Burned (7 page)

The contrast between the cold of the surface and the heat of his mouth made me moan. I felt his tongue trace the sensitive skin at the top of my thigh. Everything he did was full of explicit promise and my insides reached melting point in two seconds flat. I needed him inside me, right then, but he didn’t seem in a hurry to oblige. Instead he proceeded to torture me with pleasure. He explored every single part of me except that one place that was desperate for his touch.

‘Hunter...’ I moaned his name, thinking that I might have to kill him if he didn’t put me out of my misery soon.

His tongue trailed maddeningly close to that part of me and I tried to shift my hips but his hands clamped tight on my thighs, holding me trapped and still so that I was totally at his mercy.

‘Please—please...’ It was more of a moan than coherent speech but he must have got the message, because finally I felt his fingers part me, felt his tongue dip inside me, caressing with unerring accuracy and wicked skill until I was almost sobbing with the sheer overload of pleasure. I was so close,
so close
, my hunger for him wild and out of control, but he held me on the edge of it, refusing to give me what I needed.

Through the pounding of blood in my ears I heard the scrape of the stool on the tiled floor as he stood up, a crash as it fell, but neither of us took any notice. I don’t think we would have noticed if the roof had fallen in, because the only thing that mattered to us right there and then was what we were doing to each other.

His mouth was on mine and he was kissing me with raw, sensual demand. Finally he let go of my hips, but only so that he could pull a condom out of his pocket. I tried to help, but that simply slowed things down and I heard him curse softly as he gently pushed my fumbling fingers out of the way and dealt with it himself.

His mouth was still on mine and he sank his hands beneath me, hauled me off the counter so that my legs were wrapped around his waist and sank into me with a deep thrust. I dug my nails hard into the thick muscle of his shoulders. I’d forgotten how big he was and just for a moment I wondered how this was all going to work, but I was so wet, so ready for him, it was as if we’d been designed to fit perfectly together. My body tightened around his and he groaned deep in his throat, an earthy primal sound that told me everything I needed to know about the way he was feeling. And I was feeling the same way. I couldn’t breathe. I was drowning in sensation, knowing I’d never, ever felt like this before, not even the first time we were together.

He just stayed without moving and I could feel the thickness of him, the strength and power deep inside me. I rested my forehead against his and our eyes held. That connection was every bit as intimate as the merging of our bodies. I had no idea how he was managing to hold back, because I was ready to explode. I discovered that anticipation could be painful. That needing someone could drive me almost to screaming pitch. And then he withdrew and thrust deep again and after that, control ceased to exist for either of us. He filled me, drove into me, dominated me, until the world outside ceased to exist and the only thing that mattered was what we shared. His mouth was hot and skilled, each forceful thrust of his body sending me closer and closer to ecstasy. Sex between us had always been good but never, ever had it been like this. We climaxed together, the pleasure a relentless, overpowering rush that consumed us both and left us fighting for air.

Holy crap.

My arms were locked around his shoulders, now slick with sweat, and I felt the scrape of stubble as he dragged his mouth from mine and kissed my neck, his breathing rough and uneven.

I closed my eyes, trying to find my sense of balance.

A faint flicker of unease rippled beneath the soporific pleasure that followed the storm.

I’d told myself this was just sex. But there was no ‘just’ anything when I was with Hunter. Everything was intense and exaggerated and the whole lethal mix of the man and my feelings threatened more than my equilibrium.

I heard him inhale.

‘That was...’ He stopped midway through the sentence, only I knew in his case it was because he was struggling.

‘Yeah.’

‘How long since—?’

‘None of your business.’

I waited for him to say something but he didn’t. I waited for him to put me down, but he didn’t do that either. Instead he eased away from me, but only so that he could shift my position slightly and grab the champagne and glasses—with one hand. Don’t try this at home. Then he carried me out of the kitchen.

It was a bit caveman.

Still wrapped around him, I pressed my mouth to his face. ‘You Tarzan, me Jane.’

‘Hi, Jane. Want to get naked with me?’

‘I think we already did that bit. Where are we going?’

‘I’m going to show you my loincloth.’

We were both laughing but even laughter didn’t lessen the sexual high, and then we were in his bedroom and he set me down on the bed, which was a relief because my legs felt so weak I wasn’t sure they’d hold me if he’d expected me to stand.

Somehow he managed to put the champagne and the glasses down without spilling anything and turned to face me.

‘This time,’ he said slowly, ‘we’re going to do it properly.’

I wondered what he thought we’d just done.

CHAPTER EIGHT

His bedroom faced over the river and I could see the London Eye in the distance. I imagined all the tourists in those glass pods training their binoculars on the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace and catching sight of Hunter naked in his apartment. He was more impressive than any London landmark—but he didn’t offer two-for-one tickets, so you can forget any ideas about increasing visitor numbers.

I sat on his bed, naked apart from the pink T-shirt, and he was still dressed.

I believed in equality. ‘Take your clothes off.’

That made him smile. ‘I hoped you might do it for me.’

‘That works for me. What did you mean when you said we were going to do it properly?’

He topped up our glasses. ‘We’re going to take our time. We have five years to catch up on, Ninja.’

Despite all my protests, the name made my insides melt.

It was personal.

It was ours.

Something of the past that locked us together and made this more than a mindless sexual encounter. Nothing could change the fact we had history.

He handed me a glass and I sat up on his bed and took it. I’m not much of a drinker generally, because I’m so serious about training. It didn’t take more than a few gulps before I could feel a warmth slowly spreading through my limbs. Or maybe it was being close to him.

Keeping his eyes on me, he dragged off his shirt.

My gaze slid upward to his shoulders, power-packed muscle. He’d always had a good body, but the years and intense training had added definition.

His jeans were undone at the waist and a line of dark hair guided the eye downward.

My mouth was dry and I took a mouthful of champagne and then put the glass down and shifted across the bed so I was eye level with the thick ridge of his erection, which was as big as the rest of him.

Looking up at him, I slid my hands round the bare skin of his back and then pushed his jeans past his hips and down his legs.

Hunter had been my first and they say you always remember your first, but even if he hadn’t been, he wasn’t a man any woman was likely to forget.

He was perfect to look at and I devoured him greedily with my eyes before leaning forward and taking the whole hot, hard, smooth length of him into my mouth.

His breathing changed and it gave me a feeling of satisfaction to know I affected him as deeply as he affected me.

I took my time. Exploring him with the tip of my tongue, taking him deep, teasing him until he groaned and sank his hands into my hair. I felt the hard bite of his fingers against my scalp and then he eased away from me, flattened me to the bed and came down on top of me.

‘I want you again.’ His voice was thickened, his eyes dark and dangerous as he held my gaze.

‘I want you, too.’

He kissed his way along my cheek to my mouth and I felt the rough scrape of his jaw against my skin. My stomach tensed with anticipation. I didn’t understand how I could want him again so badly after what we’d just done.

He slid his hands to my hips and flipped me over. I felt his hand slide down my spine, linger on the curve of my bottom and then slide between my thighs and I closed my eyes because he knew exactly where to touch me, exactly how to drive me wild.

He pulled me up so that I was on my knees, anchored my hips with his hands and slid deep
.
I closed my eyes. I couldn’t see him but my erotic imagination soared into overdrive. I could visualize how we must look, him with those powerful thighs pressed hard up against mine so there was no space between us. Me, my hair tumbling forward over my face, my bottom lifted to him as I knelt before him like some pagan sacrifice. He drew back and then thrust again and I moaned, feeling every inch of him. I was so aroused, so sensitized, the pleasure close to agonizing. My neck was damp with sweat, my whole body trembling with every deliberate thrust. I knew I wasn’t going to last. He knew it, too, but this time it seemed he wasn’t going to make me wait. Or maybe he was the one who didn’t want to wait, because he reached forward and slid those skilled, expert fingers over my slick flesh. The first ripple of my orgasm drew a groan from deep in his throat. I felt myself tighten around him and then my loss of control became his and he erupted in a forceful climax, holding me tightly as he buried himself deep. It was primal, primitive and nothing like anything we’d shared before.

Afterward I didn’t think I was capable of moving. I felt wrung out, shattered and a bit stunned but he eased away from me, rolled me over and came down on top of me, his gaze fixed on mine with disturbing intensity.

I stared up at him, trying to look cool about the whole thing, but I felt as if I’d suffered a direct hit from a meteorite. I couldn’t move, couldn’t think, so when he reached across and pulled another condom out of the drawer by his bed, I gave a whimper of protest.

‘Hunter, I can’t. I’m too sensitive. You can’t possibly be able to—Oh...’

He slid his hand under me and this time he entered me slowly, by degrees, taking his time, proving once again that his self-control was so much better developed than mine, and I discovered I wasn’t too sensitive. I discovered that sex with Hunter was an addiction I wasn’t likely to recover from anytime soon.

I wrapped my legs around him, slid my hands up his chest and stroked my hands over the hard bulge of his biceps.

The excitement was almost unbearable and I knew he felt it, too, because he kept his eyes on mine the whole time, which made the whole experience more intimate. There was no way either of us could not know who we were with. He was as into me as I was him. Our mouths fused, his tongue stroked mine and he thrust deeper. Dimly, in the back of my mind, I realized I was in trouble. I was supposed to be getting him out of my system. I was supposed to be detached and just interested in sex, but this felt like so much more than that. I tried to grab hold of that thought and work out just how much trouble I was in, but his hand cupped my face as he surged into me again and again, adjusting the angle until the whole of me was flooded with intense white heat. With every skilled stroke, he proved just how well he knew me and I moaned his name, losing all hope of playing it cool or hiding my feelings. He was so strong, so masculine in every way and everything we did was on a different level.

I felt myself tighten around him, heard him swear under his breath as my body gripped his and we both lost control at the same moment. I held on to his broad shoulders, battered by the powerful surge of pleasure, swamped by a wash of sensation that threatened to drown me. He lowered his mouth to mine and we kissed right through it so that there wasn’t a single part of us that wasn’t involved and engaged.

Total sex
, I thought. I’d given all of me. Everything.

Everything except my heart.

We stayed like that for a long time, his weight crushing me, my arms holding on to him. Then he seemed to realize he was probably too heavy and he rolled onto his back and took me with him so I was curved against him. His arm kept me locked against his side. My head rested on his shoulder, which basically meant I was staring at his chest. Women probably would have bought tickets to see this view.

His arm tightened. ‘I missed you.’

It was the last thing I expected him to say and I closed my eyes tightly, trying to push back the emotions that threatened to engulf me.

‘Really? Because I hardly noticed you were gone.’

‘So Hayley was lying when she said you cried every night for six months?’

I sensed from his tone he was smiling. ‘She was exaggerating. She always exaggerates.’

‘No, she doesn’t. She’s a scientist. She bases everything on fact. She said you lost weight.’

‘That was intentional. I was training hard.’

There was a brief pause. His grip on me tightened. ‘I’m sorry I made you cry, Ninja.’

‘I’m not. If it hadn’t been for you, I never would have dated men like Brian and think what I would have missed.’ I made light of it because the alternative was getting heavy and I didn’t want that, but when I tried to sit up he held me tightly.

‘I hurt you.’

‘I don’t really want to talk about this.’

‘Why?’

‘Because if we talk about it, I have to remember my awful behaviour.’

He rolled onto his side and looked at me, a frown on his face. ‘Awful?’

‘I was so needy. I smothered you.’

‘You were having a difficult time.’ He stroked my hair back from my face. ‘How are things with your parents now?’

‘Okay. We don’t see that much of them. I have Hayley and we have a great group of friends. I suppose our friends are our family. I’m sorry for my parents.’ It had taken a long time to feel that way, but it was true. ‘They were so wrong for each other. They just made each other miserable.’

‘And they made you miserable.’

I shrugged. ‘Plenty of people are fucked up by their families.’

‘That’s true.’

I realized I didn’t know much about his family. He’d told me once that his mother had left when he was young and that he’d lived with his father. It had all sounded pretty normal to me, but most things were compared to my crazy, dysfunctional family. I realized now that my own altered perspective had stopped me asking more questions. ‘Were you?’

His grip tightened. ‘I was fine.’

That wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to know more. Last time we’d been together I’d been focused on my own issues, but now I’d moved on and I wanted to know about him. ‘Was that why you spent so much time at the gym? Because home was grim?’ At the time I hadn’t even questioned it. I’d been so focused on myself and my own problems I hadn’t thought to question why he’d spent so much time at the gym. I’d presumed it was because martial arts were his passion.

He rolled onto his back and sat up. ‘Do you want some food?’

I wasn’t really listening.

I was remembering what he’d said on that first day, about everyone having something in their lives. At the time I’d been so swamped in my own misery I hadn’t picked up on it.

‘I want you to talk to me.’

‘I need something to eat.’ Without looking at me, he pulled on his jeans and strolled out of the room to the kitchen and I sensed he wasn’t walking away because he was hungry.

I realized now that when we’d been together, I’d been the one to do all the talking.

I slid out of bed, too, pulled on my shirt and followed him into the kitchen.

‘When we were together, you never talked about yourself.’

Without looking at me, he turned the heat up under the pan. ‘You had enough worries of your own. And anyway, talking doesn’t help.’

‘It did for me.’

‘Good. It’s important to know what works.’

‘I want to talk about you for a change.’

He didn’t turn. ‘Talking doesn’t change the facts.’

‘But knowing the facts can sometimes help someone understand.’

‘What do you want to understand?’

In my head there was a vision of him squatting down in front of the little boy in the gym. Hunter Black, who had trained stars in Hollywood, giving all his attention to a child who was being bullied.

‘Tell me about your family.’ I pushed my hair away from my face, conscious that wild sex had left it tangled and messy. ‘I mean, do they even know you’re back? Have you told them?’

‘There’s no one to tell. My mother lives in Spain now.’

‘What about your dad? You once told me your dad was the reason you took up karate.’

‘He was. Indirectly.’ He picked up the eggs he’d abandoned earlier. ‘Omelette all right with you?’

‘Fine, thanks. What do you mean, “indirectly”?’

There was a long pause and then a sizzle as the eggs hit the pan. ‘He hit my mother. She sent me to karate so I would be able to defend myself if something happened to her. She saved what little money he let her have and spent it on lessons for me.’ He paused. ‘I went because I wanted to be able to defend her, which was a pretty big ambition for someone of that age.’

‘Oh my God.’

It wasn’t what I’d expected him to say.

I stared at his broad bare shoulders, not knowing how to respond. Remembering how protective he’d been of me, it was all too easy to imagine he would have been the same with his mother. ‘How old were you?’

He tilted the pan. ‘Four.’

My heart tightened. ‘You were
four
when he hit you?’

‘No, I was four when I started karate. I don’t remember when he first hit me but I do remember my mother pushing me into a cupboard to protect me and locking the door.’

My heart was pounding. The horror of it engulfed my like a grey, dirty wave. ‘She did that?’

‘She hid the key so he couldn’t get me, but he knocked her out and they took her to hospital without realizing I was in the cupboard.’ He reached for two plates and divided the omelette, as if we were talking about our plans for the summer, not something that had formed him.

‘How long were you in there?’

‘They kept her in the hospital overnight.’

I thought of him, four years old and trapped in the dark. I remembered what he’d said about not liking enclosed spaces and suddenly his choice of apartment made sense. Not just because it was above the business but because it was a collision of light and space. No one could ever feel trapped here. ‘What happened? Did your mother leave him?’

‘Eventually. Not soon enough. I was eleven. It wasn’t easy for her. She’d had a rough life and she saw him as security. He used that to manipulate her. He made her feel as if she wouldn’t be able to survive without him. In the end being without him was the only way she could survive.’ He handed me a plate and I took it without even looking at the food.

‘And she left you with him?’

‘She made the right choice. It was about survival.’

‘Were you angry with her for leaving you?’

‘No. I was relieved. The responsibility was crushing. It had got to the point where I was afraid to leave her alone in the house with him. It meant I only had myself to worry about.’

I tried to imagine how that must have felt, being a young boy and feeling responsible for the safety of your mother.