Page 41 of Wicked Heat

“I didn’t expect this,” I admit, shocked I can tell him even that much.

He takes me by the hand and leads me to the couch. We sit, and he draws me in close. “Expect what?”

“You. I never expected you in my life. I never expected you to be like this.”

“What’s this?” he asks.

“You know.”

“Yes,” he says, simply. “I do.”

And then I’m in his arms. His mouth is on mine, his hands on my shoulders, then sliding down so his thumbs can stroke my breasts.

Now we’re in bed, and I’m naked, and I don’t even remember getting here, which makes me sad, because I do not want to forget a single moment of this. He is everything I’ve wanted since the first moment I saw him, and I never even knew it.

How can I have been so aware of this man for so long, but every time I thought too hard about him, I talked myself out of it?

It’s a stupid question. Because I know exactly how I kept that distance. And I know why, too.

The thoughts have opened a door, and dark wisps like demon fingers slip into my mind, whispering… whispering.

I try to block the voice. I don’t want it in my head. All I want is Ash. The way his body feels. The way he’s touching me.

I roll over, using my hands to push his shoulders back as I straddle him. “Please,” I say, “please, please just make me forget.”

His brow furrows, full of gentleness and concern. “Forget? Forget what?”

“Everything,” I say. “Everything but you.”

He doesn’t smile, but the heat in his eyes says it all. He reaches up and cups the back of my head. Then pulls me down into a kiss that is so deep and so passionate that it’s practically a substitute for sex.

His hands roam over me, firing every cell in my body. I’m on my back looking up at him and drowning in the ocean of his eyes. The corner of his mouth twitches, not in humor, but as a promise of what’s to come.

Then he’s kissing me, his body hard against mine, his hands on my wrists holding my arms wide, his tongue teasing and taking as he explores my mouth.

He’s naked now, too, though I don’t remember him undressing, and he breaks the kiss long enough to pull back and look at me before he starts to move down my body, painting my skin with a trail of kisses.

Lower and lower. His hands teasing my nipples as his tongue laves my clit, his mouth working a magic that has me grinding against him as I fist my hands in his hair and silently beg for more.

Then his hands are on my hips, and I’m lost in the wildness of his ministrations. His mouth. His tongue. His fingers moving from my hip to my core.

“Yes,” I whisper. “More,” I beg. I’m close, so close, and those red-hot coils of passion tighten inside me like a spring ready to explode. I’ve never in my life been so turned on, so aware of a man. Never so desperate for a touch.

Never so raw and uninhibited between the sheets.

He’s done something to me. He’s fixed me somehow. And I have to tell him so. He has to understand how important he is to me.

I open my eyes, needing him to feel, see, and hear the connection when I tell him how much this night means to me.

Then he lifts his head, his mouth leaving my pussy, his lips still wet with my desire.

And that’s when I see it. See him.

Rory.

Right there between my legs.

I’m not in bed with Ash at all. I’m in bed with Rory.