“So let me stay. I don’t want to spend my life looking over my shoulder for you. I want you at my side.”
The space between our chests was alive with gentleflames that I hadn’t even known were spilling from me. They stroked gold over Caelan’s cheekbones, shimmering over his scar and scattering shadows beneath his eyelashes. And if the uncontrollable, overflowing glow of my chest answered his question, he didn’t take it for granted; he waited for my word.
“Stay,” I breathed, and felt his lips curve beneath my own.
“Yes?” He whispered back, such hope in that one word that it made heat prick beneath my lashes.
I could do nothing more than close my eyes and kiss him.
And when we stumbled into bed, when he made me burn again, when I in turn filled him with my fire, it was harder than ever to call my Flame back. It was as though it had taken root beneath his heart. So that I might always be with him, just as he’d asked.
Chapter Thirteen
A Shadow at the Window
Iwoke with my whole body alight, warmth at my back, and wrapped around me, and rushing in my veins. The Captain’s slow, deep breath in my ear was the first thing I was aware of in those few foggy moments of half-consciousness. The next thing was his embrace, one thick arm locked possessively around my waist, the other wedged beneath me with his hand splayed across my bare ribs.
Memories of last night dawned on me like the watery beams of early morning light. Sex on the countertop. Caelan begging for my body, then begging me to let him stay. The hours of slow, grateful worship he’d bestowed on me when I said yes. My breath quickened at the thought of those long hours, and the swell of my lungs shifted his hand until his fingertips just barely brushed the underside of my breast. That sleepy, narrow awareness exploded outward.
I felteverything.
The warmth of his breath on the shell of my ear, the ruinedsheets tangled around our legs, that frictious ache between my thighs that spoke of all we’d done last night and the punishing pace he’d made me beg for just as he’d begged for me. Even now, my backside was so tight against his lap that I could feel that vague hardness cradled between my cheeks, as though he’d spent all night in a state of suspended arousal. I gave one small, experimental roll of my hips just to hear the pattern of his breath change. To feel his hips twitch in response and revel in the thrill it sent through me. Another little roll, and the hand on my ribcage slipped lightening fast over my breast, pinching my nipple in the vee of two fingers as he cupped me.
“You’ve been doing that all night,” he murmured, voice so low and rough with sleep it was an effort to hear him over my own gasps. “D’you know how badly I wanted to wake you, every fucking time?”
He punctuated his frustration with another pinch of my nipple, rolling it between his fingertips this time until I cried out at the sweet, mounting pain and he relented with a soft caress of his thumb over the hurt.
“I’m awake now,” I panted.
“Mmm.”
The arm around my waist slid down until his hand curved over my hip, turning me in his arms before rolling us both and groaning as my full weight settled on him. I pushed off his chest, sitting up until I straddled his hips and we both exhaled at the perfect alignment of him between my thighs.
He’d barely cracked one eye open, the slightest slash of sleepy green peering up at me before he closed them again and leaned his head back into the pillows. His hands found my sides and roamed until he cupped a generous handful of my ass in each palm, fingers curving at each round cheek and using that grip to glide himself through my slick centre. When the thick head of his cock nudged my clitoris, my back arched, and his grip on me tightened, fingers biting into my skin as he gasped and did it again, used my body to tease us both in slow, sleepy strokes.
“Not sureI’mawake yet,” he breathed. “You feel like a fuckingdream.”
“Anything I can do to convince you?”
I rolled my hips for emphasis, another slow tease of my slick centre over his cock that made my whole body tighten and his mouth fall open on a groan. He cracked that one eye again as he smirked up at me, and I grinned breathlessly back at him.
“As a matter of fact–”
A timid knock at the door turned my spine to stone. I stiffened, eyes flaring wide, and rose to my knees – but Caelan dragged me down against him again with a lazy grunt.
“I don’t think so,” he drawled to me, then to the intruder; “Who the fuck is it?”
A hesitant beat of silence, during which Caelan’s attention drifted between my legs and he slowly lifted his hips, watching his cock glide against me and emerge glistening with my wetness. I had to catch my lip between my teeth to keep from moaning aloud.
“It’s Brennan, sir.”
I didn’t realise I’d closed my eyes until a swift slap to my backside made me hiss and my head snapped up to meet his wicked, hooded gaze.
“Don’t. Fucking. Stop,” he said, low and harsh. “Want you good and ready for me the moment I’m done here.”
I gave a half-hearted scowl, but the heat that crashed through me at his suggestion was so overwhelming it made me a little dizzy.Don’t stop.Just keep circling my wet, swollen bud over him, even with Brennan on the other side of the door. Quietly tease and torment myself for his pleasure until he was ready to fuck me. My Flame spiralled through every tensed muscle, trying to coax me into movement while I resisted as long as I could, but that resistance grew close to physical pain as the silence stretched. I could hear Brennan shuffling around on the other side of the door, patiently awaiting his Captain, who was patiently awaiting me. Only when my Flame wasscreamingwithin me to give Caelan what he wanted, when my core clenched and ached with the need to find friction, did I finallybreak with a pathetic little moan.
Caelan’s breath stuttered out of him, the only sign that his own control was anywhere close to fraying. He tucked an arm behind his head and fixed his eyes between my legs, nodding encouragingly.
