Up in Flames [The Heroes of Silver Springs 10] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic) (18 page)

He lifted his head, his handsome face covered with her cream, and met her gaze as he licked his lips. Those lips spread in a devious smile as he climbed up her body to kiss her. “That’s one scream. I want more.”

* * * *

Terri looked both ways before stepping off the sidewalk outside the Mickey D’s. She turned, back-stepping across the parking lot toward her car as she spoke to Gage. “Thanks for breakfast.”

Gage picked up his step, reached her in three long strides, and hooked a strong arm around her waist. “Thanks for invitin’ me.” He spun her around in his arm and held her against his side as he walked her to her car.

More out of reflex than thought, Terri splayed a hand on his back just above the waistband of his jeans. She could feel the man’s muscles flexing beneath her palm as he walked and that, coupled with his arm locked around her waist, sent a rush of desire zinging off every erogenous zone in her body.

She turned her head and tipped it back slightly to look up at him, admiring the strong line of his jaw, the slight stubble that gave his tanned flesh a darker color, and the faint laughter lines around the edge of his mouth and eyes. “Hey, you did the inviting. I just picked up the phone.”

“And picked the place,” he reminded her.

“We’ll call it a joint invite, then,” Terri decided as they got to her car. She reached for the driver’s-side door handle, but Gage’s free hand closed over hers before she could lift it. He laced his fingers with hers and turned her around to face him, backing her against the side of her car.

The feel of his lower body pressing against hers short-circuited her brain. Holy moley, the man’s body was as rock solid as it looked. Sheer arousal swept through her system, warming her blood and hardening her nipples. She was glad his chest wasn’t pressing against hers or he’d be able to feel the stiff points poking into his flesh.

Kind of like you can feel his cock against your tummy?

The thought drew her mental focus down, and, oh, yeah, she could definitely feel his cock resting against her belly. She didn’t think he had a full-blown hard-on, but, damn, Skippy, if what she was feeling was even a semierection, the man had one hell of package.

“Are you gonna continue to just let me assume you don’t have a boyfriend, or are you gonna put my worries to rest?”

Terri’s thoughts about the size of his cock screeched to a halt as she gazed at him, wondering exactly how she should answer that. Owen wasn’t exactly her boyfriend. Sure, he was a guy she’d been seeing on and off for months now, but he continued to keep their relationship strictly friends. They hadn’t even made out since that night at Lookout Point.

Not because he hasn’t tried.

True, she had been the one to put a stop to that. When she’d made up her mind she wanted to at least attempt to settle down with a guy, she’d put the brakes on her sex life. The woman who’d always preferred no strings had suddenly decided it might not be so bad to tie one on.

And look where it’s gotten you. Months without a dick inside you other than the fake one you keep in your nightstand drawer.

“I don’t have a boyfriend.” And if that were the truth, then why did saying it leave such a bitter taste in her mouth? She swallowed, refusing to feel guilty. She absolutely, positively didn’t have anything to feel guilty for, damn it.

The smile that unfolded on Gage’s scrumptious-looking lips was that of a truly happy man. “Then when can I see you again?”

Terri pretended to think about it. “I guess that all depends on how long you’re planning on being in town.”

“A few days. I’ve handed off most of my caseload to my assistants. I’m not due in court again until late next week. Then, there’s Regina. She was my reason for comin’ to town in the first place.”

“Yeah, about Regina…Are you going to continue to just let me assume there’s nothing between the two of you, or are you going to put my worries to rest?”

He chuckled softly when she turned his words around on him. “I told you outside the firehouse I’m a friend of her family. Red is like a sister to me and nothin’ more. Scout’s honor.” He pulled his arm from around her waist and held up his first three fingers with his pinky tucked beneath his thumb in the universal Boy Scouts sign.

Terri narrowed her eyes. “Were you ever really a Boy Scout?”

He didn’t put his arm back around her waist, but flattened it on the edge of the car roof next to her head instead. “As a matter of fact, I was. All the way through school.”

Terri giggled. “Well, then, I guess I have to believe you.”

He lifted a brow. “And answer my question,” he prompted.

“I’m free…” Terri trailed off, not wanting to tell him she was free pretty much every hour that she wasn’t on shift at the fire station. How pathetic was that? She didn’t usually see it as being so dismal. It wasn’t like she didn’t find plenty of stuff to occupy her forty-eight hours off. Still, the truth was the truth. She never knew if or when Owen was going to decide to let her take up a chunk of his time, and lately, she’d stopped trying.

“Tonight?” he finally asked when she didn’t continue.

Terri stared into his do-me eyes and knew she was in trouble. He was too handsome, too much fun, and way too damn magnetic to resist. “I’m free tonight.”

That truly happy smile returned to his lips. “Tell me where you live, and I’ll pick you up at eight.”

Terri told him her address. “Are you sure you don’t want me to write it down?”

“Trust me.” He voice dropped to a husky whisper as he dipped his head and brushed a kiss over her lips that sent her insides into full-system meltdown. “I won’t forget.”

Max watched in complete fascination as more color rose to Regina’s already flushed face, turning it nearly the color of her hair. She hadn’t thought he could make her scream. The realization only strengthened his vow to make her do it again and again and again.

“I want you naked.”

Geezus, when she said things like that he thought he’d lose his mind! He slid his gaze down her face to her chest and realized he’d yet to take off her shirt. “Not until I get you completely naked.”

She made a sound that resembled a growl of frustration, but still managed to be one of the sexiest things he’d ever heard. “You’re not being fair.”

The old cliché that all was fair in love and war popped into his mind, but he didn’t let it spill from his lips. They’d been in their own kind of war for far too long, but the other part…Geezus, no freaking way could he even consider the other part.

Max eased his upper body off her, flattened his hands on the front of her shoulders, and dragged them down. He paused at her breasts, marveling in the feel of her soft mounds beneath his palms even through the material of her shirt. “I believe the person who is on top gets to decide what is fair and what is not.” He glanced at her, saw her frown, and bit back a grin.

“I’m not sure I like that rule.”

“Oh, really?” He skimmed his hands lower, finding the hem of her shirt and catching it with his fingertips. He pulled it, bending to trail the tip of his tongue over each ivory inch of flesh he exposed. “How are you liking it now?”

She quivered beneath his tongue, slithering like a snake on the bed. The sounds she made, Jesus save him, he wanted to keep hearing her make those sounds forever.

Forever? Whoa, now. You’re thinking pretty deep there, man.

Thinking or not, he was already in deep, and damn if he wasn’t enjoying every minute of it. He danced his tongue up her torso, his hand moving faster as he pushed her blouse over her head. He blindly tossed it aside, silently thanking the patron saints of female lingerie when he discovered the bra she wore had a clasp between her breasts.

He freed it with a flick of his fingers, and then, oh, yeah, the feel of her bare mounds beneath his palms had his cock pulsing in agonizing pain. He painted them with soft kisses and then settled on her right breast with his mouth while he continued to squeeze and caress her left one with his hand. He circled her pebbled nipple with the tip of his tongue, felt it harden even more, and closed his lips around the point. He alternated a tender nip and a gentle lick to her nipple, listening as she moaned in sweet ecstasy and feeling as she writhed beneath him.

He felt it, too, when she wedged her hands between their bodies, and managed to flatten her hands on the front of his shoulders. Flashbacks of the other night in her living room rushed to the forefront of his mind. No. No fucking way could she possibly be stopping this now.

It took willpower he didn’t know he possessed to pull his mouth and hand away from her breasts. He splayed his hands on the mattress on either side of her head, holding the weight of his upper body off her as he gazed down at her.

The vixen grin that spread her lips put his fears of her stopping anything to rest. It sent a new fear snaking through him, though, one that clearly told him the woman had more caged inside her than the pit bull she’d let him see so often.

With a strength that shocked him straight to his toes, she used her hands on his shoulders and her thighs clamped around his hips to flip him on the bed. She landed on top of him, straddled his waist, and pinned him to the mattress.

“What was that rule again about the person on top being the one to decide what is fair and what is not?”

Her voice was sultry, hot, and full of promise, and damn if he knew how to respond. He stared up at her, knowing he could overpower her in an instant if he wanted to regain control, and not finding an ounce of that want inside him to do so.

“Looks like the choice is yours now, Investigator. Show me what you’ve got in mind.”

Her fathomless blue eyes sparked with the challenge, and he knew he’d just doomed himself to the mercy of this woman.

“Don’t move.”

The hint of authority that accompanied her words had his balls drawing up tight. Geezus, who knew Regina Zimmer could be such a vixen in bed?

Surrendering, Max raised his arms above his head as she eased her upper body off his. She watched him, waiting for him to move, seeming pleased when he didn’t, and slowly wiggled down.

Her hands ignited a path of fire down his chest, leaving a trail of scalding flesh in their wake. She dragged them down to the waistband of his sweatpants, and, just when he prayed she would push them beneath the elastic, she pushed them up again.

“What I have in mind, Lieutenant, is doing a bit of investigating.” She glanced up at him from beneath her lashes, a devious smile playing at the corners of her lips. “See, I seem to have discovered more of those muscles we talked about earlier.” She braced her weight on one hand as she danced her fingernails over his six-pack as she spoke. “I’m not sure, but they do feel as though they might be turning to that Silly Putty you mentioned, too.”

“You’re teasing me.” He meant the words to sound like a warning, but they sure as shit sounded more like a man on the edge to him.

“Am I?” she asked, pure innocence in her tone as she dragged her nails up his torso to circle his nipples.

No, there was nothing innocent about this woman. She knew damn well what she was doing to him, and she was enjoying every freaking second of it.

“Have I told you what I find to be the sexiest part of a man?”

“No, but I’m hoping whatever it is you’re finding the evidence of it now.”

Her laughter was full of heat and sultry promises. “Oh, I am. As a matter of fact, the evidence is overwhelming.” She trailed a nail to the center of his chest, twirled it in the hairs she found there, and then flattened her palm over his heart. “I’m crazy about men with a hairy chest. A lot of guys shave their chest these days. They just don’t understand what a playground they’re taking away from a woman.”

Glory be to God, if she thought his chest was a playground, he could only hope she claimed his cock as her own personal amusement park.

“You have a truly amazing body, Lieutenant.” Her fingers glided through the hairs on his chest. The heat from her touch seeped into his flesh, sizzled through his system, and burst into an inferno in his already aching cock. “The way your playground is designed”—her fingers started a torturously slow descent down his torso—“is leading me right to the place I really want to investigate.”

The tip of her fingernail followed the path of his chest hair down as it narrowed into a trail that disappeared beneath the waistband of his sweatpants. Her nail stopped there, skimmed along the elastic, and her gaze lifted to meet his.

“Hmm, I wonder what I’m going to find beneath this?”

Dear God in heaven, the woman’s investigating was going to kill him. His cock jumped beneath the material of his sweats just as her gaze slid down again, and she giggled.

“It looks like I have a live one here.”

“Regina,” Max growled, fisting his hands to fight off the temptation to touch her. Another second of her teasing him and he would lose the battle. He wanted to grab her, yank off his sweatpants, and thrust his aching cock into her beautifully smiling mouth.

He lifted his head right along with his hips as the tips of her fingers finally hooked the waistband of his sweats. She scooted backward down his legs, taking his pants with her. His cock burst onto the scene with the stiffness of a flagpole jutting from between his legs. She made it as far as his knees with his pants before she abandoned the act of getting him naked and curled her slender fingers around his shaft.