Seduce Me in Flames (28 page)

“You can’t do this,” he said in a hot fall of words where his lips had fallen against her forehead. “Bad enough you’re in here alone with me now. You don’t want them thinking I’m your lover, Ambrea. They don’t even know if they want to accept you versus your uncle. But if they think you’re making love with a savage like me—”

“Right now what ‘they’ think is not my first concern,” she told him.

“It should be!” he snapped, trying to pull her under some sort of control and failing so miserably that she realized he wasn’t trying all that hard.

“I have spent so much time denying myself everything there is in life to be lived. What I did not deny myself,
my father saw to it that I was denied it. If all Allay is going to turn on me in these next few moments simply because I was alone too long with my Tarian protector, then let it be. I won’t live afraid of them. Not when I’m just learning to live unafraid of everything else. I won’t ever give anyone that kind of power over me again. And neither should you.”

His jacket and vest fell at his heels with a hard thud, telling her just how heavily armed he was in just those two iniquitous pieces of clothing. How he managed to make it all so invisible to the outside eye she would never know, but just the same she smiled at the sound of it. Because it made her feel more protected? Because it was so essentially Rush? She couldn’t say.

“What I am afraid of has nothing to do with something so shallow as my concerns of what someone else might think of me,” he said tightly as both her hands went to the task of peeling up the Skintex. He might have been trying to fight her a moment ago, but in this particular moment he raised his arms and helped her skin the thing off him. He did shrug her off immediately afterward, though, stepping back and holding up a hand between them in an effort to stay her. “I won’t do anything that could hurt you!”

“And do you think I want to be hurt?” she asked him with an admonishing click of her tongue. “Now that would just be silly.” She reached up and took hold of his hand where it was trying to hold guard between them. “Kick off your boots.”

“But I …” He floundered for what to say, for how to argue with her. She supposed he wouldn’t be having such a hard time if he hadn’t wanted this so badly. The realization made her skin go warm from head to toe.

“It’s either that or come under the water fully dressed, Rush. If you leave here just as you entered, my courtiers can only guess at what we’ve been doing. If you leave
here wearing wet clothes, I imagine that would remove all doubt.”

Her logic flustered him. He didn’t know how to fight her reasoning and his own blatant desires at the same time. It was also keeping him from comprehending the totality of what she had planned. Regardless, she got her way. He kicked off his boots. Then he reached down to unfasten the knife sheath he had strapped to his calf. After that, he reached up between his shoulder blades and pulled free the suction sheath attached to his skin there, the strong technology of the sheath designed to keep the weapon strapped to skin no matter how much the wearer moved or sweated. This particular sheath held some sort of small munitions that she couldn’t even begin to guess the nature of after all the many things she had seen him use. The strap contained only three bombs, each visibly different from the others. She didn’t doubt that he knew what each one did and where each one was located precisely in the sheath so he could quickly grab and use them.

Ambrea stepped in to take his belt under her nimble fingers. When he caught her hands in his to stop her, it was the first time she could recall him feeling cold to the touch. She looked up at him, saw him swallow hard.

“What if—” he tried to say.

“Yes, but what if?” she countered.

That was a powerful “what if,” a compelling one. A tempting one. She knew that, and very likely so did he. His hands fell away from hers, a clear surrender. But still he took no active part in what she was doing. He remained as passive as possible, his breath coming in difficult spurts, his gaze shifting all around the room as if the little details he was focusing on could keep him from thinking too much in one direction or the other. Anything, she realized, except looking at her and touching her. And just by that singular lack of focus on her, she
felt the erotic fullness of his entire attention. She felt it in a way that she would never have responded to the full-force flirtations of any other man. So she unfastened his pants and boldly pushed them down over his flexed hips and taut buttocks, down thighs locked into a rigid stance, and then knelt to help him step free of them as a servant might do for her.

When she looked up from her kneeling position before him, she caught him quickly looking away, looking toward the wall, then the ceiling, anywhere but down at her. His hands curled into fists so tight and powerful that they looked as though they could destroy empires with a single blow. But more impressive was the growing size of his penis. Despite his best efforts, a single glance in her direction had resulted in the very response he was working so hard to avoid. It lengthened and thickened, rose away from his body like some kind of deadly and powerful arrow.

It was the first time she had seen an erect penis in person. Pictures, she realized, had done the magnificence of it a terrible injustice. PhotoVids had added a clinical crudeness to something that simply could not be captured, she believed. Or maybe such poetic thoughts occurred to all inexperienced girls. Strangely, though, she was convinced that, had it been anyone else but Rush, she might have been scared to death. She wondered if it was the first time he had been naked in front of a woman, then realized that it wasn’t likely to be the case since he was a soldier and there were many women soldiers out there in rough countries on hard assignments that provided very little privacy between the sexes.

Ambrea rose to her full height and resisted the incredible urge she had to reach out and touch him. She wanted to know how he felt. Was he soft or hard? Warm? Hot? Hotter still?

She met his eyes, and something very much like panic appeared there.

“This is a bad idea,” he croaked as he suddenly bent, reaching for his clothes.

She threw her body against him instinctively in order to stop him, but she realized very quickly that it wasn’t the wisest of moves. He was so hot that she pulled quickly away in order to avoid being burned. But she grasped at his hand and ignored the scorching of her skin for as long as it took her to hurriedly yank him down the steps and under the warm fall of water in the bath. The instant it hit him, there was a hiss and sizzle sound followed by steam, much like the reaction of water against a superhot skittle. Ambrea had to lean back to avoid the steam, but she still didn’t let go of his hand, instead allowing their palms to part and letting the water cool the space between them.

The instant all the steam ceased, she stepped against him, sealing her body to his, reaching with her free hand for his and turning his palm toward her as she pressed it to her face. It was a total leap of faith. There was no guarantee that the water was enough to constantly cool the fierce heat he could generate. Especially at its mildly warm temperature. Perhaps she should command the computer regulating its temperature to go icy cold, providing even more of a buffer, but she refused to show a moment’s doubt. She knew that if she did, he would turn tail and run back to his place of denial and would continue to let his fear reign over him. Between the two of them, someone had to have faith.

She
needed
to have faith. She longed so much for him, burned in a way that no waterfall could possibly cool. This had to work.

Please, let this work
.

She stared up hard into his eyes, waiting with him for several long moments, waiting for him to burn her in
spite of the cooling effect of the water, waiting to see if there was any hope to be found in her mad methods. His heart was thundering in his chest so hard that she could feel it as it pulsed against her. His fingers opened and closed around her head, one moment feeling as though he was going to push her away, the next feeling as though he would never let her go. The longer the time stretched between them, the harder his breath seemed to come. A slow, virulent heat began to burn in his eyes, the expression far hotter than the hand she had held to pull him under the water.

In the next instant his mouth was crashing against hers, devouring everything about her as quickly as he could possibly manage. His hands came alive and climbed over her everywhere at once. His stroke was dominant and possessive as it raced over her sodden clothing. Her beautiful gown, its delicate fabrics utterly ruined, meant nothing to either of them. She had never felt the power of such encompassing desire, never known someone could want her so much. Need her so blatantly. She had been such an unwanted creature for so long that this was utter nirvana.

He tangled his tongue with hers, tasting her again and again, his breath mixing with hers and water washing wildly between their lips. She became aware of him abruptly laughing into her mouth, sharp disbelieving bursts of deep male laughter that suddenly filled the room as he threw back his head and let the water crash directly into his face.

“Sweet merciful spirits,” he ejected as he looked back at her, wrapping her face between his hands. “Such a simple idea, and never once did it occur to me.”

“A simple beginning,” she warned him, purposefully raining on his delight.

“Good enough for now,” he told her as he grabbed for
her backside with both hands and hauled her up tightly into his body. “Aye, more than enough for now.”

That much she was willing to give him. After so many years of denial, he had earned himself a few precious minutes of letting loose. Of indulgence. And by the Being, he took full advantage, she thought as his hands moved wildly over her body. At first he kept the heavy, wet silk of her dress between his hands and her skin, one last prophylaxis to keep her safe as his touch moved in staccato strokes up her back, over her belly and hips, up over her heavy breasts. He left almost no area of her body untouched, now that he felt free to do so. Issues as to whether it was wise or not because of who she was and who he was never even came into play. Not in the face of the other obstacles that had been surmounted. For the moment, in any event.

But she didn’t let herself think about that. Ambrea was too busy feeling. Like him, it was all for the first time, and she reacted to it as though a floodgate had been thrown open. She wanted him to touch her skin and refused to let his fear interfere with that. She reached for the closure of the dress and pulled it open, dragging the now-heavy material down over her shoulders. She peeled it off her body, peeled it away from between them, allowing them to come in skin to skin contact. They seemed to gasp in unison as they did so, each of them reveling in the fiery sensation that was all passion and no actual fire. That he was hot was understandable, but it was a bearable heat, the kind of heat that she could safely devour as she plastered herself to him. Her arms wrapped around his neck as she taught herself again and again all the new and delightful ways she could touch and hold another person. She reveled in how he felt, in the strength of every part of his body as he came up hard against her and she molded softly against him.

Now his hands went over her again, this time closer, slower, so much more intimately, and the sensation of it all made her moan against his lips. That was when she realized he was kissing her again. It felt like an entirely different experience now that she was naked against him. It was crazy. In the grand scheme of things, they must have skipped about a thousand steps in proper courting rituals, those rituals that she had always been trained to believe were so important to maintaining her status as a lady. But it wasn’t the first time she had flown in the face of what they had tried to train into her, and she doubted it would be the last. Besides, if she had obeyed every rule of etiquette expected of her in court, she would have signed away all of her rights to being empress a very, very long time ago. Now she reaped the ultimate reward for defying that rule and defying her father. Here again was another ultimate reward. His strong fingers dragging against her skin, sending electrical delight over all her nerve endings was worth any and all fallout she might suffer for taking this beautifully wild Tarian to her bed.

“Sweet taunting spirits,” he breathed against her skin as his mouth moved to taste the curve of her jaw, the rise of her cheek, the long, graceful length of her neck, “I never knew a woman could taste this sweet. I never knew you would feel so soft. It’s beyond any imaginings.”

“You imagined touching me?” she asked breathlessly as he lifted her breast to the quick approach of his mouth.

“Aye. Once I kissed you, it seemed I could think of nothing else. As futile as it was, I couldn’t make myself stop. I knew you’d be warm and soft, Blue Eyes, but I never thought you’d feel so hot. Nothing ever feels hot to me. I’ve always had to pretend something was hot to the touch, a frying pan or such.” His tongue came out to
flick teasingly at her rigid, sensitive nipple. Ambrea sucked in a breath of surprise at the sensation it elicited, at the way her insides seemed to swirl with intensity. In spite of all the water already spilling all around her, she felt herself growing wet between her legs. And with that wetness came an incredible craving, a sensation of being void and empty and a craving for being filled.

“But now, the first time I am touching you, I can feel your heat.” His fascination was put aside for the moment as a new one came to the forefront of his attention. He tongued over her nipple again and again, rubbing his thumb over her in his tongue’s wake each time, feeling the changes in the rigidity of it. She was squirming in his hold so blindly, her head having fallen back as she abandoned herself to the sensations he was subjecting her to. She wasn’t even aware of when she parted her thighs around one of his, or when she started to ride herself in slow undulations against him in an effort to alleviate the incredible aching emptiness he was tormenting her with. She felt him go still for an instant, his teeth on the point of her nipple, his mouth on the verge of devouring her.