Burned Deep (Burned 1)

I felt the first wave of heat and then the subtle trembling. I wasn’t sure if it was me who shook slightly or him. Maybe both of us. Our breaths were steady but labored, a bit harsh—coming in time with each other so that they became one. The way our bodies did. Our hearts. Our souls.

Everything that I would have ever wished for myself, had I been the type, crystallized the deeper he moved inside me, the more seductive his gaze became.

“Dane,” I whispered as the sensations mounted.

“Yes, Ari. Yes.”

I felt the shattering of every inch of me, the evidence that I belonged to him, only him. No one else. Ever.

“Ari,” he said. “You are everything to me.”

And then the hot rush of him filled me and he shuddered against me with one of those arousing, primal groans that told me how powerful my sway was over him.

That told me he was mine.

epilogue

KYLE

Ari returned to 10,000 Lux the first week of November. I’d been shocked to see her coming through the double doors of the lobby. Shocked to see Dane walking beside her. Not so shocked to see Amano close behind them, eyes alert.

Everyone was happy she’d come back. They’d been concerned about her absence, which they conveniently explained had been due to a car accident. That lie covered the scar on her forehead and the fact that Dane drove her to work, since she’d apparently “totaled” her SUV. I wondered what they’d done with it.

Dane cut me some slack with the intense, intimidating looks and even thanked me for helping her when she’d needed it most. That sentiment had been a reluctant one but I’d told him I’d always be there for her. Warned him, actually.

It was a bitch of a situation to be in. I didn’t like her choices, plain and simple. I didn’t like that she’d been in danger—could still be—or that she’d gone back on that vehement declaration she’d made in her living room, when her cheek had been bruised and swollen, causing me to want to put my fist through a wall … or Dane’s face. She’d sworn they were over. I’d believed it.

So seeing them together now infuriated me, tore at me. I wanted to feel “happy” for her—for getting whatever it was that she wanted. Still … why’d it have to be him?

Now I was stuck with having to pretend I didn’t know what she was involved in, pretend I didn’t know she’d been kidnapped and attacked, that her face had been fucked up and she’d had a vacant, tormented look in her eyes that had damn-near killed me.

But he’d shown his true colors once, and I was convinced it would happen again. And when it did, I’d be there to pick up the pieces for her.

Just as I’d warned Dane …