by Kaily Hart
She frowned. “Oh? And you know that how?”
He laughed and smoothed the lines between her eyes with his thumb. “They all seemed very nice, very grateful the old guy was going to be okay. Introduced themselves to me and the guys.”
Carly couldn’t prevent the pang at the picture she got. It was sharp, intense. Rio surrounded by beautiful, half-naked women, all vying for his attention.
“Yeah, I’ll bet.”
He laughed again and then sobered, running the pad of his thumb across her lower lip, his gaze focused on her mouth. “I couldn’t describe a single one of them if my life depended on it, but I know there wasn’t a Honey among them, baby.”
Carly took a deep breath at the look in his eyes, the term she should have had an issue with but somehow didn’t, and tried not to squirm.
“And what are you claiming as your favor?”
He felt the tremor that ran through her body.
“Don’t be scared. I wouldn’t ever hurt you. I’d cut off my own arm first.”
“I’m not scared. God, Rio don’t you know I’d let you do anything you wanted to me? I’m just…I mean, I… I wouldn’t want to disappoint you.”
Rio couldn’t help the flare of triumph that roared through him or the sudden, aching hardness of his body that should have been impossible, at least so soon.
“Are you kidding? Do you realize how we fit, how we are together? God, it’s as if you were made just for me. I’d give you whatever you wanted, do whatever you needed. I’ll only ever want to please you, but make no mistake—I want to do every hot, sexy, dirty thing I’ve ever thought about to you, with you. But my prize?”
He watched as she licked her lips and looked at him. He saw it, the trust, the acceptance and the need. The surge of lust and love that slammed into him would have knocked him on his ass if he hadn’t already been lying down. He’d thought hard about what he’d collect when the time came—hell, he’d tormented himself with it. And now? Now everything was different.
He took a deep breath. “I want you to be mine. I want to know I’m the only man you’ll let touch you, who’ll ever see you like this, the only one you want. I want it to be the ‘there’s no doubt every other guy knows you belong to me’ kind of mine. I want you, Carls. Just you.”
Rio couldn’t prevent the clench in his gut at the look in her eyes when she raised a soft hand to his cheek. It was sultry and sexy as hell and it was all for him.
“On one condition,” she whispered.
“Yeah?”
“That I get my turn to drive you out of your mind. That I get to do more than just lick you a couple of times. And that I get to start right now.”
The End
Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed PAY UP, the first book in my Hot Firefighter series. Be on the lookout for Cole’s story in PICK UP.
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Pay Up
Pick Up
Men “out” of Uniform
Pin Down
Nail Down
Take Down
Stand Alone
Picture This
Point Blank
Play Me
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Excerpt from Play Me
Of the many kisses she’d experienced, of the few lovers she’d had, of the year and a half she’d been with Ian—no, wasted on Ian—Lily had never experienced anything like the sensations she’d gotten during those minutes of his mouth on hers, his body pressing into her. Or had it been only seconds?
She licked lips that felt swollen. He tasted like coffee, or maybe that came from her. She thought she’d been ready that second time, but when he’d taken control… She was still tingling from it. She took a deep breath and looked up.
God, his eyes.
They were dark, like everything else about him, but it was a deep-blue rimmed with a border of navy or black that made his gaze that much more intense. It was a look that saw everything in an instant and she shivered under his piercing stare, not from fear or even from the cold, but from something she didn’t have a name for.
Where she’d gotten the courage to kiss him like that, she’d never know. She’d never done anything remotely like that before. She should have been scared, cautious at the very least, yet somehow knew she’d be safe with him. He’d done something extraordinary for her, knowingly risked himself for her, and it was weird, but she felt connected to him on some elemental level she couldn’t even begin to understand. She was thankful, of course she was, but gratitude didn’t have her heart racing, her stomach flip-flopping, her body singing. Did it? Jeez, who was she kidding? She ached in places that usually only came alive after long and intense stimulation of the solo kind.
All she knew was that she hadn’t been able to just let him walk away. Not yet.
“C-Come inside,” she whispered.
Yeah, and she so totally sucked at stuff like this.
When his gaze slid down to the juncture of her thighs, heat bloomed in her cheeks, low in her belly, between her legs.
“With me. I meant come inside with me. Although…” She took a deep breath and rushed on before she chickened out. “You can come inside me too. Well, we’ll have to use protection, of course, but—”
“Lily.” Gabe closed his eyes briefly and groaned.
“It’s okay. You know, if you don’t want to, I mean.”
“God…”
His gaze slid over her in a hot caress resting on nipples she could feel hard and erect against the thin silk of her dress. Her stomach clenched. It wasn’t exactly a “no”.
She swallowed. She should probably give him fair warning. “You know.” She licked her lips. “I-I’ve never done anything like this.”
“Adrenaline,” he dismissed. “It’s just the adrenaline.”
She shook her head. “No. I don’t think so. I just…” She looked at him, tried to ignore the tremor in her limbs and went for it. “I’ve never wanted like this before. Never so quickly, but never, ever,” she glanced away, “like this.”
God, she probably sounded as if she had a screw loose or something. What happened to all that girl talk that assured a woman could get laid whenever she wanted, at the snap of her fingers? All of her friends had had one-night stands. Okay, they might not have been proud of them exactly, but they’d all expounded on the benefits of no-strings sex. After having the evidence that the relationship route hadn’t exactly been working for her, didn’t she deserve some uncomplicated pleasure herself? She was entitled, wasn’t she?
His jaw flexed and his gaze bore into hers. He took a couple deep breaths. He se
emed to be weighing his options. Jeez, she didn’t want to have to twist his arm.
“I—”
“Why the fuck not?” he finally muttered.
The bottom dropped right out of Lily’s stomach. Okay, not exactly the resounding response she’d been hoping for, but she could run with it, couldn’t she? If she could get her nerves under control and didn’t make a complete fool of herself, of course.
She frowned when he opened the passenger door and leaned in. His gaze was direct on hers when he straightened, a small square packet held unapologetically in his hand as if he wanted to be certain she saw it.
“Are you sure?” he rasped.
Her heart thundered, her throat was dry and the damn trembling was back. Especially when it registered he was holding more than one.
God, she hadn’t been exaggerating when she said she’d never done anything like this before and she couldn’t say why she was now exactly. Sex had always been a natural progression in the relationships she’d had. After a reasonable time, after getting to know someone, after feeling a connection that came with spending time together, but this… This was a driving, aching need, a want so powerful it drove her to seize the moment, to not let him just walk away and to hell with the fact she didn’t know a thing about him. She just wanted to learn every inch of him, run her hands over the hard body she’d felt pressed against her, feel him on her, in her. She was drawn to him, her body attuned to his, every nerve ending tingling alive for him. And after knowing she’d wasted a year and a half of her life on a one-sided relationship, a farce, well, she was done with that.
She’d never gone for the bad-boy type before either. There was definitely something savage and untamed about him, something held tightly under control. He’d come tearing in, literally guns blazing and saved her from a fate that just might have been worse than death. It was hot and arousing. He was hot with this rough and rugged appearance, there was no doubt, but there was something almost vulnerable about him as well, something that reached out to her, as if he needed someone to keep him safe too. It was ridiculous. She knew it was. He was probably the last person who’d be in need of protection. He clearly didn’t need it, wouldn’t want it and probably wouldn’t appreciate it.
Mouth dry, she nodded.
