VISIONS OF HEAT

Faith was surrounded by fire. Rough, yet deliciously smooth, the contrasting textures enticed her to open her eyes. Gleaming skin lay under her cheek and her fingers were stroking through dark-gold chest hair as if petting a great big cat. The last word opened the floodbanks of memory and she woke fully with a gasp.

“Shh.” One of Vaughn’s hands stroked down her spine while the other pushed damp hair off her forehead.

“You’re free.” The bindings were shreds on the headboard.

“Hmm.” He moved so she was half under him and he could kiss the line of her neck.

“I survived.” She was remembering that explosion in her mind, when everything she was and everything she’d ever been had seemed to be wiped out.

His teeth scraped her skin and she shivered. Lightning danced along her bloodstream, nerve endings already sensitized to the extreme.

“You taste good, Red.”

Her body was loose, her limbs heavy and sated. “Vaughn. I felt too much.” Yet she was still here, still functioning. She checked her shields. To her shock, the ones against the PsyNet were holding strong, as if anchored by a source outside of her overloaded mind. Impossible.

All her other shields were gone.

She clenched her fingers, only then realizing she’d sunk them into Vaughn’s hair. “My shields.”

“Mmm.” He was licking at her pulse, quick flicks that tugged at something low in her, something rich and dark and hungry. So hungry.

“The ones that help me hold out the world, they’re gone.” Burned out.

“Rebuild them. Later.” Moving down her body, he ran his teeth over the upper slopes of her breasts.

Swallowing, she tried to think. She was safe against other Psy. There was no one out here but Vaughn. And he’d already been everywhere inside of her, gone so deep that she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to push him out, or that she’d even want to. One large hand stroked down her side and lingered in the hollow where waist flared into hip.

She found herself holding her breath in anticipation, her mind emptying of thoughts of shields and protection. She was a novice at emotion caught in the claws of the most powerful of them—so much so that she failed to check the vision channels for damage.

Vaughn nuzzled between her breasts and made his way down her tensed stomach, dropping kisses on every inch of exposed skin until he reached the curls at the apex of her thighs. One hand closing over her thigh, he dropped a kiss on those curls. Her back arched. “Not yet.”

He finally looked up. Those cat eyes were sated, golden and pleasured. “Why?” It wasn’t a demand, but as close to a purr as she’d ever heard a human being sound.

“I need to calm down a little.” She tugged at his hair and to her surprise, he came without argument, kissing his way back up her body. A body that had been well used and was already aching for more. It was her mind that wasn’t ready.

When he was braced over her once more, she ran her hand down his jaw and found herself unable to stop nuzzling at his throat, dropping kisses on his pulse. “Why can’t I stop touching you? I might’ve broken conditioning, but I’m still Psy.” Still from a race where touch was infrequent and cold. “I shouldn’t be so needy for touch.”

“You’re hungry.” He ran one hand up to close over her breast in a gesture that screamed possessiveness. “You’ve been starving for decades.”

“But . . .” She licked salt from the skin of his shoulder and curved a leg over his waist.

“The shield holding you back burned out.”

How did he know that? Not that it mattered to her. “Does that mean I’m mad?” Right this moment, she didn’t care.

“No. It means you’re free.”

“Mmm.” Pulling herself up using his shoulders, she drew his head down in a kiss that was so luscious, she melted. He was all slow heat and seduction against her mouth while his hand gently massaged her breast.

When his thumb rubbed over her nipple, she moaned into the kiss, but this time it wasn’t lightning that flickered through her bloodstream but a thicker, richer vein of fire. It spread with languorous ease and she was filled with it before she could even think to fight. Pleasurably overwhelmed, she wrapped her arms around him and curved her other leg over his back.

When he slipped inside of her again, it felt like perfection. He moved in a slow, sensual rhythm, a sated predator giving his woman everything she wanted. The hand on her breast slid down her body to cup her buttocks and hold her at the tiniest angle, but one that let him touch things in her that turned the slow-moving river of lava into a boiling inferno. But still it didn’t overwhelm.

She rode the waves of pleasure that lapped at her as he rode her, his lips on her mouth, his tongue dancing with hers. And when he finally pushed her over, she didn’t crash. Instead the heavy fire inside of her turned into a shimmering mass of sensation. Rich and lush and addictive, it took her under and she went with a smile.