Page 43 of Fuse

Before pulling him down and kissing him with the full, tender force of my adoration.

“Okay,” I whisper when we pull apart after an all-too-short minute. “That’s okay, baby. No more heroes tonight.” I trace the words along the line of his jaw. I stop my lips in the indent between his face and ear and rasp, “I don’t need my hero right now. But I do need my man. My lover.”

It’s no ploy. It’s my complete truth. Even as he responds with a vehement snarl, my necessity is sealed and confirmed—and I’m ready to do whatever it takes to bring out the man who owns every fiber of my heart, consumes every corner of my soul…and calls to every awakened pore in my body.

Because of that, I welcome every note of his ferocious sound, even as he repeats it. I treasure his sizzling, mesmerizing sparks. Crave even more of his searing, penetrating fire.

The flames I need to stoke higher.

And do now, with steady but silken coaxing.

“Just be my lover, Mr. Richards.” I purposely emphasize the formal address, letting my body soften and surrender as he intensifies his hold around me. I focus on offering everything to him, just as I did the last time I saw this much intense conflict in him. It’s been nearly a year since then. The night we first met. In the scant hours before we fully acknowledged our inescapable, electric desire, he was exactly like this: filled with hesitation, trepidation, and fear. Of course, he’d also been certain he was about to kill me—a factor I didn’t learn about until weeks later—but that doesn’t make me blind to how he longs to deny everything he’s come to feel. He’s overwhelmed by it. Terrified by it.

No.

Not terrified.

Worse.

Every minute, every hour, and every day of the last year, the two of us have fallen into richer, deeper love with each other.

But after what love has cost him today…

“No heroes.” Though I’ve figured out exactly why he doesn’t want to hear the “h” word ever again, I repeat the banishment because I need it too. At the same time, I wrap my hands into his dark, lustrous hair—needing that too. With the beautiful strands in my grip, I reassure him in a throaty husk, “It’s just us, Reece. Just this.”

At once, a gruff sound emerges from the base of his throat. “Just this?” he retorts. “Fuck.” As if the word is his personal Burst button, he grabs me even harder, one hand around my ass and the other against my spine, locking all of our body parts from thighs to necks. There’s not a single breath between us now—and I can’t think of anything more complete or right. “You’ll never be just this for me, Emmalina. You’ll never be just anything for me. You’re always, always my everything. My reason. My more.”

All right, nothing more complete except for words like that.

“You know what it felt like up on that roof today, knowing that in so many ways, Faline had won? Knowing that I could have ripped that victory out of her hands by throwing myself to the street below?” His stare intensifies, turning the color of braided steel cables. “You want to know how fucking tempted I was to just do it—and then why I eventually didn’t? Why every cell of my body felt like a lead brick as I got back on the police chopper but still ordered myself to do it anyway?” His lips part, revealing his gritted teeth. His nostrils flare, underlining his fierce torment. “Because you’re not just this.”

In one breathtaking sweep, I realize I’m even more wrong than before.

Because he’s never been more right.

Or made me want to lunge at him with more passion, losing myself to the dizzying fall of loving him more than I ever thought I would. Then kissing him with the open urgency to prove it. Then letting him pour his long, furious moan into me in return. And tangling my high, hurting sigh with the sound. And gripping him with all the frantic fever as he does me, until our passion is nearly a wild war of wills, except that we’ve both already gotten the ultimate prize.

The reward of each other.

The treasure of us.

The magic of this.

Oh…this.

Oh…him.

The vigor of his lunging, sweeping mouth. The power of his towering, straining body. The strokes of his huge, possessive hands and the rolls of his muscled, mesmerizing hips. In record time, my blood is singing, my sex is throbbing, and my senses are screaming. I’m beyond the point of need, past caring what the hell he’s calling himself or me or anything else tonight. Hero? Savior? Man? Lover? It’s all true and yet none of it is, because right now he’s only my desire, my heat, my hunger.

Only?

No.

He’s more. He always will be.

“Don’t stop.” I rush out the plea while seizing his scalp harder, hating even the shallow heaves of breath between us. “Don’t stop.” I slide his forehead down against mine. “Kiss me. Touch me. Everywhere.”

His face contorts once more, but this time, I feel every drop of the desire that motivates the expression searing away the remaining condensation of his conflict. He emphasizes the point with a pure caveman rumble, resettling his hands around the spheres of my ass. I match his sound with a primeval purr, spreading my legs to mold tighter against him, exulting in how he splays his sinfully long fingers around every inch of my clenching backside.