Controlled Burn Read online

  She sighed with relief when he disposed of the bra, welcoming the caress of his slightly-roughened fingers over the naked skin of her breasts. When he closed his lips over one, a whisper of desire eased from her mouth, and she had to grab his firm-muscled upper arms for support. He sucked hard on the distended tip, grazing it with his teeth and soothing it with his tongue, then giving the other one the same attention. Her pulse pounded in every erogenous zone, and need clawed its way up from deep inside her.

  When he unsnapped her jeans and slowly lowered the zipper, the anticipation of what came next was so great, she wasn’t sure even holding onto him would keep her upright. But Mr. Hotstuff obviously anticipated things. As soon as he pushed her jeans and panties past her hips, he eased her onto the bed.

  Montana drew in a breath. He still carried the same faint smoky aroma, but it was spiced with something that reminded her of cool forests or running water. And pure male essence. Her cunt spasmed, the scents a sensual tease.

  Nibbling at the soft spot just beneath her jawline, he moved his lips in a trail down through the valley between her breasts to her navel, where he traced the swirled flesh with the tip of his tongue. Each touch sizzling and electric.

  When he lifted his mouth and rose, she cried out in protest.

  “Hang on, darlin’.” His voice was edged with raw lust. “I’m getting your shoes out of the way and the rest of these clothes.”

  He took his damn time about it, easing each sandal off with great care then sliding her jeans and panties the rest of the way down her legs until he could drop them to the floor. Placing his hands on her knees, he nudged her legs apart so her cunt was fully exposed to him, open to his ravenous gaze. Wrapping his fingers around her wrists, he placed her hands over her head, pushing them against the bedclothes.

  “Keep your hands like that,” he ordered. “Don’t move them, no matter what.”

  “But—“

  Desire glittered in his dark eyes. “Pay attention or I might have to spank your very sweet ass.” When her breath caught at the idea, he moved so his face was barely an inch from hers. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’re just full of surprises. Maybe I can accommodate you. Depends on how bad you are.”

  She tried to say something, but her mouth was suddenly dust dry.

  He moved back, the look in his eyes skewering her as he spent long moments drinking in every inch of her cunt. “A real blonde.” His gaze devoured her. “I knew your mound would be covered with honey-colored curls.” He brushed his fingers over her. “And soft as silk. Oh, yeah. I could stare at this forever.” He knelt on the floor. “But I’d rather taste it instead.”

  Using his thumbs, he opened her labia and ran his tongue the length of her slit. His breath was like a hot breeze on her sensitive body. Shivers skated over her even as her blood heated, and her skin suddenly felt too tight for her body. She wanted to yell at him to get on with it, but he seemed determined to take his time. But the moment he touched the tip of his tongue to her clit, power surged to every nerve ending was so intensely she nearly came off the bed. And when he closed his teeth around it and tugged, she convulsed with a small orgasm she was powerless to hold back.

  She felt his lips around her throbbing bud curve in a tiny smile of satisfaction, even as he continued to suck the bundle of nerves into his mouth. Her inner walls still quivered, clamping down on the fingers he slid into her heated channel. She knew how slippery she was with her own liquid. While his mouth and his fingers teased her with clever strokes, she wanted his cock inside her.

  Get on with it, she wanted to shout.

  “Take off your clothes.” She barely recognized her own voice.

  His smile was predatory. “Giving orders, are you?”

  She twisted on the bed. “Please.” She licked her lips. “I want to see you naked.”

  “Don’t move,” he ordered, “and you’ll get your wish.”

  It took all her self-control to lie there, hands still pushed into the mattress, while he toed off his boots and shucked his clothes. If her mouth was dry before, every bit of saliva she might have had left dried up the instant he stood before her, tall and naked. His body was lean and tightly muscled, as defined as if sculpted from granite. Hair as dark as that on his head sprinkled his chest. Moving her eyes slowly down his body, she followed the path of sexy chest hair past his navel as it arrowed down to the nest surrounding his cock. Oh, yes, his cock. Tall and rigid and thick and swollen, the head a dark purple. A tiny bead of fluid atop the slit.

  God, how she wanted to reach out for it, but the fire in his eyes stopped her.

  “Hands in place,” he reminded her.

  He bent to her pussy again, tracing every inch of slick flesh with his ravenous tongue. When he slipped it inside her, she nearly convulsed again. Montana couldn’t remember the last time a man had kept her so on edge, so hungry for whatever he chose to do with and to her.

  With his hands on the backs of her thighs, he nudged her legs up until her knees practically touched her shoulders. Then he resumed licking and sucking and stroking. Pausing to wet his fingers with her juices, he then traced a line down between the cheeks of her ass to the tight-puckered opening there.

  When he pressed on it lightly she nearly catapulted off the bed. Her ex had taken her there once or twice, but it had never seemed to turn him on, and his fumbling attempts had certainly done nothing for her. But this? This made her crave his big shaft thrusting into her, filling every inch of her back channel. She almost cried out in protest when he moved his finger away.

  “If we ever get together again, I’m going to take you here.” The guttural tone of his voice rolled through her, so hot she was sure it left ashes in its wake.

  But we’ll never get together again.

  She closed her eyes, trying to pull the edges of her control together, when a sharp slap startled her. Her ass! He’d spanked her ass! She’d kept her hands where he told her to, but apparently he’d seen the lust flare in her eyes when he mentioned it.

  He bent over her again, his mouth close to hers. “If we had more than one night, I’d spank your pretty ass until it turned bright red then fuck the hell out of it.” When her breathing hitched, he smiled. “Oh, yeah. A treat for us to dream about.”

  He bent to reach his jeans, dug a foil packet out of his wallet, and ripped it open. She swallowed a grin as she saw his hands tremble while he sheathed himself. He was as turned on by everything as she was.

  With his eyes locked with hers, he pushed her knees wide again, spread the lips of her pussy, and drove into her in one hard lunge. Holy crap! He filled every inch of her and then some. He drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly, and began to move—steady strokes, in and out, more, harder, faster. Feet planted on the floor, arms braced on either side of her, he stared into her eyes as his body moved in a steady rhythm.

  “Touch yourself.” His voice was so hoarse, she almost didn’t recognize it.

  “What? I—“

  “Touch yourself,” he repeated. “I want to watch you do it while I fuck you.”

  Unable to tear her eyes away from him, she slid her hand down to find her clit, soaking her finger in her own juices. Slowly she massaged it, the tremors in the walls of her cunt increasing with the stimulation. The climax unwound deep inside her, clawing to get out. She moved her legs to wrap them around his waist when he stopped abruptly, withdrew, and flipped her over.

  Before she could get her brains together enough to ask him what he was doing, he positioned her on her hands and knees, grabbed pillows to stuff beneath her, and drove into her wet channel again.

  Oh, god!

  Lost in a haze of lust, she was conscious only of his hard cock plunging in and out of her, the panting of his breath and hers, the increase in the power of his strokes driving her body back and forth. When she came, the force was so explosive she felt as if a giant fist were shaking her body. Her pussy clamped down on Mr. Hotstuff’s cock har
d, again and again, tightly enough she could feel him pulsing inside her. She lost all sense of self and place, enveloped only in the power of the orgasm.

  Finally spent, she collapsed forward onto the pile of pillows. Her heart thundered so hard, she wondered if it would burst from her chest, and she couldn’t seem to draw enough breath into her lungs. Mr. Hotstuff had collapsed on top of her, but he’d managed to catch his weight on his forearms so he didn’t crush her.

  After what seemed an eternity, he eased himself from her body. She sensed him move away then heard him in the bathroom as he disposed of the condom. She was still trying to find the energy to move when strong arms lifted her. She opened her eyes to see Mr. Hotstuff’s black, black eyes watching her carefully.

  “Are you okay?”

  She let out a soft sigh. “Better than.”

  “Good. I think our drinks are toast, but I don’t care because I am two seconds away from falling into bed.”

  She smiled at him. “That makes two of us.”

  With swift, economical movements, he yanked back the covers, moved the pillows, and laid her gently on the bed. In seconds, he was spooned behind her, one arm holding her, a warm hand cupping a breast. Before she could blink or say a word, she was fast asleep.

  Chapter Two

  “Don’t tell me you spent the night at the fire station.”

  Boone looked up to see his top hand, Rusty Davis, walking into the barn.

  “No. But I wasn’t ready to come home yet, either.” He went back to methodically coiling the lunge rope in his hands.

  “Should I ask where you went?” The other man studied him. “I heard last night’s fire was a pretty bad one.”

  Boone stopped what he was doing, the coil hanging loosely from one hand. The memory of the heat and flames rushed over him, and he swore, for a moment, he could actually smell the barn burning.

  “It could have been a lot worse.”

  He couldn’t get the image of Jeb and Darlene out of his mind, standing with their arms around each other, watching the firefighters lose the battle with the blaze consuming their barn. Boone was just glad they’d been able to prevent it from spreading to the house. The couple had lived all their lives in Winslow. Raised a family here. Owned the Sunrise Diner for as long as he could remember. Everyone in town—hell, in the county—loved the Royals. He couldn’t imagine who would want to burn down their barn and endanger them that way.

  And he was positive it was arson, like the other four fires they’d put out in the past eight weeks. There seemed to be an epidemic of barn burnings in their little town. So far, it hadn’t spread throughout the county, but if they didn’t find whoever was doing this, it was only a matter of time before a blaze roared out of control.

  A big part of the problem was most of the homes in town were generations old, built when horses were the general mode of transportation. Over the years, the houses had been modernized and many had garages added to them. But people hung onto the barns, partly for the history and partly because they made good storage facilities. Those on the edges of town with enough land often kept a horse or two. So far, they hadn’t had to rescue any animals but, again, it was a danger always hovering at the back of his mind.

  “Chief Curtis still think those fires were deliberately set?” Rusty asked.

  Boone nodded. “We all do. The thing is, though, we can’t seem to find any evidence.” Although Boone had his suspicions, he hadn’t said anything yet because he wanted proof. But he’d been watching one member of the squad during the past couple of episodes, unsettled a little bit by his behavior. He needed more than suspicions, however, so he planned to keep a sharp eye out.

  “Well.” Rusty scratched his jaw. “It does seem odd to have an epidemic like this all of a sudden.” He took the lunge line from Boone and hung it on a peg. “So, where did you crash last night?”

  With a woman who took my breath away.

  And that was no lie.

  He could still hardly believe they’d woken twice during the night and fallen into more of the incredible sex. He didn’t know where he’d even found the strength. There had been an intensity about everything they did, as if she, too, was trying to wipe something away and bury herself in the sex. Whether that was true or not, he couldn’t get her out of his mind. Who was she? Where had she come from? Would he ever see her again?

  “Boone?”

  Rusty’s voice pierced his consciousness.

  “What? Oh, yeah. Last night. I stopped at Pete’s for a couple of beers to wash the smoke out of my mouth and ended up crashing at the motel next to it. I was so beat, I figured I’d be a hazard on the road.”

  “Good idea. You might think about knocking off a little early today, too. You’ve been burning the candle at both ends lately, if you’ll pardon the expression.”

  “I wanted to ride out with you and the boys and check on the cattle in the south pasture. Almost time to cull the calves.” He pointed to the rope he’d coiled. “And I wanted to get back to work, training the new cutting horse I bought a few weeks ago.”

  “You trying to kill yourself?” Rusty shook his head. “We can check on those calves, and the horse can wait until tomorrow. He ain’t going anywhere.”

  Boone had started to object when he heard the sound of tires on gravel and turned his attention to a truck heading down his driveway. He recognized the fire chief’s Ford F-150 right away. Had the man found something?

  “Go talk to your chief,” Rusty said. “And leave the calves to us. If you really want to make yourself useful, you can go into town and pick up those sacks of horse feed they’re holding for us. Save me a big nuisance trip.”

  Maybe he’d do that. And take a run out to Pete’s to see if the bartender knew who the sexy blonde from last night was.

  Dumb, he told himself. You had a night so hot it singed the sheets. Let it go at that.

  “Let me see what the chief has to say, and I’ll let you know.”

  Ray Curtis had been hired as fire chief about two months before Boone moved to Winslow. Homegrown, he’d lived in San Antonio for seven years, working for the SAFD, until he and his wife decided they liked country living a lot better. The county had been damn happy to get him. He ran a top-notch department on a shoestring budget. This was not a county with a lot of money, so he used a lot of his budget to have the best equipment and increased the size of his department with volunteers like Boone.

  “Got any news for me, chief?” he asked, shaking hands with the man.

  “Maybe. Mostly looking for someone to run some ideas past. You got some time?”

  “Sure. Come on in the house. Coffee’s fresh.”

  Settled at the kitchen table with their coffee, he waited for Curtis to open the conversation.

  “You know I’ve had an arson investigator going over everything since the second fire, right?”

  Boone nodded, sipped his coffee, and waited.

  “Mostly, he hasn’t found anything. No accelerant. No oil-soaked rags.” Curtis idly stirred his coffee. “Whoever is doing this, they know exactly what they’re doing.”

  “I can’t even begin to think someone around here would be causing this.” Boone shook his head, “This is a close-knit community, not just the town, but the whole county. I mean, countywide, the population would barely fill a good-sized town.”

  “I know. Now you know why I’m so stumped. It’s like one big family. And not a dysfunctional one, either. So, what in hell has prompted this?”

  “You said you might have found something,” Boone prompted.

  “Yeah. Only because the arson investigator is thorough and relentless.” He took a long swallow of his coffee, set the mug down, and stared at it for a moment. “The barn was old, the wood so dry it incinerated in minutes. You saw it happen.”

  “I did.” Boone waited.

  “Pieces of it were still standing. Not much. But there were some small sheets of metal leaning against the far wa
ll by the rear entrance. They fell over as the flames consumed the wood around them. When we lifted them this morning, we found the remnants of newspapers. Of course they were pretty soaked. Shredded when we picked them up with tongs to put in an evidence bag. But there was enough left to tell us the fire was deliberately set.”

  “Whoever did this had to sneak onto the property, get into the barn, set the blaze. And no one saw anything?”

  Curtis shook his head. “We’ve talked to all the neighbors. But the way the places on the street are set up, none of the yards are lit, and there are a lot of trees for cover.” He stared into his mug. “We’re damn lucky none of the trees went up.”

  “What can I do for you?” Boone wanted to know.

  “Start thinking about who could do this. Take notice of people when you’re in town. The sheriff’s asking questions to see if these folks had anything in common, or anyone had grudges against them.” He drained the rest of his coffee and set the mug down. “But, mostly, I guess, be my sounding board. You’re smart, Boone. The sharpest of my volunteers. And you see a lot of people on a regular basis. Keep your eyes open for me, okay?”

  “You know I will.” He rubbed his jaw. A little suspicion had been niggling at his mind. Behavior he’d observed that was a little over the top. Some things that didn’t quite add up. Should he mention it to the chief? What if he was wrong? No, he’d better wait until he had more proof. Any proof.

  When the older man had left, Boone sat quietly for a moment, thinking. Like Curtis, he hated the idea this was the work of someone they knew. But maybe focusing on that would get his mind off the woman from last night. Lord knew his cock hadn’t forgotten. It had been aching and sending him messages all morning. Even now, he had to adjust his jeans to make himself more comfortable.