Ignited (Roman Holiday 5)
Page 4
Ten days.
“I’ll last as long as I have to,” she said. “And in the meantime, you should know how to start a fire and all that. Without cheating. A proper fire, with an A-frame and one match, little piles of tinder and kindling and all.”
Another few push-ups, and he said, “I know how to start a fire.”
“Just like you know how to put up a tent?”
Roman dropped to his knees. Finally.
When he levered up his torso and looked at her, projecting annoyance, the challenge in his eyes made her nipples bead inside the shelf bra of her sports top.
Roman wiped sweat off his forehead. His color was up, his chest heaving. “I can build a better fire than you,” he said.
“One match?”
“Anyone can build a one-match fire.”
“You can do better? Oh, tell me you bought flint and steel at REI, and you can strike a fire off one of those key-chain things.”
“Not flint and steel. I can start a friction fire.”
“With just sticks? You cannot.”
“I can.”
“Do it, then.”
“It’s a pain. I’m not going to do it just to show you.”
“Do it,” she repeated. “Doitdoitdoitdoooooit.”
“Does that actually work on people?”
“You’d be surprised.”
Roman stood up and reached for the camp towel he’d left on the bench next to her. She could feel the heat coming off him, all those charged particles in the air between them. He bumped her with his bare knee, and she looked at the black hair on his legs, the runnels of sweat.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m disgusting.”
She wanted him just like this, though. Braced over her with his arms trembling, his heat sinking into her skin. One delirious, stupid, ecstatic glide, and she’d have him inside her, and she could stop all this mental lusting. This weird obsession with Roman and his Roman-ness.
Not that he’d go for it, even if he were available. The man probably had sex in the dark, beneath a top sheet, with his eyes closed. And wiped his girlfriend down with a damp washcloth afterward.
Petty, Ashley.
She knew him better than that by now. Knew how he kissed.
Knew that he cared.
“If you can start a fire with friction, I’ll make you dinner,” she said.
“You cook?”
“Not on a stove, but I’m the best campfire cook you’ll ever meet.”
“Will you cook whatever I want?”
“No meat. Otherwise, yes.”