Phoenix Burning (13 page)

Her protest died on her lips when his mouth latched onto her nipple. He nipped and licked like an animal. A hard pull had her gasping for breath and squeezing her eyes shut while sparks danced beneath her eyelids. His tongue was wet and soft, his teeth hard and demanding.

He let go with a pop. Her breast hung heavy and needy, the nipple pouting for more. Alex took the other in his mouth instead, giving it the same treatment. His teeth scraped over the delicate surface until she was panting with frustration. Juice from her swollen sex coated the insides of her thighs.

He let go of her breast and grabbed her hips. “Sit up and grind your pussy against me. Show me how wet you are. I want to feel it.”

Feeling wanton and sexy, Emory did as he asked. She arched her back and moved her pelvis. His engorged shaft slipped through her hot slit. Soft and silky, they moved together until she thought she might die. Her channel clenched reflexively, wanting the penetration he could provide.

“I don’t have a condom with me, love.” His expression was tight with restraint. “I get tested regularly and I’m clean, but the choice is yours.”

The thought of being with Alex without a barrier between them was exciting. “I’m clean too, and I’m on the pill.”

“Lift up, love. I’m going to slide right into you.” The muscles in Alex’s arms bunched as he helped her rise. “It’s all you. You control how fast or slow we go.”

Power swept her like a storm. It was unlike anything she’d ever felt before. The round head of his cock probed her entrance. She shifted her hips, letting it push inside. She hovered, enjoying the sensation, until she realized Alex was panting beneath her.

She watched him then, his expression changing in subtle nuances as she began to sink slowly down on his shaft. The planes of his face grew harsh. He clenched his jaw. Her muscles welcomed him inside. That feeling of liquid heat coaxed her channel to spread and accommodate his wide girth.

When she’d lowered herself fully, she could no longer keep her eyes open to watch. He brushed the sweet spot deep inside her body, and she convulsed in sheer gratification. It felt so good, like a shot of pure pleasure.

“Fuck, Emory. You’re so tight.” His fingers dug into her ass cheeks.

She rocked against him, grinding deeply. The base of his shaft brushed her clit and made her shiver. She discovered that there was a perfect angle for this. A perfect position where she could feel his shaft stroke her inside while it delivered delicious friction to the hood of her clitoris. It was exquisite.

Splaying her hands on his chest, she braced for more. She’d forgotten everything but the man beneath her, inside her, surrounding her with his scent and feel. She clenched her ass, fucking harder, until her body was quivering, until she was poised on the edge of something.

She could feel it, brush against it, and sense it coming harder and faster as she increased her tempo. It was so beautiful. She wanted it, needed it. She was wetter, slippery, and hot with cream that dampened the place where their bodies were joined. Pumping harder, she raced toward the place she could finally see. She was reaching, she was so close, but it eluded her still.

“Relax, love.” Alex’s murmur reached through her haze. “There’s no rush.”

Emory became abruptly aware of her physical self at that moment. It came back in a rush. Exhaustion made her muscles tingle and spark. Her feet were asleep. Air rasped in and out of her lungs in short pants. Sweat dampened both their bodies.

How long had she been riding Alex?

Did it matter?

She rolled to one side and lay on her back, staring at the ceiling in wonder. “I felt it.”

“Felt what, love?” He turned on his side and brushed a kiss across her lips. He looked concerned.

“An orgasm, I think.” She was still reeling from the too brief taste of ecstasy. “I’ve never done that before.”

“What was it like?”

“Beautiful, terrifying, like a cliff with the most stunning view that I want to dive off of.” She frowned, trying to remember. With the euphoria dying away she began to worry that she’d never find that place again. “I don’t know what I’m looking for. I don’t know what it looks like or what to expect.”

“You’ve been there once.” He kissed her. “You’ll find it again. I promised to help you and I will.”

Her earlier mission to the bookshop launched into her brain like a missile. “MacIntyre is circulating a petition to all the downtown business owners to try and shut down Phoenix Rising.”

Alex tried and failed to find his equilibrium. They had just shared a sexual experience he would rank in his all-time top five—really his top three, the other two being his other two times with Emory—and she was thinking about
MacIntyre
?

“I’m sorry, Alex. I didn’t mean to creep you out.”

She reached up to touch his face and he caught her hand. “What made you think of that?”

“You said you would help me.” The tender look on her face made his stomach do an unfamiliar acrobatic. “You’ve told me that before. I just wanted to do something in return. So I’ve been talking to some of the people who signed the petition and trying to figure out what’s really behind it.”

Alex felt like he’d been dropped in the middle of a play with no script. “How long has this been going on?”

“He came to me that first day you and I met, not long before I came to the Phoenix Rising.”

She was a baffling combination of savvy and naïve. Every ounce of street smarts Alex had told him she’d probably come to him under false pretenses from the beginning. Yet his instincts argued that it was impossible to fake the kinds of insecurities Emory was lugging around.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Her tone drew his gaze back to her face. “Please don’t look like you think I’ve been lying.”

“Have you?”

“I told you I had a short and rather ridiculous history with MacIntyre.”

That was true.

“I didn’t come to the bar to do some kind of reconnaissance for Captain Downtown.”

And there it was. The thing he’d been trying to figure out from the very start. She’d given him all sorts of half-truths and pat answers. “Then why did you come?”

“My father was a Fundamentalist Pentecostal preacher in a backwoods hill town down South.” He could see what it cost for her to continue, but she didn’t stop. “When he wasn’t raging against my brother for being less than a man, he railed at me for not denying my sinful nature.”

Alex suddenly wanted her to stop. He was afraid he knew where this was going. But he
had
to listen, just as she
had
to continue.

“Every night we had to kneel in front of his chair and pray for forgiveness.” Her eyes grew distant. “Chris had to ask God to forgive him for his love of books and ask to be cleansed of his womanliness. I had to beg God to make me pure. I promised to bind my breasts and swore not to touch myself. Then my father would…”

He couldn’t take it. Alex wrapped his arms around Emory’s slender frame and held her to his chest, heart to heart.

“He checked me every night.” She whispered against his chest. “He would clean what he always referred to as my ‘forbidden parts.’ So that I would never be tempted to touch them for any reason.”

Anger and hatred roiled inside Alex’s heart. Even shrouded in a cloak of religious piety, abuse was abuse. If he could have found her father at that moment, Alex would have killed him with his bare hands.

“When Chris and I were seniors in high school, he came out to my parents. I sided with him, and we were both thrown out as abominations.” She snuggled even closer. “It’s sad. We got away, but there are still so many that believe my father’s bullshit and lies. God isn’t at fault. The Pentecostal religion isn’t at fault. My father is just a sick bastard.”

“There are always people who use God and religion to justify their crazy beliefs.” Alex managed to keep his voice low and soothing.

“That’s why I always fail at relationships. I can’t seem to put it all behind me.” She squirmed in his arms until she could look up into his face. “I went to Phoenix Rising because I wanted a place to find myself. I thought if there were no empty promises or expectations, I could put the past in the past and learn to let go.”

“Why me?” He was staggered by the weight of her faith.

“You chase the darkness away, Alex.” She kissed his throat. “You bring the fire.”

Emotion crested in a wave so fierce that Alex was left gasping. It wasn’t enough to be beside her. He needed to be in her, to sink into her heat and feel the welcoming sensation of her body beneath his.

He rolled her to her back and took her mouth in a searing kiss. Desperation made him long to be rough, but necessity made him gentle, and he sank into her taste and feel as though he needed her to live.

She spread her legs until he was nestled against her pelvic bone. His shaft thickened, anticipating their joining. Alex didn’t want to wait. He needed to feel her then and there.

Bracing his weight on his hands, he slid the head of his erection into her slit. The head nudged her entrance. Emory’s eyes widened even as she spread her legs to give him better access to her body.

“I’m going to take you right now. I need to be inside you, Emory.” His voice was ragged to his own ears.

“I’m yours, Alex.”

Her words fanned the flames until he was burning with desire. Alex thrust into her body in one stroke. Her slick folds parted, caressing his length as he sank balls deep in her pussy.

Always before he had gone slow, eased into her, measured his thrusts. This wasn’t the time for slow. It was raw and real and passionate. He pounded her pussy in short, rhythmic thrusts that filled the room with the sound of their bodies slapping together. The scent of sex permeated everything, and her juices left a slick trail on their skin.

Heat pooled at the base of Alex’s spine. His climax snaked through his limbs like an inevitable storm. Her fingers tangled in the hair at the nape of his neck. She stared up into his face, her mouth open with the sounds of her pleasure.

He came like a freight train. Blood rushed in his veins and pounded in his ears. His dick throbbed as though it would pour his very life into her. His testicles clenched tightly against his body and then released as his orgasm played out in a flow of warm ejaculate.

A sense of weakness stole over him as he started to come down from his erotic high. Their sweat-slicked bodies began to cool in the room’s evening air. Not wanting to crush her, Alex rolled to his side. His cock slid from her pussy and she shivered.

“Being with you challenges my self-control, love.” He brushed noses with her.

“It might seem stupid, but I like that it does. It makes me feel powerful.”

“You are powerful.” Alex wondered if she could possibly imagine how true that was.

She yawned. “We still need to figure out what to do about MacIntyre.”

“That one is going to take some thought. We’ll talk it over with Connor in the morning.”

The silence was comfortable. Alex watched the light recede, stretching into shadows on her walls until the streetlights cast their orange glow into the room. She’d dropped off to sleep almost immediately.

He’d never spent the night with a woman before. An hour, an afternoon, an evening—all slices of time that kept his liaisons casual. Emory was different. And spending the night with her wasn’t a choice. It was the inevitable conclusion.

Chapter Twelve

Emory hummed softly as she arranged greenery around the daisies and yellow lilies before her. She clipped a length of ribbon and tied it around the wide neck of the vase before deftly twisting the long ends into an elaborate bow.

The sight of the yellow ribbon reminded Emory of her mother. It had been Liza Banks who had taught her daughter about green growing things, cut flowers, and bows. In the quiet before her father came home from doing what he’d always referred to as “God’s Work,” there had been brief periods of quiet beauty. The words of her mother’s song slipped through Emory’s mind.

O Mother, dear Mother, we once't were yours

All alone and lone

You neither gave us course nor fine

You killed and buried us under a stone

An' prayed to th’ Lord, it would never be known

All down by th’ greenwood side

For seven long years, you shall hear a bell

All alone and lone

And at the end of seven years, you shall land in hell

All down by th’ greenwood side

“I’m not usually the one who wakes up alone.” Alex’s voice drifted down the hallway seconds before he emerged from the shadows.

Emory looked up and offered him a smile. A day’s growth of gold stubble on his cheeks made Alex even more mouthwateringly sexy. “I needed to finish up a few arrangements before I open this morning since I was otherwise occupied Sunday evening.”

He took the extra stool and eyed the yellow-and-white arrangement. “I’ve ordered my fair share of these things over the years, but I’ve never actually watched one being made.”

“Do you even go into a store and pick one out, or do you just make a phone call?” Odd, but the reference to his past relationships didn’t bother her at all. Something deep inside told her that what she and Alex had together existed outside the boundaries of his normal relationships. It didn’t mean she wasn’t apprehensive about their future and what it would bring, but being jealous of the women in his past seemed silly. She was glad he was experienced, because she was most decidedly not.

“Phone calls mostly.” He looked thoughtful. “I never cared what the flowers looked like.”

“I’m okay with that.”

His grin warmed her from the inside out. “What were you humming?”

She had already been so honest. Did it really matter anymore? “It’s called ‘Down by the Greenwood Side.’ It’s a folk song my mother used to sing. I told you we were from the hills.”