Page 19

“I will find proof of cryptid existence and share it with the world. They are a scientific reality.” She actually stomped her foot, and I’d never realized until that moment how much stubbornness turned me on.

Fuck it. I pulled her in before I could think or breathe, and the next thing I inhaled was her mouth, lips just as plump and sweet as I’d imagined.

Rosi stiffened for a second, and I leaned away, afraid I’d misread her. Then she shoved me backward onto the couch and straddled me.

We looked at each other as her chest rising and falling rapidly. I should have stopped it, but she leaned down and met my lips again, swiping her tongue across the seam until I opened to her and met her tongue in a dance of exploration.

I pressed her body to me, running my palms up her back beneath my own T-shirt. She gasped at the skin-to-skin contact, and I took the opportunity to taste the sensitive pulse point on her throat. She moaned as I teased the area with my teeth before licking then sucking in the caramel skin I’d been dying to try.

Groaning, she mashed her core against my growing erection, sliding her heat across it until I too moaned my appreciation.

The lights blinked then exploded in a shower of sparks around us. The arm of the sofa suddenly burst into flames. I shifted her to my other side away from the fire. I reached for my shirt to smother it, only to realize I wasn’t wearing one.

But Rosi stuffed hers in my hand, and I had things under control in a matter of moments. Once I was sure it was out, I turned and found her arms crossed over her nipples, the tops of her breasts pressed up in small mounds. While the fire had made me soften, my cock returned to a semi-erect state as I stared at her, half-bared before me.

“What the fuck is happening?” she asked, distracting me again.

Right. Breathe.

I closed my eyes and did the mental exercise I was so accustomed to.

“Be right back,” I said as the soft blue glow below the glass icicle counters lit my path to the bedroom. I returned moments later with another shirt for her.

She looked up from where she’d been examining the burn on the sofa and snatched the shirt from the air. She quickly turned to put it on, but not before I got a peek at her perfect breasts with pert nipples that made me want to suck on them like Luxardo cherries.

Breathing in again, I closed my eyes. When I opened them, she was facing me, arms crossed over her chest, this time in a hunter-green shirt.

“You’re avoiding the question,” she pointed out.

Sighing, I collapsed back onto the sofa and ran a palm over my face. “Yeah, because I don’t know what’s happening. But I also don’t buy Nicole’s excuse. Solar flares? I mean, I doubt they’d have opened the resort if it was that sensitive. They’re still trying to put the whole Paradise Atlantis business out of the public memory.”

Rosi sat beside me and placed a hand on my knee. “So she asked you to lie to me?”

“I think she’s lying to both of us. I think she’s fucking scared of something and is trying to cover it up so she doesn’t start a panic.”

Rosi sank into the cushions. “That’s ominous.”

“Yeah.”

We stared at the ceiling for a moment when the door buzzed.

“Come in,” I said, sitting up straight.

The door slid open to reveal the man I’d seen with Nicole on more than one occasion. I noticed several people in the hall behind him as he slipped inside, but the door shut before I could make out who they were.

“Hi,” he said, glancing over at Rosi on the sofa. “I’m Jackson Meadows. I’m an engineering consultant for Bennet Systems. We had reports of multiple fires on this floor. Is everything okay?”

“We were able to put it out before it did any more damage,” I said, indicating the burn spot on the sofa next to me. “Do you know what caused it?”

“That’s what we’re investigating,” Jackson answered. “Nicole was concerned and asked me to check on you both. Luckily, it seems I can do so at the same time.”

Rosi cleared her throat and glanced to the side.

“There’s something going on in this resort, and it’s potentially dangerous,” I said, ignoring his comment.

“It’s not the sun. So don’t go there,” Rosi added as he opened his mouth to reply.

“We don’t know what happened. That was a theory, but now it seems less likely,” Jackson said.