Hot & Heavy (Lightning 2)

“Seriously? You think that’s what this is about?”

“Isn’t it? You couldn’t be bothered to work with me until I agreed to pay a hundred and fifty grand.”

“Why I didn’t want to work with you had nothing to do with money.”

“Oh, yeah?” I shoot back, leaning down so that we’re eye to eye, snarl to snarl. “What did it have to do with then?”

“This,” she says as she grabs my face. “It had to do with this.”

And then she slams her mouth straight into mine.

Chapter 15

Sage

I’m trembling the moment my mouth hits Shawn’s.

Shaking the moment I slide my hands up to tangle in his hair.

Drowning the moment he grabs me and pulls me hard against his body.

There’s a part of me that can’t believe this is happening, that can’t believe I’m doing this. Here. Now. With this man.

I shouldn’t be. Not with Shawn, who’s everything I don’t want in a man, everything I refuse to want.

He’s reckless.

Impulsive.

Wild.

A shooting star burning bright and free across the sky.

The only problem is shooting stars aren’t stars at all. They’re meteors on the path to their own destruction, burning up as they enter the Earth’s atmosphere. Hard to find, beautiful to watch, impossible to hold on to.

I can try to tell myself whatever I want, even try to fool myself into believing it. But the truth is, I’m catching Shawn on the way to his own extinction, and no matter how gorgeous he is, no matter how sweet or kind or thoughtful he is, I’m smart enough to know that eventually he’s going to burn out and then he’s going to burn up.

I can’t be a part of that, can’t stand by and watch him do that to himself.

But I can’t leave, either. Not when he’s kissing me like I’m the last woman on earth. Not when he’s holding me like he never wants to let me go.

Turns out I’m holding him the same way, my fingers twisted and tangled in his hair like they belong there. I tug a little, bring him closer, and revel in the low groan that comes from deep inside him.

His tongue darts out, slides along my lower lip, and I open myself to him. Let him in. He tastes as good as I remember, maybe even more.

It’s crazy how we’ve gotten here, crazy how a quick, meaningless little hookup in the back of a bar has turned into…this. Because, here, now, there’s nothing meaningless in the way Shawn is holding on to me. Nothing meaningless in the way he’s pressed up against me. And definitely nothing meaningless in the way he’s licking slowly, sweetly, deliberately, into my mouth.

I know I need to be careful, know that Shawn is absolutely the last man that I can afford to fall for right now. But that doesn’t seem to matter as he presses closer into the V of my legs.

As he slides a hand along the outside of my thigh.

As he sucks my lower lip between his teeth and bites down just hard enough to send electricity streaking along my spine.

He tastes so good, feels so good, that all my good intentions go out the window and all I’m left with is this crazy beat in my blood, this powerful throb in my brain. It’s a feeling that somehow turns into a desperate, destructive mantra of want him, need him, have to have him. Over and over and over again, the words echo in every part of me.

For a second, just a second, warning bells go off in my head, and I put my hands on his shoulders, start to push him away. I shouldn’t want him this much, shouldn’t need him this much, when this can’t last. When I won’t let it last.

But it’s hard to think of the future when he’s right here against me. Right here, under my hands, charming and exciting me with every stroke of his tongue. Every slide of his hand. Because the way he’s holding me doesn’t say two-night stand. It doesn’t say good time and goodbye. It says that even though this is new and strange and possibly a little bit scary, he wants me, needs me, as much as I want and need him. And that is both the most exhilarating and the most terrifying thing I’ve ever experienced.