Forbidden Fire (6 page)

Luke pushed a finger inside her and she screamed, her nails digging into his arms.

“Surprise,” he whispered. “No one’s ever done you like that.”

She whispered, “Last night…”

“When I was first inside you I know you weren’t ready for me, but turned out you liked it that way, hard and fast.” His pupils were huge. She was looking into Luke’s dark heart. Her breath came in and out in a frantic pump, hot against his face. She focused on the whiskers, heavier now than when he’d come to see her in the late morning. Against her sensitive skin they would feel like sandpaper. Muscles clenched in her lower belly at the thought of him nuzzling her inner thighs with his face, deliberately marking her with beard burn.

“You like a little bit of pain. Who would have guessed the princess would like that?”

She’d always hated it when he called her the princess, but she knew, coming from his background, that’s how he saw her. Besides, Luke never meant it in a mean way. He used it to tease her, to remind her he came from grease and desperation, not porcelain and canopy beds.

And the truth was his street background turned her on.

As if he read her, Luke said, “Careful. You have no idea what these dirty hands would like to do to you.” His finger kept up its frantic rhythm. He added two more.

She couldn’t think…he forced her to a level where all she could do was spread her legs for him and sag against the pillar, taking what he gave her.

His fingers made smacking sounds, loud in the still air, emphasising how wet she was for him.

He loomed over her, his body close enough to kiss but kept separate from hers. The only place he made contact was her pussy.

“This isn’t like my dates.” He was servicing her and it felt… God, she lived for this. But she ached to share more.

“No,” he agreed. “I don’t date, not like you do.” His eyes flashed, as if he didn’t like the idea of her dates, even though he’d told her a while back he couldn’t figure out why she bothered to go out at all. But how could she admit to him, never mind herself, that dating was all about the distraction factor? There was always the hope she’d meet someone who could take her mind off things she shouldn’t think about. Like how Luke looked coming out of the pool every morning with his trunks sodden and fitting to his taut skin.

“Tell me…tell me what you did on your last date.” She wasn’t going to let this be nothing but his fingers inside her, working her, even though her slutty body rose into his touch, masturbating herself on his touch. And it
was
masturbation, because this was not remotely about them being together. Not the way he carefully kept his distance.

He flushed. “You don’t want to know what I do to my women.”

“You’ve got your fingers inside me,” she said and she looked down, seeing the tanned hand pounding between her legs.

“Fuck, yeah.” His gaze followed hers. “Lift your leg and put it around my hip.” When she didn’t immediately obey him, he said, “Do it.”

Sian lifted her leg. He speared into her even more intensely, filling her to the point of pain, just like last night.

“Say my name.”

“Luke.”

“It’s your little brother doing this to you, princess. I’ve got you all wet for me.”

It was as if he needed to rub her face in it. He was angry, he was still so angry. Her eyes pricked with tears. “Luke…”

“I don’t care if it makes you cry. Right now you want it and that’s all I care about.” But it wasn’t, because his gaze fell from hers.

“Don’t make it be this way.” She was pleading with him. It was all she could do since physically she was helpless, in his thrall, and he knew it.

Blue eyes seared hers. “You want to know about my last date? I shared a woman with Taz, my best friend. Taz handcuffed her to his bed and then we both went at her, fucking her, coming on her tits. She loved it, especially the end game.

“See, Taz has this thing about smoking a cigar after sex. So we were sitting in his study in his leather club chairs, jeans still open, and we made her crawl from me to Taz, sucking us off one last time.”

“Oh, my—” She was shocked. She couldn’t hide it.

Luke’s lips twisted. “It disgusts you, doesn’t it? But when I give you a taste of the rough, you can’t keep your legs closed.” He added a fourth finger inside her and just like that, on the slide and the too full feeling she came, crying out, reaching out to touch him at last, clutching his forearms.

“Look at me when I make you come,” he growled, a nasty tone in his voice she almost didn’t recognise. He’d used it with other people, but never her.

She looked in his eyes, unable to hide the way she rode his hand. He didn’t give her a moment to compose herself, to rationalise. His wicked fingers worked her so she burst again, shattering around him like petals from one of the heavy flowers on the porch.

His gaze stayed locked on hers, defiant as he pulled his fingers from between her legs and lifted them to his mouth. She watched him tasting her, her body chilling even though her hairline was damp with sweat.

He looked at her breasts and she saw her T-shirt was plastered to her chest, her nipples hard points. She wondered if he was imagining spreading his spend over her the way he had that unknown woman.

“Yeah, I want that,” he said, as if he had been reading her thoughts. He knew her so well. “I want my jizz on your skin like that body lotion you slather on yourself.” He pushed down her skirt and it hit her that she’d let him pleasure her again and this time it hadn’t been an accident.

“So how was it?” he asked, as if he was driven to ask, despite the tough guy act.

“Like getting mauled by a lion,” she said. They had to talk. The train they were on together hadn’t just taken off for destination unknown, it had crashed. And she missed him, missed her best friend. This angry stranger… She didn’t want him so angry at her anymore. She didn’t want to have hurt him enough to be this angry.

“This is who I really am,” Luke said. “I’m not shy. I’m not sweet.”

Sian swallowed, because yes, she’d thought he was both those things, even though she’d also known he had an edge.

“Time out,” Luke said.

A black Hummer swung into their elegant, palm-tree-lined drive. Thank God it hadn’t headed up here any sooner. “Don’t worry, it’s just Taz,” Luke said.

“The man you…” She was supposed to relax when the friend he’d shared a woman with, including making her crawl on her knees in order to suck their cocks, was parking in the driveway?

“Yeah.” Luke shrugged as if to say he wasn’t going to pretty things up for her anymore. No kidding, she got that.

The wide shoulders stretching his shirt, the dark, rumpled hair and killer green eyes that dismissed Sian were familiar. He was one of her customers in Coffee Dreams. Usually Dharma served him.

Taz gave her an icy look. Wow. Just what had Luke told him about her?

As she always did with attractive men, she tensed in a way her yoga instructor would scold her for. She could hear the Danish-accented instructor now, ‘
Shoulders down from the ears. You will flow’.

Yeah, right. She felt as flowing as discarded newspaper.

“Hey Taz,” Luke called. “So we won’t need to take everything to your place. Not that I have much shit.”

Sian stared at Luke and everything faded, even the hostile Taz.

“I don’t want you to leave,” she said.

Luke looked at her and she saw a flash of her friend—caring, protective—before he seemed to deliberately shut himself down. “I’ll make a deal with you,” Luke said. He swallowed and the calculating light in his eyes made her belly knot.

He took her arm and herded her to the end of the porch. She saw Taz watching them, still giving off that unfriendly vibe. She raised her chin, giving Taz a defiant look in return. Whatever Luke might have said about her, she and Luke had been friends long before Mr Shares-his-women.

“What do you want from me?” she asked.

“Like you said, I want sex.” Luke put his hands on his hips. “I can’t go on living with you and not have you.” He wasn’t standing close, but she felt dominated.

Didn’t he know all he had to do was touch her and she couldn’t say no?

“I’m not going back to pretending being your friend is all I want.”

That hurt. “I thought you liked being my friend.”

His eyes softened. “Yes.”

“Then why can’t we just go back to the way we were? Luke, let’s just forget what happened.”

“I don’t want to.” His jaw tightened. “Don’t you understand? I don’t want to.”

And there it was, his gauntlet.

“I know you think there’s something wrong with you and me being together, but I’ll live here only if you let me do you once a night.”

The breath left her body like beans spilling from a bean bag. “Are you nuts?”

Luke laughed. “Probably. I’ve been wanting you hard for years.”

“Luke, I’d be bartering my body to you. Is that really how you want it?” Even though she’d made the insane offer, she couldn’t see how it wouldn’t cut her.

“If you want to look at it that way. You aren’t gettin’ it elsewhere.”

“Yes,” she said. “I’ll sleep with you. Once…once a night.”

His eyes burned. Now he moved in for the kill, shifting so his arms caged her against the side of the house. “It’ll only be the once, so you won’t have to put up with more than that. I’ve got a strong sex drive, but you’re just about a virgin. I know you can’t take it like I want to give it to you.”

Her heart was thudding in her ears.

He ran a finger down her cheek and she jumped. His eyes narrowed, as if he thought she’d flinched. “But I get to call it, Sian. How I want you, when I want you. And you will want it, every bit of me.”

I already want you. Can’t you see that?

“One thing.” She had some pride. “I am not afraid of you moving out because of desertion anxieties.”

Luke considered her coolly and again she felt this huge yawning change in their dynamic. Now he looked at her like a poker player, wondering if he should fold or call. He’d kept this side of himself from her, protected her from it.

Now it was out with a vengeance.

“All right. But I’m still going to spend most of my free time with Taz. I’ll just come home for the nights.”

“How come?” she asked.

“Because.”

He wasn’t going to tell her. And it hurt, him shutting her out again.

He shifted closer, crowding her again. “No more of your dates. I don’t want you going out for elegant suppers, dancing with other guys or going to the fucking opera.”

“All right.” She decided he needed a zap. “But same goes for you. No…sharing some woman. And you’ll have to take me to the fucking opera.”

“I’ll take you.” Something vulnerable moved in his gaze. He tried to shrug it off. “I won’t embarrass you.”

“I know you won’t.”

Deliberately she held out her bad hand, but he didn’t flinch from shaking it. Of course he didn’t. Luke had never been that shallow.

They shook and then he pulled his hand from hers before she was ready to let him go. So much left unsaid. But what choice did she have? If he moved out, she’d lose him. And she couldn’t lose him. If giving him her body so he’d stay made her a total pathetic loser, she’d just have to live with it.

This way at least he wouldn’t leave.

Chapter Seven

Taz was giving him a what-the-fuck look when Luke returned to his buddy. Luke had seen Taz give Sian the cold eye and he’d wanted to intervene—the sensitive gentleman, the caring best friend.

Except that wasn’t who he was anymore. He was turning over a new leaf—total bastard. And the thing was, if that was the only way to have Sian, to stop the torture of lying in his lonely bed alone every night, waiting to hear her come home from seeing some other guy, then he was signing up.

Luke swallowed around the hurt in his throat. Fine, what he was doing was just another way of saying ‘loser’. But he could live with it because he couldn’t have Sian if he played the nice card, so he was throwing it out of the goddamned deck.

“I’m going to do a partial crash at your place,” he told Taz. “Come back here nights.”

“You need to move out,” Taz said, crossing his massive arms. He didn’t even bother to lower his voice as he added, “Away from your own brand of poison ivy.”

Luke heard Sian’s footsteps, knew she had to have caught Taz’s words, as he’d meant her too.

Luke shoved Taz against a porch pillar. “Don’t talk about her that way.”

“She fucks you up.” Taz didn’t give for a moment. He’d never particularly liked women, except maybe that shy little neighbour of his. Taz was loyal as fuck to his friends.

“Yeah, she does.” Luke caught a glimpse of shadowed eyes. Then the front door slammed. Great. He’d hurt Sian again.

But it wouldn’t keep him away from her when the sun went down.

“I need to take care of her.”

“This is about fucking. This is not about you taking care of her, unless you mean making sure she comes.”