Forged in Ash (10 page)

Ever.

With anyone.

He penetrated her with just the tip of his fingers and felt the wet, sleek flesh cinch around his fingernail, caressing him, trying to draw his finger deeper inside her. With a keening cry, she threw back her head, and pressed herself hard against his hand, forcing his finger deeper inside the tight, wet clasp of her sheath.

Just the thought of that tight, soaked space clamping around his cock almost sent him into hyperdrive. With a deep breath, he froze, every muscle in his body tense as he battled the urge to roll and drive into her.

His cock swelled to the point of pain and his balls drew tight against the base of his penis. He swore, forcing his body to heel. Once he had his muscles under his control again, he released a slow breath and dragged his finger out of her.

She greeted the withdrawal with a moan of discontent.

He shifted beneath her, forcing his hand deeper between her legs, and worked two fingers inside, while brushing her clit with his thumb.

She screamed, pressing hard against his hand. With each thrust of his finger in her wet, swollen sheath and suckle of his mouth against her wet, swollen breast, he could feel the tension in her tightening. Her hips rocked urgently against his, constantly stroking his swollen, throbbing cock.

A tingle started in the base of his spine, spreading up and out. Jesus, he was out of time. As close to the cliff as it was possible to get without flying.

He scraped her clit with his thumb, thrust both fingers into her as deep as they’d go, and stroked the walls of her twitching sheath. She screamed again, her body arching.

With her cry still ringing in his ears, he rolled, dragging her beneath him. With one quick movement he shoved his shorts out of the way, pushed her legs wider, settled between them, and nudged his cock into her wet, tight opening.

He tried to take care, to ease into her, to give her time to adjust to his girth and hardness. But she didn’t let him. Her legs rose, curled
around his hips, and squeezed. She arched up, driving his penis deeper and shattering the remnants of his control.

With one savage thrust, he buried himself completely inside her.

She came apart beneath him, her body bowed and shaking. Her face a tight grimace, caught somewhere between ecstasy and pain. Her sheath clamping and releasing, clamping and releasing, stroking his cock from base to head.

Groaning, he pulled back and thrust again, and then again. Driving into her.

Dimly he heard her scream again, her body rigid beneath him as her orgasm rolled through them both, and her wet, tight sheath clamped down hard on his cock, milking his own release.

He bucked above her, his hips hammering. His heart hammering. His blood hammering. Caught in turbulence unlike anything he’d ever known before, he emptied himself into her convulsing depths. Boneless and spent, his lungs grabbing great gusts of air, he collapsed onto her limp body.

For what might have been forever he drifted in and out of consciousness, more at peace than he could ever remember feeling, the feel of her wet, soft body beneath him as natural as breathing.

But as his body stirred and his mind awakened and his cock started to harden inside her, unease crept in, infecting the contentment.

He wanted her again.

He’d barely recovered from that first bout of earthshaking sex and he already craved a second one. Already craved her. And it would only get worse. Instinctively he knew that, knew that every taste of her would increase the craving.

Like any hard-core drug, the more you used, the stronger the craving, and the harder to walk away.

Damn it, he should never have given into the need and taken that first taste.

Boneless and replete, Kait stretched beneath the heavy weight of Cosky’s body. He twitched above her, an involuntary spasm that brought a satisfied smile to her lips. She wasn’t the only one still recovering from their trip to the stars. Still smiling, she turned her face into the sweaty side of his neck and nuzzled his damp skin.

He was so beautiful like this—his hard, heavy weight pressing her into the couch, his face flushed and sweaty and oddly vacant as though he’d dropped all his shields. Even the hard muscles covering her felt lax and lazy—with the exception of the muscle still lodged inside her. That particular part of him was growing less lazy by the second.

In fact, it was growing darn right
hard.

The realization he wanted her again so soon widened her smile. The glow of contentment brightened to brilliance.

She’d been dreaming about this, about him, for years, but the reality blew the dreams to smithereens. Nothing had come close to the perfection of this moment. The perfection of him, of her, of the way they’d come together. Of how perfect they fit, like pieces to a puzzle.

What a shame it had taken her so many years to step past her pride and comfort zone and reach for what she wanted.

She sighed and kissed the side of his damp neck, the salty taste of him tangy on her lips, and he hardened to full glory inside her. Her smile melted into a silly grin. He was certainly determined to
make up for lost time, which worked perfectly with her plans for the rest of the day, the week—heck, the rest of her life.

He shifted on top of her, and she gasped slightly as his heavy body drove the air from her lungs. For a second he seemed to press himself deeper within her, anchoring her to the couch, but then he froze.

“I’m fine,” she assured him, as he suddenly pushed himself up and off her body.

He didn’t ease back down as her arms tightened around his shoulders. Instead, he pulled back hard, breaking her hold. Her smile vanished. Unease stirred.

The sense of peace dissipated as he pulled out of her, as though her contentment had depended completely on that connection linking them. As he straightened beside the couch, an icy draft swept over her and she longed for a blanket, or a sheet—anything to guard against the sudden chill.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing.” He eased back from the couch with slow, careful movements, as though he wasn’t sure his knee would accept his weight. “You’ve had your half hour. So we’re even, right? That’s what you asked for.”

It took a second or two for the words to hit her. But when they did, they hit hard.

“
What?
” Kait sat up, her voice rising. She angled her head to get a look at his face. It was hard. Flat. His gaze was hooded, cold chips of silver staring back at her.

As though she were a terrorist he was interrogating. The enemy.

Or maybe nobody. Nobody to him at all.

“You asked for half an hour, of sex, for the healing,” he said patiently, as though he were reminding her.

That icy draft streaming over the couch penetrated her skin, sinking through muscle and bone, settling into the core of her—numbing her from the inside out.

He’d made love to her because of the healing.

He’d paid for her healing with sex?

She thought back to her banter, to her words—could it have sounded like she was bartering sex for services?

A slow shake of her head cleared her mind. No. No way. He knew exactly what she’d meant. He’d have told her to go to hell if he’d misunderstood her offer.

So why? Why would he say something so cruel?

She stared at his distant, flat face and instinctively knew the answer.

Because their moment together hadn’t meant anything special to him, and his dick aside, he wasn’t interested in taking the relationship any further. The sex must not be worth the hassle and with Aiden as his new roommate, she could make things very uncomfortable between them.

As if she’d ever do something like that. But then he had no intention of getting to know her and finding that out for himself. Instead, he’d taken the easy out, and tried to drive her away.

The stupid bastard.

“That’s overkill, don’t you think?” She swung her legs to the side of the couch and stood. The dampness chilling her skin didn’t feel sexy any longer. It was uncomfortable, unclean.

“What?” He stepped to the side, skirting the coffee table to give her more room, maintaining a cautious distance between them.

Probably afraid she was going to rush him, declare her undying love.

The stupid, stupid, moronic bastard.

“Throwing up that big red stop sign.” She forced her voice to levity, even though every muscle in her body, including her throat, wanted to shake.

She tried to ignore their nakedness, and the wetness staining her body as well as his. “I told you I wasn’t looking for a relationship.”

Too bad her foolish emotions hadn’t believed that any more than he had.

He frowned, and took another step back. An emotion she didn’t try to identify slipped across his face. “So we’re on the same page.”

She reached up and caught her hair, lifting it up and over her back. When his gaze dropped to her breasts and froze there, she drew her shoulders back and thrust them out. Let him take a good look at them. Memorize them.

Because he was never going to see them again.

“I’m going to take a shower. You know where the door is.” She didn’t try to hide her nakedness as she stalked across the living room toward her bedroom and the master bath. She had nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing.

Well, with the possible exception of wasting even one brain cell on the asshole standing naked in her living room.

“That’s it?” Something dangerous threaded his voice. Apparently he didn’t appreciate the dismissal. Wasn’t that just too bad?

She paused in the mouth of the hallway leading to her bedroom and half turned, shooting him a sarcastic smile. “Well, unless the healing doesn’t work, in which case I should probably pay you.”

His thick, black eyebrows snapped together and a storm gathered across his face.

“At the very least, I should thank you,” she added with another insincere smile.

She suspected, from the way his eyes darkened to thunderstorm gray, that he thought she was referring to the sex. She hadn’t been.

She’d meant that since he’d so completely gutted her childish crush, she could move on with her love life. Stop measuring every man she dated by the yardstick of Marcus Simcosky.

“You know where the door is,” she said again, since he didn’t seem interested in dressing and leaving.

Without looking at him again, she headed down the hall toward her shower.

Aiden accused her of being too picky. He claimed the romance novels she enjoyed had instilled within her an unrealistic expectation of men.

Bullshit.

Her favorite books hadn’t stopped her from accepting third or fourth dates. The memory of Marcus Simcosky had. Every time her past relationships had deepened, Cosky would creep into her mind. She’d compare the intensity of her attraction to her current flame, to that brief interlude in the doorway of Aiden’s hospital room. The attraction had been so incredibly intense. So she’d ended up comparing every man she’d dated to Lt. Marcus Simcosky and the sparks that had flared between them—and her dates had all fallen short.

She adjusted the taps in the glass-enclosed shower and stepped beneath the spray, tilting her face to the hot rush of water.

Finally, she’d discovered the man behind those closed, silver eyes.

Well, she wasn’t impressed. Oh yeah, the sex had been mind-blowing, but the sex wasn’t worth the effort of putting up with the jackass.

As she closed her eyes and let the hot spray cleanse the sweat from her body, she pretended the heated, salty wetness washing her cheeks was from the shower rinsing the sweat away.

Chapter Five

S
UNLIGHT BOUNCED OFF
the concrete, momentarily blinding Jillian. She grimaced, her pace slowing, the silver haze stinging her eyes. A few frantic blinks later, and the shimmering gauze coalesced into a beam of radiant white, haloing the child before her in a bubble of incandescence.

Collin.

Her sweet Collie Bear.

His gold hair looked almost silver in the spotlight. The flop of his curls more pronounced as the stroller rattled over cracks in the concrete. A thick, sobbing wail drifted back to her.

That familiar cry flooded her heart.

Collin, Collin, does Collin ever stop bawling?
Russ’s ghostly singsong voice echoed through her mind.

Don’t cry, baby, don’t cry. Mama’s coming.

Jillian increased her pace. When the stroller suddenly stopped in front of one of the restaurants, Jillian slammed into the tall, thin woman behind the handle. She reeled from the collision, catching herself by bracing a hand against the hot glass of the window beside her. The thick smell of barbeque cramped her stomach.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” a female voice stammered. “I didn’t know
anyone was…are you okay?” The woman’s tone shifted from apologetic to concerned. “You’re white as a ghost. Did I hurt you? Maybe you should sit down?”

“Collin.” Jillian’s voice was rough from lack of use. She stepped around the blurry feminine figure, every cell in her body focused on the chubby body strapped in the stroller.