Playing with Fire

by Lexi Ryan

  A gift to help me sleep with Max. This does not sound good. But, hell, they could have bought me a toad and I’d still be touched to get a present.

  I part the white tissue paper to peek inside. “Lingerie?”

  “Great lingerie,” Krystal says. “The best. It’s from this boutique north of Indy. Their selection is to die for.”

  Liz nods. “The best.”

  “I’m not much of a lingerie girl,” I admit.

  “That’s what you think, but you need to try this stuff. It’s amazing. You’ll never want to sleep in anything else.”

  I put the bag by my purse and smile at my friends. It’s kind of adorable that they think teaching me seduction could be as simple as giving me the right sleepwear.

  “Thank you,” I say. “I can’t wait to try it. Tell me what you bought for yourselves.”

  I sip my drink while the girls regale me with tales of bargains and pushy salespeople and the cute but way-too-young guy at the shoe store who had a thing for Krystal.

  As they talk and laugh, I keep thinking of Cally’s words to me: “You are not your past. You are bigger than your past and you are better than your past. Let it be part of who you’ve become, but don’t you dare let it define you.”

  Maybe she’s right. Maybe I’m running from ghosts when what I really need to do is appreciate the life I have. I haven’t felt like I was being followed for over a week, and haven’t gotten any more creepy text messages.

  My phone buzzes halfway through Krystal’s description of the shoes she loved but didn’t buy, because she was afraid it would give the too-young guy the wrong message.

  Max: Should I expect you tonight?

  Those words send a shimmy through my belly.

  Nix: Don’t wait up. I’ll see you in the morning.

  When I slide my phone back into my purse, the girls are staring at me. “What?”

  “Was that Max?” Liz asks.

  I give what I hope is a mysterious smile.

  “Should we let you go?” Krystal asks, her brows wriggling suggestively.

  “Umm,” I say, then sigh. “Yeah, if you wouldn’t mind?”

  “Have fun!” the girls chorus as I leave.

  “Let loose,” Krystal advises.

  “Use the gift,” Lizzy adds.

  ***

  Nix

  I roll over in bed and stare at the beam of moonlight coming in the window.

  When I arrived at Max’s tonight, he was already in his room. He was probably in bed flipping through the latest thriller spy novel, but I didn’t want to disrupt him, so I came to bed.

  The house is quiet but my mind is chaotic with noise.

  I roll to my other side, giving the window my back, and stare at the nightlight that appeared in my room sometime last week. Max found out I’m afraid of the dark and bought me a nightlight. He found out I was afraid of falling for him, and he’s giving me time.

  Damn.

  He has so much to offer, and I don’t just want to accept it. I want to gobble it up like a starved woman offered a six-course meal.

  My eyes float closed and my mind conjures images from the last time I was in his bed. The feel of his arm wrapped around me. His breath against my neck. But hot on the heels of those images are older memories—ones from an old life where women aren’t supposed to feel the things Max makes me feel, where I was sneered at for wanting things that are only supposed to matter to men. Where all my physical contact was a dirty secret.

  This time, I roll onto my stomach and scream into my pillow. I want Max, but more than that, I want the past out of my head. Everything has been good. For whatever reason, whoever was sending the texts, making the calls, they stopped. But not before they scared me away from living my own life.

  I want . . . to seize. To take charge of my life and my happiness rather than handing it over to someone who may or may not be after me.

  Suddenly, the choice seems so simple, and I hop out of bed. I’m halfway to the door when I stop and look down at myself. I’m wearing shorts and a scrappy old gray T-shirt that I wore to the gym until the neck ripped. Because nothing says “seduction” like pit stains.

  If I wanted to prove Max was right about me being a tomboy, wearing this to his bed would be the way to do it.

  “Fuck.” I grab the gift bag from the girls and rush into the bathroom, my stomach twisting with nerves.

  A quick look in the mirror shows my ponytail is askew—flat on one side and falling out on the other. The puffy sleep-deprivation bags under my eyes would make me look demented if my smeared mascara weren’t already beating it to the punch.

  I grab a clean washcloth from the cabinet and run the water hot. Then I scrub my face clean and pull the gift from its bag.

  I have to give them credit. It’s no frilly thing that would make me feel ridiculous. I could imagine Hanna or Liz wearing lacy lingerie and rocking it, but I’d just feel like I was trying too hard. I wouldn’t say there’s any lingerie that I would call “my style,” but if there were, this would be it. It’s a whisper-soft blue-gray cotton—so thin it could just as well be spun from clouds.

  I strip out of my clothes and decide my legs could use a shave. The first time I slept with Max, I didn’t exactly prepare. This time, I want to be ready.

  I climb into the shower, wash my hair, scrub my skin, and take special care with the razor. After, I moisturize my legs and arms, but when I’m applying my facial cream, I decide I need a little makeup—not too much, just enough to feel pretty if he turns on a light—so I swipe on lip gloss and mascara, then I dry my hair, putting a dab of that special goo in it first so it turns to waves instead of frizz.

  By the time I’m through the whole routine, the clock in the hall says it’s nearly two a.m.

  His bedroom door is cracked, and my stomach hitches as I approach it.

  I know he wants me as badly as I want him. But still, I’m new to seduction, and my hands shake as I nudge the door open and step into his room.

  It’s dark, but I can make out his silhouette on the bed. Pulling back the covers, I crawl in beside him before I can talk myself out of it.

  It’s not until I rest my head in the crook of Max’s shoulder that it occurs to me that he might be sleeping.

  “Max?”

  His chest rises and falls with soft, steady breaths under my hand. He’s not just sleeping, he’s dead to the world.

  I don’t know much about seduction, but I think it generally helps when the seducee is awake. I turn, intending to climb out of bed and head back to my room, but Max follows me. He grumbles something in his sleep and slings a heavy arm around my waist, bringing his scent with him.

  When I had his place to myself earlier this week, I caught myself smelling everything—his deodorant, his laundry detergent, his soap, and his aftershave—but none of those make up his smell. It’s some potent combination of all those things. It’s him.

  And since I don’t want to wake him, and since my muscles are all still relaxed from my shower and my eyes are starting to close of their own volition, I decide it won’t hurt to take a few minutes to stay right here.

  Twenty

  Max

  She’s beautiful when she sleeps, but somehow more so when it’s in my bed, her dark hair on my pillow, her long fingers wrapped around my wrist.

  I’m not sure when she came in here. Hell, when I climbed in bed last night, I didn’t think I’d ever fall asleep. I was so fucking hard and completely unwilling to settle for my hand when I wanted her. Then I woke up to the alarm on my phone and found her in my arms, her back to my front, her fingers wrapped around my forearm, as if she was scared I might try to escape. Absurd. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.

  I managed to silence my alarm with my free hand and go back to holding her before she woke up.

  I’ve never met anyone who sleeps as little as Nix does, and since she started staying here, I learned just how real her insomnia is. Aside from the nights we’ve slept together, she sp
ends more of the night out of her bed than in it. If being in my bed is going to help her get more than the three hours she usually runs on, I figure it’s my duty to make that happen.

  I lower my head back to the pillow and inhale the scent of her shampoo. She moans softly, then rolls in my arms to face me, which, incidentally, gives me a fabulous view of her cleavage.

  Then she jerks awake and her eyes widen in horror. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry.”

  Linking my arms behind her back, I hold her tight before she can scramble away. “Sorry about what?”

  “I fell asleep in your bed.” Her eyes drop to my chest. She likes my body and does a shitty job trying to hide the fact. Not that I mind.

  “That’s not a problem.”

  “I . . . um . . . didn’t have your permission.”

  A grin tugs at my lips. “I think I made it pretty clear that you’re welcome in my bed anytime you please.”

  “Yeah, but I . . .” She searches for an explanation then relaxes. “What seemed like a good idea last night seems foolish this morning.”

  “Which part was foolish? Climbing into bed with me? Or not waking me up to enjoy having you in my arms? Because I can promise you only one of those two things could possibly be construed as foolish.”

  Then, because she’s here in my bed and in my arms and because she has a damn fine mouth, I kiss her. She doesn’t stiffen when my lips touch hers anymore. She’s ready for it, and she kisses me back.

  Nix isn’t one of those dainty kissers. This woman kisses with her whole body. She presses against me and slides a hand over my bare torso and up my back. Rolling on top of her is as natural as slipping my tongue into her mouth. In seconds, a kiss I intended to be a gentle, unassuming “good morning” becomes something much more intense.

  She parts her thighs and bends her knees at each side of my hips so my cock is nestled against her heat, nothing but our underwear between us. Her moans fill my ears and her hips shift in tiny circles.

  “God, that’s sweet.” I drag my mouth from her lips to her neck. “I love when you rub against me.”

  When I latch on to her neck and suck, she moans under me. I shouldn’t mark her. It’s lame and juvenile, but I’m overcome by the instinct to suck harder and let that bastard Cade know she’s mine in the most primitive way I can. I resist. Barely.

  Instead, I pull away the sheets and trail my lips lower, following her neck to skim kisses over her collarbone, then the dip in the hollow of her neck and back up. Her nightgown is bunched at her hips, and I slide my hand beneath it, sweeping the pad of my thumb against her hipbone.

  I proceed with the single-minded purpose of making her tremble with need. When my hand nears the hem of her nightgown, she stiffens, then seems to force herself to relax.

  “It’s okay,” she whispers. Teeth sinking into her lower lip, she locks her eyes on mine and nods.

  I don’t know what to expect, but I do know that going up a woman’s shirt has never in my life felt as erotic as getting my hand under Nix’s. Inching the slip up her body reveals three thick intertwined circles of scar tissue across her ribs—as if someone carved a partial Olympic Games symbol in her skin again and again.

  I swallow hard. Someone did this to her.

  “Not very pretty, is it?” she whispers, heartbreak on her face.

  My mind swims with questions, but every one of them can wait. I skim over the scars with my fingertips, then my lips, wishing I could kiss away any pain she ever felt there. Slowly, I move my way up. I cup her breast and flick my tongue across her nipple before drawing it into my mouth.

  I can’t take away the pain from her past, but I can make her forget it—even if just momentarily—with pleasure. And that’s what I intend to do.

  I want the whole morning just to explore her breasts and then the afternoon between her legs. Her nipples are sensitive, and I let her moans guide me, completely absorbed by the rhythm of her body rocking under mine.

  “Please,” she whispers. “More.”

  I lift my head. Pleasure washes over her face. And more. Need. “Let me make love to you, Nix.”

  Her eyes open wide at my words, but I hold her gaze. Fucking is great and all, but we’ve done that. This morning I want to make love to her, to show her just how special and beautiful she is, scars and all.

  She answers with a nod.

  Then the goddamn-motherfucking doorbell rings.

  Yeah, not gonna happen. Not when I have Nix in my arms. My knuckles brush the underside of her breast, and she moans. Her wet heat penetrates my briefs, and blood surges to my cock.

  The doorbell rings again, only this time, pounding follows it.

  I lift my head. “Jesus.”

  Nix giggles and pushes up on her elbows. Her cheeks are flushed and her teeth sink into her bottom lip. “You should probably go get it.”

  “I’m not sure I should. If it’s not a goddamned emergency, I might turn homicidal.”

  She shimmies out from under me and hops off the bed, the slip sliding down to cover her as she moves. “It might be one of the girls wanting to grab coffee or something.” She spins in a half-circle, looking around the room. “Do you have a robe I can borrow?”

  As pissed as I was about the person at the door, I’m grinning now because I just realized what she’s wearing. When she was in my arms I didn’t notice—because, let’s face it, I’m a guy, and I couldn’t give two shits about clothes. Typically, that is. But these are not typical clothes.

  The doorbell rings again, and I follow her out of bed and press a hard kiss to her lips. “You stay here. I’ll get rid of whoever it is and then I’ll be back.”

  “Okay,” she whispers.

  I drag my gaze down the length of her—damn—and force myself to leave so I can answer the door.

  Fucking Cade is standing on the other side. “Morning,” he says. “Reason you don’t answer your phone?”

  “Because I have fucking voicemail?” I fell asleep with it in my room last night, just in case Nix called and needed a ride home. It probably died while I was sleeping.

  “I need to talk to Nix, but she’s not answering her phone either.”

  “It’s not a good time.”

  He folds his arms across his chest, universal man-language for I’m not fucking going anywhere.

  I pull the door open wider and point to the couch in the living room. “Fine. Have a seat. We’ll be with you in a minute.” I turn on my heel and go back to my bedroom before he can respond.

  When I get there, Nix is shoving her arms into my old terrycloth robe. “Who was it?”

  “Cade. But he can wait a goddamned minute.” I shut the door and lean against it.

  She cocks a brow at me. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “Because earlier I didn’t realize what you were wearing in my bed.”

  She tugs her bottom lip between her teeth. “Oh.”

  “This, sweetheart, is the face of a man who just realized the chick he’s hot for didn’t just climb into his bed for the company.”

  She looks down at herself and then back to me, before closing the robe and tying it tight around her waist.

  “You’re not going to try to tell me that you usually sleep in stuff like that, are you?”

  She lifts her chin. “You called me a tomboy.”

  I stalk toward her and put my hands on the closet door on either side of her head, pinning her in. “I did. And for the record, you’re the sexiest tomboy I’ve known. The only one I’ve ever had the privilege to have in my bed.” I snake my hand between our bodies and tug the knot she just tied until it loosens and exposes her slip again. I’m too close to see much, but I’m not about to back away. I cup her breast in my hand and graze my thumb over her pebbled nipple.

  “Max,” she says on a ragged exhale. “Cade’s waiting.”

  “He sure is.” I shift my hand to the other breast, giving that nipple the same treatment and loving the way her lips part as I do it. “Let him wait. It
serves him right for asking you out when I made it damn clear you were mine.”

  “Yours? You claimed me when we weren’t even dating? Isn’t that a little caveman?”

  The corner of my mouth ticks up in a grin. “You like it.”

  Now it’s her turn to smile. “Maybe a little.”

  “You know what the sexiest thing is about this slip?”

  She shakes her head, her eyes locked on mine.

  “The sexiest thing about any item of clothing a woman can wear. They’re just clothes. Clothes do nothing for me. But you wore it for me, and that is a turn-on.” I groan and drop my head to her ear. “I want to make sure you know that you’re just as sexy to me in a T-shirt as lingerie. In fact, you could wear a paper bag to bed if it meant I got to take it off you.”

  “I like when you say things like that.”

  “You have no idea how badly I want to make Cade wait.” I kiss the sensitive spot just beneath her ear and she shivers.

  “What would you do?” she whispers. “If we made him wait?”

  Without hesitating, I tug up a fistful of the slip and slide my hand between her legs. Her breath catches and she’s so damn wet that I’m hard all over again. “I’d wrap your legs around me,” I say, sliding my fingers beneath the saturated cotton of her panties. “And I’d take you against this wall.” I enter her with one finger, and she gasps. When I add a second, she bites back a cry and grabs a fistful of my hair. “Maybe I’d kiss you the whole time my dick was inside you to keep you quiet.” She squeezes tight around my fingers, and I find her clit with my thumb. “Or maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe I’d want him to hear you scream my name as I made you come.”

  She comes apart then, her sex convulsing around my fingers, her body quivering in my arms. She’s beautiful, but when she comes, those walls she works so hard to keep fall away. I want to take her to my bed and watch her get off over and over. I want to spend my day tearing down those walls until she can’t ever shut me out again. And fuck I want to feel her tight pussy squeeze my cock as she comes.