Playing with Fire (6 page)

Chapter Eight

Fiona knew there were words coming out of Ian’s mouth. She could see his lips move, his jaw work up and down. His hands punctuated sentences, adding depth to his tale. But she didn’t hear much beyond a few words. The roar of blood rushing through her body and ears was deafening.

College stunt.

No immediate reaction to the serum.

Just realized his power must be immunity to her.

She stopped. That one was worth listening to again.
Immune to her.

Fiona stood as fast as her legs would allow. Without letting herself think about or analyze or even question the gift that sat in front of her, she reached down and worked the button of her shorts.

Ian must have stopped talking, because his jaw dropped and his hands fell heavily to his sides.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked when she reached for the zipper. One little tug and she was that much closer to hot, naked flesh that had nothing to do with her powers. The cotton was growing warmer by the second. She couldn’t get the damned clothes off fast enough.

The hurt, rational part of her wanted to bristle at his statement and to ponder what was so wrong with her that Ian
still
refused to consider her worthy of him. Nothing had changed, even if Neil’s nose did resemble Rudolph’s. But that part of her was very, very small and growing smaller by the second. The rest of her wanted this man’s magical, heat-immune cock inside of her.

Right now.

“Did you not hear a word I said earlier?” Fiona asked. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to make this a little bit more enticing. Get the blood pumping and all. She turned her back to him as she pulled off her shorts, peeking over her shoulder as the fabric hit the curve of her hips. His eyes went wide.

That was better.

“Remember?” she teased, tugging the shorts over her bottom so that only the top lacy part of her panties showed. “The part about not being able to have sex for the past eight years?”

“You want sex.” It wasn’t a question.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She practically ripped her shirt as she pulled it off. “I don’t want sex. I
need
it. And you’re going to give it to me even if I have to tie you to that chair first.”

She turned. If his eyes had been wide before, they were practically cartoon versions of themselves now. She grinned wide and dropped her voice an octave. God, she’d forgotten how much
fun
this was. “Am I going to need to tie you to that chair?”

He swallowed before looking down at his hands, which lay carefully on each armrest. When he looked back up, all of Fiona’s fears evaporated. That was the face of a man who wanted her. She didn’t care how hard he tried to fight it.

She was considering the efficacy of tearing her shirt into strips to tie him down, but it seemed a little drastic, and she wasn’t sure she could touch the cotton without burning it to a little pile of ash. A few other options flitted through her mind as she took in the room’s contents. Duct tape? Fire-resistant, synthetic rope?

Fuck it. Restraints weren’t nearly as important as finding out if all her parts still worked. Though by the way her body throbbed, she’d guess everything was going to work out fine.

A pair of arms slid around her, warm and solid. “Did you really think I was going to just sit there and let you have all the fun?” Ian’s voice was low and gruff in her ear. She turned, reveling in the sensation of so much man, all to herself.

Somewhere along the way, Ian had tossed his glasses aside. Fiona let out a low moan as every delicious inch of him pressed along her length. His head dipped closer, almost touching her lips but not quite making the contact every one of her nerve endings strained for.

“Mmmm…yes?” she managed.

“I need to take these clothes off,” he muttered, pulling away. “Before they catch fire.” Fiona’s palm skimmed across his chest. Her body was definitely bringing the heat level up, but not even in her most vicious rage did she ever ignite cotton with her residual body heat. Its ignition point was too high.

She laughed. “They won’t unless I shoot them directly. But you’re welcome to take them off as fast as you want.”

His eyes narrowed, but that didn’t stop him from starting to work on the row of buttons down his shirt. As Fiona had expected, he was muscular in that lean and understated way, wiry and strong. She wanted to run her hand along the plane of his stomach, trail down until she reached the chiseled dip of his lower abs, but even with the knowledge that she couldn’t hurt him, it seemed dangerous.

She brought her hand close to his bare chest, hovering for a moment before finally making contact. Other than feeling the gentle pound of his heart, reveling in the muscular planes of him, nothing happened. She peeked up. “This is really going to work. You’re the exception.”

“The exception?” he asked roughly as he kicked at his pants, sending them flying through the air. He paused as understanding settled in. “Oh. You mean to the superpowers.”

Not just that
, her whole body seemed to scream. Fiona knew she was falling into her old patterns of sex first, consequences later. And there was still so much between the two of them that was unresolved. But it was becoming increasingly difficult to care. Maybe, just maybe, Ian was finally different from all the other guys.

Maybe, just maybe, she was different enough this time around, too.

Their lips met in a crash of movement that neither seemed able to control. Fiona was ravenous, and she pressed into him much more than she needed to, afraid any hesitation might somehow reverse her sudden good fortune. Her tongue swept into his mouth. She wrapped one arm around his back, the other hand moving through his hair, forcing him so close she could have climbed him. Which she intended to do, actually.

Starting right now.

He chuckled against her mouth and pulled away. She might have been mortified if not for the self-satisfied grin he cast jauntily down at her. “Eight years, you say?”

“Just kiss me again, dammit.”

He did.

Fiona lost herself in the sensations of human contact. It was almost too much, like going directly from starvation to an all-you-can-eat buffet. His hands were everywhere—first in her hair, then on her face, then trailing down her body at such a slow pace she actually grabbed his palm and forced it to cup her breast. Satisfied and more than willing to show him, she arched her back and purred, almost coming on the spot when he gave her nipple a little tweak.

“Do that again,” she moaned. “Harder. Do anything you want. As hard as you want.”

Without giving him a chance to make good on that offer, she reached down and grabbed his cock. He was ready for her, long and hard and like cool metal in her hand. She stroked the length of him. Never had she been more grateful to be near a penis in her life.

She would show him her gratitude. She would show him what he had missed all those years ago. Surely she hadn’t lost her skills. Wasn’t giving a blowjob like riding a bike? Hell, she’d once been the Tour de France champion.

And it was Ian. His dick in her hand. She could touch him for as long as she wanted, toy with his balls as long as she wanted. Sink to her knees in front of him, cup each taut cheek, draw him closer…

…and fall flat on her face. “What the—”

Ian’s hand came down and pulled her up from the carpet, which was starting to grow warm under her body. “Oh, God. I’m so sorry.”

Her head spun, and it wasn’t from the fall. “Did I burn you? I thought we were safe. I thought—”

He frowned. Standing before her, erect in more ways than one, completely bare ass naked and glorious from head to toe, he frowned.

“I think maybe we’re moving too fast. I didn’t mean to make you fall. It was just—you know. You. Down there. Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

Fiona stood and placed her hands on her hips, letting her naked body do the talking. It had always been an effective communicator in the past.

“No, I’m not okay. And no, you didn’t hurt me. But I will hurt
you
if you don’t man up and have your wicked way with me right this second.”

He turned around and pulled his boxer briefs back on. Fiona stuck out her lower lip as the black fabric covered his pert, perfect little ass.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

He glanced over his shoulder, an odd expression on his face. It was self-satisfaction and desire and…regret? She wanted to bite it off his face and then shove her tongue so far down his throat he couldn’t escape.

Dammit. She should have gone for the duct tape.

“You’re seriously going to turn me down? I’m naked, Ian, and I’ve never wanted a cock inside me so much in my whole life. I will rock your world. Over and over and over again.”

“Will you please put your clothes back on?” His frown deepened, even as his crotch continued bulging. This wasn’t over yet.

Fiona ran her hands over her body, taking special care as she trailed her fingers across the front of her breasts, down her stomach, dipping slowly between her legs. “Why don’t you come over here and make me?” she cooed.

Ian laughed and groaned at the same time. “I mean it, Fiona. I think we need to talk about this first. You don’t have to—”

“I can talk naked. In fact, I prefer it.”

He reached for his jeans and t-shirt, pulling them both on with so much haste the shirt was backwards. She bit the inside of her cheek hard, the salty tang of metallic blood filling her mouth.

Motherfucking chivalry. If this was really ending like this, right now, with the biggest pair of blue balls a woman could ever lay claim to, she was going to have to take out her frustration on something.

“What can I shoot?”

“Huh?” Ian’s voice was muffled as he searched for her clothes underneath the couch. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she managed, her teeth clenched so tight they were probably close to cracking. “I can’t just turn off this kind of energy, Ian. If you’re going to wuss out, I need to shoot something. And fast.”

His face fell. “I didn’t think of that. Is it really that bad?”

Her pain and frustration reached an uncomfortable height. As if aware how close she teetered to the edge, Ian rushed forward. “What can I do?” he asked.

She let out a low moan.

“Nothing. I’ll be fine,” she managed, closing her eyes. She needed her go-to horrors. She needed images of bloody body parts and maggots crawling on her favorite pizza. Where were they when a girl was desperate?

What she got was neither. Ian lifted her, surprisingly strong and gentle, and laid her on the floor. The carpet was warm and a little scratchy, but it was nothing compared to the cool, heady rush of Ian’s hands nudging her legs apart.

“Is this okay?” he asked, looking up from between her legs, his hands tracing a map all over her inner thighs. He planted a soft kiss, his hair tickling her in the best way possible. She let her legs fall open and bucked her hips.

“Yes. Oh, God.
Yes
.”

Enough lucidity remained to bring a quick pause. “But you don’t have to,” she managed, even though each word was like a knife to her stomach. “I can manage.”

“Oh, Fiona.” His words were a warm breath along her legs, moving up higher and higher. “It would be an honor.”

Honor. Was that what the kids were calling it these days? Because to Fiona, it felt a hell of a lot more like bliss.

As he dipped his head between her legs, a brief flash of memory zipped through her mind, one last rational thought before she gave in to complete, animalistic sensation: Ian Jones, unarguably the worst French kisser of her life, had certainly learned what to do with his tongue.

…

“You want to tell me what that was all about?”

Ian looked up from his computer, blinking a little at the sudden change from dark screen to the dazzling woman before him. He’d left Fiona upstairs in the shower, and had hunkered down in his lab to make a few calls.

Okay. So maybe it wasn’t his most romantic move to jump right back into work like that. But as soon as Fiona had pried herself off the carpet and teetered, bemused in the afterglow of her orgasm, toward the bathroom, he’d realized there would be an easy way to clear her of the charges Patrick laid against her.

Surely the local police or Agent Harding had some of the evidence from the two robbery crime scenes. If he could get them to send a few samples over, he could prove there was none of Fiona’s isotopic signature there. She’d be cleared and the real culprit—that General Eagle character—would have no hold over her.

But that obviously wasn’t what Fiona had on her mind.

“I believe that’s what they call oral sex. Very good oral sex, if your screams were anything to go by.” He wasn’t used to being so verbal about his…activities, but Fiona obviously was. She spoke dirty, played dirty.

And he desperately wanted to be invited to play again.

Her eyebrow arched. She’d changed into one of his old Weezer t-shirts and didn’t seem to be wearing anything else underneath. Without a care for her state of undress or the sterile environment of his lab, she sat on the table next to his desk.

It didn’t take long for Ian’s body to remind him that he had yet to find satisfaction.

Too bad. He wasn’t going to take advantage of Fiona like that. She’d been out of her mind with need, probably willing to go down on anything and anyone who happened to be immune to her powers.

He would wait. They would talk about this. He would sate every last one of her desires, making no demands of his own, until they had a chance to clear the air between them.

“I’m not asking about the mechanics of the task,” she said smoothly.

She trailed her fingers over some of the belongings he kept down there. It was a pretty boring lab in terms of decoration—a far cry from the upstairs, which he’d left almost untouched after his parents had retired a few years before. This was all cold steel and crisp white paint, a complete renovation from the wood-paneled walls and shag carpeting that had once made up the décor. The only decorations now were a set of framed
Firefly
travel posters and his betta fish, Gerald, who lived in a converted blender tank.