Twice as Hot (Tales of an Extraordinary Girl #2)(29)
Author: Gena Showalter

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.