Free Forged in Ash by Trish McCallan Page A

memory of the heated glow suffusing her face as she’d admitted to the attraction she felt for him. He shouldn’t have pushed her but, damn it, he’d expected the subtle challenge to warn her off, back them both off, set them squarely on the moral high ground.
    He sure as hell hadn’t expected her to grab hold of his innuendo and lob it directly at him.
    As soon as her hands started up again, gliding over his knee with that slow circular sliding rhythm, he raised his arm slightly and stared at her. The folded towel lifted his head just enough to afford him a perfect view of her face. Her rosy, perspiring face.
    She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, which drew his attention to her lush mouth. His belly tightened beneath a surge oframpant hunger. There was a hint of a dip in the middle of that ripe bottom lip. His mouth watered. What would it feel like beneath his tongue? What would it taste like?
    What did she taste like?
    Oranges? Had that citrusy scent permeated her skin?
    His balls tightened at the question. And his cock throbbed like an abscessed tooth.
    He tried to drag his eyes away, but they refused to budge; which was bad news when she suddenly shot him a flirty little look out of the corner of her eye. It was the kind of look a woman gave a man when she had him squarely in her crosshairs.
    Or when she knew she was in his crosshairs.
    It was the last look he wanted to see coming from her. Particularly now, while he was lying all but naked and fully aroused beneath her hands.
    Jesus, he was in trouble. Big trouble.
    A groan tried to escape his throat. He swallowed it and forced his arm back down and across his traitorous eyes. In the darkness that fell as his eyes closed, her hot, strong hands abandoned his knee and began a teasing, erotic glide up his thigh.
    Every stroke, every teasing caress, brought them closer to his shorts and the storm taking place beneath them.
    There was pure seduction in her hands, in their purposeful climb up his leg.
    He wanted to be wrong about that. He was too damn close as it was to dragging her down to his mouth, rolling over, and driving into her like a rabid animal. It was hard enough keeping his own impulses in check, let alone hers.
    Her fingers teased the hem of his shorts and hung there, a silent invitation.
    He choked on another groan, took a deep breath, and opened his eyes.
    She was watching him steadily, her face rosy with heat. A silent invitation in her eyes.
    “No,” he said, and winced as the denial came out more questioning than determined.
    She tilted her head, still watching him, her hands just sitting there, burning against the top of his thigh.
    “Why? You want me. I want you. We’re both single. Uninvolved. It harms no one.” Her words sounded collected, her question sophisticated, but her cheeks were growing rosier by the moment.
    “I’m not looking to get involved.”
    Which would have sounded more convincing if his ass hadn’t taken on a life of its own and lifted slightly, encouraging her fingers to slide beneath the hem of his shorts.
    “I’m not asking for an involvement,” she said, and her fingers did this hot little shimmy and scrape that sent his balls up into his belly.
    She was killing him.
    “I’m asking for half an hour,” she added in a silky voice, her fingernails slipping beneath his shorts and lightly scraping his skin.
    He gritted his teeth, a shower of sparks playing a fourth of July fireworks show up and down his spine. Half an hour? If she kept that up it would be more like two seconds, followed by a solid week.
    She leaned forward slightly, her fingers exploring deeper beneath his shorts. His cock twitched in anticipation and stretched forward, eager to greet her.
    “What’s the harm?” she whispered, her fingers going still again.
    The harm was that she’d sink into him, bond to his bone and he’d never be able to cut her out. Never feel complete without her.
    He didn’t need that kind of complication. Not now. Not