Fire and Flame (22 page)

She rubbed against his knee, whimpering for him to hurry. Her wordless demand was heard loud and clear. Brent broke away and then fastened his lips onto the bony ridge of her ribcage beneath her breast even as his fingers continued pushing at the tank top. The moist kisses he deposited along the hard protrusion of her bones shouldn’t have made her hot. But they did. Perhaps anything he did would.

He mimicked a light thrust into the junction of her thighs with his knee.

“Brent,” she gasped.

Brent repeated the movement she’d clearly enjoyed. His mouth made a leisurely trip along her ribcage to her breast. Sara was close to mindless.

At last his searing mouth closed over her nipple. Rich desire ignited, propelling through her body like a wildfire through dried timberland. He gave both sides equal care—maddeningly slow, ardent care that had her begging for more.

He began the reverse trip. Sara’s whimpers increased two fold. With every half inch he traversed, her temperature jumped a full degree. If he continued as he was—with his unhurried sampling of her body combined with the wicked thrusting of his knee—she’d be in danger of exploding into pure fire without removing her shorts.

But she didn’t want that, she wanted him, all of him. Sara wanted his heat joined with hers, lifting them to the blazing heights of pleasure only two Fire witches could achieve. And so while she was still in control of her thoughts, she slipped her arms into Brent’s armpits, urging him back up with two quick tugs. Her effort went ignored in his seeming quest to kiss every bit of her skin.

Brent’s tongue swirled into the hollow of her belly button. She hissed her mindless need as his mouth continued the trip toward her waistband. With only the moist warmth of his lips, he nudged her shorts down. His teeth nibbled the tender skin above her mons. Sara’s breath caught.

Would he repeat yesterday’s performance?

To her everlasting thanks, he lifted himself up the length of her body for the kiss she’d wanted moments earlier. Without breaking the embrace he repositioned her against her pillow.

And then he withdrew to the edge of the bed.

“I didn’t ask for permission last night,” he whispered unwelcome words in a tone that was far too grim. “But I’m asking for permission tonight. Sara, do you want this?”

She reached for him. A kiss would show him exactly how much she wanted it. Brent let her sit up. He let her press the warmth of her nearly bared chest to his. But when she tried to do more than slide her lips against his, he pulled away.

“I need to hear the words,” was his quiet explanation for why he wouldn’t kiss her now.

He was ruining a blissful interlude. Now she had to think. After the day’s violence, she didn’t want to think. She only wanted to feel.

Brent’s furrowed forehead deepened. His lips parted as he drew in long breaths. The tops of his shoulders glistened with perspiration in the moonlight implying she’d worked him into a state of frenzy every bit as much as he’d done to her. But it was his eyes, black in the darkness that held the weight of emotion.

Could that be vulnerability in Brent’s gaze? Surely not. He didn’t care what anyone thought of him, certainly not her.

He’d asked for permission for tonight. Surely agreeing wouldn’t be accepting anything more than that she wanted to enjoy him today and only today.

The tender wrinkling at the bridge of his nose and the fingers clenched into a tight ball he tried to hide from her hinted there was no end date on Brent’s need.

Sara had to tread carefully because Brent was now a lifetime tenant in her father’s house.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Brent’s heartbeat roared in his ears as he breathlessly waited for her answer. She could break his heart with a simple word. Did she know how easy it would be to destroy him? If she did, would she show him the same sympathy she’d shown for the children earlier?

He catalogued her every detail while he impatiently waited. She was luminescent in the moonlight like the celestial creature her kisses had been named after. Sara’s usually golden hair was shot through with silvery threads that shimmered in the pale blue glow almost as brightly as her gleaming eyes. And even in the dimness of her room the flush was visible in her cheeks.

He’d done that to her. It had been his caresses and kisses that had made her hand tremble atop her thigh moments after he’d stopped. But it was Sara’s beautiful body and angelic kisses that had made his entire frame quake with need. He’d barely kept a leash on his ardor during her countless little moves to entice him into hurrying. He’d persevered because Sara deserved to be savored like the luxury she was.

The thought she put into her answer frightened him. That wrinkle above her nose was the marker of weighty consideration. What was she weighing? Could she know this was the first in a long line of nights he’d claim from her?

Her lips parted. Sara drew in the air she’d need to speak. Everything in Brent went completely still.

“I want this,” she said as clear as a bonfire in the darkness at the edge of a calm ocean.

Permission granted, Brent could hardly breathe. His next intake of air was ragged, shaking into lungs that felt too small. He could hardly believe she’d agreed. He sat dumbly staring at her when he should have been doing something.

“Brent?”

Her voice laced with a mixture of impatience and tenderness made his heart squeeze. Phoenix, he wanted to put her in a glass box where he could always keep her safe. Without warning even to himself, Brent shot across the bed, grabbing her face in his palms.

Her satin smooth skin had cooled without his touch. He’d quickly fix that. Brent engulfed her mouth with his own, slashing his tongue between her teeth. She tasted of sweet honey and pure sensuality. Just then all he could think of was her honey lips closing over the rod that pushed at her leg.

To his shock her hands wriggled between them. And then the velvet heat of her skin touched his. He withdrew his head to verify what she’d done. Sara’s shorts were bunched around her thighs, her panties hidden within, and her golden charms visible in a strikingly inviting way.

“Phoenix,” he softly cursed. “You…are so beautiful.” With a reverent motion he set his palm atop the crop of curls at the V of her legs.

Sara tilted her neck as she drew in a small, sexy inhale that lifted her breasts. Brent hardly knew what to touch first. She was a gallery of delights exhibited to perfection.

He gave into the thickest urge. His palm lowered to her thighs. Brent brushed his forefinger and middle finger over the slit in her exquisitely formed folds. Her damp heat overflowed against his skin. Brent wanted to feel her around him again more than anything, but first…he’d take his time.

Gently he spread her, delving his fingers along her slick skin. Her quiet moan urged him onward. He loved the feel of her swollen beneath his touch, loved seeing her react to it more.

With sure but steady motions, he brought her shorts and panties down her legs, pushing them over her feet where they dropped to the floor. He eased her thigh away for increased access. And then he set about exploring her folds to see how wild and wet he could make this princess.

Her hands shifted up into her hair, tugging at the golden mass with breathless whimpers when he grazed her sensitive bud. Moans of need escaped him unbidden when she shuddered. Her breasts bounced for his attention and her legs scissored opened and closed at regular intervals signally that though the massaging was becoming too much for her, she didn’t want him to stop.

Brent’s rod strained at his pants harder than he could ever recall. He feared he’d finish before he managed to get his zipper down. Sara drew her lower lip between her teeth. A powerful moan shook her from the inside out. He was going to lose it. She had no idea what she did to him, couldn’t know because her eyes had been clenched tightly together since his fingers had begun their exploration.

But he hadn’t explored her fully. Not yet. His breath quickened as he slid his fingers through her folds, pausing at the entrance to her core. Brent slipped his index finger slowly inside, groaning at the red-hot temperature surrounding him. She released a quiet hiss followed by a small sigh. The reaction pleased him in a primal way.

“Princess,” he murmured as he withdrew his finger only to add another to it.

Sara’s eyes flipped open. Her body stiffened while the rest of her stilled. “Don’t. Call. Me. That.” she snapped out in a sharpened voice. And then she tried to pull herself up the bed away from him.

Brent clamped his palm atop her curls. The other hand coiled around her hip, holding her still.

Eyes narrowed into forbiddingly icy slivers glared at him. The mouth he’d recently kissed slammed shut in a pouty shape. She was truly upset with him for calling her by the name everyone had used. He hadn’t meant it as an insult. It was anything but.

Brent adopted his most sincere tone. “You’re a princess to me, Sara.” She tried lifting away again. “Not in a helpless way,” Brent said while strengthening his grip. There was no way he was letting her go now. “You’re beautiful, majestic, and worthy of the greatest esteem.”

“And spoiled and arrogant,” she added harshly.

“I like the way you are,” he replied in his gentlest of voices.

“You never liked me before.”

Had he ever heard her speak in such a small voice? Clearly the nickname had hurt her all these years. Truly he’d thought she’d enjoyed it because she’d glowed when Fintan called her his princess. How many more misjudgments had he made of her?

One thing was certain: he needed to set her straight. “I’ve always liked you.”

“You hated me when I first moved here,” she argued.

With Sara’s cooling skin beneath his hand, he keenly felt the slow loss of desire in the face of their discussion. But this was a discussion they needed to have.

“You stole my friends so easily,” he reminded her. “I resented you for it because I’d worked hard for those friends.” Brent allowed his eyes to shut. He inhaled a long, steadying breath for the courage to continue. “I also resented you because you didn’t want to be my friend and because you lived a charmed life with a father who loved you.”

“I did want to be your friend,” she was quick to reply. “I tried for many years but you were always so cruel to me.”

This was surely a wicked sort of torture that she was tantalizingly nude yet insisting upon having a heart-to-heart when what his body wanted to do was bury itself deep in her. They needed to talk this out.

Brent nodded for her. “I was afraid you wouldn’t like me.”

“But I didn’t like you because you were so mean.”

He gave a sad smile. “That was safer than if I let you in and you discovered I was just another Indiana boy with a surly attitude.”

Her lips parted in a sweet little surprised motion that allowed him to see her pink tongue within. Her eyes crinkled together in bemusement as if she couldn’t possibly conceive of his words being true. He’d admitted them to himself when he’d shared it with her. But they were achingly genuine.

Brent couldn’t help himself, he had to touch her more. His fingers resumed their massaging motions within her glorious folds.

“Brent,” she said with equal parts dismay and desire as she drew in a startled breath that once again lifted her breasts for him.

He smiled slyly. If she wanted to carry on, he’d oblige her.

“Then you started dating,” he said at an easy pace. “Every new boy made me angrier with you than the last.” Slipping two fingers within her, he waited until she’d inhaled her gasp before continuing. “And then you started dating my friends.” Carefully he alternated massages with thrusts of his fingers within her and the occasional brush of his thumb over her clitoris merely to hear her whimper and gasp. “I thought for sure you knew how much I liked you and were deliberately making me miserable.”

“I thought…you…hated me,” she repeated in between quick inhalations.

“I never hated you, princess.”

This time her reaction to the term was a soft moan. A definite improvement. If he had his way, she would moan every time he murmured princess in her ear.

And if he had his way, she’d never leave him.

He could stand it no longer. Brent got to his feet beside the bed where he worked at the fastener on his jeans. Sara’s eyes opened in time to see him draw down the zipper. He spared a moment of worry she wouldn’t like what she saw before the pull of lust urged him to complete the job. Out he sprung with an eager bounce. His jeans lasted little longer.

Brent set his bare knee between Sara’s thighs once more. He leaned over, pressing his lips to her mouth. She undid him with a simple curling of her hand into his hair and the feather soft brush of her tongue over his. He thrust his knee against her gently once, gauging her readiness though he already knew the answer.

And then he covered her completely with his feverish body. Already his tip settled precisely where it belonged. He released a small groan from the slick heat that met him. His breath caught as he slowly eased his rod into her entrance without the use of hands. Sara tilted her pelvis for him, opening her sultry center for his invasion. A long, ragged moan shook from him as her red-hot muscles flexed and then braced his length. He exhaled in relief once he’d pushed himself in fully.

Sara’s honey breath brushed his ear, tickling the hair that curled over the tips during the small lull. She tried to withdraw first. He found himself silently laughing against her cheek at her impatience. Had he thought he was the most impatient person he knew?

If she wanted faster, he’d give her faster.

Slowly he worked the pace from nonexistent to thrusting in time to his heart at rest. But his heart wasn’t at rest. It was pumping wildly because her blazing passage felt simply amazing around him. Her fingers dug into his shoulders—a silent plea for more. Her regular gasps for air and whimpers of his name urged him faster until he wildly pumped into her slick heat. That she knew who he was, was entirely aware of what he was doing to her, was hotter than anything else she’d ever said.