Sizzling Scenes…

Old Flames Die Hard…

Blinding hot pain flared in my knee, and then—nothing. Sweet, blissful nothing.

“There.” Kiara wiped her hands on an unused bandage and eyed her work with satisfaction. “That should hold you till you can see a real Healer. Just don’t overdo the running and fighting thing, okay?”

I touched the soft white cloth wrapped around my knee. A heavenly scent wafted upward, making me sigh with pleasure. “What’s in that stuff?”

“A bit of this and that.” She pursed her lips. “I mean it about the no running and fighting, Marissa. The spell on those bandages has a limit, and the more you exert your knee, the sooner it will wear off. And then the pain will be back full force, and if I’m not nearby you’re shit out of luck.”

I waved her warning off. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. No acting like Superfury for awhile.” Scott’s hand was still on my back, lingering when it didn’t need to. Suddenly self-conscious, I pushed myself away. My eyes widened when I stood and was rewarded with absolutely zero pain. “Wow, that’s some good shit.”

Kiara snorted. “Indeed. Now, if you two will excuse me . . .” She disappeared from Scott’s bedroom before we could react.

“I can’t believe she just left us alone in your bedroom.”

“She knows there’s nothing to worry about.”

The words cut more sharply than I expected. “Yeah, well, this nothing had better take herself to bed. Good night.”

I stepped toward the door, but his hands moved to my arms and he whirled me roughly. “Dammit, Riss, you know that’s not what I—oh, screw it.”

His lips crushed down on mine, and fire exploded inside my body. I moaned, arms clutching his to keep from falling. This is a mistake. We shouldn’t—oh, screw it! His mouth opened slightly, and I took advantage of the opportunity, thrusting my tongue inside and tasting, long and deep. He tasted as good as—better than—ever, a mixture of masculine scents and the slightly feminine berry-flavored candy he sucked on to stave off cigarette cravings. He’d quit that nasty habit for me, and the evidence that he’d kept it up sent pleasure radiating straight to my belly. Then again, that could have been the sheer lust our kiss ignited.

Then, as suddenly as he’d begun it, he ended the kiss with another curse, shoving me away and stalking toward the bedroom’s oversized window. At first, I thought he was pissed at me, and that had me shoving my hands on my hips and scowling. After all, I hadn’t been the one to jam my tongue in his delicious mouth . . . Okay, that wasn’t helping settle the desire overloading my system. My eyes narrowed in sudden realization. That desire was an obviously mutual feeling. Which meant he still wanted me. And now we both knew it.

His words echoed my thought perfectly. “Don’t ever say you’re nothing to me. You should damned well know better.”

I considered questioning that statement, seeing as how, after what I’d thought was an amazing eighteen months together, he’d chosen both his family and money over me, but now didn’t seem the time to dredge up old grudges. Time enough for that later.

“I—okay. Maybe I’m not exactly nothing to you, but what’d you expect me to think when you said that?”

He ran an impatient hand through his shaggy hair, and then turned to face me. “When I said Kiara knows there’s nothing to worry about, I meant because she’d love it if we got back together.”

My mouth snapped shut on the comeback I’d managed to cobble together as his words sank in. And the warm fuzzies they generated had my cheeks blooming with color. “Could have fooled me. I thought she hated me.”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh yeah, she hates you so much she’s nagged me to call you at least once a week since you left.”

That had my mouth popping wide open again. “She—did?”

“Yeah. Called me an idiot for letting you go like that.”

“Then why . . .” I jerked my mouth shut again. So much for not dredging up old grudges.

“I had my reasons,” he said. “I still do, so this is probably a huge mistake.” He approached me again. I wasn’t sure what to expect, which made it all the more surprising when he caressed my hair in an achingly familiar gesture.

He was right. Things were too unresolved between us. So much time had passed, so many bitter things had been said. I thought I had put it all behind me. Being with him again . . . it was hard to know where we stood, but it was easy to see that nothing had really changed. He was working for the man who I once thought had something to do with Vanessa’s disappearance, who could still be involved at some level.

But Scott had been showing that he wanted me back in his bed with a dozen little looks and touches since getting over his initial anger. He’d never been afraid to go after what he wanted, one of the things that most attracted me to him, and he didn’t hesitate to draw me into his arms once more.

That fact was enough to have me surrender to the desire still thrumming along every nerve ending. Gods, it’d been so long since I’d been touched like this. Years since I’d been intimate with a man—with him. And I found myself throwing caution to the wind. Who cared if we both regretted it later? For now, we wanted each other.

He nudged me toward his bed, and I went gladly. Heat flared between us, a slow, steady burn that flashed into a firestorm as skin touched skin and our breathing grew ragged. His hands slipped beneath my T-shirt and zoomed straight toward my black satin bra. I gasped as he caressed the sensitive skin through the insubstantial fabric, somehow driving me crazier than if he’d been touching bare flesh. When his amazing fingers finally did skim beneath the satin, I arched my back and grabbed on to his hair. A dozen sensations danced across my skin, a dozen memories of other times we’d been locked in heated embraces in this very bed flashed through my mind. The man making love to me with his hands always knew how to touch me, both physically and emotionally, never failed to make me feel in a way no other man could.

Oh, shit. I still care about him.

That had me scrambling out from under him and off the bed so fast my head spun. My knee trembled, although Kiara’s remedy worked as promised and the pain remained masked. Scott flipped himself over and into a sitting position, face excruciatingly blank.

“What, it wasn’t good for you, baby?” The derision in his voice could have made me cry if I let it.

“This is a mistake. One we can’t repeat.”

My hands had the door half open when he got off his parting shot. “Run away, Riss. Just like you always do.”

Tension clenched my body, and I considered turning to argue. But that would be pointless. He was right, but I didn’t give a damn. Sometimes, running was the only smart thing to do. I wouldn’t—I couldn’t—let him break my heart again. Being immortal didn’t mean being indestructible.