Page 53 of Fire Peak

He reached for his phone to check the time, and saw that a text had come in from Mark Jones.

Glad you reached out. We have some work for C. Can you set up a call?

What the hell did “some work” mean?

Explain, he texted back. But wherever Mark was, he wasn’t in the right time zone for answering. After a few minutes of unsettled waiting, he rolled back to his previous position, only to find that Charlie had filled that space.

“Sorry,” he muttered, worried that he’d nearly crushed her, but she reached for him and shifted her body so her front pressed against him, shoulders to knees, and all the good parts in between.

Instant hard-on. Goddamn. He gritted his teeth, trying to force it down. The woman was injured, after all. She had an arrow wound in her thigh. And he had hot fantasies of her naked body running through his mind.

But she seemed to have forgotten all about her thigh, except to throw it over him and pull his body closer. He was wearing his boxers, but nothing else, and they provided zero cover for his raging erection.

“What are you doing?” he murmured into her neck. The slight taste of salt-sweat against his lips made this even more real.

“What I want. I’m doing what I want.”

“But your stitches…”

“They’re fine. Can’t feel a thing. I’m all hopped up on painkillers, we’re alone in a bed together, what better time?”

She had a point there.

“Besides, there’s this.” She stroked his erection through the fabric of his shorts. “Erections don’t lie.”

He ground his back teeth together to keep ahold of himself—a nearly impossible task, especially when she slid her hand inside his fly and touched his bare flesh.

The job got even harder when he gave in and ran his hands under her shirt, along her side, tracing the long slope of her torso, the dip of her waist, and the rise of her hip. There, he changed direction and slid his fingers between her legs, reaching under her panties to find heat and wetness. He delved through slippery softness, hissing in a breath at the delicious juicy feel of her.

She pressed against him, muscles quivering, as he found the hard nub where her need was centered. Adrenaline, aftershock, crisis survival…whatever it was, it had made her wild for release. He could give that to her. He couldn’t do more because neither of them had a condom, so far as he knew. But he could certainly make her come.

He caught her wince, and realized that she was lying on her injured side.

“Let’s turn you over,” he suggested gruffly. “Nice and slow. Leave it to me, sweetheart.”

She blinked at his endearment, and allowed her body to follow his lead, rolling over to her other side, so her ass was nestled against his crotch, and her entire front was available for his exploration. He slid his hand under her ribbed tank top, finding no bra. A soft breast filled his hand, a tweaked nipple hardened under his fingers, smooth skin turned to goosebumps under his stroking.

“But Nick…” she said weakly, before sighing when he placed his hand back where it was, firmly between her legs. “I wanted to hold your?—”

“Another time,” he interrupted before she could say any word that would make him more turned on. “When we have protection.”

She nodded; he felt the movement against his chin. She was so tall that they were nearly the same height, and she fit perfectly inside the crook of his body. His arm was just the right length to reach her sex, and his hand felt right at home there, deep in her satiny folds, stroking, rubbing, finding that rhythm that had her bucking against him.

When the orgasm hit her, it seemed to roll through her body in waves. She luxuriated in it, lost herself in it, surrendered completely to the sensations seizing her…and all he could think was, Just wait until I’m inside you.

Eventually, her body went limp in his arms. Neither said a word, but he pressed a kiss into the damp skin of her neck. After a moment, her breathing slowed and he realized that she’d fallen asleep, leaving him alone with his still-throbbing erection. It was his own fault. His own decision. But damn. He’d be counting the microseconds until they could do this again.

He too fell asleep, only to be woken up by the sound of his phone receiving a text. Charlie sat bolt upright. Her blond hair tumbled across her shoulders, making her look like Venus rising from a nap in a clamshell. “Phone.” She shook her hair away from her face. “Want me to grab it for you?”

Before he could say no, she reached for his phone and handed it to him. As soon as Face ID caught a glimpse of his face, the text appeared on the screen, quickly read by Charlie.

Get C and call asap.

“C,” she said. “Is that me? Who is that? Is it?—”

He cut her off. “My contact at Hobbs says they have work for you.”

Her expression shifted. All traces of sleepiness, satisfaction, softness—all gone. “Why would I work for them? Did you already talk to them, like we planned?”

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