Burn For You: Into The Fire Series

by J. H. Croix

  Our breath slowed in unison, and I managed to finally get enough oxygen to think. With his arm around my back, one palm cupping my bottom and the other sifting through my hair, I told myself I needed to move. But I didn’t want to.

  This all felt too good. I hadn’t expected losing my virginity to carry this much weight. I wanted to wrap myself in Nate and ignore the world. But I couldn’t. I needed to keep the boundaries clear, for myself as much as for him.

  Steeling myself, I lifted my head, resting my chin on my hand. Nate’s eyes opened. I would’ve given just about anything to know what he was thinking. As long as I had known him, he’d never been that easy to read. At least, not beyond what he showed the world. There was Nate the tease, the flirt who everybody knew. Just now, though, looking into his gaze, I had no idea what he was thinking. His hand stilled for a moment in my hair and then he lifted it, brushing another tangled lock off my forehead.

  This was all too much, too much of what I wanted. I forced myself to move. Rising up, I looked down, realizing I was straddling him. When my hips shifted, I felt his cock swell inside of me. His mouth kicked up at the corner. “Don’t do that,” he murmured.

  I hadn’t meant to, I wasn’t purposefully teasing, but my hips moved on their own, rocking slightly. No matter what I told myself, my body knew what I wanted, or rather who—Nate. It didn’t seem to matter that he’d just sent me flying not once, but twice.

  “You figuring out how to chase me out?” he asked.

  He promptly pissed me off. Not that I was about to let him know. It chafed to realize how well and how easily he could read me. Because he was right. The moment the wheels in my brain had started to spin, I was wondering how to gracefully chase him out of my apartment.

  Not because I actually wanted to. No, rather because I wanted him to stay. Far too much. And it scared the hell out of me.

  Mustering my composure, I rolled my eyes. “No, I wasn’t going to chase you out.”

  If he knew I was lying, he let it slide. A sense of self-consciousness rose within. I hadn’t wanted my virginity to be a thing. Yet, here I was, with that burden finally gone, and I was with Nate. I’d known him forever, and he was one of the very few people who knew that little secret.

  I didn’t know how to be nonchalant about untangling myself from him. He saved me from having to sort that one out. Whether it was because he sensed my uncertainty, or simply convenient timing, he shifted slightly, lifting me as he slid out. For a flash, I felt bereft, instantly missing the point of joining.

  He rolled slightly, slipping out from underneath me and standing. When I looked up at him in the dim light, my breath caught. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t seen Nate shirtless before. He was my twin brother’s best friend, after all. He’d spent many a night at our house in high school, both of them lounging around in sweatpants and no shirts at least half the time.

  But that was before the switch had been flipped in my body. Now, I couldn’t look at him and not feel an answering ping inside my own body. He held his hand out. I must’ve stared at him blankly because his mouth curled up in that one corner.

  “Shower,” he said, as if that made perfect sense.

  I wasn’t thinking very much just now. It was easier not to. Placing my hand in his, there was a little jolt of heat, a zing of electricity at the point of contact. He curled his hand around mine, giving a gentle tug, his grip warm and strong.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Holly

  I came awake when I heard a soft rustling in the bedroom. I must’ve made a sound, because I heard Nate’s voice. Stepping to the side of the bed, he leaned over, his lips dusting across mine. Instantly, I wanted to tug him to me and tumble into the very same madness I’d lost myself in last night.

  “Gotta go,” he said, his voice a gruff whisper.

  I’d completely and utterly failed in my intent to not fall asleep with him last night. After he challenged me by expecting me to chase him off, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I didn’t want to prove him right. Even more, I didn’t want him to leave.

  I vaguely remembered that he had mentioned he had to leave early this morning to fly a group of backcountry skiers out to a lodge. He wouldn’t be returning for three days.

  “Oh, right,” I replied, shifting up in bed. The covers rumpled around my waist as I slid up on the pillows. Brushing my tangled hair back from my face, I looked up at him. “Do you need some coffee?”

  “You don’t need to get up on my account, and you need to cover up,” he said with a low chuckle.

  With the light from the bathroom cast across the room, I saw his eyes flick down to my bare breasts. My nipples tightened in response. Before I could form a thought, he dipped his head and caught one of my nipples in his lips with a quick swirl of his tongue and a light graze of his teeth. Just like that, my sex clenched, an ache building between my thighs.

  He stepped back swiftly. Restless, I kicked the sheets off and grabbed my robe draped on a chair beside the bed. I walked past him. “I get up early anyway. I have to be at the hospital in two hours. I’ll make you coffee before you go. Do you have time?” I called over my shoulder as I strode quickly out of the bedroom into the kitchen and flicked on a light.

  It was six thirty a.m. The sun would rise in roughly an hour and a half or so.

  “I have time. You don’t…” His words trailed off when I glanced back at him and shook my head as I tightened the sash on my robe.

  I needed something to do. I sure as hell didn’t want to lie in bed lusting after Nate. He chuckled as he slipped onto a stool by the counter. “If you insist. I’ve got about a half hour.”

  “Perfect. Enough time for me to make coffee and some food for you.”

  “You don’t…” He laughed this time when I sent a pointed glare in his direction.

  “You need breakfast. Janet’s scones are delicious, but she doesn’t start serving actual breakfast for another hour. I’ll have an egg sandwich ready for you inside of ten minutes.”

  I started the coffee quickly, not wanting to dwell on the fact that I happened to know Nate loved egg sandwiches. He’d always asked my mother to make them whenever he spent the night with my brother when we were growing up. After I started the coffee, I pulled out the bread and cracked the eggs, pouring them into a small pan. I met my self-imposed ten-minute deadline with a minute to spare.

  After sliding his coffee across the counter, I flipped his sandwich onto a plate with a spatula and handed it over. “Oh wait, hot sauce,” I said. Spinning back, I reached into my cabinet and pulled out his favorite hot sauce. Lifting the top slice of bread, I sprinkled a few drops on the eggs.

  He took a sip of his coffee and let out a sigh. “This is perfect.”

  I poured my own cup of coffee and hooked my foot around a stool to the side of the counter. Tugging it closer, I shimmied my hips on it and sipped my coffee while he ate.

  I didn’t quite know what to think about any of this. Last night had been… well, it had been far more than I had expected. Losing my virginity itself wasn’t what had struck me at my core. Rather, it was the unexpected intimacy. Somehow, I doubted that feeling was simply lust, no matter how much I wanted to talk myself into the idea that it was.

  Nate ate quietly, his eyes occasionally flicking to me. Otherwise, we sat in companionable silence. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t had breakfast with Nate before. In fact, I had many times. Alex was a late morning sleeper, in contrast to Nate and me. My mother used to make us breakfast whenever Nate spent the night, and Alex would usually come straggling in much later.

  This brief, mundane interaction felt both familiar and entirely new. The factor thrown into the mix that changed the dynamics was the fact that I’d now been more intimate with Nate than any man before. Restless, I took a gulp of my coffee and stood from the counter, again tightening my robe. I was nervous, and I knew it.

  Busying myself, I put the single pan I had used to make his egg sandwich in the sink and quickly washed it, also ta
king a moment to top off my coffee. When I turned back, I leaned my hips on the counter, gripping my coffee in one hand and curling the other around the ledge.

  My eyes soaked up the sight of Nate. With his hair damp from the shower, he was so damn handsome. He had short, straight brown hair that fell in a shaggy cut around his ears and over his forehead. I wanted to step to him and run my fingers through it, and lose myself in his mouth again. He had full, sensual lips. His features were on the sharp side with distinct brows and angled cheekbones, the contrast making his lips all the more decadent.

  My pulse lunged the moment he pushed his plate away and looked up. Oh geez. There’d been a reason I’d been doing my damnedest to avoid close encounters with Nate. My body went haywire every time I got close to him.

  Now that I knew with every inch of my body what it felt like to have him tangled up with me, buried to the hilt inside of me, it was worse, definitely worse.

  “Thanks,” he said. “That was delicious.” His eyes flicked above my head to the clock above the stove. “I’ve gotta get going. Need to make it to the hangar in time to get everything ready for the flight.”

  He stood, rounding the counter and quickly draining his coffee before setting his mug and plate in the sink. I kept telling my body to move, but I stayed right where I was. The urge to be close to him overrode every ounce of common sense. But then lately, my common sense had gone running when it came to Nate. I was gripping my coffee mug as if my life depended on it. Perhaps, if I held on tight enough, I would be able to resist the urge to touch him.

  He wore a faded pair of jeans that caressed his muscled legs, with a white T-shirt and a worn, blue flannel shirt hanging open. His layers weren’t doing a damn thing to hide his muscled chest and how well he filled out his clothes. I’d seen him dressed like this far more times than I could count, and yet my eyes soaked up the sight of him greedily, hungering to touch him.

  Now came the really awkward part. He would leave, and maybe, just maybe, I could get my sanity back. Nate, once again, blew my expectations out of the water. He rested a hand on either side of me on the counter, caging me in between his arms, a gleam in his eyes when he met my gaze.

  “So.”

  “So, what?” I countered, trying to ignore the way my pulse took off at a gallop the moment he got this close to me.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t chase me out this morning,” he murmured, that teasing, taunting look in his eyes amping me up.

  I felt my cheeks heat and ignored it, willing my body to stand down. It ignored me entirely, my pulse galloping even faster and heat blooming from my core outward.

  “I wasn’t going to chase you out,” I finally retorted, hating how easily he got under my skin.

  “What now?” he asked, moving right along.

  Now that was a question that had been spinning through my thoughts ever since I’d woken up and my brain had kicked into gear.

  I needed to play this casual, for myself as much for him. I already knew I had tumbled into the danger zone when it came to Nate. I knew him too well, and I knew he didn’t do serious, so I couldn’t hope for anything more. But I wasn’t about to let him see my vulnerability.

  “I think now you go to work. I’m sure I’ll see you around when you get back.”

  Nate’s eyes narrowed, the teasing glint fading quickly. Good. I could deal with him being annoyed with me. To my chagrin, he didn’t even argue the point.

  In a hot second, his lips were on mine, his tongue sweeping into my mouth as I gasped. In all of two seconds, he crowded against me, pulling me close, his hand sliding down my spine to cup my ass as he rocked his arousal into me.

  It was over before I could even form a thought. Then, he was stepping back, his gaze dark. At the look in his eyes, my lower belly clenched, and I became acutely aware of the slick heat of my desire between my thighs.

  “Oh, you’ll see me when I get back. This isn’t close to over,” he said. At that, he spun on his heel and strolled out, grabbing his jacket off the hook by the door and leaving with a wink and a grin.

  The moment the door clicked shut behind him, I waited, listening to hear his footsteps treading down the stairs outside. With my heart thundering, I was hot, so hot and bothered, it made me angry.

  As soon as I heard his engine start in the darkness, I hurried over and locked the door behind him, as if that would shield me from my own reaction to him.

  Moments later, I was in the shower, the hot water cascading down around me, my mind replaying everything that happened last night. We had only had actual sex once. But that hadn’t stopped me from waking him again during the night. When I had shifted against him, he murmured my name. Next thing I knew, his hands were mapping my body, and he buried his face between my legs and sent me flying again before rising above me, fisting his cock as he came all over my belly.

  I blushed just thinking about it, and found myself stepping out of the shower and hunting down my favorite vibrator to bring myself to a fierce and almost instantaneous climax.

  I was in trouble, deep trouble.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Nate

  Angling the plane in the sky, I looked ahead out over the mountain range spread before us. Alaska was stunning in any season, but winter illuminated its raw beauty. Snow-capped mountains rose in the distance, bright and almost blinding white against the blue sky. The low rumble of the plane’s engine made chatter largely impractical while flying. With my headphones on, I could hear occasional comments from the group I was flying, but was otherwise left to my own devices.

  For the most part, I preferred it that way. I was by no means a shy guy. I freely admitted to being a tease and flirt, yet I loved flying for the sense of peace it brought me. The focus of flying above the sheer beauty of Alaska quieted me. It was one of the reasons I’d fallen in love with flying. My father had gotten his private pilot’s license while he was working as an engineer on the Alaskan Pipeline back during its construction. I’d loved going on short flights with him when I was a kid when he took me out in his friend’s plane.

  The group I was ferrying today was going out to a remote lodge for some backcountry skiing. They were what I considered hardcore wilderness tourists around here. They tended to take themselves far more seriously than most Alaskans would. When you lived in Alaska, the wilderness was your backyard with a few exceptions, such as the urban areas of Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau. Even then, the streets had moose meandering along them and the wilderness was minutes away.

  I didn’t feel the need to fly out into the middle of freakin’ nowhere to do some backcountry skiing, but adventurers like this wanted to be able to mark it off on their imaginary bucket list. I didn’t mean to sound insulting, but I suppose I didn’t quite understand why they didn’t just live somewhere where the wilderness could be part of their daily life.

  I wasn’t complaining, though. Trips like this were my bread and butter. My flight schedule was varied with scheduled trips such as this, regular flights where I transported mail, supplies, and passengers out to the array of rural villages scattered across the Alaskan landscape, and then my work for hotshot firefighting crews during the summers. I’d make more this weekend than I would for several of the other jobs. People paid a high price to get themselves out exactly where they wanted to be.

  Sometimes I returned home in between flights. This trip was just enough of a distance that I was hunkering down at the lodge for the long weekend before I flew the group back to civilization.

  The peace I sought from flying was a bit challenging to come by today. Holly filled every corner of my thoughts. Last night had been… I didn’t have words to describe it. There was fantasy, and then there was what happened when reality trumped fantasy. I’d had a tease of Holly before last night and knew the chemistry that caught fire between us was damn near close to an inferno. Yet, actually getting skin-to-skin with her and burying myself inside of her, well, it was safe to say she had permanently ruined me for any other woman.
Ever.

  I shoved my thoughts away from her when a glint of light reflected in the distance. There was a lake nestled in a valley up ahead where a high-end ski lodge was situated. The term “ski lodge” was used loosely here. By no means was this a place where they had chairlifts that carried skiers up a mountainside to ski down. Beyond the lodge itself, there was nothing here aside from wilderness, as far as the eye could see. The lodge was a high-end tricked out wilderness lodge with a few groomed cross-country ski trails nearby, and then miles upon miles of snow and mountains for free skiing.

  I’d be landing my plane on the frozen lake. It served as a runway during the winter and summer. In the summer, I used my float plane, while in the winter, the snow-covered lake made for a smooth landing. I called in to report my status to air traffic control and then shifted the microphone away from my mouth to let the group know we’d be landing within a few minutes.

  We were in my eight-seater plane, the largest one I flew. It was filled to capacity with this group—three couples and a friend. The friend in question happened to be a woman who had already tried to flirt with me. Under any other circumstances, I would have been happy to play along. She was gorgeous and funny. But if I thought I’d been out of whack after my kiss with Holly last October at the fundraiser, I was fucking screwed now.

  Within minutes, I was easing the plane down on the icy lake, the snow blowing up around us as I landed. The weather had been near perfect today. On clear days, the wind could kick up. Today, we’d been blessed with a clear sky and almost no wind, which was a damn miracle in the winter in Alaska. Once we were on the ground—or the icy lake, rather—I helped everybody unload, and drove the plane over to the dock. The group began trekking through the snow to the lodge as I remained behind to tie down the plane.