Degree of Risk. Lindsay McKenna

with him. To hold him, to feel his strong arms holding her. He always made her feel safe and protected in his arms. “Maybe, these two days we have off, we’ll find some answers.” Maybe not. Love couldn’t be put into a box and shielded as much as he might want to do just that. Love was organic, it moved, it grew, it unfolded and it deepened between them. And there was no way Ethan had figured out yet how to protect Sarah because she held his heart and soul in her long, graceful flight hands.

      Chapter 3

      “We’re home,” Sarah whispered to Ethan as she stood in the living room of the villa. She watched him close and lock the front door. The housekeeper smiled, bowed and placed a note in her hand. She then left and went back to her room in another wing of the massive stone villa.

      Ethan came silently up behind Sarah, sliding his arms around her waist. Sarah sighed and leaned back against him, her head resting against his shoulder. “Home. Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?” he rasped, kissing her hair.

      “It does,” Sarah whispered, feeling a month’s worth of stress sloughing off her as Ethan pressed small kisses across her hair, her temple, and then began to nibble seductively at her ear. She lifted the note. “It’s from Emma and Khalid,” she whispered, her voice catching as his teeth caught and teased her earlobe. A zigzag of heat and sparks flew to her tightening breasts beneath her soft pink tank top. The man could turn her on like a light switch.

      “Mmm,” he growled, sliding his hands to her hips and turning her around. Her eyes were drowsy with lust, no question. And when he surveyed her features, her cheeks slightly flushed, her lips parted and that pouty lower lip calling to him, Ethan had to call on his patience. They had two days. He was damned if he was leaving the bed for very long in between bouts of loving Sarah, teaching her, allowing her to learn from him.

      “We should at least read the note,” Sarah chided him, giving him a bad-girl look. She held it between them and read it. “Dear Ethan and Sarah. Make yourselves at home. The housekeeper will make all your meals. Just enjoy and be. Love, Emma and Khalid.”

      “They are wonderful people,” Ethan said, taking the note and laying it on a sideboard in the huge dining room. “And we owe them plenty.”

      “I told Emma that I’d fly with her on my days off if she needed a copilot,” Sarah said, admiring the way his black T-shirt spanned his incredibly powerful chest and broad shoulders. “That’s the least I can do. They’ve given us safe haven.”

      Sarah allowed her fingers to trace his shoulders. Just watching the tightening of his mouth, the smoldering look burning in Ethan’s gray eyes, she felt her thighs shiver with anticipation.

      “That’s fair,” Ethan murmured, holding her hands flat against his chest with his. Looking down into her eyes, he said, “You look like a gorgeous goddess come to earth in a tank top and jeans. Angel, you really fill them out in just the right way.” He grinned, kissing the tip of her nose.

      His hands were large and covered hers completely. Ethan had such animal grace and charisma. SEALs even referred to themselves as animals. No mistake in that one.

      “What do you want to do?” Sarah asked, looking at him through her dark lashes. She watched that beautifully shaped male mouth of his draw into a confident, predatory grin.

      “This,” Ethan rasped, suddenly lifting her off her feet and into his arms.

      Sarah gasped, caught off guard, quickly settling her arms around his neck. “You’re such a rogue, Quinn,” she muttered, loving him. He carried her as if she were weightless.

      “Hey,” Ethan protested, turning down the hall toward their suite, “I’m just a poor man who has this sumptuous goddess visiting me so I have to carry her off to my cave and never let her go.”

      Sarah relaxed fully in Ethan’s arms. “Well, this goddess is whipped. She’s happy to have her mere human steal her off to his abode.”

      She knew Ethan loved the Greek myths and had read them as a child. His mother, who was an English teacher, had schooled her children to speak Latin and read myths and fables from around the world. She wondered if that was what enabled him to write such heart-stirring poetry.

      Ethan nudged the door open with the toe of his sneaker and carried Sarah into the dimly lit suite. “Yeah, well, too bad if you’re tired. I’m not.” He laughed as he brought her over to the bed and set her down on the edge. Ethan turned and went over to the door, shut and locked it. The SEAL in him wanted no interruptions.

      Pouting, Sarah watched him pull the T-shirt off, revealing his darkly haired chest. Her breath caught, witnessing the economical, graceful male motion of his body. “I think you’ve just inspired this goddess.” She gave him a wicked look. She watched Ethan drop the T-shirt, push his sneakers off his large feet. Her heart rate picked up as his long, powerful hands unsnapped his Levi’s and unzipped them. It was no secret he was fully erect. It excited her. She could feel herself clenching inwardly, starving to have Ethan within her. Where he belonged.

      Ethan gazed down at her. He knelt down and slowly opened her thighs so he could come closer to her. “I think this goddess loves her human so much, that her other world will just dissolve as he makes love to her.” He glided his hands from her knees up across her curved thighs. The rough jean material didn’t stop Ethan from feeling her beautiful, long thighs suddenly tense with anticipation. Smiling into her eyes, those black lashes framing their incredible glacier-blue, he took her mouth gently. And as he did, he moved his hand between her thighs, cupping her, already feeling her heat, the fabric damp beneath his exploring fingers.

      A small breath caught in Sarah’s throat. She reacted to how his hand moved and held her in place. Instantly fire ignited in her lower body as he possessed her mouth, tongue touching hers, teasing her. His fingers roved suggestively against her entrance. Sarah cried out, the intense need within her almost painful when he pressed his hand against the material.

      “Easy, Sarah,” he rasped, guiding her down on the bed, lifting her legs. Sarah’s eyes were wide with raw heat. There was nothing more powerful to Ethan than her wanting him. He lay on the left side of her, stretching out his naked length next to her. Leaning over on his elbow, he could feel Sarah’s neediness, saw it in her eyes, the way her lips parted, her breath becoming uneven. “You are so sensitive,” he said, kissing the lids of her eyes, wanting to worship her, touch every part of her. “Your eyes are like the blue sky and your mouth,” he leaned down, curving his lips over hers, feeling the softness of her lower lip, “nectar of the gods...”

      “Ethan...” Sarah groaned, turning onto her side, wanting to be closer to him.

      “Tell me what you want.”

      “I want you,” Sarah whispered hoarsely, sliding her hand across his chest, feeling his muscles leap beneath his taut flesh. “Now. Not later, Ethan.”

      He laughed huskily. “My little goddess has teeth,” and he saw her give him a dark, challenging look.

      “I’ll show you teeth if you don’t stop teasing me. I want you now, Ethan. Not half an hour from now.”

      He grinned, applauding her spirit. This wasn’t the Sarah whom he’d bedded three months ago. He unsnapped her jeans and pulled the zipper down. “Now you’re getting frisky,” he warned her in a low voice. “I like a woman who’s a warrior in my bed.”

      The words sunk into her, triggered Sarah and she noticed that gleam in his eyes, the hunger. Every time they had made love, he’d encouraged her to tell him what she wanted. How she wanted it. Ethan had always said she came first, she was in control. He’d loved her carefully, tenderly and gently. Well, the way her body felt today, like a volcano ready to explode, she didn’t want nice or tender this morning.

      Sarah sat up, pushing off her leather shoes and wriggled her jeans off, letting them drop carelessly to the carpet. In one motion, the tank top fell to the floor. She came and knelt beside him, flattening her hands out on his chest, dressed in only a white bra and silky panties. He looked curious