couldn’t imagine... Her father had been a nonfactor in her life for most of her childhood, but her mom... Her mother had been her support system, her rock, even through the years with Isobel and Aiden’s move to California and back. Losing her...she closed her eyes and leaned her head against his shoulder, offering whatever comfort he needed as he relayed the details of the tragedy that had scarred him.
“My best friend and his family took me in. I don’t know what would’ve happened to me, where I would be now, without them. But at the time, I was lost. Adrift. In the months afterward, I’d skip school or leave my friend’s house in the middle of the night to go to the building where we’d lived. The penthouse had been sold, so I no longer had access to my home, but I would sneak into the basement through a window. It had a loosened bar that I would remove and squeeze through. I’d sit there for hours, just content to be in the building, if not in the place where I’d lived with them. My best friend—he followed me one night when I sneaked out, so he knew about it. But he never told.”
Another pause, and again she didn’t disturb him. She wanted to hug that best friend for standing by the boy-now-man. She’d had girlfriends in the past, but none that would’ve—or could’ve, given their own family situations—taken her in as if she were family. This friend of his, he must’ve been special.
“About four months after my parents’ death, I’d left school again and went to the basement. I’d had a rough night. Nightmares and no sleep. That’s the only reason I can think of for me falling asleep in the basement that day. I don’t know what woke me up. The noise? The heat?” His shoulder rose and fell in a shrug under her cheek. “Like I said, I don’t know. But when I did, the room was pitch-black. I couldn’t even see my hands in front of my face. I heard what sounded like twigs snapping. But underneath that, distant but growing louder, was this dull roar. Like engines revving in a closed garage. I’d never been in one before, but somehow I knew. The building was on fire, and I was trapped.”
“No,” she whispered, fingers curling against his chest.
“I couldn’t move. Thick black smoke filled the basement, and I choked on it, couldn’t breathe. I can’t tell you how long I laid there, paralyzed by fear or weak from inhaling smoke, but I thought I was going to die. That room—it became my tomb. A dark, burning tomb. But then I heard someone shouting my name and saw the high beam of a flashlight. It was my friend. I found out later that he’d heard about the fire on the news, and when I hadn’t shown up at his house after school, he’d guessed where I’d gone. The firemen had believed they’d cleared the entire building, but he’d forced them to go back in and search the basement. He should’ve stayed outside and let them come find me, but he’d barreled past them and entered with only his shirt over his face to battle the smoke, putting his life in danger. But if he hadn’t... He saved my life that day.”
“Oh, thank God.” Sliding her hand from under his, she wrapped her arm around his waist, curving her body into his. She’d known him for mere hours, and yet the thought of him dying, of being consumed by flames? It bothered her in a way that made no sense. “He was a hero.”
“Yes, he was,” he said softly. “He was a good man.”
Was a good man. No. It couldn’t be... Horror and disbelief crowded up her throat. “He’s gone, too?”
“A couple of years now, but sometimes it seems like yesterday.”
“I’m so sorry.” Isobel shifted until she knelt beside him. She stroked her hand up his torso, searching out his face. Once she brushed over his hard, faintly stubbled jaw, she cupped it and lowered her head, until her forehead met his temple.
His fingers drifted over her cheek, and after a moment’s hesitation, tunneled into her hair. Her lungs seized, shock infiltrating every vein, organ and limb. Only her heart seemed capable of movement, and it threw itself against her sternum, like an animal desperate for freedom from its cage.
Blunt fingertips dragged over her scalp. A moan clawed its way up her throat at the scratch and tug of her hair, but she trapped the sound behind clenched teeth. She couldn’t prevent the shudder that worked its way through her. Not when it’d been so long since she’d been touched. Since pleasure had even been a factor. So. Long.
“I need to hear that lovely voice, sweetheart,” he rumbled, turning and bowing his head so his lips grazed the column of her throat as he spoke. Sparks snapped under her skin as if her nerve endings had transformed into firecrackers, and his mouth was the lighter. “There are things I want to do to your mouth that require your permission.”
“Like what?” Had she really just asked that question? And in that breathy tone? What was he doing to her?
Giving you what you’re craving. Be brave and find out, her subconscious replied.
“Find out if it’s as sweet as you are. Taste you. Savor you. Learn you,” he murmured, answering her question. He untangled their clasped fingers and with unerring accuracy, located her chin and pinched it. Cool but soft strands of hair tickled her jaw, and then her cheek, as he lifted his head. Then warm gusts of air bathed her lips. She could taste him, his breath. Something potent with faint hints of lemon, like the champagne from earlier. But also, underneath, lay a darker, enigmatic flavor. Him. She didn’t need to pinpoint its origin to know it was all him. “Then I want to take your mouth. Want you to take mine.”
“I...” Desperate, aching need robbed her of words. Of thought.
“Give me the words, sweetheart.” He didn’t breach that scant inch of space between them, waiting on her consent, her permission.
When so much had been ripped from her in the past, choices not even offered, that seeking of her agreement squeezed her heart even as his words caused a spasm to roll through her sex.
“Yes,” she said. Then, as if confirming to herself that she was indeed breaking her self-imposed rules about caution and recklessness, she whispered again, “Yes.”
With a growl, he claimed that distance.
She expected him to crush his mouth to hers, to conquer her like a wild storm leveling everything in its path. And she would’ve thrown herself into the whirlwind, been willingly swept up. But his tenderness was as thorough in its destruction as any tornado.
His lips, full, firm yet somehow soft, brushed over hers. Pressed, then withdrew. Rubbed, cajoled, gave her enough of him, but waited until she granted him more. On the tail end of a sigh she couldn’t contain, she parted for him. Welcomed the penetration of his tongue. Slid into a sensual dance with him. It was she who sucked him, licking the roof of his mouth, sampling the dark, heady flavor of his groan. She who first brought teeth into play, nipping at the corner of his mouth, raking them down his chin, only to return to take just as he’d invited her to do.
She who crawled onto his lap, jerking her skirt up and straddling his powerful thighs.
But it was he who threw oil onto their fire, ratcheting their desire from a blaze into a consuming inferno.
With a snarl that vibrated through his chest and over her nipples, he tugged her head back and opened his mouth over her neck. She arched into the hot, wet caress of tongue and teeth, her hands shifting from his shoulders to his hair and holding on. Every flick and suck echoed low in her belly, between her thighs. Fleetingly, the thought that she should be embarrassed at how drenched her panties were flitted through her head. But the clamp of his hand on her hip and the roll of his hips, stroking the hard, thick length of his cock over her sex, obliterated every rationalization.
Think?
