“I’m lovin’ you, babe. Lovin’ the hell out of you. And when you’re all tired out I’m goin’ to lay you down and love on you some more.” He pushed back her hair. “You need that. And then I’m runnin’ a hot bath and brushin’ your hair for you and puttin’ you to bed.”

She smiled against his bare chest. He felt her lips move over his skin. “You have a plan.”

“I do.”

Wyatt pulled her shirt over her head and made short work of her bra. Her full breasts spilled out, temptation itself, and his cock grew, pressing deep against her bottom. Wyatt rolled her off of him, laying her out on the bed, his hands at her jeans. He stripped the clothes from her and threw one thigh over her, shifted and then straddled her.

Pepper held her breath. Wyatt didn’t say anything to her. Didn’t give her any explanation or cue as to what he wanted her to do. When she raised one hand toward his chest, he caught her hand and put it firmly on the bed beside her. She could barely breathe with the way he looked at her. She’d never seen that particular expression on his face before. Soft. Gentle. Tender even. More than that.

He leaned down and pressed a kiss into her throat. Butterflies took off in her stomach. His tongue was there, she could feel it just for a moment and then he kissed his way to the valley between her breasts. He pressed his lips there. Lingered. Stroked with his tongue, kissed either side of her breasts and then under them. Gently. Reverently. As if he worshipped her body. His mouth moved lower, his tongue and lips finding her rib cage and then moving to her belly button. He swirled his tongue and kissed her repeatedly.

He shifted to move back, picking up her leg by her ankle, so he could kiss behind her knee and then the soles of each foot. Very gently he pushed her knees up and wedged himself between her thighs. His mouth found the inside of her thighs and he kissed her gently, his tongue tasting her skin.

Pepper went completely still. He was doing exactly what he said he would. He was showing her love. It was beautiful. The most beautiful thing in the world. His face, carved so sensually, his eyes glowing with a soft look, his dark wavy hair and sexy mouth, muscles rippling. It was too much and yet not enough.

Already she could feel her body spilling out a welcome. She went slick and hot, yet at the same time, she wanted this slow, leisurely love he was showing her. His mouth was on her, driving her up, and then it was all Wyatt. His cock glided in and out of her while his hands framed her face and he whispered softly to her in French.

“Je t’aime, bébé, et je vais vous aimer éternellement.”

She couldn’t breathe as he moved in and out of her with exquisite tenderness. He kissed her over and over, pouring fire down her throat. Pouring love. She nearly choked on it, the lump in her throat so enormous.

No one had ever treated her with such gentleness, or said words of love to her. She wrapped her arms around him, lifting her hips to meet his, trying to show him that she felt the same way.

“Wyatt,” she breathed his name. It was all she could do. She was too filled with him. Too overcome by him. Wyatt. Just his name, but then, to her, that was everything. Her world now. This man and the family they were choosing to make together.

She showed him she loved him the only way she knew how, when they were finished and he’d kissed her eyes to take away the last of the tears and then kissed her mouth a million times.

She crawled over him down to his cock and gently and carefully made absolutely certain he was clean, all the while her eyes on his. He stretched out, his hands behind his head, his eyes glowing at her, much like a cat in the dark. She loved watching his face when she attended him, loved how he enjoyed every lap of her tongue and her mouth on him.

When she was finished, he drew her back up to the pillow, pulled a single sheet over her and left her to go into the bathroom and run her bath. Lying on the bed, she watched him through the doorway as he moved around, pouring something into the bathwater and even testing it before he came back for her.

She didn’t protest when he cradled her in his arms and carried her to the bath. She didn’t tell him how much it meant to her when he brushed out her long hair while she relaxed in the water. She didn’t say anything until they were both back in bed and he was curled protectively around her, holding her close, his body tight against hers.

Pepper closed her eyes and whispered to the night. To him. “Je t’aime, Wyatt, avec chaque souffle dans mon corps.”

“With every breath in your body forever, Pepper. For always,” he prompted, his voice sleepy, his warm breath on the nape of her neck.

Pepper found herself smiling in the dark. She felt loved, cared for her, relaxed and safe. Wyatt had done that. If he needed the words, she could give them to him.

“Pour toujours, Wyatt, pour toujours.”

Forever. For always. And she meant it.

Chapter 15

Wyatt maneuvered the airboat through the dark, swampy waters slowly, suppressing the sound so it couldn’t travel through the night to the guards patrolling the fence line of the Wilson Plastics compound. No one spoke aloud, using hand signals or telepathy to communicate as Wyatt took the boat as close as he dared to their destination. He needed the boat close in case they had to make a run for it with the children.

Wyatt was grateful he’d come to this part of the swamp so many times throughout his childhood. It made it much easier to avoid the cypress stumps and trees looming up along the shore as they made their way to shallower waters.

They each knew the layout of the building and each had their own enhancements. The five men were used to working together, already a cohesive team, but Pepper was an outsider, one they weren’t familiar with, yet they needed her. Ordinarily, they would never have gone into the field with someone they didn’t know. Wyatt saw the others exchanging uneasy glances and he couldn’t blame them. Bringing someone untried, someone new, into a cohesive team was a recipe for disaster.