Never Surrender. Lindsay McKenna

Healing hands. Loving hands. Compassionate hands that knew...they just knew...and Bay knew he needed this...needed her touch like this. But by every name in his book of life, Gabe couldn’t stop loving her for who she simply was: a very kind, sensitive and caring woman. Who loved him.

      What the hell had he done to deserve Bay? Gabe hadn’t led a stellar life. It had been ugly and dysfunctional throughout his childhood. He knew abuse. He knew a man’s fist, his belt lashing his flesh until it welted and bruised. He’d never known the tender touch, the loving touch that she now shared with him alone.

      Bay watched all the tension drain out of Gabe’s face, out of his hard body. The sexual tension that replaced it was as it should be. She washed herself as he stood beneath the streams of water, soap sloughing off him, his flesh clean and glistening. Gabe looked at her beneath hooded, burning eyes, not making a move toward her. Simply watching her.

      The dark desire was evident in his eyes. And he loved her. She gave him an impish look as she approached him, placing her hands lightly on his powerful shoulders. Leaning up, she whispered in his ear, “I’m ready to swim with the sharks, Frogman....”

      Her smile dazzled his senses as she eased away to see his reaction. “You’re mine,” he rasped, and he began a slow, sensuous path, starting with her mouth.

      Bay leaned into him, the water nestling in nooks and crannies between them, liquid flowing heatedly down her body as he took possession of her mouth. At the same time, he brought her hard against him. His other hand moved toward her breast, cupping it, moving his thumb languidly across the hardened peak. She uttered a small, fierce cry into his mouth as an electric shock bolted from her nipple straight down to her womb. Her entire body convulsed.

      “Easy, baby, easy,” he coaxed, moving his hand even farther downward, exploring her waist, her hip.

      She felt his lips leave her breast and then kiss the area between them. Gripping her hips, Gabe held her as he continued the trail of kisses down her stomach, across her abdomen. Giving a whimper, she gripped his thick shoulders as his mouth followed the crease where her thigh met her torso. Her knees shook with anticipation; she wasn’t sure she could remain standing, his tongue slowly following the crease down, down, down....

      “Oh, Gabe,” Bay whispered, nearly crumpling if not for his steel strength holding her. Tightly shutting her eyes, her breath became ragged and shallow. He parted her, leaving her open and available.

      “I can’t...stand...Gabe...”

      He rose swiftly. “I’ve got you, baby. Just let me do the heavy lifting.” He gave her a heated look. “Ready to swim?”

      Her heart fluttered wildly. The warm water only increased the heat already scalding her aching lower body. “Y-yes...” she whispered brokenly, her knees beginning to give way. In the next moment, she felt Gabe’s arm slide beneath her thigh, and she lifted upward. He guided her legs around his waist and then gently pressed her back against the warm, wet tiles, holding her in place.

      “Open your eyes,” he rasped. “I want to see the look on your face when I enter you....”

      Water sluiced across Bay’s face in rivulets. Her body was cramping, almost painfully, wanting him inside her. She was more than ready as she barely opened her eyes, her breath uneven. His eyes were narrowed, focused solely on her. Gabe was a sniper. No one had more focus than a sniper. They sighted their quarry, and they never let it go. She was his quarry. Gulping, she whispered, “Hurry...oh, please, Gabe....”

      As Gabe gently entered her, he watched her eyes widen. It wasn’t from fear but from raw, welcoming pleasure of their bodies meeting like fiery, melting flesh into one another. Slowly, so slowly, he brought her down upon him, watching the wildness come to her eyes, the yearning and then the feverish heat enter them as they fused completely into oneness. He captured the hard nipple, suckling her. It made him feel so damn good to give Bay this kind of pleasure. Her fingers spasmodically gripped his shoulders, her head moving side to side. He increased the pressure, feeling her tighten and so near climax. That was what he wanted for Bay, utter, wild sensations that only he could give her.

      Thrusting quickly, he established a fiery rhythm. Gabe felt her tensing, so close to orgasm. Bay cried out, gripping him, arching into him, spinning into the heat and light as she came, a cry tearing out of her. He prolonged the rippling sensations, urging her to let go, to fully give him the gift of herself, her love. And she did. Bay leaned forward, arms around Gabe’s tense shoulders, gasping for breath, sobbing.

      And then, his entire body stiffened. His breath hissed between his clenched teeth, his hands tightened around hers as he released deeply into her. Bay rested her cheek against his wet shoulder, the raindrops sliding gently across her face and soaking into her hair.

      Gabe dragged in air, his body quivering beneath the onslaught of his release. He steadied himself, using Bay and the wall to remain standing. Feeling her lips against his taut neck, her breath mingling with the water, he gently removed himself, holding her, easing Bay away from the wall. The water made it easy for her to slide down the length of his hard, quivering body and through his arms. Her feet touched the floor. Their brows rested against each other, noses touching, lips millimeters away from one another as they leaned against one another for support. Breathing shallow and fast, Gabe held Bay tightly in his arms, loving her fiercely. Loving her forever.

      “Are you okay?” he rasped unsteadily. They hadn’t made love in months. That was a hell of a long time. He was worried about her.

      Bay managed a strangled laugh. She slowly raised her head, caught and held his sated gaze. “I’ve decided to call you Shark Man. You’ve graduated from being just a frogman.” She gave him a drowsy, sweet smile radiant with love only for him. “Helluva swim, Shark Man...”

      CHAPTER THREE

      “COME HERE, BABY.” Gabe hauled her into his arms as he settled into the bed. They were clean, dried off and so damned weak it had taken them leaning on one another to make it to the master bedroom together. Bay had fallen asleep immediately. Gabe felt Bay’s softened breath, the warm moisture flowing across his chest as she slept deeply, her head resting in the crook of his shoulder. Her hand across his pounding heart. God, did life get any better than this? Hell, no.

      Gabe closed his eyes, his woman in his arms, her body pressed wantonly against his, their legs entangled. Her hair was still damp, although he’d done his best to dry it off with a towel afterward. He’d seen the exhaustion in Bay’s half-closed eyes and knew she had to sleep off five months of brutal training. The darkness was complete in their bedroom. Gabe felt himself begin to utterly surrender against her warmth and curves.

      He lay awake for a long time, his body still vibrating with simmering heat after having made love with her. Bay’s background was as a Hill person from the Allegheny Mountains of West Virginia. She was a woman of the earth, wild and completely natural. Her spontaneity was unfettered, freeing him from his dark and miserable past, infusing him with hope of a bright future. Love did incredible things for a human being, Gabe was discovering.

      Closing his eyes, his arm wrapped firmly around Bay’s shoulders as she slept, Gabe couldn’t shut off his mind. Bay had come from a happy family, deep in the mountains, away from most of civilization. She’d lived and hunted in those mountains. Not only was she a crack shot, but her mother, Poppy, was a Hill doctor. Bay obviously got that healing gene from her. Her father, Floyd, had been a Marine Corps sniper and had started teaching her at a young age how to hunt and shoot. When her father died of Black Lung, she’d entered the Navy afterward to make money for her economically struggling family.

      Moving his fingers slowly across her firm, warm flesh, he felt her inborn strength, her Hill backbone. Lowlanders, people who weren’t Hill-born, would say she was backward and uneducated. Nothing could be further from the truth. Bay was simple, homespun, and had a strong sense of right and wrong. When her father had become ill, she’d picked up the family mantle of responsibility, being the oldest, to feed and care for her mother, father and her mentally challenged younger sister, Eva-Jo.

      A sigh slipped between