Author: Bella Andre

She reached for the waistband of her panties just as he undid the clasp of her bra and then, a moment later, she was naked too, and he was the one staring.

“Mine.” He was crawling up over her, now, pressing her against the pillows. “You’re mine, Megan.”

She could barely gasp out the word, “Yes,” before his mouth was back over hers and he was kissing her.

She was his.

Chapter Twenty-one

Play well with others.

~ from “Firefighting 101” ~

When Gabe had made his initial plan, he’d decided that if things went well and he ended up being lucky enough to get naked with Megan again at some point in the future, he’d go slow. He’d savor every inch of her beautiful body and focus on bringing her right to the edge of ecstasy and then over so many times that she wouldn’t be able to keep denying their connection.

But he hadn’t counted on their combined desperation to be with each other.

Gabe picked up the condom wrapper he’d dropped on the blanket and before he could rip it open, Megan was leaning up to grab it in her teeth and pull it open. She caught it before it fell onto her chest and then she was reaching down to his throbbing erection and sliding it over him, the arousing touch of her slender fingers causing him to grit his teeth to keep from exploding right then and there in her hands.

And then her hands were in his hair and she was pulling his mouth down to hers at the exact moment that she wrapped her legs around his waist and took him inside. He swallowed her gasp of pleasure and gripped her hips in his hands to drive deeper, harder.

A big man, Gabe had always been careful to make sure he didn’t hurt his lovers. But as her inner muscles clenched against his shaft, the pleasure of being with her again was so intense he couldn’t hold onto a single thought, couldn’t do anything but give into the intensity of his desire for the woman writhing and crying out beneath him.

She arched into him and he leaned down to capture one of her nipples between his lips, sucking hard, loving the sweet taste of her skin against his tongue. The fireworks were still going on above them as she came apart beneath him, her pelvis grinding against his as she rode out her orgasm, her hands in his hair holding him over her breasts.

He didn’t have a chance of holding back, of holding on a single second longer, not when her strong muscles were milking him for everything he was worth. Lifting his head from her breasts, he shifted his weight to his knees, grabbed her ankles and lifted them up to his shoulders.

He had to get deeper, had to touch every part of her.

Her hands went to his forearms so that she could hold tight as he drove higher, harder into her.

“Oh, God,” she whispered as her eyes fluttered closed. “That feels so good. So, so good.” Her head was falling back, her hands moving to her own breasts to fondle them as she took everything he was giving her and begged, “More, Gabe. Please.”

He hadn’t thought anything could drive him higher, but the sound of her sweet voice begging him like that, watching her touch herself while he loved her, did crazy things to his insides.

“Sweetheart,” he groaned as the fierce physicality of their lovemaking gave way to emotions just as fierce inside of him. “Don’t make me go here alone.”

But even as her eyes opened and held his, even as her mouth opened on a silent scream of pleasure as she shattered again, even as his own body followed her down that path of perfect destruction, Gabe knew he hadn’t just been asking her to come with him.

No, what he was asking for was so much bigger than just sex, more than just the best orgasm he’d ever had.

Gabe didn’t want to claim Megan’s body alone. He wanted her heart, wanted to know—to love—every part of her.

Because with every moment they spent together, he was realizing more and more just what a daredevil she really was. She loved heights, and hadn’t blinked twice at having wild monkey sex out in the open on his roof.

How long had his beautiful thrill seeker been pushing away the truth of who she really was? Since her husband’s death?

Or even before that?

* * *

Megan couldn’t do anything more than cling to Gabe and bury her face against his broad shoulder. She could barely breathe, so how could she possibly pull her thoughts together to examine what had just happened between them?

He was holding her just as tightly as he shifted them so that his body, instead of the pillows, was cushioning her. She loved feeling him all around her, inside of her, knew she’d never get enough of him, even if she lived to be a hundred.

The shock of that thought—of the future she’d sworn she wouldn’t have with him—had her blinking her eyes open, trying to clear the fog of temporarily sated lust from them.

Oh my God, she’d just had sex on the roof.

The roof!

She hadn’t wanted to think too long and hard about just how risky what they were doing was. Not if that thinking would have gotten in the way of Gabe’s kiss. But now, as she looked up at the buildings that surrounded his, she knew the probability was fairly high that someone might have seen them.

She yanked the blanket over her hips and breasts even as something inside of her buzzed a teensy bit in an exhibitionist thrill.

Gabe ran his hand over the curve of her bottom beneath the blanket. “Do you think we made anyone’s New Year’s?”

She wanted to be shocked by him, by the cavalier way that he was acknowledging they might have been spotted. “I hope not!”

But even as she spoke in her primmest voice, Megan couldn’t deny the tingle down low in her belly from thinking of another couple setting out to watch the fireworks...and seeing them making love instead. Those were the kinds of thoughts she only ever let herself have in the secrecy of her most private, kinky fantasies.

Worse still, she couldn’t even blame him for what had happened. Not when she was the one who had ripped off her clothes in plain sight of the other buildings and rooftops and then yelled at him to hurry and take his off, too.

His chuckle was warm, full of the heat that hadn’t dissipated between them. “I’m just teasing you, sweetheart. The nearest building taller than this is far enough away that someone would have needed a great pair of binoculars to see us up here.” He tipped his finger beneath her chin. “You say Summer is the only risk-taker in the family, but that isn’t true.”

Making love with Gabe was incredibly intimate. But the way he was talking to her, as if he knew the secrets of her soul, felt even deeper. She felt like he was seeing in too deeply, past all the walls she’d worked so hard to build to keep herself—and her precious daughter—safe.

She shivered and he immediately picked her up, blanket and all.

“Time to get you warm again.”

Megan knew she should just say thank you for the fireworks—even though the only ones she’d been able to pay any attention to tonight were the ones that combusted between them—and tell him she had to go home, but she’d already broken her latest vow to stay away from him. And she’d been working really hard since Summer had left. She was so tired.

And it felt so good to let him hold her like this, just for a few more seconds.

Gabe ran kisses over her hair, across her forehead, over her cheek, and she had to turn in for one on her lips. When they were halfway down the stairs to his apartment, he stopped and concentrated on kissing the remaining oxygen from her lungs.

“Happy New Year.”

She had to run her tongue across his gorgeous lower lip before saying, “Happy New Year.”

Megan expected him to carry her into his bedroom, but he didn’t stop at the huge king bed covered in a beautiful blue and brown quilt. Instead, he moved into the bathroom.

“How about a bath to start off the new year?”

The sinfully delicious thought of being naked, slipping and sliding against Gabe in his whirlpool tub, was almost enough to make her consider it. Still, she hadn’t been able to get in a bathtub since the fire. “Why don’t we shower instead?”

She turned her head up to kiss him, but smart man, even though he indulged her, it was clear that he saw right through her distraction. “I want to take a bath with you, Megan.”

Oh my. She took a deep breath to try to steady herself. “I guess I can try.”

He brushed a lock of hair from her eyes, once again seeing more deeply than she wanted him to. “Is it because that’s where I found you? In the bathtub?”

If she had been stronger, if she had felt less safe cradled in Gabe’s strong arms, if he were anyone else, she might have tried to deny it.

But how could she lie to this man?

“I thought we were going to die in there. In the bathtub.”

“I never would have let that happen.”

She couldn’t stop herself from saying the one question that had played over and over in her head for the past two months. “But what if you hadn’t come in time?”

“No what-ifs.” He took one of her hands and laid it over his heart. “Not tonight.” He leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to her lips. “Don’t let the fire take any more from you than it already has, sweetheart.”

But didn’t he see that she felt caught in an endless loop of what-ifs? Not just about the fire, but about the two of them, about Summer and her future, and—

She scrunched her eyes up tight, hating those what-ifs, every last one of them. “You know what?”

“Tell me, Megan.”

She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. “It’s a new year. Time for a new start. To wash the past clean.”

She was old enough, wise enough, to know she couldn’t change who she was, the way her brain and heart were wired, in one short night. But she could take a baby step toward pushing the weight of all those fears off her shoulders.

Especially if the step involved getting into the bathtub with a man whose eyes were promising her such incredible pleasure.

“Run the bath, Gabe.”

He continued to hold tightly to her with one hand while he reached for the taps with the other. While the tub was filling with warm water, Megan turned to stare in wonder at the man holding her on his lap and had to reach up to run her fingertips over the slightly raised scar on his forehead.

“I wish you hadn’t been hurt.” His eyes closed for a moment as she feathered her fingers over his forehead.

“That day in the hospital—” He looked at her, the depth of emotion in his eyes shaking her, all the way through to her core. “I’m sorry I was such a jerk.” He reached for her hand, pulled it to his lips, and pressed a soft kiss into her palm. “That moment when you walked in and I saw you without all the smoke, without the flames, I knew you were special.”

“You nearly died saving us,” she said in a voice that was barely above a whisper. “You had the right to behave however you wanted.”

He shook his head. “I was stunned by how strong my feelings for you already were. But that was no excuse for my behavior.”

Megan had warmed up in his house, but now that he was talking about feelings and fear, she felt herself go cold again, shivering at all the things she didn’t want to face. Not yet, anyway.

Knowing he must be able to see how uncomfortable their conversation was making her, she could feel Gabe shift gears as he lifted her palm to his mouth again and nipped gently at the sensitive flesh. “I didn’t take the time to undress you properly up there,” he said as he began to peel back the blanket.

“I’d say you did just fine,” she murmured as she leaned forward to press a kiss to the top of his sinfully gorgeous chest. She was half relieved at the way he was letting her stay out of the deep end of emotion, but, strangely, half disappointed, too.

“Only fine?” His voice was husky as he curved his palm around her breast and skimmed over the tip of one nipple with his thumb. The same thumb she’d been sucking and biting up on the roof.