Sparking the Fire (31 page)

H
e's wearing a pink shirt.

Molly was riding a helter-skelter of riotous emotions and Wyatt in his pink Oxford was not helping. A private joke that shouldn't mean a thing but signaled nuances in their relationship she wasn't ready to acknowledge.

She wanted to think his expression on seeing her dressed provocatively in a skirt so snug she had to walk downstairs sideways was garden-variety male desire. She wanted to think it as he slid his hand between her thighs and found her wet and wanting. But there had been something both protective and possessive about how he'd put a halt to the game and led her to the elevator, his hand wrapped around hers like they were a regular couple.

And when he said he wanted her, just her, and watched as she removed the mask, she wanted to think this was their real life. Desire and surprise and a sexy adventure with her rough-and-tumble warrior. He was doing it again. Creating a sanctuary from the crazy.

She placed her palms on his shoulders. “You planning to glare me into orgasm, Marine?”

“I don't glare. I smolder.”

A ridiculously girly giggle escaped her. What was it about this man that sent joy barreling through her veins in equal amounts to lust?

He kept his gaze locked on her, hooded, watchful. Ablaze. She kissed the fine lines around his eyes. How did he get them if he so rarely laughed? His rough fingers snaked to the backs of her thighs, and all the while he stared at her with that blue-eyed intensity.

“I'm remembering some of your outfits from back then. Sexy librarian was a particular favorite.” Heated fingertips grazed the curve of her ass, cutting a trail of desire across her skin. With what seemed like incredible restraint on his part, he refused to walk those fingers into more welcoming territory.

She needed more. Always more. Restless, she shifted against him. “And now rock chick?”

“Yeah, she's pretty hot but . . .”

“But?”

“You in your yoga gear. Hottest of all.”

She raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“I mean it.”

“Because you've been spying on me while I do downward-facing dog.”

“I'm gonna assume that's related to yoga and not what I'd prefer to think it is.” He gripped her ass and clasped her to his body with an almost lewd spread of her cheeks. The bite of the denim against her soft, damp nakedness felt divine. “Yeah, watching your ass is mighty pleasant, but that's not what I meant. I meant that it's my favorite outfit because it's all you. No role, no disguise, just Molly at peace, in her natural habitat.”

Emotion pinged her chest and she sought to cover with a cut to humor. “Where my natural habitat has my world-famous ass front and center.”

“You so sick of compliments you can't take mine?”

Guilt replaced the yearning. “Not sick of them. But in my business I've learned to take them all with a grain of salt. Not a lot of sincerity in them.”

“You think I'm not sincere?”

“I think you're trying to get into my yoga pants.”

His frown deepened, and she regretted her jokiness.

“I think you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen, in costume or out, on a big-ass screen or at a backyard cookout. Molly, you slay me.”

She believed him, and that was more shocking than the words he had just uttered. It had been so long since she believed a word anyone told her. Everyone had ulterior motives and
yes, ma'ams
on their tongues while they bowed and scraped before her. Cal was her best friend, and Molly questioned even how genuine that was, given she was also a paid employee. But every word out of Wyatt Fox's mouth was grounded in reality. His rock-solid gravity, devotion to family, and self-deprecation did it for her like no one else.

He did it for her like no one else.

Suddenly she didn't want to talk anymore, or she wanted to put her mouth—and his—to better use. Time to own this desire he had for her, and match it with her own. She framed his face with her hands and touched her lips to his. Their joint groans on that first contact echoed in the room, bouncing off the ceiling, finding a rhythmic feedback in their bodies. And how he tasted? His mouth hot and silken, like the only man who could ever taste this good, and hell if that wasn't the scariest notion alive.

What if she could never reach this peak with anyone else?

He pulled back, his nose nuzzling hers. “Time to get out of your head, babe. Don't overthink it.”

Time to get
him
out of her head and just focus on her body as pure sensation.

“I need to see you.” Fingers working feverishly, she pulled at the buttons of his shirt, and he obliged by shrugging it off his shoulders. Her blissful sigh emerged as a choked “Unh.” The man was simply sublime with those broad shoulders that could carry the world and that hard chest made for her hands to explore.

Which they did.

Soon they were both breathing heavily as she smoothed her palms over his shoulders, pecs, biceps, lingering a moment on those badges of love for Sean and Logan. His jeans did nothing to cover his desire for her, and he wanted her to know that.

He paid her back tenfold with rough hands over the smooth skin of her naked breasts. One peaked nipple found its way into his mouth. Words died. Time stopped. Her heart stuttered, than started up with an insistent pulse of
yes yes yes
.

Every part of her vibrated like a plucked string, every beat in her body roared with the thrum of need his mouth and hands created. Moving over her ass, each knead and pass making her mindless with desire. Unable to stay still, she shifted against his denim-covered cock, seeking blessed relief.

He flipped her and pushed her back on the bed, his body immobilizing her, the weight of him delicious. Lingering for a moment, he stared so hard it's a wonder she didn't come on the spot. Glare her into orgasm? It could happen.

Back up on his knees, he extracted a condom and lay it on the bed. Lovely sounds followed. The scrape of his zipper, the soft
whoosh
of his jeans and boxers shoved south just enough to release his rampant erection. He was so beautiful, his cock long and thick, already glistening with pre-come like a fat, shiny jewel. With one hand, he pumped, every stroke squeezing out more beads of beauty.

“Take me in your mouth,” he said roughly, but she was already there, pouting and greedy. She closed her lips around him and let the thick vein on the underside of his cock imprint on her tongue. The pulse of it, all that life, shocked through her, making every cell in her body glitter. And his taste? Clean spice and musky man.

His hand shaped her skull and held her in place as she sucked. Loud, lusty groans, mixed with him calling her name, filled the room. Between her legs, her core pulsed, all feminine heat and sensual power. She could come like this, she was sure of it.

But she never got a chance to find out. Wyatt gentled her head back. “Condom, babe.”

Dazed with desire, she tore at the packet and smoothed the condom onto his engorged length with shaky hands. She tugged at his jeans, still annoyingly on.

“Leave 'em,” he muttered, and laying her back on the bed, he notched his cock at her opening and slid inside her in one, possessive thrust. He'd always fit so perfectly, and while everything else might have changed, that simple fact remained. She arched into him, trying to hurry him along, but it was pointless. Wyatt set the pace, rocked into her body, every stroke rooting deep and filling her completely. Reminded by the denim's friction between her thighs that he was half clothed while she was fully naked, she gasped at every long, luscious slide and return. Oh, this man knew how to surprise her. Each time different from the last, each moment ratcheting the sexual intensity.

With those trim hips pistoning between her thighs, he stretched her wider. His gaze fell to where their bodies connected, watching proudly as he slowly plundered, over and over. Her climax shimmered, always just out of reach.

“Every time, Mol,” he murmured, and she heard the awe in it. “Every time.”

As ever, he took it slow, and she studied his face, loving how expressive he became while he was lodged so deep she felt him all the way to her heart. In these charged moments of ecstasy, Wyatt Fox's truth shone bright. Unadorned, uncompromising, honest-to-God passion.

She grabbed his ass and dug her nails into his steely flesh, needing to see the emotion it produced. His eyes locked on hers. Terrifying. Relentless. And more: a sweet possession mixed with unexpected affection.

“That's right, baby. Scratch me up. Make your mark. I wanna look at my body later and know who I belong to.”

So she did. She scored and clawed and bit, claiming him for her own. Each new attack drew his moan of pleasure, a deeper all-consuming thrust, and a niggling panic that she was in deep, deep trouble here.

Time waits for no man, except for
this
man, who must have sealed a devil's pact to slow the world to a standstill while he tested every inch of her limits. And when he finally let her come, and followed her over with a roar, she knew she might have made her mark on his body, but he had branded his on her soul.

“R
oom service.”

“Be right there,” Wyatt called out as he bent down to grab his jeans. (He'd
finally
taken them off and the world was now a better place.) Those incredible ass muscles bunched, and the sight of them incised with her marks of possession sent Molly's thigh muscles into a clench and her heart into a pitter-patter. She ran a hand over that slab of warm granite.

He glanced over his shoulder. “You gonna admire your handiwork all day or you gonna make yourself scarce?”

“What? Oh, right.” There was danger at the door—and she didn't mean the fully loaded calorific threat of a hamburger with her name on it. The room service guy did not need to see a disheveled, well-fucked Molly Cade floating above the bed in a hazy, postorgasmic glow. Two hours since arriving in their bubble of iniquity, and they'd worked up quite the appetite.

Pulling a sheet off the bed for a spot of coquettish body coverage was never as easy as it looked in the movies. After a couple of tugs and no joy, she sighed.

“My overnight bag is in the bathroom,” he said, amused. “Probably somethin' in there that'd fit you.”

Acutely conscious of Wyatt's relentless gaze on her nakedness, she scurried to the bathroom and, once inside, rummaged through a black duffel bag she hadn't noticed before. Two blister-packed toothbrushes—
aw!
—toothpaste, a CFD tee (perfect for lounging around eating burgers with your marine firefighter pirate lover), yoga pants—

Yoga pants?

Heart thudding, she searched some more and found tennis shoes, socks, underwear, and . . . her Cardinals shirt. He had packed morning-after clothes for her. Even more amazing, he had sullied his hands with an emblem of the age-old enemy.

Oh boy.

Her thudding heart went ballistic. Deep breaths, deep breaths, deep . . .
fuck
. Each precious word from this man, every thoughtful gesture was piling on to the point she was having a hard time seeing straight. She stared in the mirror, annoyed to find she was glowing. If she weren't so terrified, she would think she looked happy.

It's just the amazing sex. Best skin-care regimen ever.

Outside, a soft snick announced that they were alone once more. Peeling on Wyatt's CFD shirt, she padded back in, inhaling the aroma of cooked meat and—hallelujah—french fries.

Wyatt drank her in and she returned the favor. He'd left his top jeans button undone and God, was he bringing sexy back.

He chewed on a fry. “Look good in my shirt, babe.”

“You brought me stuff to wear.”

“Figured you'd like to be comfortable on your way home.”

Strangely, the word
home
didn't trigger the usual panic. “Instead of looking like a two-bit hooker on a wobbly walk of shame?”

He smiled, that Wyatt Fox slow burn that melted
everything
. “After a night in my bed, it's a walk of glory. And ain't nothin' two-bit about you, either, Hollywood.”

But still looking like a hooker. Oh well, that's what she was going for. She flattened both hands on his broad, naked,
hot damn
chest. “Do I want to think of you poking through my drawers choosing my lululemons?”

Sexy brow crumple.

“My yoga pants,” she translated.

“I sent Gage in.”

“Coward.” The full force of that hit her. “So Gage knows about this? About us?” Her landlord had looked smugger than usual when she mentioned her visiting “friend” from out of town.

“Yeah, and about before.” He looked a little wary of her reaction, so it was only fair she confess her own sins.

“Your sister and sisters-in-law know, as well. And about before.” She grimaced. “Book club.”

“Special circle in hell,” he muttered, whatever that meant. “Guess neither of us have careers as James Bond in our future.”

She giggled her relief. “Worst secret agent ever, telling everyone his name. Bond, James Bond. It's a wonder he wasn't whacked years ago with that level of stupidity.”

He gave an amused, sexy-as-all-get-out grin. “He's doing all right with the ladies, though.”

“Yeah,
he
is. The lucky ladies all die horribly after he fucks 'em. If I saw James Bond, I'd run a mile in the other direction.”

“No, you wouldn't.”

She laughed. “No, I wouldn't. I've met Daniel Craig and he is smokin' in a tux.” Hmm, Wyatt in a tux . . . that would probably kill her dead.

He kissed her forehead. “You don't have to worry about my family talking about your business. Or about the press finding out that you're getting your kicks with a blue-collar guy like me.”