Light My Fire

by Christie Ridgway

  Then he lapsed into another heavy silence. Biting her lip, Cilla continued dicing vegetables, unsure how to proceed. Maybe making dinner was enough.

  She put the chopped tomatoes, chopped green onion, avocado slices, and grated cheddar in separate bowls. After locating the griddle, she slid it onto the burner. Then she looked over at Ren.

  "Hey—" she started, but before she could get out another word, he was on his feet and exiting through the French door to the adjoining courtyard.

  Grr. Cilla looked down at her bare legs and then into the night darkness. He was out there, standing on the patio, hand in his pockets, head bent as if contemplating his toes. Alone, so alone.

  With another glance at her naked legs, Cilla dashed down the hall to the bedroom. There, she pulled on a pair of cropped yoga pants and yanked some thick socks over her bare feet. Once she scurried back to the kitchen, she grabbed a jacket that hung on a hook by the door and let herself out into the night.

  Ren made no comment when she stepped up beside him. Digging in her mental heels, Cilla continued to stand there, even as the cool temperature started to penetrate. She zipped up the jacket and shoved her hands in its side pockets.

  The movement seemed to alert Ren to her presence. He half-turned, gave her a quick glance, then did a double-take. "What the hell do you have on?"

  Cilla looked down at herself. Bulky socks. Flared-at-the-calf exercise pants under the short hem of her terry robe that was covered by the longer hem of the bib apron. Over that, the jacket. Now that she took a good look at it, she realized it was a puffy, silk, bomber-style favorite of Gwen's, with Mick Jagger's face printed across the front.

  All right, fashion disaster, but she'd not come out here to be pretty. She'd come out here to find out what was troubling Ren.

  "What's going on, huh?" she asked, touching his arm.

  Instead of answering, he put a hand on each of her shoulders and turned her to face him. In the weak light coming from the kitchen, she couldn't read his expression, but his voice was soft. "I liked what you were wearing this afternoon, Cilla."

  Her pulse skipped a beat. "Um, thanks."

  "I like you, Cilla," he added, his hands tightening a moment. Then he spun her toward the French door and gave her a little push. "But right now I'd really like to be alone."

  She took a forward step, then halted again. All their lives, he'd been much too solitary. Sucking in a bracing breath of the cool air, she turned around. "You can't get rid of me that easily."

  "I can't seem to get rid of you at all," Ren said, his voice dry.

  "You're right."

  "Fuck, Cilla." He threw up his arms in an impatient gesture. "What do you want from me? What the hell do you want from me?"

  "Show me what's behind that handsome mask of yours. Tell me about that dark place you go to and what drives you there."

  Ren pushed his hands through his hair and folded them on top of his head. "Why?"

  The zillion-dollar question. She hesitated and her heart started pounding in a fast, erratic rhythm. Her mouth felt dry and she had to blot her damp palms on the skirt of the stupid apron. "Because..." she started, and then had to swallow to lubricate her voice. "Because last night you gave something to me I needed. Maybe this is what you need. Someone to confide in. A sympathetic ear."

  "Sympathy?" He barked out a sharp laugh. "You think sympathy will do me any good? You're wrong. Flat wrong."

  She ignored her unsteady heart. "What will do you good then?"

  With angry strides, he paced the courtyard. "A slap upside the head. A kick in the ass. Some fucking thing that will sweep all this shit out of my brain."

  She swallowed, watching his agitated movements. "What shit is that, Ren?"

  On his next turn, he stopped in front of her, glaring down. "All these unmanageable, infuriating, useless emotions swirling inside me."

  "Name one."

  He stared at her. "What?"

  "You heard me. Name one." Her voice lowered. "I dare you."

  "Fuck!" Ren spun away from her, spun back. "Grief," he ground out, bending close so they were almost nose-to-nose. "God damn it, I've been wallowing in a black hole of it for the last eleven months. How stupid, how pitiful is that? I've been grieving for a man who never even knew who the hell I was."

  His grandfather. Oh, God. Oh, Ren.

  Sucking in a breath, she held her ground. "All right. Name another."

  His fingers curled into the collar of Gwen's Stones jacket and he gave Cilla a small shake. "Damn you," he said, then let her go. "Okay. Regret. Are you happy now? I'm filled with regret that tastes like acid on my tongue and burns like an ulcer in my belly because I didn't bother to make it back to say goodbye to the woman who was more a parent to me than anyone else."

  Somewhere, Gwen was tearing up over this latest confession. Cilla felt a sting behind her own eyes. Blinking rapidly, she looked up at Ren's still-tense figure and told herself to stay strong. "Name one more," she said.

  There was a long moment of charged silence. "Anger," Ren finally answered, and there was bitterness in his voice and fury radiating from his body. "I'm angry at the woman who gave birth to me."

  "Of course you are."

  He continued speaking as if Cilla hadn't uttered a word. "She gives those kids all that good stuff, stable home, nice vacations, family time. You know what she gave me?"

  "What?"

  His head dropped back and he stared at the sky. Then he returned his gaze to the ground. "When I was twenty, when I made that visit?"

  "You went to her house in Pasadena."

  "Yeah. After our little chat, after I realized she wasn't too thrilled about our reunion, as I was getting ready to leave she told me to wait." He took in a breath, let it out. "I was standing on the stoop, she'd already hustled me out of her house, and then she came back with a box she shoved into my arms."

  The night seemed to quiet, waiting for him to continue. "What was in the box?" Cilla asked at last.

  His back to her, he laughed again, a sharp, almost broken sound. "Dumb shit. A baby blanket. Some infant clothes. A rattle. I didn't even look at all of it, to tell the truth. I didn't need to examine all that was there to realize she didn't want a single reminder of me."

  Cilla closed her eyes and Cami's mournful singing voice echoed in her head.

  Motherless children have a hard time

  Motherless children have a hard time when their mother is gone

  Except Ren's mother wasn't gone in the same sense that Cilla's wasn't in her life. She supposed that on some level she held the comforting (and possibly deluded) idea that her mom might have returned to her if she'd lived. But the woman who'd given birth to Ren had chosen to keep herself apart from him.

  Without a second thought, she took a step forward and put her arms around his waist from behind. Her cheek went to his spine as she felt him stiffen in her embrace. "Ren," she said, and turned her face to press a kiss to his shoulder blade. "God, Ren."

  He remained rigid in her embrace for a long minute, then, in a lightning move, he turned, breaking her hold. Next, he yanked her to her toes and against him so his hot breath was on her cheek and his words were low and dark in her ear. "And you know what else I feel, Cilla?" he asked, clearly still in the clutch of that aggressive, bad mood. "I feel like another night of fucking you."

  Though she knew what he actually wanted was to use sex as a way of feeling nothing at all, her defenses were shredded, her heart was aching, her body was already softening against the strength and heat of his.

  "All right," she said, even knowing that another night with him risked making her feel much too much.

  Ren's sharp edges had returned and the beast inside him was beating its chest, eager to work off the raging maelstrom. Cilla had said "all right," but he wondered if she really knew what she was in for.

  Because he was going to screw her. Screw her good, as a way to get her out from under his skin.

  Using his body, he herded her toward
the house, even as he thrust his tongue in her mouth, his kiss heated and assertive. She responded like a fucking dream, her neck arching and her hands clutching his shoulders.

  It didn't soften his mood or his intention.

  Damn her for her digging and damn him for giving up what she'd demanded. Saying all that aloud, talking about his grief, his regret, his anger, had only served to wreak havoc with his ability to contain those feelings. She moaned as he ran his hands down her back to cup her ass, and she crowded closer, her belly rubbing against the hard cock behind his jeans. His hips responded with a involuntary thrust.

  Fuck. The lust he had for her wasn't contained either.

  Taking one hand off her ass, he twisted the knob and pushed her inside. She stepped backward into the kitchen. He followed, continuing to explore her mouth, then shoved the door shut with his foot. When he lifted his head to allow them breath, she tried to turn.

  Ren caught her arm, jerked her close again. "Where are you going?"

  Her mouth was wet, her breathing heavy. "The bed—"

  "No bed." No bed, no bedroom, no more sleeping together. Ignoring her widening eyes, he unzipped the two halves of Mick's face and shoved the jacket from her shoulders. The apron went next, and he let it fall to the floor as well.

  Underneath all that was a simple white robe, belted at the front. The sides had edged open, from his height giving him a partial glimpse of her breasts. He sucked in a breath, then crouched at her feet, his hands going under the terry cloth to find the waistband of her stretchy pants. Fingers tucked under the elastic, he pulled, catching a pair of panties along the way.

  Her hand went to his shoulder for balance, and as he bared her lower half beneath the robe her lemon-sweet, bath-fresh scent hit him. There was another note to it—something more flowery—as well as the distinctive, creamy perfume of female arousal.

  More lust crawled over his skin as heat surged through his veins. Her pants, panties, and socks were bunched at her ankles and he just stared at them, head bowed, the rest of him unmoving as he breathed in her lusciousness.

  Perhaps she was even less patient than he, because she lifted one leg, stepping on the other's ring of clothes to free her foot. The action opened that knee and parted the lower edges of her robe. He could see it then, that dainty, denuded female triangle, at the moment all its mysteries closed to him. At the sight, he dropped to his knees.

  Then, reaching out a hand, he cupped her, hearing her gasp as his long middle finger parted the soft groove. She gasped again, and a rush of wetness spilled. He used the lubrication to ease his penetration and his cock ached as her inner muscles clamped onto the intrusion.

  "Ren," she breathed, his name a note of desperate desire.

  "Draw up the robe," he ordered softly. "Bare yourself for me."

  She made another sound, half-distress, half-acquiescence, and then reached down to pull at the fabric so it bunched at her waist. "Oh my God," she said, as he leaned forward.

  His tongue met smooth, hot flesh and then it wiggled between the soft lips of her labia. They opened for him, unfurling in welcome, and he explored the petals with his mouth, the other hand cupping the curve of her ass to keep her in place.

  Her taste flooded his mouth, both lemon sweetness and salt and cream, and he savored it, closing his eyes. He felt her fingers sift through his hair as he began to lap at her, tapping the nub of her clitoris at the top of her sex then dancing away from it. The scrape of her nails set goose bumps rolling down his back and he shuddered even as he flattened his tongue and pressed against the pink tissue.

  She moaned, clearly wanting more, and he gave it to her by sliding his finger out of her hot channel then pressing another beside it before gliding back in. His light and easy rhythm had her legs trembling—or maybe that was the continued pressure of his tongue. With another little sound, she broke, her body moving against his mouth, pushing and grinding with her hips.

  God, it was hot.

  But more so when he went into new action, his tongue moving to her clit in a flurry of light, lashing strokes. Cilla made a strangled sound and her inner muscles clamped down on his fingers. He shoved them deep and held them there, then made his mouth go still too.

  "Ren." She sobbed out his name and started moving once more, trying to get herself off on his tongue.

  His fingers dug into the skin of her ass and then he withdrew his other hand from her and used it to cup the other cheek. Holding her in place, he let his mouth slide down the slippery furrow of her body and then he was fucking her with his tongue, spearing inside that hot, wet channel, her juices deliciously coating his lips and his tongue. He swallowed down her taste and his cock ached, the head throbbing.

  His dick wanted to be in the paradise his mouth was now enjoying.

  But first...Cilla.

  He lifted his head, giving a little nudge to her clit with his nose, and then he went to town, lapping, toying, licking, playing. The tension gathered in her body, he could sense her muscles tightening, and then it was upon her and she made a low, keening noise. Her body quivered, once, twice, and then she was coming, as he pulsed his tongue against her sensitive knot of nerves.

  Her hips were still rolling against his mouth when her fingers fisted again in his hair. "Bed," she said in a hoarse voice. "I need you inside me."

  But she didn't get to make the demands. She'd already gotten so much—too much—from him.

  He jerked to his feet, taking in her flushed face and darkened eyes. Sometime during the oral play she'd flung away the robe. The terry cloth lay several feet away and he stepped over it as he lifted Cilla and boosted her onto the kitchen counter.

  She made a surprised sound as her bottom met granite. He ignored it as he wrenched open his jeans and freed his cock. His fingers fished a condom out of his wallet and rolled it on. "Get your ass to the edge of the counter," he said, at the same time pulling her there himself. Her thighs widened to make room for his hips and he took one mind-blowing moment to look at the sight of her spread for him, her pink pussy lips open and glistening with wetness. Then he drove inside her in a single stroke, his hands tightening on her hips so she had no escape from him and his possession.

  "Oh, God." His head dropped back as her swollen tissues encased him, so hot and so tight that each flutter of her inner muscles rippled down the length of his dick.

  Her hands were tugging on his shirt and he lifted one hand to grasp the cotton between his shoulder blades and yank upward. When his chest was bared she leaned into it and kissed a trail along his collarbone and up his neck.

  He drew back his hips, shunted inside her again, and felt the scrape of her teeth along his jaw.

  That did it.

  He speared his fingers in her hair at the back of her head and tilted her mouth for his kiss. The advance-and-retreat of his tongue and his cock were near-brutal, uncompromising, but she didn't protest. Instead, she wound her ankles at the small of his back, pulling him back to her each time he withdrew.

  This was great. This was working, he told himself. Screwing her like this would put emotional miles between them. When he treated her like a mere toy for his pleasure, she'd distance herself from him. Crawl out from his head, separate from his skin.

  Of course, he didn't need for her to make that move.

  Detachment was what he did best.

  But he couldn't think straight with his dick in the heavenly vice of her body and it was about to blow in three...two...one.

  His hips pistoning, he tore his mouth away to suck in air. Pleasure rose high, twisted sharply, burned bright as it ripped through him. He groaned and yanked her tight against his groin as the climax pulsed...pulsed...pulsed.

  When his brain could function again, her forehead was resting against his shoulder. He pinched her chin to take a look at her face, and at the flushed, slumberous expression a disconcerting, unwelcome surge of tenderness swept through him.

  Fuck!

  "Can we go to bed now?" she murmured.

/>   "No," he said, adamant. "We've got more to do."

  He had to keep her tentacles from winding around him.

  "Okay," she said, drowsy but agreeable, and her fingertips brushed his bottom lip. "Whatever you say."

  So he said they needed a shower and he let the water wake her up a little so he could do her again, his favorite this-is-just-fun position, her hands on the tile, her bottom pushed out, his cock once again tunneling within her. When she winced a little as he reached around to touch her clitoris, he gentled his caress until she was pushing back into his hips in clear sexual demand. Her mouth closed over her own forearm as she came, but he still heard the muffled cries.

  After that round was over, his dangerous mood hadn't dissipated. Cilla was limp as a fading flower, however, so he decided they needed provisions before starting the next operation in extricating her from his psyche. With Cilla rewrapped in her terry robe, he deposited her in a kitchen chair. Barefoot and wearing only his jeans, Ren made those quesadillas she'd half-prepared.

  Once he turned with a plateful of triangular pieces, it was to find her asleep in her seat, her head cradled on her arms braced on the table.

  "Oh, Cilla," he murmured. She didn't stir and he just continued staring at her, the vicious feelings that had been riding him earlier evaporating. How could he possibly have found her some kind of threat? Why was he so worried she was a danger to him? With her tousled hair and her swollen mouth, she looked impossibly sweet and incredibly ravished.

  He'd done that to her—ravished her, and all for the sake of putting distance between them, something that was going to happen anyway. Home, after all, in just nine days.

  With quick movements, he stored the food. Tomorrow, he'd serve her mountains of calories to make up for what she'd lost out on tonight.

  She was light in his arms. Her head went to his shoulder as one arm curled around his neck. He experienced that weird constriction once more in his chest, but he ignored it, telling himself it didn't matter because everything would be all right when he was on a big flying machine and heading to London courtesy of Richard Branson.