Heart of Fire

by Meredith Wild

  “None that have lived to tell the tale.” I cock my head up enough to show off my mischievous grin. “You either prove your worth or walk his plank.”

  Once more, his generous lips twist upward. I gaze in delight at what that does to his deep dimples before fanning all the way up to his alluring blues. Within a few seconds, they’re as dark as the sky above, reflecting the fire’s flying sparks as his version of shooting stars.

  What he says next comes through a voice I’ve never heard from him before. A mix of murmur and whisper that covers me in shivers and heat at the same time…

  “But what if he falls in love with one of his prisoners?”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Maximus

  I keep telling myself her silence might be a good thing. That, or I’ve truly gotten carried away with the moonlight and the fire and just fed her some line.

  No. I’ve gotten carried away with her.

  Everything about her. Everything about how I feel when I’m with her. Free and brave. Open and real, like the confession that’s just spilled from my soul by way of my lips.

  But nobody promised me the truth wouldn’t be terrifying. Because right now, it is. Especially because she’s still saying nothing.

  The agony doesn’t compare to the few seconds I wait to kiss her, ordering my mind to memorize every square inch of her fire-lit beauty. The silken heart of her face, almost sizzling with visual evidence of our connection. The honeyed warmth of her eyes, glowing with unabashed adoration. Damn it, even the delicate sweep of her nose, leading my gaze down to the sweet pillows of her lips.

  My God. Her lips.

  I want to lie here for hours, lost in fascination with them alone—but they’re moving in strange ways, as if she’s attempting a smile, until she catches herself by biting them with insecure little nips. Then a stuttering sigh. Then the most perfect words…

  “What if the prisoner falls in love with him too?”

  I force myself to breathe. Then rake my free hand up her spine until I’m bracing the back of her head. Her hair is a handful of silken luxury, surrounding my fingers as if it were spun explicitly for that purpose. Right now, that’s exactly what I choose to believe—the same way her mouth fits so perfectly against mine.

  Because she is perfection.

  This is perfection.

  The affirmation becomes a pulsing, pressing mantra in my senses. Unrelenting. Inescapable. And so damn right.

  Yes. Yes. Yes.

  The beat pushes harder. Stronger. I succumb to it, sliding my tongue between her plush, pliant lips. She accepts me with a ready sigh, gripping a hand into my hair too. When she twists and pulls harder, I willingly let her lead. I’m on my back on the blanket, with the most breathtaking beauty in any realm atop me. She’s bathed in shades of orange and red and yellow, as if summoning inspiration from the netherworld itself, but I can’t think of her as anything except my beautiful, carnal angel.

  She’s so much more now.

  Especially after the words. My admission. Then hers. Not exactly traditional confessions but better in so many ways. Better because they’ve come from pure places in us both. Places I wasn’t even aware of until this extraordinary woman changed my world with her smile and her touch…

  A touch that moves me even more in this moment.

  That lights me up, just like the tiny sparks that dance along her face, as we explore each other with deepening wonderment. The light gets even better when she yanks another blanket off the pile and spreads it out, ensconcing us in a velour cocoon. Stars dance between our fingers as we touch again, and when Kara leans down for a new kiss, a miniature solar system lights up between our mouths.

  While the entire galaxy explodes through my spirit.

  Just like that, I finally understand Dante’s obsession with one woman. Why he made her his divine guide, his ultimate purpose. His never-ending love.

  We press more urgently into each other. Quickly, we’re devouring each other’s mouths, but the kiss still doesn’t feel deep enough. She fills me, but I crave more. I’m her sponge, taking in every drop of her passion. I’m her mountain, ready to surround her with shelter and lift her to new summits. Most of all, I’m her convert, pledging my worship for the rest of my existence. Ready to exalt her in every way she’ll let me…

  “Fuck.” I force it out after twisting my lips free from hers with a tormented groan. “Oh, fuck. Kara. Kara.”

  “I know,” she rasps into the base of my neck, blasting a firestorm of fresh lust through me. I swear, she can read more than my emotions. How else does she know every perfect way to touch me, every spellbinding way to talk to me? “I know,” she repeats in a whisper, trailing her entrancing mouth down the center of my torso, undoing my shirt buttons as she goes. “I know…I know.”

  “Ah…I’m not sure you do.”

  She can’t possibly understand these flames in my veins, this pressure from every beat of my pulse. And the agonizing battle of holding it all back from my groin.

  “Maximus.” Her every syllable is a study in soft agony. When she raises her head and our gazes meet, I know for sure that she does get it. There’s no way not to know it, as the blazes in her irises keep flaring higher…and brighter… “Maximus. I’m burning up…”

  “Oh, I know.”

  Fortunately, my sarcasm is good for us. Giving in to light laughs is what we both need to fill up our lungs and uncross our eyes. But—surprise, surprise—my little demon is twice as gorgeous now, seeming to actually pout as she rests her chin above my navel. It’s as if she’s debating which direction to go but refuses to let me in on the dilemma.

  Keep going.

  Don’t keep going.

  “And now I’m burning up.” I direct the desperate growl to myself as much as her.

  She gets the nuance, if her cocked head and quirking lips are telling the truth. “Misery does love company,” she murmurs while pushing aside more of my shirt to expose the breadth of my chest. “Though I’m not sure if this helps or hurts.”

  “If it’s hurting you, it’s gone.”

  I’m not sarcastic about it this time. Not a note. “Kara. I’d cut my own heart out if its beats caused you pain.” I form my hands over hers, bringing them back up to the space at the center of my sternum. “In a world where I’d have to exist without you, no knife would cut deep enough anyway.”

  At once, she pushes up and atop me. The blanket falls away from her. Her stare matches the moon for wide, stunned brightness.

  “I love you, Kara. Truly,” I whisper, grateful that the sound isn’t swept away by the wind.

  She smiles. Aside from the jewel of her heart, I can’t think of a more incredible gift.

  Though I admit, her glistening tears come close. Then her words top everything.

  “And I love you too. Truly.”

  Before I can pull some needed air into my lungs, she scoots all the way up to recapture my lips. I take greedy advantage, sweeping in to possess her mouth just as she possesses my soul. She tastes like blissful tears and beach salt wind. She feels like a dream and torments me like a maddening sea siren. Her kisses. Her body. Her touch.

  Torture that turns into agony as she glides her hand down to my belt buckle and has the closure flipped open before I can breathe again.

  “Kara.”

  “What?” Her sough is as unsteady as mine, though infinitely sexier. “Don’t tell me you don’t need this as much as I do. I kind of know differently.”

  A true statement, even without her unique window into my mind. Because as she unzips the door to my pants, she’s got more than enough evidence of my…need.

  “Not arguing, beautiful. But we can’t—goddammit.”

  I’m cut off by my own croak as she wraps her fingers, small but sure, around the part of me that’s nearly too big for her reach. That dilemma happens right after she mewls into my beard while pumping me several times. As I jack my head back, the earth spins beneath my skull. I’m connected to that terrestrial
rhythm in ways I never thought possible, suddenly aware of its miraculous pull on the cosmos overhead and vice versa. My blood starts matching the beat, and I’m hyper-aware of that too. Of the pulse rising through me. The vibrations she’s inspiring.

  Desperately, I cling to the sliver of logic still left in my brain—and use it.

  “My love…”

  A new sigh, longer and happier. “Yes, Maximus?”

  “We—we have to remember where we are…”

  “On a private beach? Under the stars and wrapped in each other? All we’re missing is the yurt. I can live with that.”

  “We’re only a hundred feet from a house packed with your brother and his buddies in it.” Coincidence backs me up in the form of a song cranked louder inside Rerek’s place. The kind of sultry R&B tune filled with a hundred poetic euphemisms for exactly what I want to do with this woman. Right now.

  “You mean a house packed with people who probably sprinkle dirty thoughts on their breakfast cereal every morning?”

  Now I’m the one bursting with a soft laugh. “And who says I don’t?”

  She must know the answer, because without wavering her gaze or slowing her strokes, she whispers the words that have me forgetting Jaden, Rerek, the party, the world. Even my stress about the rest of it—my father, her mother, and the uncertainty around the whole damn mess—disappears in the light of her sweet confession.

  “I’m saying I love every part of you with every ounce of my soul, Mr. Kane—and I can’t wait any longer to show you so.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Kara

  Through the next sixty seconds, I learn a pair of new life lessons. First, love definitely lends a girl courage. Second, if I’m going to use that boldness to seduce the human side of this man, I’d better be ready for the glory of his other half too.

  But I’m nowhere near prepared. Not for the power of the look on his face, a mix of mesmerizing awe and adoration.

  Not for how he holds my face in his mighty grip, calling down the stars to collect in his unblinking gaze.

  Not for how his massive body thrums against mine, his every muscle alive with unimaginable power…and his every thought filled with nothing but me.

  I’m mute, motionless, and a little dazed. This has never happened to me before—and that surprise must finally show, because his tawny eyebrows suddenly draw together.

  “What?” he coaxes gently, despite his growing length beneath my palm. “Hey…what is it? Do you want to wait?”

  I shake my head, broken free from my paralysis. “No. It’s just—”

  “What?”

  I bite my lip but release it fast. “Tuning myself in to you right now…it’s intense. Like looking into a mirror of all my senses.”

  The stars in his eyes gain new glows. “And you’re surprised?”

  “I guess not. It’s just new.”

  “And that’s strange?”

  “Yeah. A little.”

  “Why?”

  Back to biting my lip. Then back to a smile, though this one’s not as huge. There’s no way to say this tactfully, so I let the spill happen.

  “Because nothing can ever compare to you. This. Us.”

  “Oh, Kara.” The glows in his gaze become a wash of warmth across his skin. Every magnificent, muscled inch of it.

  Reluctantly, I let go of his cock. With a lot less hesitation, I swing up and over to straddle it instead. Though the filmy layers of my dress are still caught between our bodies, I’m completely concentrating on what we both crave right now. What we both need. Then he bucks beneath me, evoking a moan from the bottom of my throat.

  “I think you’d better start getting used it,” he husks. “Because if you haven’t noticed, I don’t have a lot of willpower when it comes to you. I want this with you…often…completely…forever.”

  His vow, full of such promise and fervency, has my heart overflowing and my blood simmering. Before I tear my stare away from his rippled abdomen and lift it back up, reconnecting with the fixated focus of his breathtaking blue eyes.

  “Right now, I have other ideas about what you can give me, Mr. Kane.”

  He rocks back his head once more, his soul-deep sigh swirling with the bonfire sparks in the summer air. Nothing can prepare me for the perfection of him right now. His body, so sleek and sculpted. His hair, a thick riot across the blanket and out into the sand. His joy, unhindered and free. It’s an intoxicating force, wrapping around us both like a living thing, blooming into something even better when it joins with the rise of his arousal.

  It’s become wild, racing thunder on the air—or is that just his resonance in my mind? That answer’s moot once he grabs for my skirt, furiously shoving the peach froth aside, until his long, demanding fingers get to the last barrier between us. My silk panties.

  Though I’m shocked his low rumble doesn’t melt the whole garment off, he takes care of the challenge anyway. With one determined tug, he’s provided enough clearance for our flesh to slide together, blissfully reunited.

  “Oh!” I gasp, pleasantly shocked by the urgent nudge of his swollen crown.

  “Sorry,” he grates. “No. I’m not sorry. Fuck, I need you, little temptress. Need…this…”

  “Yes.” I barely choke it out as we slide together, merging more perfectly than the waves with this sand. As he stretches me wider, finally seating home deep inside, my whole soul recognizes how much that makes sense. He’s the moon to my tide. The magnet that’s changed all my gravity. And I never, ever want that to change.

  I brace myself to his shoulders as that force intensifies and then even more as we rock together, finding a rhythm that’s as new and amazing as it is familiar and affirming. Desire crowds the last of my logical thoughts just like the clouds imposing on the stars overhead. A smile breaches my lips when those thunderheads growl, quivering the sky itself. I’d be addicted to this man and his passion even without the meteorological kink, but it’s definitely an extra aphrodisiac.

  Just like the way he rolls at the height of each thrust.

  And grips my hips with sensual demand.

  And fills my gaze with unbridled adoration. My ears, with his low groans of primal need.

  And soon, my body with his scorching release.

  As soon as he nears his climax, I’m ablaze too. I burst and swear and tremble from the force of it. My overwhelmed tears are joined by some heavy drops from the impatient squall overhead. The storm dissipates before we’re even done with the thick of our torrid tryst, but that doesn’t stop me from twisting my head, looking both ways on the beach.

  “Hey,” Maximus murmurs, his own stare intense on me. “You okay? Did I hurt y—” He catches himself, already knowing the answer to that. “Did I…satisfy you? I thought, when you were shaking all over—”

  “Oh, you thought right.” I seal the assurance by smashing a long kiss to his welcoming lips. Once I’ve untangled my tongue from his again, I add, “I was just hoping I didn’t have to scramble for a visit from your dad.”

  He laughs. “Or your mom.”

  I drop my jaw. “Bite your tongue!”

  He snarls suggestively, undulating his hips. “I’d prefer it if you bit it.”

  I narrow my eyes, which are likely brimming with naughtiness. “So now you want me to be a vampire?”

  “Well, I—” he interjects in on himself. “Don’t tell me they really do exist too.”

  “No idea.” I give his lower lip a playful bite. “But maybe sometime I’ll try some creative interpretation.”

  After he turns my little taste into a wet and sweltering tongue tangle, he pulls back with his eyes closed and his lips in a satisfied curl. “Just listening to you say ‘creative interpretation’ has me wanting to bring back those thunderheads, beautiful.”

  I giggle before nuzzling my mouth to his ear. “Creative interpretation.”

  His rough exhalation and swift thrust lifts me by several inches.

  I gasp but manage to goad him further.
“Creative interpretation.”

  “You’re such a bad girl.”

  “Creative interpr—ahhh!”

  My shriek corresponds to his powerful sweep, lifting and flipping until I’m the one with sand in my hair and the whole sky in my view. At once, my scream gives way to a mesmerized moan. The coastal sky has never been more incredible, especially because the man of my soul is part of the vista.

  The demigod of my destiny. The fulfillment of my fate. The lover who gives himself to me in every bright and burning way, until every thought is his name and every sensation and desire is his to own.

  The stars bear witness to our lovemaking. The sand cushions the urgent press of our bodies, twined together now with little care for anyone who might see us. And as quickly as the storm cleared, Maximus’s fevered drives summon a soundless flash of lightning, piercing the tumultuous sky.

  The frenzy between us numbs us to the ensuing rain. The tempest matches the wild energy between us, making every second feel right. Fated, even. Before the lusty haze of my thoughts can ruminate any more on that, my writhing, scorching climax takes over. And Maximus owns every second of that too.

  For another hour, we lie in a tangle of damp blankets and half-shed clothes, trading quiet kisses and admiring the enduring coals that survived the storm. Our storm, I tease, newly committed to appreciating Maximus’s sway over the elements during these intimate moments.

  In the fading light, I’m quietly grateful that my mother hasn’t managed my life so heavily that I’m clueless about the stuff that contributes to a happy, normal relationship. It’s stolen, silly moments like this. Laughter shared during experiences that no one else will understand.

  I’m thankful that Maximus gets it too. For one of the few times in my life, I’m also grateful for the abilities that give me that assurance. We snap a few grainy pictures of ourselves in the dark. We’re tired and messy and totally happy. For someone whose life has been defined by the last photo snap, capturing these moments—raw and unfiltered—means more than I can say. What’s even better… They belong to us. We’ll never have to share them with anyone else.