Wild Heat (Hot Shots: Men of Fire #1)(50)
Author: Bella Andre

He rolled them over so that she was nestled in the crook of his arm, and his lungs burned from exertion.

As he stroked her hair, he knew there was no point in thinking she was just an exceptional screw. She was all that and more. Much more.

He loved her.

He looked down at her face and saw that her eyes were closed, dark circles of exhaustion beneath them in sharp relief to her beautiful honey-tinged skin. She’d been through hell in the past couple of days. They both had.

Exhaustion pulled at Logan. With Maya safe in his arms, he gave in and slept.

Hours later, as night fell away and daylight returned, jealousy burned in the woods surrounding Logan’s house.

She was there with him. Fucking him.

Goddamn it. Even after everything that had happened, they were still doing it like bunnies. Nothing was stopping them, not explosions or bombs or even deaths.

This time they’d finally pay.

And so would everyone they loved.

CHAPTER TWENTY

LOGAN FELT Maya stir, one of her thighs sliding against his. Sunlight streamed into the room and he was already rock hard, ready to take her again. He shifted their positions so that she was lying flat on the pillow and he was leaning on one elbow, looking down at her. Her eyelids fluttered as she awakened and he took a long moment to appreciate her high cheekbones, her lush mouth, the curve of her jaw, and her long, smooth neck.

She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, the only one he wanted in his bed for the rest of his life.

Her eyes opened and she smiled at him, stretching her arm up to press her palm flat against his chest. “Hi.”

He smiled back, relishing her touch, loving that she was in his bed and not looking for an excuse to leave. “Did I wake you up?”

She rubbed her hip against his erection. “Something did.”

“I want you again, Maya. Badly.”

“Then take me. Now.”

Women had frequently praised him for his smooth moves, for his control. Their pleasure came first, no matter what. But he’d never been this tempted, this desperate.

“You make me lose control,” he said as he pushed her thighs open with his knees.

“Good.”

She pulled his head down and kissed him just as she lifted her hips and took him inside her soft heat. He hadn’t touched her in hours, but she was as ready for him as he was for her.

He kissed her hard, holding himself rigid and unmoving within her. More than anything, he wanted to thrust once, twice, three times, and come with her squeezing him tightly, no rubber barrier between them. But it was too soon. She wasn’t ready to commit to a lifetime with him. Yet.

He forced himself to slide all the way out, even when the small sounds of disappointment coming from her throat clouded his thinking, and had a condom on in less than thirty seconds, rolling over so that she was straddling him. She smiled again, a seductive grin that made him even harder, and then her quadriceps tightened as she shifted into place above his shaft. Balancing her hands on his chest, she slowly lowered herself down onto him, one inch at a time.

It killed Logan not to thrust high and hard into her slick heat. Finally—Lord, it couldn’t have been soon enough—she settled down onto his base, her soft, round butt cheeks pressing into the tendons across his hips. And then she was lifting herself nearly all the way, only to come crashing back down, over and over, harder, faster each time.

She threw her head back and arched her spine as she rode him, her br**sts bouncing in rhythm to her thrusts. He slid one hand to her ass, the other to her tits, and stroked her, groaning his encouragement. He was unable to hold back his orgasm until she’d found her own pleasure.

Gripping Maya’s hips hard with both hands, he held her hard against him as his shaft twitched and jumped within her tight canal. She ground her hips against his groin as she cried out his name, her inner muscles squeezing him.

She collapsed onto his chest and he wrapped his arms around her rib cage and waist. They were still catching their breath when he said, “I don’t want there to be any secrets between us anymore, Maya. I want to tell you about the reasons I used to play with fire.” He hoped that if he opened up completely, she would too.

Maya shifted slightly to look at him. “I’m listening,” she said, her eyes soft, already filled with under standing.

“I was ten years old the first time I lit a fire.” He remembered that hot summer afternoon well, when a pile of leaves and a match became an epiphany. “My father was a difficult man to be around. A grade-A ass**le, actually.”

“I can’t imagine that. It must have been hard for you.”

“Harder for my mother. She cried a lot. I figured out pretty early on that sticking up for her only made things worse. I was hiding from them, kicking through piles of dry leaves, when I found a box of matches on the ground. I’m not going to lie to you. That first fire was awesome. Dangerous. I felt like a goddamned superhero.”

“Any boy would have.”

Her insight, the fact that she wasn’t judging him for what he’d done, meant the world to him. “That first fire didn’t last long. Thirty seconds, maybe a minute. But it was just enough smoke and flame to make me excited. And a little nervous.”

“What if your father had found out? What would he have done?”

Logan hadn’t spoken to his father in over a decade, not since he’d convinced his mother to get the hell out. “Beaten me to within an inch of my life. But he didn’t find out. And when I got away with it, I did it again.”

“Risk was the reward, wasn’t it?”

Logan nodded. “Exactly. How long could I let them burn? How big could they get? It didn’t take long for things to escalate. I hung out with the older kids in town, the ones who didn’t give a shit what happened to them because their lives were already crap. They liked having a guy like me around who wasn’t afraid to create diversions with fire. They stole stuff, then I lit fires in Dumpsters and garbage cans. Guess what got more attention?”

“I imagine store owners thought it was better to lose a couple of things off the shelves to pickpockets than watch their businesses go up in flames. How old were you when you finally got caught?”

“Barely seventeen. I was stunned. Couldn’t believe it, even when I was in handcuffs. In my head, I was completely invincible.”

She gave him a crooked smile. “Some things don’t change much, do they?”

He covered her hand with his own. “It might look like I take crazy risks, but I know damn well that I’m not invincible. My crew isn’t invincible, either. I’ve relearned that lesson every single day on the mountain, every time I have to go to the hospital to visit one of my men.”