Chapter 208
Raven
So. Here we were. In bed. Together.
Method acting, my ass.
Nash's hand slid beneath the hem of my shirt, fingers tracing the line of my ribs with clinical precision. His touch was confident—too confident for someone who'd just suggested we needed to "practice intimacy" for mission success.
I should've pulled away. Should've maintained professional boundaries. Should've done a lot of things that apparently went out the window the moment his lips found that spot behind my ear.
Fuck it. If we're doing this, we're doing it properly.
I reached for his shirt buttons, working them open with the kind of efficiency usually reserved for disarming explosives. Nash's breath hitched—barely noticeable, but I caught it. Good. At least I wasn't the only one whose nervous system was staging a coup.
"Kotyonok," he murmured against my neck, voice dropping into that gravelly Russian accent that made my stomach do things I refused to acknowledge. "You're supposed to be submissive. Marianne doesn't initiate."
"Marianne's boring as hell," I shot back, shoving his shirt off his shoulders. "Besides, nobody's watching. Unless you installed cameras in here, which—"
"No cameras." His hands found the clasp of my bra. "Just us."
Just us. Right. Because that makes this less insane.
I told myself this was tactical. Professional. A necessary component of deep cover operations. The fact that Nash looked like he'd been carved from marble by an artist with a fetish for lethal perfection was completely irrelevant.
Keep telling yourself that, Martinez.
We were doing fine—great, actually—right up until the moment we hit the bed. Nash moved with that predatory grace he always had, caging me against the mattress, his weight settling over me in a way that should've triggered every combat instinct I possessed.
Instead, my body decided to betray me by arching into him.
And then... nothing.
Nash froze. Not the tactical freeze of someone sensing danger. More like the complete system shutdown of a computer encountering an error it couldn't process.
"What's wrong?" I shifted beneath him, scanning for threats. "Did you hear something?"
"No." His voice came out strangled. "It's just... the clasp. Your... the mechanism is..."
I blinked. "The mechanism?"
His hands were hovering over my remaining clothing like he was trying to disarm a nuclear device. Actually, scratch that—Nash had disarmed actual nuclear devices with less visible stress.
Oh my god.
"Nash Wilder." I stared at him, watching his pupils dilate, the flush creeping up his neck, the minute tremor in his usually steady hands. "Are you telling me you don't know how to do this?"
The look he shot me could've vaporized steel. "I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to." I couldn't help it—laughter bubbled up from somewhere deep in my chest. "Holy shit. You're serious."
"Raven—"
"The most dangerous man in the Northern Hemisphere," I gasped between giggles, "leader of the world's deadliest private military company, can't figure out a bra clasp?"
"I was thirteen when I went to war." The words came out clipped, defensive. "Every day since has been about killing or not being killed. There wasn't exactly time for recreational activities."
"Recreational—" I lost it completely, laughing so hard tears leaked from the corners of my eyes. "Oh my god. This is amazing. This is the best thing that's happened to me all week."
Nash's jaw tightened. "Glad I could provide entertainment."
"No, no, it's just—" I wiped my eyes, grinning up at him. "If this gets out, every bounty hunter on the dark web is going to die laughing. 'Ares Legion Commander: Virgin at Twenty-Eight.'"
Something shifted in his expression. The embarrassment melted away, replaced by something infinitely more dangerous.
Oh. Okay. Maybe I shouldn't have said that.
"You know what my greatest strength is, Raven?" He caught my wrists, pinning them above my head with one hand. Not rough, but absolutely immovable.
"Your sparkling personality?" I tried to ignore the way my pulse was suddenly hammering against his palm.
"I'm a fast learner." His free hand traced down my side, making me shiver. "Give me one data set, and I master the pattern. One demonstration, and I perfect the technique."
"That's very—"
"I don't do things halfway." His lips brushed my ear. "Once I commit to an objective, I don't stop until complete success is achieved."
Fuck.
The bra that had stymied him moments ago disappeared—not torn off, but removed with surgical precision that suggested he'd spent those thirty seconds of awkwardness analyzing the problem from every angle.
Of course. Because Nash Wilder doesn't fail at anything once he understands the mechanics.
"Much better," he murmured, and suddenly this wasn't practice anymore.
Nash approached sex the way he approached everything else: with terrifying focus and complete dedication to excellence. Every touch was deliberate—his fingers tracing paths down my spine that made me arch like a bowstring, his mouth finding spots I didn't know were sensitive until heat bloomed under my skin. He was cataloging my reactions, adjusting technique in real-time based on the data he was gathering.
His hand slid between my thighs with confidence that shouldn't exist for someone doing this for the first time, and when his fingers found exactly the right spot, the right pressure, the right rhythm—
Fuck. Oh fuck.
It was methodical. Clinical. Absolutely devastating.
"Your pulse just spiked," he murmured against my collarbone, and I could hear the satisfaction in his voice. "Heart rate approximately one-forty. Respiration increased. Interesting."
"Stop—" I gasped. "Stop narrating like this is a goddamn science experiment."
"But it is." His thumb circled, making my hips buck involuntarily. "Hypothesis: if I apply pressure here while simultaneously—"
"Nash—"
"—your nervous system will—"
My vision whited out for a second. When I could think again, he was watching me with an expression of pure masculine pride that I would've found infuriating if I could form coherent thoughts.
"Hypothesis confirmed," he said, entirely too pleased with himself.
"Wait," I gasped, fingers clawing at his shoulders as he positioned himself over me. My thighs were trembling, my entire body oversensitive and singing. "You're—this is your first time. You're supposed to—it shouldn't—"
"Shouldn't what?" He entered me slowly, and oh god, the stretch, the fullness—
"Be this good," I finished on a moan that I absolutely did not mean to make.
Nash stilled, and for a moment I saw genuine wonder cross his face. "You feel incredible," he said quietly, and then his hips moved and I stopped caring about anything else.
"Jesus Christ." My nails dug into his back as he found a rhythm that was going to kill me. "How are you—you shouldn't know—"
"Anatomy textbooks." His breath was hot against my neck. "Nerve distribution charts. Optimal angle of penetration for G-spot stimulation is approximately thirty degrees, which means—"
"I swear to God if you cite one more medical journal—"
He shifted his angle precisely, and whatever threat I'd been about to make dissolved into incoherent sounds.
"Like that?" His voice had gone rough, strained. So at least I wasn't the only one losing it. "Your vaginal muscles just contracted. Tightened. Am I—"
"Yes." I pulled him down for a bruising kiss. "Shut up and keep doing exactly that."