“That’s not remotely fair. You have no idea what will happen. You’re shutting everything down before it can even get started. What happened to wanting to heal?” She went right up to him, stood toe-to-toe, and tilted her face up to his. “What do you see, when you look at me now? No, don’t close your eyes.” She placed her palms on his chest. “Tell me what you see.”
“I see you.” His voice was hoarse. “I see confidence and joy. I see warmth and strength. I…”
She saw the moment the desire kicked in, shame chasing it right on its heels.
“Go on. It’s okay.”
He lifted a hand and touched one of the waves of her hair, tracing its swirl across her shoulder. When his palm slipped from the glittery fabric of her shirt to the skin on her arm, he released the smallest sigh.
“Do you think about sex with me?”
Now he closed his eyes. “All the time.”
“That’s not a bad thing. Stop telling yourself it is.”
“Ask me to stop breathing. That might be easier.”
She pressed closer, close enough the fabric of their clothes brushed together. “And what do you see? In your mind. Us together.”
Him, standing there with his eyes closed, pale surfer hair framing the planes of his ethereally beautiful face, brought to mind a few seriously wonderful scenarios of her own. All of them included him letting down his guard.
“Because I see us like we were last night,” she whispered, and he groaned. “Naked. Lovely. Intense. Now what do you see? Open your eyes and tell me.”
His eyelids cracked open and the glimmer of his irises made her heart stutter. “I see your skin,” he said. “Every part of it. And it’s so soft and tastes so good.”
For a second he looked like he was about to give in to panic and shutter himself away, but she couldn’t let him. “More. Tell me more.” Touch me.
His palms skimmed lightly across her shoulders and slid around the back of her neck. Holding her, claiming her. “I see all this hair. I…I see it spread across your back. I’m inside you from behind. I wrap your hair around my hand and I pull your head back. I see myself making your back arch.”
The faint pulse between her legs exploded into a pounding rhythm. He’d made her wet with just words. And he wasn’t done yet.
“I see myself going animal. I’ve kept it chained up with you, Cat. I’ve tried to be gentle with you, but since you asked, I see myself letting it out now. I want my mind to go blank of everything but you and how I feel inside you. I see my body taking over, just obliterating all the shit I’ve been carrying around for so long, and I’m free.”
Yes. That’s what she wanted to hear.
“And when you come around me,” he growled, “I’ll know you’re free, too. That you’re with me. That you’re my cure.”
Something shifted in his eyes and he flinched back. She gripped his biceps, held him steady. “He won’t come for you again. If you do all that, if you let yourself go with me, the Burned Man won’t come.”
“You don’t know that. You can’t say that. This is the kind of shit he loves. I’d be inside you and he’d sit right over there”—he stabbed a finger at the back of the booth—“and grin and say awful things about you, knowing he’d won.”
“Will you listen to yourself? He isn’t real.” She grabbed his shirt in her fist, held on tight. “It doesn’t matter that you know what I am.”
Something sparked in his silver eyes and she dared to believe it was hope. He gave a tight shake of his head. “Oh, man, Cat, it does—”
“I am not the Burned Man. But I’ll be whatever you want me to be, if it will help you.”
A half-crazed look seeped into his gaze.
“Do you hear what I’m telling you, Xavier? I. Am. Yours. Everything you told me you want, I want, too. I will love it, I promise you. And the Burned Man will not come.”
“If you’re wrong…”
“I’m not wrong. All right, I’m putting my money where my mouth is. If you fuck me the way you want to fuck me”—a fire raged across his expression, and it was a hot and wonderful vow that made her all warm and achy—“yeah, I said ‘fuck,’ and apparently you like it. If you fuck me and the Burned Man comes back, I will walk right out of here, call Gwen and never speak to you again. Because that’s what you’re saying you want.”
In an unexpected move, he lowered his face to hers, cheek to cheek, warm voice curling around her ear. “And if I let myself go and he doesn’t appear?”
She turned her head slightly, just enough to brush her lips across his. Just enough so he would know she was smiling wickedly. “Then you come back to my hotel room and sleep next to me. Naked. You’ll be there in the morning when I call Gwen, when we tell her about us. And everything will be just fine.”
She saw it then, the tremble in his lips, the faint furrow of his brow. That’s what lust looked like, yes, but in that moment she knew he might love her, too. Which was absolutely fine, because she thought she might love him back. Out of all the crazy things they’d talked about that night, that just might have been the craziest.
He crushed her to him. His mouth came down on hers, his tongue pushing inside. His lips slanted, took, devoured. She’d thought the kiss on the wintery stairs had been hot, but that day he’d still been hiding behind fear and ghosts. Now he ripped them both to shreds.
He held her so tightly she could barely breathe. Stupid lungs, she didn’t need them. All she wanted was this. Him. Unleashed.
Nothing existed between them anymore. Nothing but clothing that was starting to burn like acid.
She let him push her backward, his hands strong and commanding. Her butt struck the booth table so hard the water glasses tipped over. Somewhere in the back of her mind she heard one or two roll off and shatter on the floor, but the sound couldn’t compete with the hard beat of her blood and the roar of desire in her ears.
“Say it again.” He clenched the back of her neck in his big hand and nipped at her mouth.
“I’m yours.” She shuddered. “In every way. I want what you want.”
He kissed her hard, and the sting of pain was very, very good. His tongue met hers in determined pushes and sensual pulls. Then he leaned back, using the grip on her neck to yank her head to one side. He dove for her throat like a vampire and feasted on the sensitive skin there. The suction and the swirl of his mouth made her shiver so hard the table vibrated.
Then he stepped back, his expression fierce. “Take off your clothes. I want to watch this time.”
She’d never stripped for a man. She kicked off her black pumps. He watched them skitter away, then his eyes trailed to where her fingers slowly lowered the zipper of her pants. Pushing the black fabric down her hips, she watched with severe satisfaction as his mouth dropped open at the sight of her black lace boy-style underwear.
“Leave those on,” he ordered.
Taking the glittering gold top, she lifted it over her head and tossed it into the booth. The heat from his eyes and the chill of the restaurant mixed deliciously on all her exposed skin.
She fingered the black lace strap of her bra. “Leave this on, too?”
“Absolutely not.”
As she slid it from her body, he attacked.
Warm breath covered her nipples before he took each one of them between his lips. Pulling. Licking. She bent backward, offering him more. Offering him everything.
His hands fell to her waist and he forcefully flipped her around. Through his jeans, his hard-on jutted against the crack of her butt. His hands smoothed down her belly and slipped over the black lace covering her hip bones, jerking her even tighter against his erection.
The long fingers of one hand slipped under the lace and easily slid over her slick flesh. He groaned, head dropping to her shoulder. He pushed two fingers inside her, filling her shockingly fast, then used his other hand to press on her shoulder. With a lovely shake of anticipation, she complied with his unspoken order, stretching forward across the table.
The cold surface pebbled her skin. With a moan of regret, he removed his fingers from inside her, cupped both her elbows and raised her arms above her head. Shoving aside forks and spoons and rolled napkins, he curled her fingers over the table edge.
“Don’t let go,” he murmured, then took his time tracing her body with his hands and mouth. Down her arms and shoulders, her back, her hips and curves. She could do nothing but lay there, dying slowly under his touch.
She heard the gentle rasp of his jeans as he crouched behind her, then felt the soft, tender caress of a single finger as he nudged the lace of her underwear to one side. The hot kiss of his breath fluttered over her before his tongue found the best, wettest place.
“You don’t have to…oh, God.” But his tongue kept circling and flicking. “This is about…you. What…you want.”
He removed his mouth but dragged a finger across her clit. “This is what I want. I want to hear you scream my name.”
She was naked, stretched forward over a table, while he, fully clothed, worshipped her with his mouth. It didn’t take much to make her comply. Every nerve stood at attention, completely dependent on him. Her whole body hummed, that hum spiraling and spiraling, becoming more and more centered on the movement of his mouth and tongue.
“Let me hear you,” he said against her.
She came, bucking against him, and the sensation was all the more intense because she could barely move. His name escaped her lips in a tremulous cry.
He didn’t ease her down this time. He just stopped, leaving her achingly empty and panting for more.
“Condom. In my purse. Front pocket.”
“Prepared,” he muttered as he rummaged where she said. And even though she couldn’t see him, she could tell he was wearing one of those crooked half smiles that drove her out of her mind.
“Hopeful,” she whispered back.
He came back to her and spread his body over hers, pressing her into the table. Even through his clothes she could feel him shaking. He pressed an apologetic kiss to the back of her neck. “It’s going to be hard. It’s going to be fast.”
He said it like it was a warning, but her ears heard only a wonderful promise. He slid away, his mouth the last to leave her.
She turned her head. “Sometimes hard and fast can be very, very good.”
A big hand slapped her thigh, just below her butt, and clenched, as though she might try to get away or something equally as ridiculous. The other hand started to roll on the condom.
She said, “Don’t forget to pull my hair.”
With a single motion, he entered her. Another cry—this one of relief, of such intense pleasure—ripped from her throat and bounced around the empty restaurant. Her body offered no resistance whatsoever.
He was nothing if not honest, and he took her hard.
She sensed the freedom in his body, in his movements. And even though he plunged into her with ferocity, his hands moved softly across her back, arranging her hair, like he’d said he wanted to see. Like last night, he barely made any sounds, but she listened to the thick pattern of his breath, and she realized that she wanted to hear him scream, too.
He slid in and out of her, so thick, so consuming, that her whole existence spun down into the small, slick place where their bodies joined. He felt impossibly good, and every second was better than the second before.
He started to slow down as his thumb worked across her back, gathering her long hair into his fist.
“Yes,” she hissed.
Without warning, he tugged her hair, bringing her cheek off the table. She arched her back, and with a low groan of approval, he picked up speed, driving her with an emotional intensity she didn’t have to see to feel. He was losing himself, and she loved it. Loved how his freedom set them both on the edge of something greater than just sex.
She loved proving him wrong. Proving that they were together in this.
His body loosened, his strokes inside her losing the driving rhythm. He was getting close; she remembered how the movement of his hips had changed when she’d ridden him last night.
“Now I want to hear you,” she managed to say. “Please.”
There was only the slightest pause. In it he released her hair, planted his hands on either side of her hips with a slap to the table, and fucked her, exactly like he said he would.
When another orgasm snuck up on her, and started to throw her into bliss, she bit her own tongue to keep from making a sound. Because behind her, he was shouting his release, and it was as dramatic and glorious as a symphony.
When it was done, he pulled out and took her waist. Flipping her over, she finally got a good look at him. She gazed into his beautiful silver eyes and found them clearer. Less unsure. Less afraid.
He picked her up, cradling her gently against his chest, his warmth enveloping her. She wrapped her legs around his hips, her arms tight around his neck, and buried her face in his tangled hair.
A vision came to her: a new painting, of swirling, pale colors dominated by bolder strokes. Water held by something strong and yet fluid. Possessive and yet yielding.
He squeezed her tight, drawing tender hands down her hair in slow strokes. She knew what he was going to say before it came out, but it made her eyes fill with tears nonetheless.
“He’s gone, Cat. The Burned Man…oh, God. Thank you. Thank you so much.”
TWENTY-TWO
The bathroom filled with thick steam. Michael drew the razor around his jawline, swiping away the last bit of shaving cream. Putting the razor into the filled sink, he swished it around, watching the dirty water and white foam mix with the short black and silver whiskers.
Where had it gone wrong with Cat? A woman who breathed fire was caged in his garage, threatening war, and all he could think about was the one woman he wanted to introduce to Raymond as his.
She’d rejected him. In public. She’d taken all that he’d given her and thrown it in his face, walking off with that townie. So she liked nobodies, huh? Made sense, since she still technically was one.
He slapped down the sink plunger and watched the water swirl down the drain. Towel wrapped around his waist, he slid open the bathroom door and stalked into the master suite.
“Lea.”
The master suite was a long room with a king-sized bed on one end, and a sitting room with a couch and TV on the other. Wooden posts carved like trees divided the two halves, and Lea leaned against one. She was smiling at his half-naked state, but it wasn’t meant to be seductive. There was a coldness to her that appealed to him on occasion, when he wasn’t looking for someone more—or someone like Cat.
He advanced on her. “Where the fuck have you been?”
She uncrossed her arms. “Nice to see you, too.”
“Is Jase with you?”
She smoothed her shoulder-length blond hair back into a ponytail. “And the new girl. The whole happy family’s together again.”
His arm snapped out, his fingers digging into her neck. He pushed her back against the post.
“Hello, Ofarian.”
Her brown eyes narrowed and her upper lip twitched. Then she erased it all and donned an air of nonchalance. “Finally did your research, huh?”
“No. Your little fire gift told me. She seems to know a lot.”
A million unsaid things danced across Lea’s expression, and he vowed to learn every last one of them. Secrets weren’t going to erase all the ground he’d gained with Raymond. Lea wasn’t going to make a fool of him.
“Why didn’t you tell me what you are?”
Lea shrugged. She had such an innocent look about her. Plain, straight hair. Wide-set eyes, very little makeup. Unassuming clothing. She didn’t look frightening at all. “Because for all intents and purposes, I’m not Ofarian anymore.”
“You led me to believe that Secondaries are rare.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Wow. Big word.”
“The Chimeran told me. Yeah, she and I are tight now.”
Lea sigh
ed. “I’ve never lied to you, Michael. I stumbled upon you and Sean in Miami, told you I could find more people with magic, and you just assumed we were all like you. Special. Few and far between. But that’s typical. For you.”
“So why’d you take another water—another Ofarian?”
“Relax.” She slid a hand around his wrist that still held her to the post. He was getting hard, because power did that to him. And because Lea had already proved herself worthy to him—unique and formidable and elevated to his level. “I’m not trying to take anything from you, Michael. I help you, you help me, is all.”
“I wasn’t aware I was ever helping you.”
“Again, not my fault.”
He removed his hand from her throat and dug his fingers into her shoulder. She winced. “Ow. What the—”
“The Chimeran said her people would come for her. That they’d bring an army.”
Lea’s face was blank. Dangerously blank. She didn’t deny it, and suddenly clues fell into place.
“Little Lea.” He slowly shook his head, tsking his tongue. “Are you trying to start a war?”
“You go about your business,” she replied darkly. “I go about mine.”
He squeezed harder. “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.”
“Do what? Stop that. That hurts.”
“Want me to go back to the throat? You know what I’m talking about. Going behind my back. Using the Chimeran—and maybe this second Ofarian—for something you’re not telling me about. Don’t give her to me as a gift then plan to snatch her out from under me. What’s mine is mine.”
“I’m not planning on taking her from you, asshole. You and I have different goals, and they don’t cross each other.”
“She’s not leaving me.” His voice quivered with fury.
“Don’t worry about that.”
“What about this army? I don’t want any exposure. This is between me and Raymond.”
“I told you, the Secondaries move and work in secret. Under the radar. You think her people are going to attack someone as visible as you?”
A Taste of Ice (The Elementals) Page 20
