Twice as Hot (17 page)

He
kept his fingers firm on the back of my neck, angling my head for even deeper
contact. His familiar flavor filled my mouth, primitive and spicy. The muscles
in his back were clenched, rock hard under my hands—hands I allowed to roam,
kneading with abandon.

Over
and over his tongue rolled against mine, shooting little sparks of ecstasy
directly into my bloodstream. His free hand settled on my breast, the nipple
beading immediately. The thin gown I wore was no kind of barrier, so it was as
if he caressed me skin to skin.

My
stomach quivered as heat speared me. Heat I had not thought ever to feel again.
“Rome,” I moaned.

“Wrap
your legs around me,” he commanded huskily.

My
legs? Lost in the pleasure as I was, it took me a moment to one, remember what
legs were, and two, figure out what mine were doing. When I realized they were
hanging over the edge of his chair, I shimmied until they were anchored around
his waist, my core pressed against his erection. Sweet heaven!

Never
once did I break the kiss.

“You
taste good,” he said. “Like fire and ice. I didn’t expect
that.
”

“What’d
you expect?” I managed to gasp out between licks inside his mouth.

“Amazing.
Just not…perfection.”

See?
This was how he’d gotten me to fall in love with him. At times like this he
made me feel like the most treasured woman in the world. “So you don’t remember
doing this to me? Naked? In the shower? On the bed? On the floor?”
With Matt
Damon?
Okay, how had the Sarah Silverman video gotten in my head, now of
all times?

The
hard length of his shaft throbbed against my heat. “No.” It was a tortured cry.

“I
do. I remember every…delicious…detail.”

He
pulled away to stare into my eyes. He was panting, sweat trickling from his
temples. He didn’t release me, though. No, he held me more tightly. “Tell me.
Help me remember.” His thumb played with the pulse at the base of my neck.

I
shivered. “More kissing first.” I had him where I wanted him. Talking could
come later.

Needing
no more encouragement, he dove in for another taste. Every time his tongue
rolled over mine, it was like white lightning shot through me, molten flashes
branching and spreading. I couldn’t catch my breath, didn’t want to catch my
breath. This was nirvana, a place I could die without regrets.

“I
want to touch you,” Rome said.

“Yes.”
I tangled my hands in his silky hair, fisting. “Touch me.”

He
groaned. “I shouldn’t.”

“You
should.” Please, please, please, I almost added, but managed to hold the pleas
inside.

“We
shouldn’t.”

Pull
away and I’ll kill you.
“We’re dumb if we don’t.”

Another
groan. “How do you do this to me?”

I
nipped at his lips, so desperate, so needy for more. I wanted his hands all
over me, caressing every inch. I wanted his naughty tongue to follow, to lave
me deep and forever. “Do what?”

“Make
me so…crazed.”

Now
I
groaned. I made this strong, drool-worthy man crazed? Still? “Touch
me, like you want,” I urged. “Please,” I allowed myself to add this time. Pride
was foolish in the face of passion, I realized.

His
palm was under my gown a second later, his fingers kneading my breast. Just
like that, the kiss turned savage. He snarled, pressing into me with so much
force our teeth banged together. I writhed against him, the friction delicious.
Consuming. My nails sank into his scalp, probably drawing blood.

He
didn’t complain.

He
nipped at my bottom lip, his teeth sharper than normal, his fingers slipping
around me and clamping onto my ass, urging me to rub against his erection,
harder. Faster. I did, rocking with complete abandon, feeding him kiss after
fervent kiss. He was in my nose, my mouth, on my skin, inside my cells, deep in
the marrow of my bones. Just then, he was everything to me. But strangely, that
did not reduce me to nothing. It made me…more.

He
hissed at me. “We keep this up, and I’m going to come.”

I
was, too. Was so close, needed only another brush…it had been too long, too
long without him…another taste and I’d—yes, yes, yes, right there! With a
scream, I erupted into a million pieces. And as the earth-shattering orgasm
ripped through me, I also erupted into flames. Not just a fireball sprouting in
my hand, and not simply fire spraying from my eyes.

My
entire body burst into a crackling, orange-gold inferno.

Rome
yelped and jerked to his feet. I slid off him, slapping into the cold floor. I
couldn’t see him through the flames, and whimpered. Crackling and hissing
filled my ears, roaring through my head.

“Belle,”
he shouted, reaching for me, probably meaning to pat me out.

Panting,
I scrambled backward before he could touch me. I wasn’t in pain, could feel the
heat but not the burn, and knew the same would not be true for him. He would
blister. Perhaps worse.

Stubborn
man that he was, Rome chased after me.

I
continued to scramble away until my back hit the bed, and the flames leaped
onto
it.
No. No, no, no.

Calm
down, I had to calm down. Passion and anger were both volatile emotions and
ignited my body like matches (literally). But never, not even when I first
underwent the change from human to superhuman and my abilities had been
horribly unstable, had I experienced
this.

“I
don’t know what to do,” I cried. Was this happening because of the blood Reese
had taken or the fact that Rome wasn’t filtering for me as he’d done in the
past? Probably the latter. I was a mess without him, our passion as out of
control as the fire.

“Don’t
move,” Rome said. I still couldn’t see him, but I heard the pound of his
footsteps amid the chaos inside my head.

I
was too frightened to move, yet that fear failed to produce ice. What. The.
Hell. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Happy thoughts might work, I thought. Or
hoped. ’Cause I couldn’t think of anything else that had worked in the past.
Happy thoughts were hard to conjure, though, when I was a freaking human BBQ.
Try.
Try, try, try.
Kissing Rome—that had been nice. And sexy. Shit! A flame
shot from the top of my head, making sparks fall in every direction.

No
thoughts of the kiss. That only inflamed me—on every level.

My
heart drummed erratically in my chest, visions of agents catching fire and
burning to death, their screams in my ears, filling my brain. If only Rome
could remember how to filter for me! He could take the hottest thrums of my
emotions and cage them inside himself, calming me inside and out.

Happy
thoughts,
my mind screamed. My dad. Sherridan. Tanner. My mom, when she’d been alive. Not
that I remembered her. I felt a wisp of sadness stir inside me, felt a raindrop
land on top my head, the fire crackling, and realized I was going about this
the wrong way. Ice might be beyond me at the moment, but rain wasn’t. Besides,
happy thoughts might stop the fire from blazing from my body, but they wouldn’t
stop it from spreading throughout the room—and the building—and the city.

I
needed more rain. Which meant I needed more sadness.

Before
I could work up a good reason to cry, though, another round of footsteps
echoed. Ice-cold foam was suddenly sprayed at me, dousing me completely. I
closed my eyes and pressed my lips together, even stopped breathing so I
wouldn’t inhale the frigid stuff. Since employing me, John had made sure a fire
extinguisher waited in every hallway.

When
the spray stopped, several moments ticked by in silence.

“It’s
okay,” Rome said, panting. “The fire’s out.”

Slowly
I cracked open my eyes. I had to wipe my face with my hand to clear my line of
vision. Rome hovered in front of me, his face concerned.

“You’re
covered in soot and your clothing has holes,” I told him, shivering as the cold
seeped into my bones. And I had done that to him. Me. I had placed him in
danger. Hurt him. Could have killed him. “I’m sorry. So sorry.”

“Well,
you’re naked.” There was no anger in his tone, no accusation about what I’d
done. He was genuinely amused. “Nothing to be sorry about. I like the end
result.”

Still.
Tears burned my eyes as I surveyed the damage to myself. I gasped. My gown had
indeed burned away. The only thing that saved me from a complete, full-body
flash was the white foam. I looked like a snow queen, covered as I was with it.

Rome
scooped me up, and I yelped in surprise. “I’ve got you.” He latched onto the
blanket before settling back on the chair with me on his lap and draping the
material over me. “You okay?”

“Yes.”
Embarrassed to my soul, but fine physically.

“Does
that kind of thing happen—”

“Belle
Jamison. Want to tell me why—” John, who’d charged into the room, stopped
abruptly. His expression didn’t change when he spotted me sprawled on Rome’s
lap, but his voice did calm. “I don’t even want to know what kind of kinky sex
games the two of you have been playing this time, but it’s nice to have you and
your memories back, Rome. I’ll want an EEG, of course, to compare your brain
waves then and now.”

Rome
lost his air of relaxation. “My memories haven’t returned.”

John’s
gaze flew to me, confusion registering. “Oh. Then why…Never mind.”

My
cheeks heated and I scrambled off Rome and back onto the bed, taking the
blanket with me. I covered myself as best I could. Cold as I was, I couldn’t
hide the two little pearls saluting anyone who glanced my way.

“Fine.
I have to know. Something happened between the two of you.” Both of John’s
brows arched, and he sighed. “What?”

“You
already know, you pervert,” I snapped.

He
didn’t back down. “Reese says the components that make your blood different
from the average human’s increase every time he tests you. This time, they were
off the charts.”

I’d
suspected that before, that the bloodletting was making my powers wonky, but
had decided that was wrong. I still thought so. Being without my filter was the
issue. Had to be. Because every time Rome left me, I had problems. I didn’t
tell that to John, however. Not now. He might try to find me another filter,
someone who didn’t mind being with me, and that wouldn’t do. Not when the only
person I wanted that close to me was Rome.

“Well,
something’s off,” I said, which wasn’t a lie. “I managed to set myself on
fire.”

John’s
eyes widened and he looked to Rome for confirmation.

Rome
gave an ominous nod.

“I
wonder what’s different. Is the formula strengthening as time passes?” Silent,
John tilted his head to the side. He tapped his chin. He looked from me to
Rome, Rome to me, and his eyes widened further. “Ah, of course. You hinted, I
think, but I didn’t understand. Something’s different about you every time he
leaves, yes?”

“What’s
different?” Rome asked.

Crap.
John had figured out the truth on his own.

“Should
we put her in lockup?” he asked, surprising me, the question clearly aimed at
himself. He continued to tap that finger against his chin as he studied me.

“I’m
right here! And no, we shouldn’t. I’m not a scrim. And before you say it, I do
not want another filter.”

Dark
eyes leveled on me with unerring intensity. “I do what’s necessary to protect
both my agents and the world, no matter what’s required. You know that. If your
powers are that unstable…”

“I
can handle it,” I told him. “I’d already figured out the problem, but hadn’t
realized how bad it could get. I know now and I’ll take precautions.” Though
the only precaution I could think of was staying away from Rome until his
memories returned, and that wasn’t acceptable. “Just back off.”

“Listen
hard, Miss Jamison,” John said through clenched teeth. “You are not my boss.
You do not issue commands. I, however, do. From now on, you are to inform me of
every change that occurs, not just hint about them. You could have killed
someone today! Understand?”

“I
understand.” And I did. He wanted the best for everyone. So
I
backed off
instead, remorseful.

“New
tests need to be run.”

“Of
course.” I’d known that would happen, which was part of the reason I’d kept
quiet. John liked to test
everything.
In ways that were sometimes
painful, sometimes humiliating, but always a nuisance. He meant well, I knew
that, but it didn’t lessen the aggravation.

Dr.
Roberts, the scientist who had secretly placed that formula in my grande mocha
latte, had also given it to several other people. I was the only one who
survived—and still, months later, no one knew why—so I was the only living
vessel John had, which made me the only source for answers.

“If
I let you stay in the field,” he said, “you’ll have to be monitored.”