Hot Lava

by Anne Conley

  He was going to make everything right tonight.

  Logan continued his path to the juncture of her thighs, loving the feel of her coarse curls against his chin as he nibbled his way to her essence.

  She was squirming now, close to coming again, and he wondered how many orgasms he could give her before he’d get his fill of the way she tasted.

  Pressing her thighs spread-eagle against the bed, Logan looked up at Katie as he dipped his tongue to her folds and licked her like an ice cream cone. As he spread her open with his fingers, her body stiffened.

  “Relax, Katherine,” Logan said, using his Dom voice, even though he didn’t want her submission right now. Yeah, he wanted her to relax, but only because she was with him.

  Logan had never wanted that before. He didn’t realize he’d stopped until he felt her squirm under him, but it was true. Logan raised his head.

  “Thank you.”

  Katie opened her eyes wide, looking at him like he was crazy. “For what?”

  He couldn’t articulate what he meant, but he tried anyway. “For doing this. With me. Being you. Being patient.” He realized he wasn’t even making complete sentences, and the way she looked at him told him she didn’t give a shit what he said. She just wanted his head back between her legs. He chuckled. “Never mind.”

  Redoubling his efforts, he tasted, licked, and sucked. But when he started biting, that’s when she started coming off the bed. That was his girl, right there. The one who liked her pain and trusted him to give it to her.

  As Logan sucked her swollen clit into his mouth, her moans reached his ears, giving him a sense of something bigger than himself. Suddenly, her climax was his purpose in life, making her come and feeling all the fulfillment he felt. He bit her clit and soothed it with his tongue, and then her spasms started. Her eyes clenched shut, she writhed in his arms. He had to clamp his hands on her thighs to keep her from clinching them around his head.

  Wiping his mouth, Logan looked at her, boneless on his bed. He couldn’t get enough of the sight of her, and a ridiculous sense of pride filled him.

  Not to be denied, his cock jerked as he covered her body with his and succumbed to his own need. As Logan sank into Katherine’s warmth with a groan, he bit her shoulder gently. Katherine wrapped her arms around his neck, gripping tightly, and Logan surged into her, arching his back with each of his movements. With her lean legs around his hips, he allowed his hands to roam her silky skin. One up the side of her breast, crushed between them, and the other down her leg, squeezing her thigh.

  All the while his body heaved on top of hers, feeling so much he felt he was going to crack open. His skin sliding along hers, his pelvis thrusting against hers, and her moans all conspired to make him fly apart.

  Logan couldn’t step out of his head if he wanted to. Everything about this woman captivated him, and he wished he could go back in time to when they’d first met at that coffee shop in Albuquerque to discuss their scene. He would have bundled her into his car and brought her home with him, never letting her leave his bed again.

  Because this was where she belonged.

  Logan kissed her, even as he felt her clamp her walls around him, undulating around her orgasm with a cry. He went a little blind and sucked on her tongue, mashing his mouth against hers as he felt his own climax rising.

  That’s when he lost it. He raised himself off his elbows and pounded into her, needing to be deeper but only able to get there by leaving her and slamming back in. It had been slow but now was suddenly rushed as he lost control and emptied everything he had into her.

  Everything. He had. Into. Her.

  As Logan collapsed on top of Katherine, breathless and feeling like jelly, he knew he would give her everything. Had given her everything. This love-making had been a cathartic experience for him, from thinking about mortality to the eventuality of joining everything with hers.

  This was it.

  He couldn’t get any higher than this.

  Logan was well and truly hers. She had everything he ever was, whether she grasped that concept or not.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Logan whistled an absent tune while he loped into the fire station the next morning. He was on cloud nine having spent the night with Katie then dropping her off at home to get Walter situated for the night.

  “Yo! Come back here!” Hollywood called from the captain’s office. Logan bristled at Hollywood’s arrogant order and the fact the dipshit was acting like he owned Chavez’s office. He’d had a stroke. He hadn’t left completely yet.

  Or had he?

  Had he retired? Logan needed to go see him. A pang of guilt struck him. He hadn’t visited his mentor in a couple of days, and he needed to see how his friend was healing. He’d thought things were progressing well for Chavez, but his stomach dropped at the sight of Hollywood urgently beckoning him. As he entered the office, he was halted by Marquez and Arson Investigator Steve Wells.

  An impromptu meeting. Logan swallowed hard as he rubbed the back of his neck where his hairs were standing straight up from goose bumps. He was agitated and didn’t like it at all. This was bad, and he couldn’t stop the sense of foreboding from pounding in his ears.

  “Have a seat.” Marquez gestured to the remaining chair, and Logan’s anger ebbed. Hollywood in Chavez’s office was one thing. Marquez stepping down to fill his boots while he was in the hospital was something else entirely. Something Logan had actually known about.

  So what the fuck was up with Hollywood?

  Logan nodded to Wells, who sat in the other chair across from Chavez’s desk, while Hollywood stood off to the side.

  “There was another arson last night. We just came back from the call. Nobody was hurt, but it destroyed The Beestro. The entire town is going to go for our throats if we don’t nip this in the bud.” Marquez steepled his fingers in front of his mouth as he talked, one finger twitching in a gesture of thought that was familiar to Logan.

  “The thing that’s different about this one is, there’s a witness.” Wells turned to face Logan. “Hollywood was driving and almost hit a white Ford flatbed truck with a welding setup in the back of it.”

  Everyone was silent while that sunk in. There was only one of those in town. They had all talked about the fact the arsonist had to plug the extension cord into something to make the explosions.

  Something like a generator.

  And welding setups on trucks had generators.

  The one truck in town was bought by a kid because he’d been friends with the welder who put it all together, and his wife had made a good deal on it when he’d died.

  The welder was Mr. Cooper.

  The kid who’d bought the truck was Walter.

  Logan put all the pieces together. Wells had talked about his profile of the suspect: a kid who was dealing with family issues and didn’t have a lot of friends.

  Brant and Ryder were Walter’s only friends.

  “Did you see Walter driving?” Logan gritted out from between clenched teeth. Hollywood looked to the side quickly before nodding the affirmative. “Son of a bitch,” Logan muttered under his breath.

  A sharp pain jerked up is arm, and Logan realized he was clutching the arm of his chair in a death-like grip.

  “Get him to turn himself in, Logan, and this will all go so much better for him. So far, nobody’s died. But that won’t continue. As it is, the property damage alone will have him in serious trouble, but maybe we can make this better for him if he cooperates.”

  The men gave him wan smiles, except Hollywood, who just stood there and kept his damn mouth shut for once. Logan’s head spun, wondering how he could have missed this.

  Arsonists were the worst thing in the world to a firefighter. They took their livelihood of fire safety, prevention, and rescue, and punched them in the balls with it.
To know it was someone he knew was an extra punch.

  Suddenly pissed, he rose. “I’m on it.” He would take care of this, but Katie would kill him.

  And he wasn’t looking forward to that.

  Katie was taping up her storefront window with brown paper so she could decorate it without giving away her surprise. As soon as Thanksgiving was over, she would unveil it, but until then, she was keeping her Let out your inner Ho, Ho, Ho, and have a kinky Christmas campaign under wraps. Literally.

  She had already used her step ladder, taping the top first, and was currently doing the bottom on her hands and knees when she heard a throat clear behind her.

  “If I had known that was the view I’d get, I would have scheduled more time.” Rough and gravelly, Logan’s voice shot a bolt of need straight to her pussy, and an involuntary moan escaped her.

  She clambered out of the shop window and smoothed her skirt before wrapping her arms around his neck and letting him kiss her. Logan gave the best kisses.

  He folded his arms around her and squeezed her flush against his rock-hard body. She relished the feel of automatic safety that came with pressing her body against his. He was her boyfriend and was treating her as such, and that was so far out of her realm of expectations, she still didn’t know what to do with it.

  But Katie was going to enjoy it as long as it lasted and hope she didn’t screw it up by telling him she loved him or something else equally ridiculous. She kissed him back for all she was worth, her tongue curling and stroking his while he gripped her backside, pulling her into his erection.

  She did love him. She didn’t know exactly when it had happened, but sometime in the years he’d ignored her, she realized her feelings for this madman were so much more than just an unrequited crush. There was no one else on the planet who’d made her feel this way, together or not.

  But together was certainly best.

  “How’s your day going so far?” He broke the kiss but didn’t pull away, choosing to mumble against her lips instead.

  “Perfect now.” She smiled at him, looking into his eyes that held more than a touch of concern. “What’s wrong?”

  Logan sighed and tugged her hand, pulling her to the back of her store, past racks of lacy bras and bins of panties without a second glance. Seeing this big, burly creature in her store of lacy things made her giggle.

  “I have to tell you something, and you’re not going to like it.” He faced her, reaching for her other hand, and her stomach twisted.

  Well, this can’t be good.

  Katie resigned herself. She guessed it had been fun while it lasted. A whole week. She’d gotten that much from the man who couldn’t be tied down, and she supposed it was more than she should have asked for.

  But it still stung. Tears bit the backs of her eyelids, even as she steeled her spine and took a deep breath. She could do this.

  “Walter was seen at the scene of the latest arson last night. He needs to turn himself in.”

  Yeah, as far as breakups go, this wouldn’t be too bad. She’d had some of the best sex of her life, had felt like she was a part of something massive, had—

  “Wait. What?”

  Logan was grim. “Walter needs to turn himself in. Nobody’s gotten seriously injured yet, but the property damage alone is staggering. Turning himself in would be the best course of action.”

  Logan thought Walter had started all the fires? “You think this is my brother?”

  “You need to go up to the school and take him out, then go to the police with this. Have him turn himself in.”

  “Like hell I will. He didn’t do this, Logan.” Katie’s tears fell hard now; there was no way to stop them. Logan took a step forward to put his hands on her face, but she took a step backward, holding up her hand.

  “He did. And you will.” His voice had lowered, and she knew what he was trying to do.

  “Do not use that voice on me here. About this.” She waved her hands wildly as if they were disconnected from her body. She wanted to slap some sense into the man, make him see reason.

  But all she could see was Walter’s face in her head. His boyish smile that was not yet the grin of a man. His caring nature around her. The way he gave her shit about something and then turned around and baked brownies with her, out of a box, like he had when he was a kid.

  “You have to understand, if they go to the school and arrest him, it will be worse for him.”

  “I don’t care! That’s what they’re going to have to do, and then they need to prove it was him. He didn’t do this.” He wouldn’t do this.

  Logan straightened to his full height and glared down at her. “You’re choosing him?”

  “What do you mean, choosing him? He’s my brother, for fuck’s sake! He is innocent until proven guilty. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt he couldn’t do something like this. And so should you. Instead, you’re in here tossing around accusations and telling me what to do, and I won’t have it. In the bedroom is one thing, but you’re not going to tell me what to do with the little boy I’ve raised.”

  He looked at her like he suddenly despised her, and the look hurt. Really fucking hurt. “So you are taking the side of an arsonist. He’s taken everything I stand for, everything I believe in, every goddamn thing I work for, and shredded it. You’re really going to do this?”

  “Walter is my brother.” She watched Logan’s eyes steel over, and he suddenly looked at her in that sickeningly familiar way. She was a stranger to him. “Leave,” she croaked out.

  Without another word, he brushed past her. Katie hated herself for the emotions coursing through her at the realization the touch, however brief it was, would be his last.

  Chapter Twenty

  Katie couldn’t speak with the enormous lump in her throat. A sense of trepidation had her flipping the open sign to Closed as she locked up for the day. She could call the manager later and explain things. Maybe Stephanie could come in instead.

  Racing to Walter’s school, and proud of herself for not causing an accident, Katie parked next to his truck. He’d been so proud to buy it after Mr. Cooper had passed and his wife had offered it to him at an unbelievable price. Mrs. Cooper liked Walter and knew he needed wheels. When she gave him a price he could actually afford to pay without taking out a loan, Katie had practically wept at the woman’s generosity. They had money for whatever Walter wanted, but the fact he’d paid for it himself was a huge boon for the kid’s self-worth.

  Because who wouldn’t have self-esteem issues when their parents preferred the wilds of the Amazon to their children?

  Striding into the school, Katie put on her game face, knowing she was strong enough to stand tall for her brother. Pamona Gulch wasn’t big, and as soon as word got out that he was suspected in the fires, backs would turn and loyalties would be fickle. This she knew.

  She’d seen it enough when her parents left. Stupid as it was, so many people turned their nose up at Katie for opening her store. She knew her parents had given her the money for something like a bookstore or an ice cream parlor, but Katie had a different vision for herself, and she’d done it.

  People hadn’t liked that. They’d been full of advice for how to raise a young man in a small town, and the store had been seen as a slap to the face. Katie had made friends of a different sort after that. Younger women friends with similar goals and attitudes. The women she was friends with now gave her strength. Strength she needed right now.

  When she got inside the school, Katie’s game face dropped. She was too late.

  A small crowd of teachers and students were standing in the office while two police officers were handcuffing Walter. Shoulders hunched, he looked at the floor and listened carefully as the police read him his rights.

  “Walter!”

  He snapped his head up, his eyes wide, his mouth turned
into something out of her nightmares. “Katie, I don’t know what this is.” He looked completely helpless with his hands cuffed behind his back. “Get me out of this,” he pleaded as the officers started to lead him away.

  Her heart broke. Walter had never liked getting into trouble. He was the first one to see the ramifications for others instead of himself. If he realized he’d broken a rule when he was a boy, his mind would immediately go to the reason for the rule, and he internalized the hurt he might have caused. Like the time she’d caught him stealing a candy bar from the convenience store. When she’d marched him back in to confess, he’d burst into tears and apologized for jeopardizing the storeowner’s children and their ability to eat supper at night. He was eight.

  Now, at seventeen, he was seeing his future wash down the proverbial drain and had no idea what he’d supposedly done. He knew as well as anyone what the gossips in this town did to people. Righteous indignation straightened Katie’s spine.

  “I will,” she stated firmly, her game face back on.

  They had him in custody. Now there was a sequence of events she could follow that made sense to her. First things first, she was going to find a lawyer and get him out of jail. Then she would figure out who’d tossed his name in the suspect hat, getting him into this mess, and sue the shit out of them. In a small town like Pamona Gulch, being arrested was equated with guilt in the community’s eyes. He wouldn’t be able to do anything here.

  Walter may not be her kid, but she was the only parental figure in his life.

  And mama bear was pissed.

  After crying in the lawyers’ office and getting the placid reassurances that they would do what they could, Katie realized Walter would have to spend the night in jail. Her stomach rebelled, and she swallowed bile all the way to the dress shop where Vivian worked. She needed to talk this out with a friend, someone who knew Walter and wouldn’t automatically assume his guilt.