“Oh sure. Don’t worry about me. I’m always okay.” But her lips didn’t curve in any kind of a smile, and her eyes stayed fixed on her knees.
“You’re one tough chick, is that it?” Somehow he thought there was more going on under her dry-eyed exterior. “Nothing fazes you.”
“I suppose you want me to burst into tears?” she snapped. “Is that what a girl is supposed to do when she finds out the man she was engaged to is a selfish, shallow dick, and it was her own fault for ignoring every single red flag out of a million?”
Josh laughed. If Suzanne had been born in a different time, she would have been one of those tough-talking dames in a fifties rom-com, played by Lauren Bacall or Barbara Stanwyck. “Please don’t. Unless you want to. I like you feisty and sassy. Gets me going.”
She shot him a sidelong glance from under her lashes. Whether she intended it or not, that look was hot. His cock responded with definite interest.
“Is that a come-on? You really know how to pick your moment.”
He threw up his hands in surrender. “I promise, I’m really not coming on to you at your most weak and vulnerable moment. Actually, I got you a present.” He gestured at the bag on the coffee table. “A ‘thank you’ for putting me up. And putting up with me.’”
Her expression shifted. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Too late. I already did. You can return it if you don’t like it. No biggie.” Except that it kind of was. He’d spotted it in Evie’s gallery while he walked Snowball and known instantly that it should belong to Suzanne.
She reached for the messenger bag and pulled out a flat object wrapped in plain brown paper.
“A book?” she asked as she slid a finger under the tape to open it.
“Not saying a word.”
She pushed the brown wrapper aside and stared down at the framed photograph that had captivated him at the Sky View Gallery. It was a time-lapse shot of a meteor shower—bright streaks of light streaming across a dark sky, with a low outline of hills underneath. She said nothing.
“It made me think of your shooting stars. The meteor shower you watched on the roof at Casa di Stella. And I noticed all your other photos here, and figured you liked—”
“Yes.” It sounded like a sob, and when she looked up, tears stood in her eyes. “I like it. I love it. I love it so much.”
“You aren’t crying, are you?” he asked, alarmed.
She put the photo onto the coffee table, then scrambled off the couch and stood between his legs. He gazed up at her, so slim and tall and lovely, and lost all his words.
“Not crying,” she murmured. “I’m done crying.”
It was starting to sink in that she was up to something real here. The lump in his pants swelled a little bigger. She noticed; how could she not? She was looking straight down at him. He decided to let her take control of this situation.
She touched the hem of her blue sundress and inched it upwards. He swallowed hard. Suzanne was in such a strange mood—edgy, tearful, unpredictable. It probably wasn’t a good idea to take this any further when she was still reeling from Logan’s treachery. But with each inch of creamy skin that she revealed, his willpower lessened. His gaze traveled up the long lines of her sleek thighs. The lower edge of her panties peeked out from under her dress, beckoning to him. Not boy shorts this time. Just regular panties. Except they were bright yellow, and they said “My Happy Place” on them.
He made a strangled sound in his throat, part laughter and part lust.
“Are you laughing?” she demanded.
He couldn’t answer or he might completely lose it. He reached between her legs and traced the writing across her panties. He felt the soft, downy curls underneath, and clenched his teeth against the need to delve deeper. “Sorry, there’s just no way I can not laugh at these.”
She glanced down, pulled her dress up so she could peer around it. “Oh my God. I forgot I was wearing these. I swear, they’re my last-resort, haven’t-done-laundry-in-forever underwear.” She tried to drop her dress, but he was having none of it. He blocked the fall of her dress by bunching it in one hand.
“I have a better solution.” With the other hand, he grasped the top edge of her undies and dragged them downwards. Soft blond hair peeked over the top. His mouth watered. He reached out an exploratory finger and touched secret wetness. Her thighs trembled. He looked up at her face and saw that she’d drawn her lower lip between her teeth and a wash of pink burned across her cheekbones. “Let’s get these off,” he ordered in a gruff voice.
She bent down and shimmied off her panties. “Fair’s fair, Josh. Unzip your shorts.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He took his cast off the coffee table and settled it onto the floor, which seemed like a safer position for any potential shenanigans. He unsnapped his khaki shorts and pushed them down his thighs. Underneath, his swelling cock was trying to burst free of his boxers.
Suzanne let out a long sigh. “What about your leg?”
“Don’t worry about my leg.” He beckoned her to come closer. “Besides, I’d happily break it again for a chance to get naked with you.”
She giggled, the heady color coming and going in her cheeks. She placed her knees on the couch, on either side of his hips. Slowly, she settled her soft heat right over his engorged shaft, still covered by his boxers. He laid his head back against the couch and groaned deeply.
“Oh sweet Happy Place. I’m in heaven right now.”
“Really? And here I thought you might want to…get a little more intimate.” She rotated her hips in a taunting motion that made his blood pound.
“Such a tease.” He gripped her hips to stop her movements, afraid he might come embarrassingly fast. Would come. She’d been keeping him in a constant low-level state of arousal forever, it seemed. But he was operating with a handicap, and he didn’t want to crash and burn. “I want this to be good for you, Suzanne. But I’ve never had sex with my leg in a cast before.”
“So I’ll be your first.” She drew down his boxers and took him between her hands, stroking softly. God, it felt good. Out-of-this-world good. Once-in-a-lifetime good. “Besides, things seem to be working just fine.”
“That part’s not the problem,” he managed.
“What about your hands? Your mouth? All good?”
“All good. But I’m a little worried about my blood pressure.”
She smiled mysteriously. “You rescued a man from a wildfire. I’m not worried. Do you have any condoms?”
“My wallet. In that messenger bag.” After she found the condom, she tore it open. For a long moment, she gazed at his erect cock. He had no idea what she was thinking. If she was having second thoughts, he might explode out of sheer frustration.
“Everything okay?”
“I’ve just…it’s a little embarrassing, but I’ve been thinking about this for a while.”
“Me too. And I’m not embarrassed at all.”
“Good. Then you won’t mind if I do this first.”
She kneeled between his knees and bent her head toward his cock. Delicately, she swirled her tongue around the head. Pleasure exploded through him.
“Oh my God,” he breathed, as she lavished his penis with sweet, wet attention. He closed his eyes and let the kaleidoscope of light and color take over. Every stroke of her tongue sent reverberations through his system. His hips pushed up, wanting more, more. What made it so intoxicating was the fact that this was Suzanne, with her sassy words and her attitude and her tough outer shell and generous heart, not to mention the face and body that haunted his dreams. Suzanne, her mouth wrapped around his shaft, her hair sifting over his belly, making the muscles under his skin twitch.
The drumbeat of pleasure marched down his spine. He felt his balls tighten, his cock harden even further. He gritted his teeth to stop the inevitable. “Suzanne, you’re incredible, and I wish we could just do this forever, but if you want to do anything with that condom, now would be a good moment.”
> She lifted her head, those ocean-deep eyes dark with desire. “I love how you feel in my mouth.”
“Oh, shit. Don’t say anything more.” He slapped one hand across his eyes. “Stop looking so fucking gorgeous, stop saying things guaranteed to make me come. Just get on it. Get on that thing.”
Laughing, she slid the condom onto his shaft, then straightened up. He gripped his cock with one hand and held her hip with the other to help guide her down. The moment her sweet flesh gave way to the thrust of his arousal, he thought his head might explode. Panting, he held on to his control by the skin of his teeth. She leaned forward and put her hands on the back of the couch. That changed the angle so her clit slid across his cock. As her body embraced him, inch by slick, hot inch, he corkscrewed his hips, pushing in, looking for a reaction. Where did it feel good to her? Where was that sweet spot? Where was her happy place?
When she moaned and rocked her hips, he knew he’d found it. He gripped her hips tight and powered into her. He used long, merciless strokes and a pounding rhythm. She picked up on it right away, and they moved together, increasing the pace, the intensity. He felt her skin heat under the tight grip of his fingers, her muscles tighten and shiver.
Oh God. There was only so much a man could take. “I’m coming,” he warned, just as he felt the first flutter of her orgasm approach. He slid his hand between them, to the hot kernel pulsing between her legs. She arched, her body going rigid, a cry ripping from her throat.
And he exploded into an orgasm that was hot and wild and filled with shooting stars.
20
Suzanne wasn’t sure what made her finally give in to her lust for Josh Marshall, but once she did, there was no holding back. They spent the next week inventing creative ways to work around his cast. Lying side by side on her bed worked pretty well—very well, to be honest. She was able to feel his strength in every flex of his hips and imagine what it would be like when he had full use of both legs.
It would be mind-blowing, just like every time they made love.
They also spent a lot of time laughing. That was thanks to Josh, who had to be the most playful person she’d ever known. Being with him was more fun than she’d ever had with a man—not even close.
Fun…but not serious. It couldn’t be between them. He wasn’t a “serious” type of guy. And she had goals. Ambitions. Needs. Okay, so her life plan had gone off-script. No house, no engagement. She just had to find another way. Suzanne Finnegan wasn’t about to admit defeat so easily.
“I have a new idea about the house,” she told Josh as they sprawled naked in her bed one night. This time, she’d held on to the headboard and straddled his face while he did outrageous things with his tongue and fingers. Even now, she shivered as she remembered the orgasm that had overwhelmed her senses.
“I knew you would.” Josh opened one eye and peered at her lazily. “You can’t keep Suzanne Finnegan down.”
“No, you can’t. Or at least not until I’ve tried everything.”
“So what’s the next step?” His hand rested on her upper thigh, a pleasant, arousing weight. He wasn’t even trying, and he was turning her on. And that was after she’d just experienced the biggest O a girl could have. The man was out of this world.
“Have I ever mentioned that I’m a whiz when it comes to PowerPoint?”
He moved his thumb in small circles. “I’m not even sure what that is. Sounds wizardly. Like a wand you point at stuff that needs fixing.”
She smiled even as her sex pulsed with warmth—as if her body knew to expect pleasure whenever Josh laid his hands on her. “Do you actually use your laptop for anything? Or is it just to look like a sexy nerd?”
“Fantasy football. Firefighting forums. My Tumblr,” he murmured.
“You have a Tumblr?”
“What do you think I’ve been working on? Everything you ever wanted to know about life on the fire lines, baby.”
Wow. That was unexpected. Every time she turned around she stumbled across another new aspect of Josh that surprised her. “I want to see it.”
He shrugged uncomfortably, the movement highlighting the taut definition of his shoulder muscles. “Maybe later. What’s your idea about the house?”
Clearly he didn’t want to talk about his Tumblr, but she made a mental note to hunt it down herself as soon as possible. “Logan is driven by money. He’s going to find out that turning Casa di Stella into vacation rentals is a very spendy proposition. So I’m going to present him with my plan about the shelter. I’d raise the money for the renovations. All he has to do is donate the use of the house. It could be a big tax deduction for him. The downside is that I have to meet with him.”
“I’ll be backup. I’ll retrofit my crutches with peashooters.”
She giggled. He was so darn cute. “I already have backup. Some of the other volunteers at the Y are going with me. They can tell their stories, and if Logan has any heart at all, how can he resist?”
He reached over with one long arm and rolled her on top of him, so her breasts pressed against the solid, warm structure of his chest. “I don’t know how anyone can resist you.”
“Strange, isn’t it?”
“Incomprehensible.”
He rolled over so she lay under him, and for the first time, they made love that way. His deep gray eyes bore into hers as he moved within her. She inhaled the clean, masculine scent of him, licked the smooth skin of his neck. She wanted to gobble him up, devour him, scream with him. Even with his sexual powers temporarily handicapped, Josh made her happier than she’d ever been.
For now, she reminded herself.
Suzanne, her PowerPoint presentation, and her posse of three former runaways sat in the Realtor’s office for half an hour before Lisa came out and broke the news that Logan had cancelled the meeting.
“He’s going forward with his rental plan,” she explained.
“Ugh, that jerk. I really wish I’d known he was the one who’d made that offer. Anyone but him.” Suzanne zipped up her briefcase with a snap.
“I feel so bad, Suzanne.” Lisa groaned and sat next to her. “He told me it was a romantic gesture. He said you were getting back together and that you’d love it.”
Suzanne shouldered her bag and stood up. “Maybe I would have, before. I don’t know.”
“Listen, I’ve been thinking. Casa di Stella is a very unique property, of course. But we do have other locations in Jupiter Point that might be even better for what you guys are planning.”
“Better?” It felt disloyal to say that anything could be better than Casa di Stella.
“I’ve heard rumors that Sean Marcus might be willing to sell the old airstrip at the beach. Should I look into that? On my own time, because I feel awful about how this played out.”
Suzanne forced herself to nod and smile. How could a ratty old airstrip take the place of whimsical, charming, enchanting Casa di Stella? It couldn’t. But she didn’t have a choice.
After that meeting, they stopped in for a quick espresso at the Sky View Gallery. They brainstormed ideas for the shelter, and decided to set up a Kickstarter account. Suzanne pulled out her laptop and started taking notes. Everyone’s enthusiasm was so inspiring. They were all talking a mile a minute, throwing ideas out, making lists, claiming tasks. They decided to meet once every other week to keep track of their progress.
They left in a flurry of hugs and “squees.”
After the girls left, she sat at the counter and input all the notes into her newest Dream File.
Speaking of “dreams”…and dream lovers…she did a search for Josh Marshall and “tumblr” and got a quick thrill when a page popped up. Its background showed an incredible close-up shot of a spruce tree so consumed by flames, it looked like a torch.
Completely captivated by the photo, she jumped when someone slid onto the stool next to her. A glimpse of vivid ginger hair out of the corner of her eye told her it was Brianna.
“Those girls who just left don’t look
like your usual sort of friends,” Brianna said in her usual blunt way. “They have at least twenty times the normal number of piercings and tattoos.”
“What kind of a snap judgement is that? They are my friends, and we’re working on a great project together, and who cares what they look like?”
“I wasn’t criticizing. I like tattoos. I’ve been considering getting an onion tattooed on my lower back. Like a tramp stamp, except mine would be a “ramp stamp.” Brianna settled her elbows on the counter. Suzanne noticed the dirt under her fingernails and the bits of dry grass clinging to her forearms. As a landscape artist, Brianna seemed to spend much of her time rolling in the dirt.
“A ramp stamp? What does that even mean?”
“You know, a ramp. It’s a wild onion, kind of like a leek.”
When Suzanne kept staring at her blankly, she rolled her eyes. “Why does no one else in my life know anything about plants?”
“Sorry, I’m still trying to picture an onion tattooed on your back. It’s disrupting my brain waves.” She picked up her espresso cup, but the smell of the coffee no longer appealed to her. She set it back on its little saucer.
Brianna leaned closer and peered at her laptop. “So what’s the big project you’re working on? Ooh.”
Obviously she’d caught sight of the shot of Josh in his firefighting gear, bandanna draped under his helmet, a wild grin on his face. Suzanne tried to close her laptop, but Brianna prevented it.
“Is this project Josh-Marshall related?”
“No, that’s something different. My project is about finding a piece of property with plenty of space…” She trailed off, since Brianna had stopped paying attention and was scanning the first post.
She read aloud. “Accountability. Here’s a tip. If you see a group of hotshots standing in a circle after a fire, that’s not a group hug. That’s breaking it down, saying what went wrong and who fucked up. We’re brutally honest because it could be life or death next time. If you can’t take a hard look at yourself and what you might have done better, you shouldn’t be a hotshot. This is why I have mad respect for my guys. Nothing is harder than admitting you fucked up. But better to say it than leave it unsaid, like a smoking time-bomb.”
Burn So Bright Page 17