Burn for You: Outback Skies, Book 2 (5 page)

Fresh heat flooded her sex. Fresh profanity burst from her lips. Who knew she could swear so much?

“E-Evan…” she rasped, wriggling her wrist free of his grip to drag her fingers through his hair. She needed to touch him. With
both
hands. This close to the edge of an orgasm, she needed to touch him, hold him. “I th-think…I’m going to…to…”

He snared her wrist again, removing it from the left side of his head even as he continued to feast on her breast.

She arched her spine, the soles of her feet tingling. She was going to come. She really was. Oh God, she was going to come.

She was going to—

A shudder rocked her whole body, a second before a sublime throbbing claimed her sex. The inner walls of her pussy clenched. “Oh God, oh…oh…oh…God, Evan!”

He didn’t stop. Instead, he returned his mouth to her other nipple and sank two fingers past her sodden folds, scissored them inside her, rolling his thumb over her clit as he did so.

“Oh fuck!” Jenna yelped, concentrated pleasure shearing through her at the unexpected invasion. The constricting pulse of her orgasm intensified, grew more powerful. Building to an explosive level again.

Oh God, was she having her first multiple orgasm? Was she?

“I think I’m…oh, Evan, I think I’m…”

Stroking her G-spot with his fingers, Evan thumbed her clit, and another climax rocked her entire body.

“Oh God! I’m coming again!” she cried out, head thrown back, heels digging into the small of his back. “I’m coming a—”

He pulled his hand from between her thighs and replaced his thumb on her clit with his tongue, flicked at it with wild frenzy before he sucked the tiny numb past his lips.

Jenna’s world shattered.

Her third orgasm tore her apart with waves of exquisite pressure and pulsing tension.

She rode those waves, each one making her moan louder. Or maybe her moans were because Evan continued to lap at her pussy, continued to worship her clit with his tongue?

He released her wrist in favour of her thighs and smoothed his palms over each one, parting her folds farther for his tongue with gentle tugs of his thumbs.

She whimpered his name, shaking her head as the pleasure he’d wrought upon her became too much. Too much. She tangled her fingers in his hair. Pulled his head upwards.

With a chuckled growl, he dragged his tongue over her clit, up to her belly button and then to her solar plexus. From her solar plexus to her left nipple. From her nipple to her lips.

He plundered her mouth with his, feeding her the musky taste of her cream as his jeans-encased erection rubbed at her sensitive folds once more.

A full circle of mind-blowing pleasure.

It wasn’t until he wrapped her wrists in a loose grip and gently removed her hands from his hair that she realized he’d done it again. He’d stopped her touching the left side of his body.

Not just that, Jenna. He just made you come three times in the dark. You just experienced your first multiple orgasm and you can’t even
see
him. Not clearly. And he’s still covered from neck to toe.

Deepening their kiss, she drew him closer to her body with her heels and reached for the top button of his shirt.

He pulled away.

In one jolting step, he pulled away. Disengaged from the embrace of her legs, releasing her wrists as he did so.

Jenna’s heart smashed into her throat. The fading pulses of her orgasm were crushed by the surprise knotting her tummy. She frowned at him, cursing the lack of light. “Hey.” She slid her backside from the counter and walked towards him, forcing her voice to sound humoured. “I think it’s only fair you let me return the favour, don’t you?”

What little light there was in the kitchen played with his form. She could make out his shaking head. Could see him lift his hands to his hair. But what was in his eyes? On his face? She had no clue.

“I think you need to go, Jenna.”

The calm request chilled the remaining glow of her orgasms. She blanched. “I’m sorry?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he turned away from her.

“No.” Shaking her head, she stormed through the darkness to the kitchen entryway. There had to be a light switch on the wall somewhere.

“Jenna.” Torment and frustration cut the syllables of her name. “You need to—”

Her fingers struck the tiny plastic toggle she was looking for and, with a sense of anger and triumph, she flooded the kitchen with warm light.

“Fuck,” he growled behind her.

She spun on her heel and fixed him with a steady glare.

It occurred to her she was damn near naked, that she should probably try and cover her exposed breasts and sex, but she was too exasperated. Too angry.

Evan met her glare from beside the counter. She couldn’t help but notice he was standing side-on, showing her only the right side of his body and hardly any of the left side of his face.

“Leave?” she finished his ludicrous statement for him. “Is that what you were going to say? ‘Jenna, you need to go away and let me be alone and shut away from any chance of any one actually
seeing
me or getting
close
to me or accepting me for who I am?’”

He turned his back to her. “I just gave you what you wanted. Three times, in fact. Now it’s time for you to give me what
I
want—to be left alone.”

Jenna’s blood ran cold. Her mouth fell open. She blinked. Shook her head. Searched for words, found none and shook her head again. “I can’t believe you.”

A low snarl cut the air a heartbeat before he spun to face her. “You don’t
know
me, Jenna. You’re obsessed with the memory of a man who didn’t even exist six years ago, let alone now.”

Unable to stop herself, she crossed to where he stood and shoved him. Hard. On the chest.

He staggered back a step, eyes wide with stunned disbelief.

“Are you really this scared to let anyone in, Evan?” she asked, grabbing at the loose front panels of her shirt to tug them over her breasts before folding her arms over her chest. It was a defensive position. A closed-off position. She knew that. Years at university studying communications had made her a body-language expert. In her line of work, she used that knowledge during interviews to hone in on moments when her interviewee was unsettled or guarded, or when it became obvious to her their answers weren’t as truthful as their words suggested. She also knew how to use her own body language to her advantage, to hide the way she was feeling from those around her. But there was no way she could hide the hurt slicing through her now.

The sense of betrayal.

Of loss.

An unreadable emotion flared in his eyes. Then he clenched his jaw, stretching the scarred flesh on the left side of his face tighter. He drew a slow breath, his shoulders squaring as he straightened completely. “Tell me truthfully, Jenna. When we first met on Bondi Beach all those years ago, what was the first thing that ran through your mind?”

A tight lump filled Jenna’s throat. She gazed at him, knowing the answer to his question. Knowing the truth would damn her, but knowing she would not lie to him all the same.

He held her stare, unblinking, unwavering. “The
very
first thing.”

Stomaching rolling, she swallowed. “I thought you were the hottest guy I’d ever seen in my entire life.”

The ambiguous emotion in his eyes flickered. His nostrils grew white. He slowly stepped back from her. Slowly turned his head until all she could see was his left profile. Slowly shucked his jacket from his shoulders. He tossed it aside and then, all without looking at her, hooked his fingers under the hem of his long-sleeve shirt and pulled it up his torso. Up his ribcage. Over his shoulders and head.

Until he stood before her dressed only in his jeans.

“And now?” he asked, motionless. “What do you think now?”

She stared at what he’d revealed to her.

The left side of his torso, from his neck down to his hipbone, was a tangled web of damaged flesh. His left arm was the same, only his left hand seemed minimally touched by the scars. Twisted, stretched white skin covered his left pectoral muscle. His nipple was no longer formed. It was now just a dark blotch of uneven skin on his chest, lost to the wounds. The scars continued down over his abs, growing thicker over the left side of his stomach. His navel was a shallow hollow, the right half perfectly formed, the left little but scarred white flesh that continued beneath the waistband of his jeans.

Jenna’s stomach churned. How had he
survived
? Not just the fire, but the pain? How had he not gone mad with the agony of it?

He drew in a slow breath, his chest rising and falling as he did so. The movement drew her attention to his upper body again, and once more, she found herself wondering how he’d managed to keep his sanity. The right side of his chest, his torso was untouched by scars. The skin was smooth and perfect, like it had been when she’d first met him. She’d spent many nights fantasizing about running her fingers over that skin, experiencing its satiny warmth against her own. Wondering what it would be like to lick. Yearning to feel it sliding against hers as he moved inside her. And yet his left side…

She swallowed, her throat thick, and ran her stare over the scarred mess that was the left side of his upper body again.

Her brain couldn’t process it. Couldn’t connect the two. “Oh God, Evan. It must have hurt so much. I wish I’d known. I wish… I wish I could have…”

“Could have what? Taken my pain away?”

The contempt in his voice jerked her stare back up to his face. She nodded. “Yes. No one deserves to suffer that kind of pain.”

“No one deserves to suffer the way I did?” An empty bark of a laugh left him and he took a step backward. “Ah, Jenna, you really have no idea who I am, do you?”

She frowned. “Of course I do. You risk your life for others. You save lives. You’re intelligent, funny, brave, selfless—”

The sound of his raucous laugh stopped her. She watched him scrape his fingers through his hair. Watched him stare at the ceiling a moment, jaw bunched, before returning his focus to her.

“Do you
really
want my story, Jenna? Do you really want to know what kind of
selfless
man the
hero
of Wallaby Ridge is? The man who just fucked you with his tongue in the dark? Do you?”

His bitter snarl robbed her of an answer.

He grunted, the utterance as empty as his earlier laugh. “Fine. I’ll give you my story. But first, I want you to do something for me, okay? I want you to use that journalist’s mind of yours and imagine you’re an aviation firefighter just doing your job like any other day with a man who’s meant to know how to do his own. I want you to imagine putting your life into
that
man’s hands. Now imagine that man’s ego, that man’s arrogance, plunging the helicopter you’re both in into a firestorm hotter than any on record. A bushfire inferno fed not just by the scorching summer heat and wind, but by a dense forest of eucalyptus trees drier than they’ve ever been thanks to a summer drought the likes of which Australia hasn’t seen in over a century. Are you there with me, Jenna? Are you in that fire? Are you surrounded by it?

“Imagine telling that man, the one you trust, that he’s being reckless. Imagine telling him it’s too dangerous to fly into the gulf, no matter how well he thinks he can keep the chopper steady against the buffeting winds. Imagine doing your job, trying to direct that man to a safer area, one that needs the water in the guts of the chopper just as much. Imagine him ignoring you because he can already see the headlines proclaiming his courage and prowess in the following day’s newspapers, because he can already feel his wife’s mouth on his cock as she gives him a blowjob for being such a brave, fearless hero.”

Contempt dripped from his words. Jenna could only stare at him.

“Imagine shouting at him to pull up,” he went on. “To get out of the gulf as his ego refuses to acknowledge the winds are too wild to fight. Imagine screaming as an upwards gust slams into the chopper, sending it spiraling out of control just as a massive eucalyptus tree explodes beneath it. Image the chopper engulfed in flames. Imagine it smashing through the burning trees until it hits the burning ground.

“Now imagine being trapped in the wreckage of the chopper while your skin first blisters and then melts. While the lining of your throat and lungs burn with every breath you pull. While your eyeballs rupture from the heat.

“And now imagine the man who put you there getting away. Being rescued as you burn to death. Imagine that man surviving when you didn’t. Sure, almost forty percent of his body is covered with third-degree burns, but he’s alive. Imagine
that
man returning to his wife that night when
your
wife and your children will never get to hold you again. Can you imagine that, Jenna? Can you?”

She didn’t answer. Once again, the rawness of Evan’s emotions stole her words. As did the wretched self-hate and torment and guilt in his face.

He lowered his attention to the floor. Shook his head. Let out a muttered curse she barely heard before raising his head again to fix a blank stare on a spot behind her. “I’ve lived with that reality for five years. My actions killed Franco. My ego. And then Tracey left me because she couldn’t stand to look at me.”

“No, Evan.” Jenna stepped closer to him, her heart thumping in her throat. “Tracey left because she was a shallow, superficial person who never thought of anyone but herself. She was sexting with my boyfriend before the Blue Mountain fire. She didn’t deserve you.”

He slid his gaze to her face. His Adam’s apple jerked up and down his throat. “You’ve put me on a pedestal I don’t deserve to be on.”

“And you haven’t given me enough credit,” she countered. “I’m a journalist, remember? And I’m a good one. A thorough one. I’m not just a pretty face who regurgitates words written for me by someone else and fed into an earpiece. I seek out the truth of any story I’m sent to cover. I spent the last twelve hours talking to everyone I could in this town about you. Not because you kissed me back on the helipad, but because it’s my job. My job is to unearth the truth. And you know what truth I discovered?”