Up in Flames [The Heroes of Silver Springs 10] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic) (16 page)

Might as well let the destruction begin. He’s not going to let you leave until you do.

In her heart, she knew that wasn’t true. He wouldn’t force her to stay here. He’d never force anything on her. She hadn’t lied to him when she’d told him she thought he was a good man. She knew he was. The trouble came in not knowing what he would do with the power he didn’t even realize he had over her if he ever figured it out.

She opened her eyes and dared to turn around. He let go of her arms, flattening both hands on the door on either side of her head as he gazed down at her.

“I don’t know where this will go,” he told her, his voice gruff, his eyes so full of emotions a knot formed in her throat. “If I told you I did, I’d be lying. I’m so fucking attracted to you I can’t think without you being somewhere in those thoughts. I look forward to being around you, even when you’re biting my head off.”

She smiled at that and swallowed the lump steadily rising in her throat. God help her. She wanted to tell him to stop being so freaking sweet! Everything he was saying was only making it worse.

“I want you.” He dipped his head, resting his forehead against hers, his gaze never wavering from her eyes. “I’m going crazy not being able to have you. Go if you want. I’ll help you, whatever I can do, to find this guy who’s setting these fires.” He hesitated, biting his lips together as if he were trying to keep his next words from escaping. “But if you go now, I’m through. I won’t try to touch you again. I won’t get near you. I won’t give you any more cause to feel you have to control yourself to keep me from fucking with your head.”

“You still don’t get it, do you?” Regina whispered. She flattened her hands on his bare chest, stifling a moan at the skin-to-skin contact that sent electric sparks raining through her body, and slid her hands up until she could lock them around his neck. “You’ve been fucking with my head since the moment I turned on you in Wolcott’s office. You scare me to death, Max. You always have.”

“Then let me take away your fears.” His hands slid from the door, and he framed her sides with his palms. “Let me have you, Regina.”

I’m already yours.

She closed her eyes, nodded, and opened her eyes again to find his had closed, too. Had he seen her nod? She wasn’t sure until she saw the soft, relieved smile that started to play on his lips. When he opened his eyes, they nearly took her breath away. She’d seen them darken with his arousal, but they’d never looked like this.

She expected him to kiss her, maybe to even throw her down on the floor right there where they stood, rip off her clothes, and fuck her blind. He didn’t. He simply stared at her with those fathomless, emotion-filled eyes.

She pulled a hand from around his neck and traced the hard line of his jaw with the tip of her finger. She skimmed the finger down the taut muscle in his neck and moved over his collarbone. His heart was racing. She felt it in her fingertip when she brushed over the pulse in his throat. Her heart was pounding, too. Nervousness and desire mixed into a potent concoction that sped her pulse faster and faster.

“Kiss me, Max,” she whispered, surprised by the pleading sound in her tone.

He still didn’t move. It was almost as if he was afraid to, as if he thought she would change her mind at any second. She supposed he had every reason to think that. She had kissed him outside her house the other night, pulled him inside with her, let him kiss and touch her, and then put an abrupt stop to it all.

She had to show him she didn’t have any intentions of stopping this time. She splayed her hand on his chest and leaned in to trace the outline of his collarbone with her tongue. God, he tasted as good as he smelled, all musky and male with a faint hint of the soap he’d used in the shower. She wanted to taste more of him. She wanted to lick her way across and down his amazing chest and washboard abs. She wanted to continue to explore him with her tongue, dipping it down beneath the waistband of his sweatpants until she found the one part of him she was truly dying to taste.

She didn’t. She lifted her head, allowing herself only that one leisurely sample before she cut off all urges for more with a sharpness that grated at her senses and made her want to scream. When she tipped her head to look at him, she found he’d let his head fall back on his shoulders and closed his eyes. He stayed that way for more heartbeats than she could count before he finally raised his head.

She let her hand glide over the heated flesh of his chest. His hard body felt so unbelievably good under her palm that she nearly groaned. She did make a soft sound that wasn’t quite a squeak, but more than a gasp of surprise, when he suddenly pinned her hand to his body beneath one of his.

“You have no idea how good it feels to have your hands on me.” His tone was as dark as his eyes and so gruff it send wickedly erotic shivers down her spine.

She expected him to let her keep touching him. His hand tightened on hers, gripped it, and he pulled it away from his abs, but he didn’t drop it. Instead, he held her it in his at her side, his other hand reaching under to cup the back of her neck.

“Tell me this isn’t going to turn out to be another yo-yo thing.” His lips twitched, but the hint of the smile faded quickly. “Tell me if we go through with this I’m not going to be back to chasing after you again this afternoon.”

“I won’t push you away this time.” How could she? He’d been so honest with her. He’d told her he wasn’t expecting a one-night stand. He’d also admitted he didn’t have a clue where this would go. Neither of them did. Neither of them could. It was either do it, or not. They could give into the attraction, let their lust rule the show, and see where they landed, or they could back away now.

She was way too far gone to back away now.

His fingers dipped into the back of her hair, fisted, and he tugged her head back. The dominance of the move sent slivers of stimulation dancing through her body clear down to her toes. He stared at her, drawing out the moment, ratcheting her anticipation to an almost unbearable level, and then, finally, he covered her mouth with his.

She’d thought after that screenplay moment that he’d kiss her slowly, tenderly, as if he were making love to her mouth. Instead, he crushed her lips with his, taking with no finesse or tenderness, and she realized she’d pushed him to this. She’d tormented him for so long. She’d unknowingly played with him like a yo-yo, and he was finally making her pay.

Oh, dear God, the payment he demanded was absolutely exquisite. He possessed her mouth, licking his way inside, withdrawing only to bite at her lip before licking it to soothe and move inside again. She tried to put her free hand between them to touch him, but he grabbed that hand, too, pinning it at her side as he had her other one as he pressed his body harder against hers. He left no room between their bodies for so much as a breath of air to squeeze through let alone either of their hands. When he let go of one of her wrists, she had nowhere to put it except back around his neck.

She draped that hand loosely over his broad shoulder, expecting him to move back if only a smidgen so he could touch her or let her touch him again. He’d just said it felt good when she put her hands on him. Yet, he wasn’t letting her touch him now. Could he already be that close to the edge?

“Max.” His name tore from her on a breathless plea as his lips left her mouth to lick at her cheek and nip at her jaw. “Touch me, please. Let me touch you. I want—”

He silenced the rest of her words when he claimed her mouth once more. She hadn’t thought his kisses could get any more extreme or ferocious. Yet they did. God, the heat she tasted in him was scalding her insides!

He pushed a hand between their lower bodies, and, finally, thank you, sweet baby Jesus, he was touching her. He yanked the hem of her shirt from her slacks and grazed the backs of his fingers over the flesh of her belly and abdomen. Her nipples tightened in anticipation and she forgot all about the amazing things his tongue and teeth were doing to her mouth as she eagerly awaited his hand on her flesh.

She heard herself whimper when his hand moved south instead, gliding back down to her belly to the waistband of her pants. His fingers pushed between the material and her flesh, teasing her, sending white-hot slivers of need raining to her pussy. He freed the button of her slacks with a practiced flick of his fingers, lowered the zipper, and then worked her pants down her hips. She toed off her shoes, kicked them aside, and did the same with her pants when she felt them fall around her ankles.

He shifted his weight, wedged a foot between hers on the floor, and used it to urge her legs to part. God, as much as she wanted to feel pressure against her pussy, as much as her hips burned to gyrate on something so she could get the pleasure her throbbing clit was looking for, she so didn’t want it to be his knee again.

To her immense relief and sheer satisfaction, it wasn’t his knee that inched its way toward her throbbing pussy. It was his fingers.
Thank you, Lord.
But, just as his digits pushed beneath the seam of her panties and directly between her slick, hot folds, someone knocked on the door behind her head.

His mouth muffled her gasp as his tongue did wondrous things to her. Somehow, she managed to wrench her mouth free. Her lips grazed his stubbled cheek as she whispered, “Max, there’s someone here.”

His hand stilled, his fingers on the verge of delving into the eagerly awaiting opening of her pussy. He eased his head back enough to meet her gaze and then glanced at the door behind her. He tilted his head, the sexual haze in his expression parting just enough for her to see what appeared to be a lack of understanding. Then she realized it was merely a look of deep concentration. He was listening, waiting, and definitely not intending to stop what they were doing.

“Stay quiet,” he finally said in a barely audible whisper. “As long as they don’t hear anyone inside, they’ll go away.” His fingers in her panties wiggled just enough to make her eyes roll back in her head, to pull a soft breath from her lungs, and the corners of his lips twitched.

“Don’t you think you should see who it is?” There was a peephole was right next to her head. All he had to do was peer through it.

“It’s probably my sister,” he said, still in that barely audible whisper. His fingers inched further between her slick folds. He used two digits to spread her feminine lips, opening her pussy so a third finger could dive inside. That finger played there, teasing her, taunting her with the promise of a penetration he didn’t give her.

Regina couldn’t think with his fingers all but inside her, especially when that was exactly where she wanted them. She forced her mind to curve around the promise of pleasure transferring from his touch and ricocheting through her most intimate flesh. “What if it’s important?”

“The only person I want to see right now is you. The only thing that is important to me right now is making you shatter in my arms again.” He buried his face against the side of hers, his breath fanning her earlobe. “God, it was so fucking amazing feeling you come for me yesterday. I want you to do it again, Gina. I want to feel you come apart again.”

Before she could utter another word, he pushed his finger inside her. Pleasure. Sweet, vicious, mind-altering, amazing…God, she hadn’t known a finger could make her feel so much pleasure! If he could make her feel all of this with a finger, imagine what he could do with his cock.

He didn’t give her time to imagine. At that moment, the visitor knocked again, and his finger went wild inside her pussy. He stroked her, deep and fierce, sending spasms of wonderment and searing heat through her. He pulled out, circled her opening with the tip of that finger, and then pushed, not one, but two fingers side by side into her with such speed and invigoration she actually cried out from the sensations that spiraled through her.

“Shh.” His whisper held a hint of laughter, and she felt him smile against the side of her neck as he began to fuck her with his fingers. “Whoever that is, they’re being pretty persistent. We don’t want them to hear you.”

He was using this, she realized, letting the idea of his visitor hearing them drive the excitement higher. As if the possibility of getting caught yesterday morning in the middle of a crime scene hadn’t been enough. Except, it really hadn’t. She’d so completely lost her control at Mr. G’s that the thought of being caught hadn’t crossed her mind once he’d started touching her.

They weren’t at a crime scene now. They were safe in his apartment. Whoever was knocking at the door couldn’t get in. Yet, the mere threat that they might know what she and Max were doing on this side of the door gave her a wicked thrill that only added to the burning in her pussy.

“Have you ever come without making a sound? That’s what you’re going to have to do now. I’m going to make you come, but you can’t make any noise when you do or they’ll hear you.” His fingers caressed her, wiggling and stroking the sensitive walls of her opening before sliding out in a pull that was somehow both too fast and too slow and felt way too good.

Something short-circuited inside her body as her senses reached the point of sexual overload. He was going to make her come. That was as much fact as promise. When his calloused thumb brushed over her sensitized clit, his fingers delving inside her as far as he could possibly shove them, she dug her nails into his shoulder and marveled at the low groan he breathed in her ear.

“Better be quiet, Max. They might hear you.” Each word came on a ragged breath because,
wow
, the man’s fingers were moving inside her with the skill and relentless speed of a vibrator on Energizer batteries. He might have laughed at that. She couldn’t quite tell. His words however, though husky and soft and whispered directly into her ear, were crystal clear.