Page 62 of Fire Peak

Her eyelids drooped. Damn, she was sleepy again. “I want to show you the lodge, but I keep drifting off,” she murmured to Ani.

“Your body is working hard. You need all the sleep you can get.”

“Where are you staying? How long are you going to be here?” She wanted to ask about John, about the divorce, but she didn’t want to disturb this perfect harmony with her best friend.

“I’m going to stay with Lila at the hardware store.”

The hardware store.

A bell rang, a faraway reminder, a chime of a connection being sparked. There was something important about the hardware store. But it swam away as a wave of drowsiness swept over Charlie. Before she fell back asleep, she had time for only a few, though very important words.

“Say hi to Goldie for me.”

27

When Charlie woke up the next time, Nick was stretched out on the bed next to her, watching her with a tender smile.

“Nick,” she murmured. She felt so much better. Freer. Lighter. No more burning in her thigh.

She tilted her face toward him, and he kissed her.

She sank into that kiss as if she might never get another chance at those sexy lips of his. All pain and worry fled from her mind as the kiss grew deeper and deeper, until nothing existed except that magical realm of Nick-and-Charlie.

“How are you feeling?” he murmured when they eventually withdrew from the kiss, so slowly, so reluctantly.

“How about you go lock that door for me?” she whispered in answer.

His eyes flared with heat, then he got to his feet and did as she asked. The click of the lock made excitement swirl through her belly. “Guess what Ani had in her medical bag?”

“Please say condoms.” He advanced toward her, prowling like a panther. “Because I didn’t have a chance to grab any.”

She reached onto the nightstand where she’d set the foil packet, and knocked the little baggie onto the floor.

He picked it up and turned it over to look at it. “What is this?”

“I’ll explain later. Come here. You can take some clothes off if you want.”

He stripped down to his underwear while she watched hungrily, feasting her eyes on the powerful lines of his body. There was definitely a lot to be said about a guy who made you feel safe. That was something new for her.

“How about some more of that kissing,” she murmured when he was mostly naked.

“You read my mind.”

It quickly turned into more than kissing. In a few moments, his hand was up her shirt and they were both breathing fast. She arched toward him so her breast slid into his palm. The touch of his fingers against her nipple made her sigh with desire, then gasp as he pinched it. Hot sensation rippled through her body. He tugged at the ribbed baby-T she was wearing.

“I’m taking this off,” he warned her, though she was already helping him do exactly that. She wore no bra underneath.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful.” She felt her nipples harden under his thirsty gaze. “Do you know I thought about this moment all the way back in Barlow, Indiana?”

“Really? So that whole flirting thing wasn’t just an act to get close to me?”

“Nah. Normally I don’t even talk to my targets. I surveil from afar. You’re the one who came up to me, and after that I just had to roll with it.”

“Are you serious?” She sat up on one elbow. “So helping Hector, that wasn’t a ploy to get my attention?”

“Of course not. I told you I have a soft spot for injured creatures, the human kind, too.”

After that, he devoted himself to licking her nipples for such a long time, and with so much eager expertise, that she started to wonder if she’d died from that arrow wound and this was Heaven. When he went between her legs with that forceful tongue, she was almost sure of it.

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