Consumed by Fire (Fire 1)

He didn’t even understand why she was so attractive to him. She was far from his normal type, with her flyaway hair and stubborn mouth. He’d fucked women for business and for pleasure, and he was sure he could come up with a good justification to take this one to bed. He just wasn’t sure why he wanted to.

Maybe it was because he might have to kill her, and he didn’t want to do it until he was sure it was necessary. It was hard for a woman to hide anything when she was enjoying the best sex of her life, which he intended to give her. If she had to die, then at least she’d die happy, not even knowing what happened to her. If he decided she could live, then there was no way he was going to let Claudia’s strong hands and perfect marksmanship get anywhere near her.

The only problem being, Claudia didn’t take no for an answer.

“What are you doing here?” He could hear a faint tremor in Evangeline’s voice. Christ, she couldn’t be a virgin, could she? No, he would have picked up on that much uncertainty. She just wasn’t used to hookups, to casual encounters, to instant attraction, to accepting sex as just one more appetite to be assuaged. She was a romantic, he realized. And he was hardheaded and practical, no handsome prince to seduce her.

He said nothing. If she backed into her room he would follow her, if she came out he would take her. Her life might hang in the balance of that small decision.

She stepped forward into the deserted hallway, closing the door behind her. “I was going to take a shower,” she said, still with that trace of nervousness. “It’s really too late for a walk. Besides, I spent most of the day on my feet.”

“I can take care of that,” he said softly. The bathing room was next to her room, and no one else would be sharing it. He crossed the hallway, slowly, deliberately, and she didn’t retreat, even though he could sense that half of her wanted to. Her arms were full of her clothes when he caught her shoulders in his hard hands. Slender shoulders, delicate. He leaned down and pressed his mouth against the crook of her neck, breathing in her scent. In the distance he could hear the first jarring notes of the carabinieri’s Klaxon, and he slid his hands up her neck, covering her ears with his palms as he moved his head and kissed her.

Chapter Three

His mouth on hers was a shock. It was no tentative kiss, no preliminary exploration. The mouth that covered hers was open, carnal, wet, and for a moment she was too startled to do anything but stand there clutching her clothes to her breast like an idiot. He was cupping her face in his beautiful hands, blocking out everything but his mouth, his body up against hers, and then he lifted his head, his deep brown eyes glittering in the darkness. “You want this,” he said, no longer sounding lazy. It wasn’t a question, and she couldn’t nod if she wanted to, not with him holding her head still for his kisses, so she had to be brave.

“Yes,” she said, too caught up in the mesmerizing feel of his body against hers to be shocked at herself. “I want this.”

His slow smile was brief, and then he covered her mouth again, pushing her up against the wall, and she kissed him back. She could hear the heavy rain begin, and in the distance a police siren, and then nothing mattered as he pushed open the door to the bathing room and angled her inside.

“This isn’t my . . .” she began, puzzled, but he hushed her, pulling the towels and the nightgown from her arm and tossing them in the corner.

The shared bath for the third-floor guests was one large wet room, covered with marble tiles, and Silvio had proudly shown her the new overhead rainshower, as well as the many spray options now available in the most recent upgrade. She didn’t pay any attention. The sounds of the sirens were growing louder, and she vaguely wondered what had happened, until James pushed her against the wall, both of them fully clothed, and turned on the spray overhead, drenching them, drowning out the noise and any other thoughts.

She tilted back her head and laughed, suddenly happy. This was ridiculous, crazy, and she didn’t care. If she was going to throw caution to the wind for a night of passion, then the wilder the better. She could do this and take joy in it.

He moved his mouth down her neck, leaving a trail of tiny bites in his path. The knit dress was stretching in the water, soaked, and he pulled it over her head before she realized what he was doing, so that she stood there in nothing but a skimpy black lace bra and panties.

He paused, looking down at her appreciatively. “That’s encouraging,” he whispered in her ear, letting his teeth take hold of her earlobe and biting down, so that she arched against him with a soft moan. “You must have known this was coming.”

She could protest—but this wasn’t the kind of underwear she usually wore, and there was no need to wear it under the black dress. She’d chosen it deliberately, whether she realized it or not. He moved back, pulling her under the full stream of the shower, his thumbs brushing her cheeks, pushing back her long wet hair as he kissed her eyelids, licked the water from her cheekbones and her mouth.

She reached up and tried to unfasten the buttons to his shirt, but the fabric was wet and stubborn. She needed to feel his skin against her. She yanked it in frustration, and he laughed softly against her neck. “Patience, Angel,” he whispered, covering her frantic hands with his. “I’ll take care of it.”

He released her, only for a moment, as he simply ripped the shirt open and yanked it off. She knew what kind of strength was needed to tear that wet linen, and she shivered.

“Are you cold?” he whispered, reaching behind them, and the shower heated up as he turned the dials, apparently knowing from instinct how to adjust them. He pulled his belt free and threw it in the corner, where the heavy metal buckl

e clanged against the tile. She half expected him to yank down his pants, but instead he put his hands on her, pushing her back beneath the water where nothing existed but his mouth, his touch.

She closed her eyes as his hands slid around her, and a moment later her bra came free, falling down between them. Her small breasts were tight and pebbled against his smooth skin, despite the warmth of the water. She felt his fingers on them, tugging, rubbing, and she heard a quiet moan of pleasure that echoed in the tiled room and knew it could only have come from her. His head moved down, his mouth latching onto her nipple, sucking, and she felt a spasm of reaction between her legs. She liked this. Men had always been so gentle with her breasts, so tender, and she’d felt nothing.

James Bishop was rough, demanding, and she could no more resist those demands than she could fly. He moved to her other breast, leaving the first distended and needy, and when she felt his teeth on her a spasm rocked her body, shocking her.

He pushed his hand down her stomach, beneath the black lace of her panties, finding her entrance without fumbling. Finding her clitoris when every other man had had to search. He knew where it was, and he knew what to do with it, rubbing his thumb across it, his mouth catching hers again as she cried out.

She fell back against the cool tile wall, and he followed her, reaching up to tilt the shower spray so that it poured down on them, drowning everything out but touch.

“Stay like that,” he growled, and she blinked her eyes open for a moment, just long enough to see him sink to his knees in front of her, sliding the panties down her legs until they rested around her ankles. She stepped out of them, kicking them away, as he put his hands on her thighs and held them apart as his tongue touched her. A shudder ran through her. This was too much—this was more sex than she’d had in her last few months with Lester, and James wasn’t stopping. He licked and sucked and bit at her clitoris as two long fingers slid inside her, filling her, and she couldn’t stifle her sudden shriek of . . . was it passion? Fear? Need?

None of it mattered—she was well past the point of second thoughts. He was so good, so adept at this that she came immediately, her body jolting in reaction, a hard, sharp orgasm that was over too quickly, and she felt a wave of disappointment. She knew her body—she was done, and she’d been so turned on she’d been unable to hold back. She tilted her head back, letting the warm water splash down on her, waiting for her body to return to stillness.

He must have felt her climax, but he didn’t move away from her. If he was expecting more response from her it wouldn’t . . .

The next orgasm slammed into her like a freight train, and she screamed, every inch of her skin prickling, burning, as she arched back against the wall, shaking so hard she thought she might fall apart. He surged upward, covering her mouth with his, and she could taste herself as he swallowed her cries. When her hard spasms subsided into flutters he lifted his mouth. “You don’t want to alert the entire villa, do you?” he said with a soft laugh. “When you need to scream again just bite me.”

When, he said. Not if. She shivered in his arms. “I can’t . . .” she began in a raw voice.