Forbidden Fire (13 page)

“Grand Central Station for art-teists,” Luke said.

The foyer smelt of piss, with carpet the consistency of fur balls. The walls were the same yellowish as the single hanging bulb.

She could hear shouts, sobs and singing, smelt spicy tacos and sour garbage.

“This is where my Mom and I lived, until I came to live with you,” Luke said.

She nodded. “I figured. But if I’m supposed to push you away from me because of your humble beginnings—”

Luke hesitated on the stairs and then reached out and covered a hand print on the wall. It looked like something one of the graffiti artists had done until Sian understood it had been made with dried blood.

Her throat closed. She looked at Luke.

“My blood. Mine,” he said. “One of Mom’s boyfriends spilled some.”

Sian covered Luke’s hand with her own.

“I hope you punched the bastard out,” she said.

Luke gave her a shy look. “Yeah.”

“Good.”

He took her hand and they returned to the car, Luke holding the door for her and treating her with the courtesy he’d always shown her, as if he’d grown up a gentleman. But hadn’t he? At root, a gentleman protected people he cared about.

This time they drove towards the home they shared and Sian let her head fall against the cushion.

“I have this fantasy,” Luke said.

“Ummm?”

“I take you to this private club Taz introduced me to a while back.” Luke glanced at her, his gaze moving over her kiss-swollen lips to the tangle of her hair, loosed from the neat arrangement, wild from his hands. “When we enter, you take off your clothing.”

She tensed a little at the idea, even though a tingle shot through her pussy, still swollen from sex.

He gave one of his careful smiles. “I know you aren’t ready for that kind of scene now.”

“Especially if Taz would be there.”

He caught the subtext. His face hardened. “I’ll never share you with him or any man. But I don’t say if we ever go to that place he wouldn’t see you.”

See her without her clothes, he meant, as Luke’s submissive lover.

“You’re right, I’d have to be ready for something like that.”

He reached out casually and cupped a hand over her damp pussy, squeezing gently. She inhaled sharply and automatically separated her legs so he had access.

“You’re closer than you think to your submission.”

“Yes.” No point in denying it. “What do you envision happening at this club?”

Luke’s eyes were hot as he looked at her, taking in her excitement. “When you were naked, wearing nothing but some peridot drops from your nipple clamps, I’d lead you into a room with a spanking bench.”

He flicked up the dress and began to caress her throbbing body. She moaned, pushing into his tormenting fingers.

“I’d cuff you to the bench and then I’d sit down in a leather armchair. You’d be slick and nervous, your beautiful body fully exposed to anyone who entered the room.”

And he was evil because the thought stimulated her as much as his fingers playing with her.

“There’s a house slave there, a pretty woman. I’d have her paddle your ass and then she’d kneel under you and lick your pussy while I watched.”

Sian sucked in her breath. God! She’d never pictured something like that. “I’m not into women,” she said.

“You’d discover that a warm mouth on your cunt would make you hot regardless of it being a woman.” His voice hardened. “I won’t let another man touch what’s mine. They can watch—oh, that turns you on, doesn’t it, kitty?”

After feeling so uncertain with men, so unattractive, with him she knew she’d never feel that way, with Luke she’d be safe and wanted…and beautiful.

“Lift those knees,” he ordered, reaching into the glove compartment for the vibrator. He switched it on and drove it ruthlessly into her. She shifted her legs open even wider, kept on the edge.

“If you come, I’ll spank you,” Luke said. “And not in my bed this time. I’ll take you to the club and put you over my knee and do it in front of an appreciative audience.”

The thought of that both scared her and aroused her, so her legs trembled as the excess energy in her body overcame her. She was on the verge and he was her delicious master, forcing her to hold back until he gave the word or touch of approval.

He drove at a deliberately sedate pace, glancing at her from time to time, taking in how desperate she was, how beyond caring about how wanton she must appear.

When they finally arrived at the house he undid both their safety belts and then came around and lifted her from the car, placing her on the engine hood, the toy still inside her, whirring busily.

“Come.” He tapped her bare ass.

“Yes!” She clenched around the vibrator, warm contractions working through her deliciously.

After, she lay gasping against the sleek car. Luke pulled out the vibrator slowly, teasing her with it again so she clenched, moaning in the aftershocks of pleasure.

He unzipped himself and pushed inside, fucking her at a leisurely pace, plastering her body against the hood, wrapping his fist in her hair possessively. The slow drag and slide of his penis worked on her again, so she was hot and wanting, tightening around him with every stroke.

“What do you say?” he asked.

“Thank you…” she managed in a drowsy voice, focused on her neediness. “Thank you for letting me come.”

“Good girl.”

How could she ever deny herself this pleasure, this man who mastered her in a way she’d never imagined she’d ever crave?

“I’m…” His voice broke. “I’m going to ask you to marry me. Uh, in a certain, special, as-yet forbidden location.”

“What?”

But he just went on, not explaining himself. “I’m going to give you a little time to think about it, but I’m going to be family with you.”

He filled her and she rode the scalding wash of another climax, given to her by him, his body, his control.

Chapter Thirteen

“The big ‘M’,” Dharma said, taking a gulp of her coconut latte as if it were whisky. “Luke pushed for that? Wow.”

“Not all men are commitment shy,” Sian said.

“Apparently.”

“So what did you tell him?”

“I, uh, didn’t speak for a long time. Not in coherent sentences.”

Dharma’s lips curved. “Uh-huh.”

Sian was impressed with how much meaning her best friend could load into one facial expression.

“All right, let’s regroup.”

“I’m not sure I can do that. I think I may be past the point of no return,” Sian said. “Maybe it was the moment I saw him trying to play a piano when we were both still kids.”

Dharma’s eyes misted for a moment, but then snapped back like a rubber band a second later. She was a romantic, but not a push-over romantic. “You’ve dealt with being his cougar.”

Sian tugged her hair. The word…embarrassed her. “Please.”

“Sorry, still a tender spot.”

“Yep.” She decided that this conversation needed two things—chocolate and caffeine, so she grabbed an espresso brownie, cut it in half and shared it.

“And wow,” Dharma said around her bite of brownie, “you even faced down that dragon of a neighbour. I bet she’s spread it all over your posh neighbourhood, how you and cute boy are brother and sister, living in sin.”

“Except we aren’t,” Sian snapped. “We are not related. We
can
have a relationship.”

Dharma smirked again and Sian knew she’d needled her to make a point.

“Yeah, okay. I guess I got over that too,” Sian said.

“It wasn’t nice of Taz to throw in the woman from the threesome.” Dharma’s eyes narrowed and Sian figured the big fireman would get his head handed to him the next time he dared enter Coffee Dreams.

“Luke proposed one of his own.”

“What?” Now she’d managed to surprise her friend.

“Um, not like the ones he did before we hooked up. This was with another woman and it didn’t sound like she and I got real involved. Also, to clarify, he doesn’t touch her.”

“Mmmm.”

“You’ve done it with another woman,” Sian said.

“Yep. It can be nice.”

Sian sighed. “How is it I’m older than both you and Luke and I haven’t a tenth your experience?”

“That’s not the issue. What are you going to tell him about the marriage deal?”

“We didn’t get to talk about it. We didn’t spend the night together.”

“He’s holding out for marriage?”

“Apparently.” It was crazy, but when he’d closed his door gently and left her alone in the hallway after their date, she’d felt utterly lost. But marriage…yeesh!

“He’s pushing, I grant you,” Dharma said. “But look at it from his perspective. He loves you, he’s always loved you. You’ve lived together for years. You even told me if you had a kid you’d both welcome that. To all intents and purposes you two are living together so marriage isn’t a big step and…”

“What?”

“I’m thinking of marriage vows, about you ‘taking this man’. He probably needs that after being stuck in the role of your little kid brother all these years.”

Need. But Luke seemed so tough, so remote as he said goodnight. Didn’t he know all he had to do was tell her he hurt?

“I need a moment,” she said.

Dharma squeezed her shoulder before heading out to the store front, leaving Sian alone. “Sure.”

Sian sat at her desk, sipping her first coffee of the day—coffee roasted from beans she chose from fair-trade farmers, coffee she brewed and sold in what had always been her dream. She had always been so introverted that she knew without Luke pushing her, she wouldn’t have had the guts to go for this place, aptly named Coffee Dreams.

But she’d been there for him. When kids drank too much and ploughed themselves into a freeway wall and he and the men of Station 57 peeled fragile bodies out of a trashed car, she stayed up late with Luke, making her chilli for him to take in the next day.

Family. They were family, but Luke needed it spelled out in neon. He needed even the most nosy and interfering of their neighbours to know they were together.

Something shattered out front, yanking Sian from her thoughts.

“Dharma?”

For some reason her heart was pounding as she shoved open the swinging door.

Dharma was on the hardwood floor, on hands and knees, her head hanging.

“Oh, God.” She grabbed her phone off the counter when Taz walked in. “
Help
!”

Taz knelt, putting a hand against Dharma’s pulse point. “Erratic,” he muttered. “Luke’s riding with me today in the paramedic truck. Get him in here and call nine-one-one.”

Sian burst through the door of Coffee Dreams, spotted Luke. He straightened as soon as they made eye contact. “What’s wrong?” he demanded. “Sian!”

“Dharma. I think it’s her heart.” Sian dialled as Luke grabbed equipment and ran into the coffee shop.

As Sian watched, Luke and Taz worked over Dharma, Luke supporting her while Taz examined her. Dharma’s breath whistled in and out like a desperate tea kettle. “I’m scared,” she whispered.

Taz said, “You’re going to be okay. Look at me. I don’t bullshit.”

Dharma stared into Taz’s eyes. “No,” she managed. “You don’t do that.”

“Any caffeine today?” Luke asked. “Any foods your doctor doesn’t want you eating?”

“I…no. I never—” Dharma began.

“Oh God, the bit of brownie you had. It was made with espresso,” Sian said.

“Too fast!” Dharma gripped Luke’s hand. “My heart—”

The door crashed open as two ambulance workers arrived with a gurney. They exchanged terse medi-speak with Taz and Luke.

“We’re going to get you to Mercy Hospital,” Luke told Dharma, before they shifted her to the cart.

“I’m closing up. I’ll be right behind you,” Sian said.

“Are you all right to drive?” Luke demanded.

Sian swallowed. “Yes.”

In the ER waiting room, Sian looked up when Luke sat down beside her.

“Do you know anything?” she asked.

“The doc’s with her now. They’re slowing down her heart with a drip. She’ll be here a while,” Luke said.

“But she’s going to be all right?”

Luke nodded. “I think so.”

Sian slumped. “She was fine. She was absolutely fine and then…”

“Yeah. It happens that way sometimes.”

“Her medical condition?”

“Life.”

“I guess you see a lot of that.”

He didn’t answer, but he didn’t need to. Instead, he looked at her. “I have to get back to work.”

She nodded. “I’m going to stay here. See if Dharma could use a ride home if…if it’s all right for her to go home. Luke, she’s my best friend and she nearly died. If you and Taz hadn’t been there…”

Luke squeezed her hand. “We were.”

She watched him stride away, looking comfortable in the hospital environment in his uniform.