by Dee Palmer
“I didn’t exactly have a choice.” He cuts me down, and even though his eyelids are heavy and droop with weakness, when he does manage to fix his eyes on mine, I can’t be sure what I’m seeing. I flounder.
“Oh!” The heat is unbearable. Black smoke thickens, cloaking every bit of space in the room. The blown out windows suck the smoke from the building as fast as the fire is fuelled with fresh kindling from the abundant furniture. It’s prevented Logan and me from suffocating but it’s also providing fresh air to accelerate the raging fire. The noise from the destruction is deafening. Even so, in the distance, I can just make out the faint cry of sirens. I mutter a silent prayer and whisper to Logan to hold on, just a few minutes more.
I don’t know if he can hear me.
I don’t know if we even have a few minutes.
A large piece of ceiling collapses, and weighty chunks hit my shoulder, knocking me to the floor. The dagger slips from my hand and falls from the wound. Black smoke chokes the air in my lungs and stings my eyes, I’m disorientated and stumble to my knees, coughing and spluttering. I crawl, blindly feeling my way back to Logan. I touch his leg and quickly work my way up his body and back to the wound, I instantly press the spurting blood with my bare hands but it’s too late. His body is slumped unconscious and I can feel his life slipping through my sticky, blood-soaked fingers.
My skin burns, it feels as if it’s being flayed off my bones. The heat is incredible; my throat is parched and raw as I suck in shallow breaths of burning air and toxic smoke, just to keep breathing.
“Logan! Logan don’t you dare fucking leave me!” I scream and move my body over more to protect him against the inferno blazing around us. My bare arms blister and the tiny hairs singe in the intensity of the heat. I start to choke as the smoke gets unbearably thick and the cloud blocks out the daylight, plummeting us both into scorching oblivion that feels a lot like hell.
She’s so fucking stubborn. I’ve a good mind to spank her arse when she wakes up.
If she wakes up.
It’s been five days since the explosion. Since we were both dragged out of the blazing inferno, unconscious and, in my case, barely alive. The extent of the damage to the building was catastrophic. It was a miracle they found us in time amidst the devastation. The initial blast took out half of the main house, the Great Hall and the west wing, including the library. I was told by the investigating officers the fire tore through the remaining building, incinerating everything, and the water damage from the fire hoses finished the job.
Tartarus Hall has been razed to the ground. I was told the original parts of the castle the Hall was built upon and extended from, are the only parts that survived.
A faulty gas pipe and some irresponsibly stored gasoline containers was the initial verdict. No foul play, just an unfortunate accident, which sounds comical when I roll the notion around in my head. No one is saying anything much more than we both had a lucky escape.
Luck escape, my arse.
As much as I want answers, I also don’t. I don’t care about the fucking twisted psycho that stabbed me, his poisonous family, and all the fucking trouble they have caused. The only thing I want right now is for Tia to open her fucking eyes.
Despite the severe blood loss, the stab wound I sustained didn’t cause any permanent damage. It seems Atticus missed the main organs, strategically cutting to create a lot of mess but nothing more and not as bad as it could’ve been if he’d hit a main artery.
Somehow I still can’t quite bring myself to warm to the guy.
I was stitched up, given a shit tonne of blood and told to rest up for a few days.
I think they thought that meant lying in my own hospital bed, not sweet talking the nurses and sliding in next to Tia in hers. I assured them I wouldn’t get in the way, and I told them hearing my voice whispering to her constantly would wake her up, if only to tell me to shut the hell up. It had to be worth a try. Physically, she is fine. Some red raw patches of skin from the heat and some smoke damage to her throat, but other than that, she is fighting fit. She’s just got to…
“Open your fucking eyes, Tia!” I growl low and threateningly against the sweet smelling softness of her neck, nothing. I lie on my good side, facing her. My harsh and angry words wash over her luminescent, porcelain-smooth skin with absolutely no effect. Ghostly silent and unbelievably beautiful, I find I can’t not touch her. It would be a crime against all things heavenly and human. Using a feather-light touch with my fingertips, I trace her hairline, the arch of her brow, and along her cheekbone under her long, dark, lashes fanning out on her cheek. I pause a moment, my fingers come to rest on her lips, soft and full, and parted slightly, letting shallow breaths in and out. They look too dry, a little cracked, and no longer flushed with colour and life. I carefully roll closer and press my own wet lips to hers, a gentle moisture exchange for the sake of her health and my sanity.
Her lips are warm and so damn soft I forget myself. I should at least show some damn restraint, she’s unconscious for chrissake. Still, would her lips move like this if that were the case? Would the monitor’s steady monotonous beat be racing like my own heart if she were asleep?
Holy fuck!
Small urgent hands thread and fiercely grip my hair like she’s using the strands to pull her from oblivion. I welcome the tearing pain because it means just one thing: My girl is back. I deepen the kiss, wrap and twist my tongue around hers. I know I have seconds before I’m pulled off of her, the monitor sounds like it’s about to have a coronary. My heart is thumping harder than that, but it feels fucking wonderful. She moans into my mouth, and I’m flying higher than the fucking space station. I pull back because I worry for a brief moment she might actually need the air I’m stealing from her lungs with my unchecked hunger. Hooded eyes meet mine and her breathy whisper assures me that’s not the case.
“Wow and you said you didn’t love me.”
“I lied.”
“Don’t do it again.” Her voice waivers and her eyes brim with tears. I don’t get the chance to reply.
“Sir, you need to move!” The insistence in the nurses voice is tempered with the humorous smile she flashes between me and a rather flushed looking Tia. “Step outside a moment while I check her over would you?”
“No.” The response is flat and accompanied by a humourless laugh. The nurse is fucking crazy if she thinks I’m leaving now. Tia cocks her head and tries to placate my stony resolution.
“Logan, I’m fine, just do as the nurse says,” she coaxes. I roll off the bed and face them both. Using every inch of my six foot four frame in an attempt to intimidate.
“No.” I move to make the only concession in this arrangement, planting myself in the chair at the edge of her private room. I’m out of the way of any interference but most definitely not outside the room. I fold my arms and wince when I catch the edge of my dressing. Tia’s eyes flash with worry, and I don’t bother to reassure her it’s nothing, not when it gets me exactly what I want.
“He can stay. Please let him stay.” With her plea, I fight a shit-eating grin.
“I’m going nowhere. Get used to it, ladies.”
“Okay,” The nurse shrugs slightly, her tone wary. “But I’m going to be removing your catheter, and the procedure isn’t going to be remotely dignified.”
“Oh no, Logan, I’ve changed my mind please go outside!”
“No,” I repeat, adding my only concession, which softens the mortification in Tia’s expression. “You have the curtain, and I will turn my back, if it helps.”
“God, you’re stubborn.” Her eyes narrow, and the nurse’s hearty chuckle fills the room.
“I guess you two are suited then, because I’m pretty sure he said the same about you when you chose to burn to death beside him, hmm?” She arches an accusing brow nice and high, aiming it at Tia. Tia’s gaze fixes on me, and I feel the heat like a branding iron on my chest and a little deeper inside.
“I don’t think I was being stubbo
rn.” Her voice is unwavering and earnest. “I don’t want to live without him, so I was never going to leave him to die alone.”
“Oh my.” The nurse sighs, and she buckles at the knees and places her hand over her heart. I’m beside Tia before she finished that last word. One hand in hers, the other cupping her jaw, she leans into my touch, glassy eyes fill with tears, blurring her vision or is that mine? An eternity passes between us as we hold a gaze that pierces both our souls. We could’ve died in the fire, yet here we are, together. Nothing is more precious than what I hold in my hands, right here, right now.
“I love you.” I state.
“I know,” she says with absolute certainty, even if it does sound like a threat. I love her overtly possessive tone and hope she can hear the same in mine. Our lips collide and meld, and I vow to let nothing come between us again, not Atticus, not my sister, and not this nurse…well, maybe just the nurse.
“Ahem.” The nurse coughs impatiently, checking her watch with a wry smile. “I have other patients, and the sooner I can get Tia checked, the sooner you will be able to take her home.”
“Today?” I suggest, and the nurse rolls her eyes at my optimism.
“In a few days.” The nurse counters with a more realistic suggestion. I press my lips once more to Tia and she grins wide and mischievously against me, speaking at the same time.
“I like the sound of that.” We’re perfectly moulded together so I do the same
“Me too.”
“Why are you looking at me like that?” She hasn’t stopped giving me furtive glances all the way home. Three tortuous days of tests before she was given the all clear and discharged from hospital, and I have been chomping at the bit to get her home. Only now, her initial excitement has been replaced with a sense of reticence, and I don’t like it one bit. We haven’t spoken about the shit tonne of stuff we need to discuss: Atticus, my sister, and Tia being the fucking heir to the Kraus fortune. All the focus has been on getting better and getting out of hospital.
Maybe she’s having second thoughts.
She sat close enough to me in the taxi it wasn’t so obvious, but while walking her carefully up the path to the front door of my house, her silence is getting to the point of being borderline creepy.
“What is it? Do I have come on my face?” I grin like the devil at her instant shock and horrified expression and open mouth. She jerks around to peek over my shoulder and check no one can hear. The taxi is long gone, and the mid afternoon streets are relatively empty. My question was only a half joke.
While we waited in her hospital room for the discharge papers, I teased and tormented her enough that she dragged me to the private bathroom and begged me to work my magic tongue, her words. As appetisers go, it was fucking perfect, and if she’d just clarify what’s with the weird looks she keeps throwing my way, I am more than ready for the main course. I want to be the reason she can’t walk for a week.
“You’re outside.” She circles her finger around encompassing the immediate surrounding of my porch, front garden, and the street beyond.
“I knew you were smart, smart and sexy.” Pulling her hard against my chest, she gasps as I plant two heavy hands on the cheeks of her arse and give a proprietary squeeze.
“No Logan, this is huge!”
“Don’t, you’ll make me blush, but actually it’s not as huge as it’s going to be.” I grind her softness against my hard length. “The jeans are kinda restrictive.”
“Logan.” She tries to make my name sound like a reprimand but the gust of air she expels along with it sounds a good deal like a sensual moan.
“Tia,” I mimic and roll my hips so she gets the full feel of what she’s doing to me. She shakes her head in an effort to clear the sexual fog, even as the erotic tension rockets.
“You’re outside. When…when did this happen?” I drop my forehead to hers, urgency and hunger dripping from every pore and saturating my skin. I barely hear what she’s said the blood is rushing so damn loudly in my ears.
“I have been working through this with an on-line therapist.”
“Since when?” Her jaw drops comically wide with astonishment.
“Since just after you moved in and I knew I wanted more.”
“Oh my god, Logan, why didn’t you say something? This is amazing!” She squeals and claps her hands together like some sort of demented seal.
“And that might be why.” I raise a brow at her over exuberance. “It’s stressful enough without the look of expectation on your face.”
“Oh, sorry. You’re right, even so…” She stills herself, fisting her hands to stop herself waving them about with obvious glee. “I’m so happy for you, for us. I want to know everything.”
“I will tell you. I will tell you everything, but not right now.” A deep, needy rumble vibrates in my chest and flows directly from me to her. I know she feels it in every nerve. Tiny hairs on her neck stand to attention as her body trembles in my grasp. Her eyes are wide with desire, pupils dilated to large pools of liquid coal edged in the luminescent green. “Right now I need to bury this something huge into your very tight—”
“Oh my god.” She buries her head in the centre of my chest, and I let out a throaty belly laugh. She’s adorable.
“Or Logan. I’ll answer to both.” I tilt back even though her head is flush against me, and I can feel the heat from her cheeks through the fabric of my T-shirt. I want to sweep her up onto my shoulder, but I’m afraid I might hurt her. I’m not even going to risk carrying her in my arms because, if I pull a stitch, we are headed straight back to hospital. If I see another hospital in my lifetime, it will be too fucking soon.
I settle on taking her hand in mine, entwining our fingers, and dragging her up the steps and into the house, and I don’t stop until my long strides have erased the distance from the front door to my bedroom. I kick the door wide and hear the audible hitch in Tia’s breathing. I know it wasn’t the climb up the stairs or the near sprint along the corridor that has her gasping for oxygen. She’s breathless with anticipation, and I fucking love that.
“On the bed, now!” She hesitates only for a moment, then turns to face me. Her wide, intense gaze pins me to the spot. It’s incendiary and sparks of pent-up desire seem to crackle between us. She walks slowly backwards, one carefully placed foot behind the other until she is flush against the bed. I have followed her retreat step for step, but my stride is wider and we are a hair’s breadth from one another by the time she comes to a shaky halt. Her fingertips press lightly on the bedcovers for balance. My eyes bore into her, and I swear we could set the room on fire with the heat firing between our bodies.
“Do you feel the heat, Tia?” I tower over her slight frame, my bulk casting a protective shadow I like.
“I know what real flames feel like, and there’s no comparison, Logan.”
“No more fires, T. Just this…just us.”
I place my palm flat over her racing heart and relish the way her body shudders at my touch. She leans away and drops, inching her way backwards and up the bed. I follow her reclining body, until only millimetres separate our combustive heat. I lift and pull her sloppy T-shirt over her head and push her flat. My fingertips splay on her chest. Her heart is pounding.
“Don’t move.” My deep voice is gravelly with lust. I crawl back down the bed, kissing a trail down over the swell of her breast, down her tummy, and I use the tip of my tongue, tasting the tempting skin just above the waistband of her leggings. I hook my fingers in the elastic and drag them and her panties all the way down her toned legs. Despite the agony of urgency in my cock, I’m taking my sweet time, enjoying every sigh, every squirm and hitch of breath as I innocently lavish my own pleasure and desire on her helpless and extremely receptive body.
I slide my knees to the floor and cup my palms around the back of her thighs, pulling her toward the edge of the bed. Scooping her legs over my shoulder, I clamp my hands around her hips and lift her so her soaking core is within kis
sing distance.
“Fuck I could die right now. This is heaven.” My words blur with the cry escaping from deep inside her the moment my tongue touches her wetness. Soft, then firm, the pressure varies depending on her gasps and grinds directing me to give her maximum pleasure. I fucking love that. The silent and not so silent cues tell me I’m right on the money. I work my mouth and tongue along her tender folds to her needy nub of nerves. My lips cover her clit, and I suck down.
I have to grip hard because her whole body jolts, as if hit with a high voltage current, throwing her into a wild display of spasms and convulsions. God, she feels so good, coming undone all over my tongue. Her fingers spear and grip my hair like a lifeline, and I wonder if she’s not actually trying to scalp me. It’s not even a distraction; her touch is always good, better than nirvana when it’s abandoned and wild. I insert a finger, then another and curl them around, swirling and teasing her most sensitive tissue.
She pushes her head back into the mattress, and her back strikes the perfect arc as her whole body tenses. She sucks in a sharp breath, and a sensual, silent cloud seems to envelop her and suspend her taut body in a freeze-frame of ecstasy. I still and attempt to hold her there on the crest. Mesmerising seconds pass and when she finally sags like a warm noodle on the bed, I flash a grin that is as wicked as it is wide.
I look up at her through my lashes and sensually drag my bottom lip through my teeth groaning with audible pleasure as I scrape every last bit of her taste into my mouth. “You look sleepy.” I let her floppy legs slide off my broad shoulders. All strength has deserted her, and I chuckle as I stalk up her body, slowly rousing it with gentle kisses. “You can’t be sleepy.” My tongue flicks her pebble-hard nipple through her fine white cotton bra. I nip the tip through the material, firmly holding it hostage in my teeth.
