Among the Flames (Kisses and Crimes Book 3)

by Natalie E. Wrye

  She scoffed, wiping angrily at her face, wincing when the hand makes contact.

  “My only sibling is in jail, and my mother is gone. I have no one.”

  She turned to walk out of the open door, and I grabbed her.

  I didn’t even mean to reach out, but the second Sienna started to walk away, my hand shot outward, grabbing her. She stumbled on her feet, reaching her hands out for balance and finding my arms. She held onto them with shaky fingers, breathing as hard as I was by the time she looked up and into my face.

  I swallowed roughly, my voice rasping with sudden emotion.

  I felt… God, I don’t know what the fuck I felt… But whatever it was, it felt good as hell to me. If not frightening as fuck.

  “If you’re going to leave, then I will let you go… but not before I set a couple of things straight…” I inhaled. “I didn’t lie. Not about Fletcher’s daughter. We are saving her from the Gafanellis. When we do, we can nail the bastards to the wall if we want to. That fucking group of miscreants deserves people like the senator, and if we want to do a little ‘wrong,’ we have to do it better than them. I can teach you how. Most of which,” I smirked, “you picked up already, but what’s left, I will show you. I’ll string the bastards up by their heels, put their heads on a spike and parade them around as prizes, Game of Thrones-style, if you fucking wanted.”

  I moved closer.

  “And lastly… on the subject of games. Santiago…” Her head lowered, and I grabbed her chin. “Look at me.”

  I took her hand so that I can rub the palm of it against my pants, so that she could feel me. All of me. Harder than stone. Sienna’s lower lip started to quiver.

  “Playtime is over. Does this feel like a toy to you?” She shuddered and I kept going. “No more games, Sienna. Not if we’re going to really do this. Not anymore…” I finished.

  She nodded, looking into my eyes, and I wanted to be there. To drown in her rich brown depths and never come out. To drag her into my world and keep her there.

  Though I knew it was impossible…

  I’d never hold onto her after tonight. But I could damn sure try. I glared into her gaze.

  “And you do have something, someone to be there.”

  Her eyebrows knitted. “Who?”

  I looked down at her lips. “Me.” And then I took them, claiming them for my own. This time there was nothing shy about her response, nothing held back. She wrapped her hands around to my shoulder blades, pressing, and when she did, I lowered myself onto her to take more of her kiss, to taste the flavor that was her. Nothing but pure passion, a hint of cherry and all the spice and flavor that made her the most frustrating woman I had ever met… and the fiercest.

  She tasted like a bottled hurricane. Champagne still on her tongue, minty lip balm on her mouth, I tried to sample every nuance that was Sienna, leaning into lap up her kiss, stroking my tongue along hers just to get another sample.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  Ravenous in a way I’d never been, I dropped to my knees, frantic. She gasped as I put my hands onto the hem of her rumpled dress, pushing. I pulled her black panties down her legs, and when they were to her ankles, I left them there, slanting Sienna’s body against the wall, grabbing the bottom of her ass so that I could put her slickened pussy right where I wanted it.

  Right on my mouth.

  I plunged my tongue between her thighs. As soon as she squirmed, I ripped the panties from around her feet, throwing them. I placed the back of one knee over my shoulder, opening her to me, marveling at the ferocity of my appetite, my suddenly prejudiced palate that could only be satisfied by one particular taste.

  Hers.

  I devoured Sienna with my tongue. Probing. Panting. Plunging.

  I licked her from end to end, swirling the tip of my tongue around her clit, letting my fingers join the fray as I entered two into her sex slowly, pumping my hands to the rhythm of her steady rocking.

  With shaking fingers, she held on tightly to the back of my head, a cry releasing from her lips. Her hips bucked in front of my face, and as I picked up the pace, pulsing the pads of my fingers between her folds, she murmured sweet words of phony protest—words that made me want to drop trou, pick her up off the floor and plant myself inside her to the very hilt.

  But first… I had a job to do.

  With the soft sound of the words “No” and “Oh God” falling from Sienna’s mouth, I sought to pull out of her the word I really wanted.

  I stopped just long enough to say her name. “Sienna…”

  She panted loudly. “Yes…”

  “Do you want me to show you how you taste? How sweet you are?” I lapped her with my mouth and she groaned. “How much I love fucking you with my tongue? How much you love it?”

  Finally, I took my tongue, dipping into her wetness, drawing it out and sucking on her sex until her steady knee buckled as she slumped against me.

  I held her with my hands while she came.

  She cried out in ecstasy. I nuzzled my nose along her clit, and while her orgasm released in spasms, I drank her pussy dry, taking my fill. My tongue was bursting with her savory traces, and before she could moan my name, I stood to my feet, grabbed her in my arms and shared the taste with her, melding our mouths, touching her lips with mine so that she could lick her own body’s faintly sweet flavor.

  Her groan vibrated between us, and I went for my belt buckle. Flipping it open, I popped my pants top button, unzipping the fly. Releasing my hardened cock from the opening, I slid it between Sienna’s slickened thighs. She gasped out loud, and it was all I needed.

  Lifting her, I ran my hands along her hips and under her thighs. I crushed her beautiful breasts into my chest and, with one quick hand, reached into the pocket of my pants, pulling out the condom sitting there and sheathing myself with it. In one thrust, I let her pussy sink onto my cock, soaking me. Sienna came again—hard and fast, and as she whimpered in my arms, I pounded into her body with a frenzy, needing her to come again, never wanting her sweet releases to end as long as there was still breath in my body.

  Fuck, nothing—no one—had ever felt this good. And as I tightened my hold, bouncing her body along the wall, Sienna came alive once more, her moans reaching my ears as she bit the dip along my neck, stemming a scream.

  I drew in and out of her over and over again, listening to the ridiculously sexy sound of our lovemaking, and as I felt her sex tighten over mine, I growled into her ear, making sure she heard me, making sure she heeded every single last word.

  “I’m not going to make you say my name, Sienna.” I stroked hard. “I’m going to make you scream it. You’re going to remember this forever. You’re going to still feel me fucking you when you go to sleep at night. You’re going to recognize this for what it always was…”

  I kissed her swollen lips, turning her face.

  “Fate.”

  I lowered my thumb. Placing it below her ass, I brushed it along the opening between her cheeks. Still pounding, I picked up speed. Her wetness spread between us, and as Sienna panted in God’s name, I sought to replace it with mine just one time. I slid my digit along the sensitive area, and right before I could feel her climaxing, I slipped the thumb inside, pulsing the pad of it inside her puckered opening.

  Her body exploded. She sobbed the word “Gio” more than screamed it, and as I felt her heart threaten to beat its way from beneath her breast, I felt her tears. Hot thick ones. They ran down her face in rivets of release as her body started to finally calm down, her plush-feeling pussy clenching and unclenching the length of me with slowing regularity.

  And I was still hard.

  I didn’t know what this woman was doing to me, but I knew I never wanted it to stop. For all intents and purposes, Sienna Santiago was mine.

  Tonight cemented it.

  I didn’t care who she was or what I was supposed to do. Job be damned. I’d missed my deadline tonight, but it didn’t matter.

  I’d risk life and li
mb for one more hour inside of this woman.

  The statement would have seemed so exaggerated… if that wasn’t exactly what I had just done…

  Between the Cheats

  SIENNA

  I woke up naked.

  And to fifty-seven missed calls.

  My limbs were sore. Inner thighs aching, I tried to sit in an upright position, digging my fingers into the plush dark rug beneath my body. I turned to look at him.

  Gio and I never made it to the bed last night. We made love deep into the dawn. The sun started to break on the horizon when we finally found the strength to stop, and even then, while we were sapped, drained of energy, we explored each other’s bodies with our fingers, not finding the will to stop.

  He was beautiful, laying there beside me. The cream-colored blanket from the couch barely covered his tall, toned body, and as I pulled the coverlet to my own, I marveled at the amount of emotion I felt for him, the intensity of the adoration I had allowed myself to feel.

  Giovanni DeSalt was an unexpected surprise.

  He was strong, seductive—yeah. But there was a tenderness to him, a softened strength. I was so willing to draw a line in the sand between us that it never occurred to me that those lines in the sand are rarely permanent. They’re often washed away, eroded. The boundary between my misconceptions of “good” and “bad” were blurred, and I began to realize that maybe the best way to live was to find balance between both.

  Maybe Giovanni and I belonged in those grey areas. We didn’t seem to fit in anywhere else.

  I looked at my phone. And maybe, just maybe, it was all for the best: When you don’t belong in one world, and you can’t imagine being part of another, you don’t have to try to mold yourself into what you think you should be; you can just create your own.

  And we had.

  I was the good girl turned bad, and he was the redeemed villain. We were a messy perfection, and I silently loved it. I touched Gio’s face with tentative fingers.

  “Are you just going to keep staring?” he said, surprising me. “Or are you going to say ‘good morning’?

  I kept my fingers on his face. “Good morning.” He smiled. The stubble on his chin had grown in. His discarded disguise was still in the car we’d taken home. I almost forgot what it was like to see his face, his true features, and for the first time, I was able to openly appreciate his gorgeousness.

  Gio needed no mask. It was funny. Because he was the man that showed me that I didn’t need one, either.

  He sat up. He looked around the expanse of his space, his condo. When his eyes returned to mine, his small smile had faded. His green eyes were intense and serious.

  “I left Grimm and Jess hanging.”

  I touched his arm. “I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

  “Yeah… but we won’t be. I’ve kept this place secret for a while now, but it won’t remain that way. We need to get dressed and get out of here. We’ll pick up food along the way. Grimm can only hold my pilot for so long before he picks up other jobs.”

  I blinked, balking. “Wait… what?”

  Gio stood to his feet. “Come on.”

  I wobbled to my own. “I don’t get it…” I called to his back. “You’re still taking me to New York?” He reached over, placing my discarded dress from last night in my outstretched hands. He met my eye. “Yes.” He turned, and I watched him go.

  Gio hustled around the apartment, still gloriously naked. Regret was etched on his stalwart face, and the second he reached for his suitcase, I knew what was being done. It looked like Gio’s “mask” was back.

  I slipped the dress over my head, pulling.

  “I get it,” I said to him. “Last night meant nothing to you. You wanted to fuck me; you did. Congratulations. You’re the only man I know to screw me in multiple ways.”

  I started to storm out when Gio grabbed me, his stare hot.

  “Yes, Sienna.” He used my first name instead of last. “I am taking you to New York, but only to pick up what’s left of your shit. As soon as we do, you and I are out of there.” He trailed his hands along my arms, leaning in. “And then we can go wherever we want to.” He kissed me softly, drawing back, and I wanted to wrap myself around and perform an immediate repeat of last night. I gazed into his hooded, lime eyes.

  “Why do we have to go anywhere? So, the deal is off. So what? It was a deal you made yourself. You could cancel it anytime.”

  “No,” he glared hard at me. “I can’t. I have clients, Sienna. And this one in particular is not going to be happy to be out of twenty million dollars. I promised to deliver.” He put his hand underneath of my chin and stroked it. “I didn’t.”

  He went to packing, wrapping things up and setting them aside.

  “It feels like we’re running,” I declared softly.

  Gio never turned. “That’s ‘cause we are.” I looked down at my abandoned high heels. “Speaking of which, I’ll get you some new shoes along the way. Better ones. You’re going to need something way more comfortable than those today…”

  ***

  GIOVANNI

  I never wanted for anything, never knew a need like this.

  I felt hot, warm all over. Storm clouds rolled in overnight, making the morning darker than it’d ever been. The breeze from the surrounding Potomac river was cool, but it had done nothing to soothe the heat, to salve the burn that was currently baking on the surface of my overheated body.

  I knew it was because of her.

  From the moment I met her, from the second I got a glimpse of her sexy smile, Sienna Santiago had somehow branded herself on my skin, scarring me in the most delectable way possible.

  I couldn’t carve her out, couldn’t undo what’d been done. I didn’t want to… especially after last night, but somehow it felt as if the separation between us would be inevitable. I knew that she’d be taken away from me, one way or another.

  I was prolonging the inevitable.

  I closed the door on my condo with a thud. With my special suitcase and Sienna in tow, I rushed into the back of a black Navigator twenty minutes after Sienna and I had woken up with Grimm at the wheel. Jessica was still waiting on stand-by. Luckily, my pilot hadn’t pulled off yet, and as Sienna and I piled ourselves and what few belongings we carried with us—Mayo, notwithstanding—I held her hand in mine, refusing to let go.

  Her smell interlocked with mine, and as I pulled her into the backseat beside me, I could still smell the remnants of sex on her skin, the erotic imprint that I left on her body.

  Her eyes were wide when she looked at me, strapping into her seatbelt, saddling up. I knew she was scared, and this time she let herself show it—let herself show the emotion she’d hidden from me before, when we were both wearing masks, pretending and putting on a front.

  For once, I was grateful for the initial front, that role as Jeff DeSantos, amateur PI-wannabe under Jackson Reed. Because somewhere down the line, pretending to be in the skin of some schmuck, I’d found somebody worth being someone else for.

  She was worth every bit of the wait.

  I tapped the back of Grimm’s front seat, and he pulled off from my condo’s curb, barreling down the road. I knew he wouldn’t stop until we hit the airfield.

  I placed our intertwined hands in my lap, feeling Sienna’s slightly shake.

  “I don’t understand,” she turned to me, whispering. “These people will kill you if you don’t go through with this… this assignment?”

  I shook my head. “Honestly… I don’t know. I’ve never said no to them before. I don’t know what the consequence is for not seeing a case through. I never have before.”

  Sienna’s brown eyes fluttered closed. She sank her head of wild wavy hair at the meeting of my chest and shoulder, and as I moved into this top of her hair, the seats beneath us slammed forward.

  Both of our heads whiplashed, flying off of the headrests. I felt the back of our black Navigator shudder. What the fuck?

  I spun around… to find a dar
k Navy Escalade on our ass, its grill somewhat smashed in. The truck was following too closely when I realized that this was no normal accident.

  The three-ton vehicle had hit us on purpose—a vehicle that someone was using as a battering ram. I rotated towards Grimm, gripping Sienna tighter. I yelled towards the front set of seats.

  “Drive!”

  Grimm floored it. And we began to weave through traffic.

  The Sunday morning church and brunch crowds were thick throughout the district streets. Cars lined up outside of eateries and Episcopalian worship homes as we sped by, cutting a path through the city like the carving of a wedding cake. Except there was nothing celebratory about this descent into Hell.

  The devil had come to collect his due, and since I had made a deal with him, it was the people I dared to care for most, Sienna and my many-time savior, Grimm, that would meet the consequences of my decision.

  Six months ago, this type of fear was a vulnerability that I never would have exposed, but things were different now. I was different, and I was prepared to risk it all for the one woman who changed me.

  I glared at the wheel.

  “Grimm… let me have it.”

  He barely glanced back. “Sir.”

  “Grimm…” The sound of a speeding horn drowned out everything I was getting ready to say. White and wide, a moving truck had moved into our path. Two hands gripping the steering wheel tight, Grimm swerved to miss the large truck maneuvering out of a driveway, and a barrage of crashes filled the air like a clumsy symphony, following in our wake. The white moving truck collided with a taxi almost directly behind us. Bumper met bumper, steel met steel, and as our giant Navigator tore away from the scene at blinding speeds, we all noticed that the Navigator had not let up, dodging the melee behind us just as deftly as Grimm had, its trajectory steady, its wheels peeling in our direction to catch up as the driver of the blue burly vehicle kicked the gear into overdrive.

  I knew we’d be overtaken.