Ignite

by Holly S. Roberts

  A low rumble of laughter escapes him. “Nick did mention that once or twice. I’ll sit in the chair while you eat. Then you can play doctor.”

  Why do those words sound so damn sexy? “Deal,” I say as I sit back on the bed and finish eating. Rack takes another piece too and everything is back to normal or as normal as it can be with a pregnant woman with raging sex hormones and a semi-sex god in the same room.

  The dessert bag holds two donuts with icing. “Sorry,” he says. “I know I promised ice cream but shopping for your clothes took longer than I thought it would and the donut place was on the way back.”

  Like I care. The donuts are filled with sugar and I’ve craved it for too long to quibble over the type of sweet treat he brought me. I offer him the other donut and he shakes his head. I guess you don’t get his body by eating donuts. I, on the other hand, have no problem eating both of them.

  When I’m finished, I lick my fingers until I notice Rack watching. What can I say? They were too damn good to miss the small bits of icing on my fingers.

  I lean back against the pillows and sigh. I’m ready to explode. Maybe pizza wasn’t the greatest idea. I stand up carefully because of the darned shirt, tidy up the bed, and then carry the pizza box with four slices left over to the table.

  “You ready?” I say over my shoulder as I walk toward the bathroom trying to ignore the stuffed feeling in my belly.

  Rack stands up. For his size he has the grace of a panther, and watching him walk is elegance in motion. He picks up the handgun he gave me earlier and brings it into the bathroom with us. He’s so confident and so much like my brother it hurts. Sadness rolls through me. I dig my fingernails into my palms to shake away the pain. I remove the items I need from Rack’s kit, which holds first aid supplies as well as bathroom necessities.

  “Are you supposed to be taking these?” I hold up a bottle labeled amoxicillin on a plain white label. There’s no name for the person the pills are prescribed to, which seems strange.

  “Give me two,” Rack says in his deep voice that fills the small space. I open the bottle and hand over two large pills. He pops them in his mouth and swallows without water. Such a macho man. I hide a smile and turn on the tap.

  When the water is warm, I wet a washcloth. “We need to soak the blood so the shirt doesn’t stick to your side. It’s tricky because you really shouldn’t get stitches wet.”

  “No need,” Rack says and before I can stop him, he whips the shirt over his head.

  I’d move back if there was space. Holy shit he’s big and his bare chest makes him appear more so. I’m once again fascinated by his tattoos. They’re obviously religious. I’ll ask him another time. Right now my eyes turn to the problem at hand.

  Ignore his muscles, ignore his muscles, I recite silently.

  The blood trailing down his side makes me forget his sexy torso for a moment. I suddenly want to throttle him for pulling the shirt off with no thought to his injury. “Stop with the tough act,” I snap. “You’re doing more harm than good. Now turn and let me get to work, you idiot.”

  Yep, I just called the man who saved me an idiot. It was that or place my hand on my chest to slow my heart palpitations. No man should look this good. No man should smell this good after wearing the same clothes overnight. No musky cologne odor either. Angelo used too much and in the first few months of my pregnancy I was nauseous every time he came near. Rack smells like a real man, which sounds stupid. I can’t help it, though. His scent kicks my hormones into overdrive.

  He steps closer, turns, and lifts his arm. The wound extends upward from his hip and ends under his arm. “How did you manage this?” I ask while dabbing the washcloth on the dried blood at the top of the injury.

  “Knife,” he grunts.

  Not what I expected. On-the-job injury or something. Not a knife. “Where did it happen?”

  “Mexico.”

  That most likely explains the prescription label. I have a sneaking suspicion he’s some kind of mercenary. I picture him hiring out to foreign governments in need of top-notch ex-soldiers to save the citizens from tyranny. I can totally romanticize him working for the better good of humankind.

  He stands still as I clean him from pit to hip. The wound is deeper in the middle where it bled so much and stuck to his shirt. “I’m sure push-ups aren’t helping you heal,” I say while rinsing out the bloody cloth for the second time.

  “Needed ’em,” is his clipped response.

  “You need a brain transplant is what you need. This will never heal if you continue abusing yourself. I’m sorry that rescuing me is a part of the problem. You should be in bed.”

  I’m startled when he turns, lifts his hand, and cups my chin. He’s so close—his eyes dark pools of an ignitable substance. “I will always rescue you, Beth.”

  My heart skips a beat. “What if I don’t need rescuing?” I whisper.

  His grunt is a half-laugh. “I have a feeling you’ll always need rescuing.”

  I can’t peel my gaze from his. “I’m changing my ways and taking the safe road from here on out. If you haven’t noticed, I’m going to be a mother.”

  Rack’s gaze slowly travels down to my belly and back up. “The baby will only get you in more trouble.” He dips his head and his mouth is only a millimeter from mine.

  My blood sizzles. “That’s not nice,” I answer breathlessly.

  “No,” his full lips brush mine. “This isn’t nice.”

  He kisses me—puts his lips over mine and makes me gasp into his mouth. He slips his tongue inside without hesitation. His taste and mastery consume me. I’m no virgin to kissing but God, never like this. He adds gentle pressure to my chin and angles my head slightly to the right. The kiss turns from sensual to devouring. I’m completely lost in the touch of our lips and tongues. He grabs my ass with his free hand and hauls me against his body.

  Is this kiss nice? Hell no. It’s deep and dirty. How can he do this with just his mouth? I need oxygen and I don’t think I’ve taken a breath since the kiss began. He pulls back enough to bite at my lips and run his tongue across the places he nips. My eyes are closed but now I open them slowly and come back to the real world. In a bathroom. Rack’s shirt off. His hand on my ass. My very fat belly pressed against him. God. His erection pressing into me.

  “That shouldn’t have happened,” he groans without releasing me or moving his lips away.

  “No, but will you do it again?” I sigh. I don’t care if I sound like I’m begging. I am.

  He smiles with the full dimpled grin I love. His hand leaves my chin and skims down my neck and around my shoulder so his fingers splay across my back. His mouth and tongue take over and everything wrong in my life recedes to the background. I feel like a woman for the first time in months. I move my hands to his hips half on his cargo pants and half on bare skin.

  This man has turned me into an inferno of need.

  I. Want.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Rack

  I’VE NEVER DEVIATED FROM a mission or allowed anyone to sway me from my goals. This woman is different. She’s trouble. It must be all the stories her brother spilled. I remember Nick telling me each escapade in hilarious detail. When she was nine she grabbed a woman’s leg in a convenience store who was shoplifting and refused to let go. She yelled, “Thief, thief,” until the entire shopping public came to see what was happening. When a few years older she stepped in front of a man who was threatening to hit his wife. Nick said she saw no gray in the world and lived for justice. She has the same ethics as my family—good people with a defined line between right and wrong. I can’t have her. She’d never survive my life. Even though she says she’ll kill Angelo, she wouldn’t. Her moral compass is set in stone.

  I break the kiss that I should never have started. She’s breathless, her mouth wet from my lips. She’s so damn sexy…and soft…and desirable. Her flushed cheeks, filled out by the pregnancy, make her more womanly than she appeared the first time I met her. I
t kills me to back away. I want to show her how sexy she is, how turned on I am. Hell, I don’t even know if she can have sex safely. I like it rough and dirty, so to answer my own silent questions: It’s a hell no. And as quick as the thought enters my mind another takes over. For her I could be gentle and fuck her nice and slow. My dick is talking to my brain and my brain is saying hell yes. Unfortunately, I’m the worst thing that could ever happen to her.

  “I’m so fat,” she says when my grip loosens and she realizes the moment is over.

  That’s not what I want to hear from her. I want her to feel desirable even if I can’t have her. “Yeah, so?” I breathe against her mouth.

  Her smile knocks me sideways. “You’re supposed to disagree.”

  “Have you looked in the mirror?”

  She pinches my uninjured side. “I like that you don’t lie to me.”

  Her words pull me from the spell we’re in. She has no idea who I really am. The thought of seeing her hero worship dim when she discovers the truth hurts. “I have more lies buried than you could ever imagine.” I release her and take her small hands off my waist. One of us needs to be strong. “I’ll finish up. I’m taking a shower whether you approve or not.”

  Her gaze turns hard. “No shower.”

  My hand moves to my swollen cock and her eyes follow. “I need…a shower.”

  “Oh,” she whispers, her expressive eyes going wide. “I um, could um…” Her cheeks flush even more.

  I picture her on her knees and my cock down her throat. I hold back a groan. “No, you can’t,” I say sternly and leave no room for misunderstanding. She’s killing me. She steps back and the uncertainty in her expression guts me.

  I close the bathroom door and swear softly into the room so she doesn’t hear me. She has absolutely no idea how sexy she is—swollen belly and all. I turn on the shower and shuck my pants and boxers. I should use cold water to get myself under control. It won’t work. I soap myself up and picture Beth on her knees, her mouth around my cock, eyes peering up at me caught somewhere between innocence and vixen. Fuck but I want her. Telling myself she’s pregnant with another man’s child does nothing to stop the need igniting in my cock. I want to sink into her heat and get lost.

  I’m fucking everything up.

  I groan loudly when I come against the shower wall. I’m beyond worrying if she hears. This is what she’s done to me. When the last drop of cum slides down the shower drain, I gingerly wash my side and then my body. Before leaving the shower, I rub another one out. I’ve got to sleep in the bed across from her all night and this is the only way I’ll survive.

  With a towel around my hips, I leave the bathroom. Beth is asleep. The covers are pushed down and there’s a pillow propped between her legs. Christ, she slays me. As I gaze at her, unable to look away, I realize her back must hurt from carrying the extra weight. She hasn’t complained. She’s like her brother in that. Things could be fuck-all bad and Nick could make everyone around him laugh.

  I need to control myself and focus on the problem at hand. Beth is in danger and that’s where my thoughts should be. I move three handguns to the corner table and pull out a small cleaning kit. When I need to think, the best way to do it is to clean my weapons. I remove the first magazine, expel the round from the chamber, and dismantle the gun. I open the cleaning solvent and breathe in deeply, allowing the smell to put me in the proper head space.

  I need a plan. In her condition, taking her to Mexico and leaving her in a safe house is out of the question. She needs good quality medical care and that alone is tricky. I don’t have the connections Moon and Gomez do, and I can’t obtain a fake ID without their help. We can ditch the Jeep and I can pick up something cheap that Angelo can’t track as easily. That will be step one.

  I push a cloth patch through the barrel and then wipe it down with the rag. I don’t even think about what I’m doing, it’s muscle memory. My life and Beth’s depend on having weapons that work.

  To get her out of the country, somewhere safer than Mexico, she’ll need a passport. Again, not something I can do without help. To be on the safe side, I need to factor in the child’s birth. That gives me two weeks to set her up near a medical facility. We need cash. I have a few thousand on me but it’s not enough. I have slightly over thirty grand in an American bank. Taking out money from my account will tip off Angelo, but I don’t think we can help it.

  I wipe cleaning solvent and oil off my hands and use my phone to search craigslist for a vehicle. I see a few possibilities. After reassembling the Glock, I move to the next handgun. It’s dark outside by the time I’m finished.

  A small moan escapes Beth and she rolls over so she’s facing me. Her eyes slowly open and she blinks a few times. Her soft sleepy eyes are sexy and I’m heading back to the territory I need to avoid. She moves her head and glances at the bedside clock. “I can’t believe how much I’m sleeping,” she says groggily before getting up and heading into the bathroom. She sticks her head out a minute later. “Any chance you bought me something to sleep in?”

  It never occurred to me, and I shake my head. “I have another T-shirt you can use. I did buy you a toothbrush and deodorant.”

  She smiles, walks over to the bags on my bed, sits down, and opens them. I had to guess on sizes and figured too small wouldn’t cut it, so I went a size larger than I thought she might need. She pulls out a pair of those half pant half short things women wear and laughs again. She stands up and slips them on. They have the pregnant belly elastic at the top. They’re big on her and she laughs some more.

  “Sorry about that, I didn’t want to get them too small.”

  “They’re great. Angelo wanted me in tight clothing even though they were uncomfortable.”

  I add another reason to kill the twat.

  “These are baggy but they’ll stay up.” She pulls one of the shirts out of a bag and heads back into the bathroom. She comes out wearing a pink stretch top that shows off her round belly. My eyes travel down to her bare toes. She wiggles them. “My feet are swollen and I don’t think I can get back into my shoes right now.”

  I also didn’t think to buy shoes. “We aren’t going anywhere until morning. Do you have a problem with more pizza for dinner?”

  She looks at the box and I would swear she turns a little green.

  “I can go out and get us something. You name it and it’s yours.”

  She shakes her head. “No, it’s all good. I’m not actually hungry. I haven’t eaten so much since before I met Angelo.”

  She’s giving me the perfect lead-in. “Why don’t you sit down and tell me how you got involved with Angelo Gimonde.”

  She gives me sad puppy dog eyes but it won’t work. “Just saying I was stupid won’t cut it?”

  I shake my head and use my foot to push out the chair across from me. I place the cleaning items away, reload the last gun, and look expectantly at Beth.

  “Fine,” she says like a child, which is actually pretty damn cute. She takes a minute to rub her lower back before sitting down and placing her elbows on the table. She rests her chin in her hands. “You remember Kevin?”

  With her brother cussing out the man from day one and meeting the worm in person the first time I met Beth, I doubt I’ll ever forget him. “Yes,” I grunt.

  “I should have listened to my brother. Kevin is a certified turd.” She stands up, walks over to the bottles of water on the floor next to her bed, and removes two from the plastic securing them. She hands me one and then takes a seat again. “You didn’t meet Sheila. She was my bestie from college. I don’t have a lot of friends, and I asked her to be my maid of honor.” Beth’s expression turns hard even though she’s doing her best to keep the conversation light. “She flew in from New York the day before the wedding. The third and final date of our wedding. When I met you, it was right before the first date we set.” She looks around the room for a minute before continuing. “Kevin took us out to dinner so he could get to know her. He couldn’t take
his eyes off her. That’s a normal reaction from men when it comes to Sheila, so I didn’t think much of it. We did a little dancing and I still didn’t connect the dots when they danced a few slow songs and talked the entire time.” She takes a drink and gathers herself. I know exactly where this is going and I’m gritting my teeth. “Kevin dropped us at my apartment and we went upstairs to have a girl’s all-night talking marathon before the wedding. Around two in the morning, Sheila received a text message and asked if I would be hurt if she met up with a hot guy she met at the dance club. What could I say?” Beth sucks in a long steady breath. “I’m not stupid. I laid in bed and put two and two together. I hoped I was being paranoid the entire time I drove to Kevin’s place. I had a key and let myself in.” She gazes down at her clenched hands. “My best friend and my fiancé were doing the dirty on the living room floor. They couldn’t even wait to get to the bed.” She wipes tears from her eyes and I would strangle the fucktard if he were here right now.

  “He’s a twat,” I state emphatically.

  I receive a soft smile. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  She shrugs. “For not offering me your pity. He is a twat and I’m glad I didn’t marry him. The only problem was the giant hole in my heart. Angelo stepped in at just the right time and filled it. He wined and dined me. Said he was a businessman taking a break from the real world. My heart was ripped to shreds, and, like an idiot, I fell for every line of crap Angelo gave me. My brother would have seen through Angelo immediately. Hell, a child could have seen through him.” The tears flow faster and I push my chair out so I can stand up and pull her against my chest. I freeze when she places her hand toward me palm out. “Let me finish. I never cried this much before I got pregnant and admitting my stupidity isn’t fun.” She sniffs and continues after I sit down again. “Angelo was perfect in every way. Too perfect. He gave me expensive jewelry. He told me the world was our playground and he wanted me by his side.” She shakes her head subtly at the memories. “He had bodyguards and I never questioned why. He wasn’t a celebrity but I had stars in my eyes. Someone rich and successful wanted me. By the time I realized things were not as they seemed, I discovered I was pregnant. I told Angelo and he was ecstatic. He planned for me to meet his family. The niggling doubts remained, but I was going to meet his family in Chicago and we would announce our engagement and follow that with a quick wedding. He wouldn’t listen to my reservations. I don’t know why I didn’t check into him in the beginning. I only did it after overhearing his bodyguards discussing me and how the baby would put Angelo back in his father’s good graces. My Internet search told me enough that I knew I could never marry him.” She lifts trembling fingers to her cheeks. “That was the first time Angelo hit me. He forced me into his car and took me to his house.”