Free Marked by Elisabeth Naughton Page B

she worked, sending her libido into overdrive and shooting sparks between her thighs. Her body responded in turn, that sweet ache growing to explosive levels. She fought the urge to strip him naked right here and now and use him to extinguish the fire burning inside her.
    When he was free of his jeans, she nodded toward the couch. “Sit,” she managed in a voice rough with her own arousal. She coughed once to cover it, but knew he had to hear it too. “I’ll, uh, take a look at your wound.”
    She busied herself looking for supplies in the first-aid kit as he eased back. He didn’t speak as he sat on the couch beside her. When she had what she thought she’d need, she turned to face him and her eyes immediately ran to his hips. His legs shifted open, and that massive erection pushed against his boxer briefs, just begging for her attention.
    Oh, God. Sweat broke out on her forehead. Her pulse kicked up, and all the blood in her body rushed due south.
    Focus, Casey.
    She swallowed hard and zeroed in on the bandage on his thigh. Her fingers shook slightly as she reached for the corner of the tape and slowly peeled it away. He drew in a sharp breath, and for a moment she thought she’d hurt him. But when she glanced up to make sure he was all right, she saw pure, unadulterated lust tighten the features of his chiseled face. Her gaze quickly swept back to his hips, and the erection she’d thought was big before grew larger before her eyes.
    Oh, man. She was in trouble.
    She refocused on what she was doing. Then gasped when she had the bandage completely free.
    There were no stitches. No evidence of a gaping wound. Just a thin red scar that would, she suspected, eventually pale.
    “Incredible,” she whispered.
    He glanced down at his leg. “It looks good, no?”
    “It looks great. You’re a medical miracle, you know that?” She ran her fingers over the scar and marveled at the tiny ridge the wound had left behind.
    His breathing stopped.
    Casey immediately pulled her hand back. “Oh. Did that hurt? I guess I just assumed that since it looked so good, it had healed complet—”
    His fingers wrapped around her wrist, and he drew her hand back to his thigh, back to his wound and the skin she’d been stroking moments before. “No, meli . It doesn’t hurt. It feels good. Soothing. Don’t stop.”
    She glanced from his leg to his face and back again.
    She should stop. She was wading into uncharted waters. In her grandmother’s living room, for crying out loud. In a matter of minutes she’d be in over her head. She ran her fingertip back up his thigh, hovered on the edge of his boxer briefs and licked her lips.
    “Yes,” he whispered. “More like that.”
    Feeling bolder, she traced the hem of his boxers, slid her fingers along the downy hair on his inner thigh. The muscles in his throat constricted and his cock twitched beneath the black cotton so close to her hand.
    Point of no return.
    “Your fingers are like magikos ,” he whispered. “You talk about how amazing my healing has been. Yet you seem to forget, without you, I wouldn’t be sitting here now.”
    That was true, wasn’t it? She slid her hand up his thigh to the junction of his leg and hip, felt the corded power beneath as his words sank in. Gently, she pressed her thumb into his pressure point and was rewarded with a small gasp that told her he enjoyed what she was doing to him.
    “Your touch is more pleasing than any healer from my world,” he rasped. “Each pass of your hand gives me strength.”
    A smile pulled at her mouth. She knew exactly what kind of strength he meant, and if anyone else had pulled that line on her she would have scoffed. But with him? Right now? For reasons she wasn’t about to examine, instead of moving back, she shifted closer. And was rewarded as he reached out and brushed his knuckles across her abdomen.
    Sparks shot to her center. Her pulse leaped, and she glanced up into his eyes.
    Anything I want.
    “You must be