know how to tell her about any of it, because I don't understand it myself.

I don't drink, don't do drugs, don't do anything most people would look at and point and say, he's falling apart. But I run toward things that are dangerous, things that could destroy me – literally, during my morning runs. I pick fights and don't care what happens. I'm worried my self-destruction will spread, that it will destroy her. How do you put something like that into words?

"Maybe," she says quietly. "But I guess that's why light exists – to illuminate the dark places."

Then I roll her over on top of me, and she kisses me, and nothing else matters but her.





ONE YEAR, ELEVEN MONTHS AGO



A wave of heat hits me the second I step off the helicopter. "Whoa," I say.

The Airman next to me chuckles. "It takes some getting used to, ma'am."

"It's like being inside an oven," I say. "Is it like this all the time?"