Forbidden Embers (31 page)

“How did you know what I was thinking?” she demanded.

He didn’t answer, was too busy squinting at her through narrowed eyes to pay attention to her words. Obviously, he had been awake in the dark a lot longer than she had.

“Logan!” she said firmly, determined to get his attention.

“What?” He sounded harried and more than a little put out now, nothing like the man who had just been making love to her.

“I said, how did you know what I was thinking? You answered a question I never asked out loud.”

“I did?”

“Yes, you did.”

“Oh.” He looked sheepish. “Sorry about that. Sometimes I have a hard time telling the difference.”

“What? You have a hard time? What, exactly, does that mean?”

He shrugged, rubbed his eyes. When he looked at her, they were a lot clearer than they had been. “It’s part of my skills. You know, kind of like how you can do that whole electricity trick you did up on the mountain.”

She felt herself blushing. “You caught that, huh?”

“Seeing as how I was the one you were zapping? It was pretty hard not to.”

“I wasn’t zapping you!”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. Believe me, I’m not complaining.”

“I know you’re not. I saw your face while I was doing it.” She picked up the pillow that was next to her and threw it at him. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I thought I was making love to you.” He slid up the bed, pressed a lingering kiss to her mouth. “I certainly hope you knew what I was doing.”

“No, that’s not what I meant. You’re trying to get out of answering my question.”

“I already answered your question.” He skimmed his lips down her neck, pausing to trail kisses along her collarbone.

“No, you only answered half my question.” But her hands were clutching at his hair, holding his talented, talented mouth in place. “You said it was part of your skills, but you never fully explained. What is it you don’t want me to know?”

“Nothing. I’m an open book.” She might have believed him, except his accent was back, heavier than it had ever been on the mountain.

“Of course you are. But you’re written in Gaelic.” She reached down, pinched his ass. “And that’s not a language I can read.”

He gave a long-suffering sigh. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

“Nope. I don’t like not being able to understand something about you. Especially something like this.”

“Fine. You know how I can talk to you in your mind?”

“Like you did up on the mountain? Yeah. So?”

“That’s not all I can do.” He shrugged, and looked so uncomfortable that all the pieces fell into place.

“So you’re seriously psychic? And what? You just decided to pop into my mind, uninvited, and eavesdrop on what I was thinking? That’s how you could answer the question?”

“I wasn’t eavesdropping. You were thinking really loud.”

“Oh yeah. I’m sure I was.” She poked him in the ribs and grinned when he wiggled uncomfortably. “I’ll try to work on that from now on. You know, whisper my thoughts when you’re around.”

“Now you’re just messing with me.”

“You think?” She wrapped her arms around his neck, and this time she kissed him, long and lingering, just like he liked it.

When they finally surfaced, he was above her, braced on his elbows, and they were both breathing hard. “So, you’re taking this pretty well,” he said, sliding a few strands of hair out of her eyes. “I’m assuming that means you have some psychic dragons in the clan?”

“A few. When I was a kid, one of my close friends was psychic. She could do the same thing you can, just pop into someone’s mind and pick out a thought.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t usually do that. It only happens when I’m really close to someone and . . . distracted.”

“Really? I think I like the sound of that. I distract you?”

“
A Ghra
, you’re about the only thing that distracts me.”

“Oooh, I like that even more.”

She wrapped her legs around his waist, rubbed her pelvis against his. “So, where were we before your little parlor trick so rudely interrupted us?”

“You’re the one who turned on the light. And, besides, it didn’t seem to bother you the last time it happened.”

“Last time? You’ve read my mind before?”

“Not exactly.” His grin was wicked, intriguing.

“So what, then?”

He didn’t answer, but a second later she felt his mouth on her breast. Wet, hot, shockingly unexpected. And so skilled that she arched off the bed. Yet even as pleasure coursed through her, she realized that there was something familiar about this psychic touch that should be brand-new. That’s when it hit her. “So that was actually you?” she demanded. “That night, when I was sitting by the pool? That was
you
making love to me, not a fantasy?”

“Maybe.”

“But I didn’t know you then. I mean, we’d met, but we hadn’t . . .” She blushed, thinking of everything she’d let him do to her that night when she’d thought it was only her imagination. “You weren’t anywhere near me. How did you get inside me like that?”

“I was having the same fantasy you were, I think. Or something pretty close to it, and somehow my mind found yours.”

“Oh.” She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. “Does it happen often? I mean, do you regularly make love to women in their heads?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Really?” She eyed him suspiciously. “I have a hard time believing that.”

“I swear.”

“Okay, I can handle that, then.” She rolled him over so that she was on top of him, her legs straddling his hips. His erection nestled against her sex, and she rocked her hips. Shivered a little at the feel of the tip of his cock rubbing against her clit. “You were my first lover. I like being your first something.”

His hands came up, cupped her breasts. Rubbed her nipples. “You’re my first in a lot of things.”

Her breath caught, though she wasn’t sure if it was at the words or the sensations streaking through her. “Don’t say that if you don’t mean it.”

“You think it’s usual for me to nearly attack a man the second I walk in the door, just because he’s touching my woman’s hand?” He thrust himself against her, made her gasp.

“Is that what I am?” she asked brokenly. “Your woman?”

“Well, you’re sure as shit not my man.”

It wasn’t the answer she’d been looking for, but it would do for now, especially with him hot and hard between her thighs, and with her orgasm already beckoning. “Make love to me, Logan.”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

His hand came up, curled around the back of her head, and pulled her mouth down to his. She’d expected it to be hard and a little frenzied, considering the size and scope of the erection resting insistently against her. But he took his time nipping at her upper lip, sliding his tongue along her lower lip and then into her mouth, stroking gently over her own.

As he kissed her, she inhaled the familiar, musky scent of him, and ran her hands over the smooth, thick muscles of his chest. She already knew his body as well as her own, and she paused to flick her nail against his nipple, just like he liked it.

He arched beneath her, murmured her name, and Cecily fought back a sudden, unexpected influx of tears. What was she going to do when he got bored and wanted to move on? How was she going to cope when he walked away, when all she wanted to do was hold on to him as tightly as she could? Her whole life, she’d been waiting for someone who got her, who laughed at her deadpan jokes, held her when the burden of her position got to be too much, woke her up in the middle of the night just because he couldn’t wait until morning to make love to her. Now that she’d found him, how was she supposed to just give him up?

She knew he was wrong for her. He wasn’t a Wyvernmoon, wasn’t high ranking, didn’t have much money or a prestigious job. But somehow that didn’t matter when he was kissing her, holding her, loving her.

“Cecily, darlin’, are you all right?” he asked as he gently ended the kiss. His eyes were quizzical as they stared up at her, his fingers gentle as they tilted her chin so she was looking him in the eye. She was stupid, worrying about a future that hadn’t happened yet when she had him here with her right now. Sometimes the present was the only thing that mattered. She needed to remember that.

Curving her lips into a sassy smile, she drawled, “I’m better than all right. Or at least that’s what you told me last night.”

He laughed, as she’d intended, and she ducked her head to trace the strong lines of his chest with her tongue. He groaned, fisted a hand in her hair and tugged her face up to meet his.

“I’m the one who woke you up. We do it my way.”

“We always do it your way.”

“Is that a problem? I haven’t heard any complaints.” He slipped his hands up her stomach, removed the nightshirt he’d slipped over her head not that many hours before. Then skimmed his lips over her chest until he found her nipple and pulled it into his mouth.

She went weak, every bone in her body melting as his tongue rolled slowly over her. She arched her back, pressed herself more firmly against him and gave herself over to the sensations rippling through her body. She wasn’t going to worry about the future right now. As long as she had Logan in her bed, she was going to stay firmly grounded in the present.

Shifting so that she was lying beside him on the bed, she leisurely licked up the right side of his body, her tongue following every curve and angle of his tattoos. She’d done it before, on the first night they’d made love, but since then he’d been the one in control. The one driving her completely insane. Tonight, now, she wanted to get a little of her own back. Wanted to make him as crazy as he always made her.

“Cecily, darlin’, let me touch you.”

“It’s my turn to touch you. I want you to feel what I feel when you make love to me. I want to make you crazy.” She sank her teeth into his pec, relishing the way he jerked against her mouth.

“I’m already crazy,” he said, grabbing her hand and putting it on his thick, hard cock. He thrust against her and she wrapped her fingers around him, stroking him from the base to the tip.

“Cecily,” he said, and it was a warning, one she had no desire to heed.

Instead, she leaned over him, trailed her tongue down his breastbone to his navel. She circled his belly button, reveling in the fresh, clean, spicy taste of him. She loved doing this for him, loved kissing him and running her tongue over every part of his body.

“Lower,” he groaned, his hands clutching at her as she ran her tongue along the light happy trail that ran from his navel to the thatch of golden pubic hair at the base of his cock. “Please go lower. I need you to touch me.”

“What you need,” she teased in between soft, slow licks, “is to get a little patience. I already told you, I want to play with you for a little while.”

She covered his abdomen with little nips, pausing to sink her teeth into the taut skin that covered the six-pack he sported, before soothing away the sting with a swirl of her tongue. His fingers tightened in her hair as his body grew tenser and tenser, and for a brief moment she wondered if she should give in to him and what they both wanted. Already she ached for his touch on her breasts, her sex. But then she thought of the long, lonely nights she would have in the future after he left, and decided that he could suffer a little longer. If this was one of the only memories she was going to have, there was no way she was going to rush it.

Logan’s hands fisted in the sheets as Cecily’s mouth explored every inch of skin on his chest and stomach before dipping lower to nibble across his hip bone and down the outside of his thigh. She was everywhere and anywhere, except where he wanted her most, and the fact that the omission was deliberate was slowly driving him out of his mind.

It tormented him, the question of when she was going to stop playing, when she was going to relent and get serious and touch him the way he longed to be touched. As she spread his legs, her lips lingering on his inner thigh, he arched involuntarily, his cock begging for her attention. For her lips, her tongue, her sweet, sexy little mouth.

But she only laughed, then brushed her cool, soft fingers against him—once—before continuing on her journey down his body. She nibbled at his abdomen, ran her lips and tongue over his balls, dug her fingers into the back of his thighs as she brought him closer and closer to the temptation of her pretty pink lips.

He opened his mouth—to demand, to protest, to beg that she let him take her—but before he could do more than call her name, she leaned forward and slipped his dick between her breasts. Her elbows pressed tightly against her sides so that the sweet pressure of her breasts surrounded him, driving him so close to the brink that the world around him turned dark and fuzzy.

“Cecily.” Her name was a prayer, a curse, a plea for mercy, but his dragon wasn’t feeling merciful. He finally managed to pry his hands away from the sheets, only to end up with them tangled in her hair as she began to slide her upper body back and forth against him in a rhythm that was guaranteed to blow sky-high the last shred of control he was clinging to with bloody, battered fingertips.