White Heat (The Heat Chronicles Book 3) Read online

  Her mouth pulled into a frown, her brows lowering, then she shrugged and dipped her head.

  Pleasure ran the length of his body and back again, tightening every muscle, making his cock rock hard as she slanted her lips and slipped her tongue inside his mouth. He wanted to grab her, roll her beneath him, but instead, he kept his hands out to the side. He bent his fingers, the spike of pain reminding him to go slow with her.

  He didn’t know how he was going to do it, but he needed her to take off both of their clothes and press her body against his. As his mind cranked through possible scenarios, his lips enjoyed her kiss. He tried to think, even though her taste filled his mouth with warmth and pleasure exploded inside him.

  Then a plan came into his mind, something he’d never considered before.

  Chapter 2

  Walker had spent his life concealing his power until he’d witnessed another Mixed Breed being beaten by the Council police. The man’s tainted blood had been discovered when he went for medical help. In that moment, a weight of responsibility had come crashing down on his shoulders, because he knew he could provide the medical help his fellow outcasts needed.

  Even though he’d used his talents to help others, he’d rarely made use of them to help himself, and he’d only once tried them during sex. Merrium had been appalled and had rejected his efforts, but even before that, he could tell his power didn’t react to her. It didn’t stir to life, tingling below the surface of his skin.

  Not like it did now with the woman he kissed, the woman who ran her warm, magnificent hands through his hair, making his whole body throb.

  He wanted to explore everything she was from the inside out, but he couldn’t let her know about his skills. All Inter-world people were disgusted by Mixed Breeds. Still, he could push energy into her slowly, increase the burn between them so it felt like desire. Intense, wonderful, amazing desire.

  For a moment, he struggled with his plan. His hands throbbed with every beat of his heart. If he used the energy to heal himself, he could cut his pain in half. But he would lose everything if she stopped kissing him.

  Slowly, tentatively at first, he breathed power into her mouth, the act much like a mini-orgasm, relieving the growing pressure as a wave of pleasure sped through his body into hers.

  He must have pushed too hard, because she jumped and pulled away. Gray eyes, the color of icy seas, stared down at him, blinking in surprise. “What was that?” she asked. “It felt like lightening racing through me. Did you feel it?”

  He still had his arm around her neck but resisted the urge to drag her down. He’d seen how strong she was when he had tried to force his way into her house.

  “Please,” he whispered. If she was his mate, she would want him too. Badly. He could only hope the sharp bite of desire between them would overcome her resistance.

  Her head cocked to the side. “It feels good, but this is probably one of your stupider ideas,” she murmured.

  “What?” he asked, shaking his head. He glanced around the room, but couldn’t figure out who she spoke to.

  “Oh,” she said, a blush streaking across her face. Dropping her head, she kissed him quick, as if she tried to cover up for something.

  He didn’t understand and quite frankly, he could care less. This. This is what he wanted. Following the seam of her lips with his tongue, he asked for entry. She parted for him, and his tongue brushed hers. Energy poured from her body into his, making his skin break out into a sweat. How long had it been since he’d been this warm?

  Unable to fight the desire to give her back some of the pleasure she gave him, he carefully returned some power to her. Just a flash of heat that would feel like a whisper of warmth filling her from the inside out.

  She moaned and as she deepened the kiss, her fingers splayed across his cheeks, down his neck and buried in the top of his jumpsuit. Gods and Goddesses, if she would just strip his clothes and run her hands along his skin.

  As if she could hear his thoughts, she bared the top of his chest and trailed her hands over the muscles that had built from months of hard labor in HeFo.

  It felt so good. So good.

  But not enough. No, he wanted more. Much more.

  His energy level was high now. Hotter than he’d been in so long, he healed his hands with a thought, the flash of pain at the healing making him break the contact with her on a gasp.

  She stared at him in wonder, her tongue darting out to lick over her lips in a slow, sexy glide.

  “I’m Raine,” she whispered.

  “Walker,” he said, forcing his gaze to meet her eyes instead of staring at her lips. He kicked away the blankets, too hot now to stand them.

  Raine looked down the line of Walker’s body and saw that she wasn’t the only person totally, completely, one-hundred percent turned on. Oh no. She closed her eyes and grasped for her sanity. She didn’t even know this man. He’d been in HeFO, a prison for murderers and thieves. She lowered his head to the ground, sliding her arm from beneath it.

  “Raine.” He allowed her to straighten, but she could tell he didn’t want to. He gritted his teeth on whatever else he wanted to say.

  She moved until she was sitting beside him instead of kneeling at his head. “You don’t look cold anymore.” Unable to resist the overwhelming urge to touch him, she rested one hand on his exposed upper chest and raised an eyebrow.

  “I’m warmer than I’ve been in months,” he murmured, his green eyes studying her intently.

  Watching him for any sign that he might not want what she was about to do, she ran her hands down his bare skin.

  She was sick and tired of being cold and alone on this heap of ice. If this stranger fell into her lap, she was going to make the most of it. He felt right to her, and her mind whispered that she could trust him. If something went wrong, he wasn’t in any condition to hurt her. She didn’t think he would do anything but bring her pleasure. And she wanted pleasure. She deserved it, dammit.

  Didn’t she?

  A brief hesitation flitted through her and she studied his bright green eyes. He was in HeFO for a reason.

  Her hands glided down to his crotch, and he groaned and closed his eyes against the feel of her brushing his rock hard erection.

  “Oh yes,” she might have whispered out loud. Or maybe she didn’t. Who knew? Who cared? Not her. Not right now. A burn filled her body, driving her onward like nothing she’d ever felt before.

  Leaning over him, she spread open his jumpsuit to study his body. Smooth muscled perfection greeted her, the sheen of sweat catching her eye. He shouldn’t be this hot, should he? Maybe he had a fever.

  Then the thought was swept away as he shrugged the coat and jumpsuit off his shoulders, sitting up on his own and peeling the fabric off his body in one sweep. When he lay back, he was naked.

  “Oh my,” she thought or said. Who knew with this man lying before her?

  Every inch of him was hard perfection. What his face lacked in handsomeness, his body far, far made up for in sheer flawlessness.

  Somewhere in the back of her mind, she worried about the snow frosting. Where had it gone? She hadn’t imagined it, had she? She’d never gotten the condition herself. Maybe the crackling hadn’t been what she’d thought it was.

  She blinked and the thoughts fell away as she gazed at his shoulders. Double the width of hers, they ran down into rippled abs, that moved into slim hips, that flared back out into well muscled thighs. The curve of his leg glided gracefully down into trim, solid calves.

  His erection matched the rest of him—big and hard, the head pulsing and engorged, a drop of pre-come dotting the top.

  She wanted to touch so very, very badly, so she did.

  She dragged her hand along the bounty of his thigh, skirting his sex and stroked across his lightly haired chest. Circling a nipple, she watched in utter fascination as it hardened with her stroke.

  “Raine,” he said, his breath catching with her action.

  As if she was in a
dream, she slowly gazed up at him.

  “Kiss me.” He wasn’t begging anymore and he wasn’t asking. His voice was all command.

  Her natural rebelliousness flared to life and she narrowed her eyes. Keeping eye contact, she lowered her head in degrees until she planted a chaste kiss on his nipple.

  Even that simple action made him swallow. He’d liked it, she thought, and still keeping her gaze locked to his, she ran her tongue in a circle around the hard bud, then sucked it into her mouth. The taste of his skin exploded into her mouth, spicy male and salt from the sheen of perspiration that covered his body.

  He hissed in a breath, his sex jumping up to briefly touch her side where she rested across his body while she kissed him.

  With a shaking hand still wrapped in the makeshift bandages she’d put on, he attempted to drag off her thermal sweater.

  “No, you’ll hurt your hands.” She pulled out of reach. With one movement, she was out of the sweater, but immediately regretted it as the chilly air hit her breasts, tightening her nipples into painful peaks. “Oh! It’s too cold.”

  “Come here,” he growled, his gaze on her breasts. “Don’t put it back on. I’ll warm you.”

  She stretched out beside him, and he immediately rolled to cover her, supporting himself on his forearms. Their chests were pressed together and it felt so amazing, she moaned. Briefly, her mind questioned why she felt this way, how she’d never before felt so much desire that she didn’t care about her safety, didn’t care about anything but touching him. He was steaming hot now, able to keep them both warm in the freezing cold of the room.

  “Strip off your pants,” he said, nuzzling his face into her neck and biting lightly.

  Now was T-minus Zero in the countdown. Speak now or forever hold your peace, Raine.

  She felt him smile into her neck. “You talk to yourself, don’t you?” he asked, and for the first time she could hear humor in his voice.

  It irritated her. “Yes, dammit, I do.” She pushed on him. “Back off, buster, or I can’t get naked for you.”

  He blinked and the corners of his eyes crinkled as if he fought a smile.

  She narrowed her eyes, and he frowned to stop the grin from spreading to his mouth. She could tell.

  He distracted her by raising up so she could reach her belt. When her hands found the buckle, she brushed his erection and then neither of them was smiling.

  “Gods, you feel like the sun on a tropical day. All lightness and wonder.” His voice sounded pained.

  She fumbled with the closure at her waist, then pushed down until her pants were caught at her boots. He rolled to one side to let her sit to undo the fasteners. The moment her clothes were free, he caught her and brought her beneath him, as if all he really wanted was to press his skin to hers. He sighed and it was a joyous sound.

  Then his eyes opened and he kept her gaze as he worked his legs between hers. “Yes, Raine, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

  His voice was hoarse, but the head of his erection slid along the top of her thighs until it ran into the wetness she’d accumulated there. Then it raced down her clitoris to stop at the very edge of her opening.

  For once, she was speechless. All she could do was pant and wait for this wondrous thing. Had she really been thinking about going after Malachi, who would surely kill her, when she could have this?

  “So be it.” He said the words as if he sealed her fate.

  Before she could dwell on the significance, he eased his cock into her channel. Even though she was ready, she had gone a long time without someone in her bed. He stretched her to the limit, the strength of his cock expanding her so that all she could do was grasp onto the bulge in his biceps and experience the feel of him sliding into her body.

  When the team had lived, she’d been lovers with Antilli, a small, wiry assassin. Gods, she had missed him after he’d died. They hadn’t been in love, but he had been her friend and her confidant.

  She hadn’t been touched by a single other person since that day. She’d been too fragile at first, then too angry, then she’d ended up on this hunk of rock where she went months without seeing another living soul.

  But Walker wasn’t like Antilli in any way. Walker was all muscle and bulk. Huge.

  He pulled back out and reached between them to glide his erection over her wetness. “You’re tight. I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, his green eyes intense, his face tightened with desire.

  He slowly thrust into her, this time sliding all the way in to the hilt. She hummed, feeling as if some piece of her soul was reborn, as if she had finally come home.

  “Did that hurt?” he gasped, lowering his body fully onto hers.

  “No.”

  He took a deep breath and let it out. “I’m not going to last long.” Rocking forward, he seemed purposely to grind his body on her clitoris.

  Raine bit her lip to stifle the scream that threatened to erupt at the intense storm building inside her.

  He repeated the gesture, his whole body drenched in sweat, the light hair on his chest scraping over her already sensitized nipples. She fought to have him touch every part of her at once. All she could focus on was the feel of him filling her after being alone for so long.

  “I need you to come, Raine.” His voice sounded desperate, as if willpower alone kept him from climax, but she didn’t open her eyes to look at his face. All she could do was experience the pleasure.

  Then he kissed her and that strange, wonderful sensation breathed through her body, tightening her from the inside out. She came in a blaze of heat, the powerful release making her arch and grab his shoulders.

  Walker ground himself into her and his body jumped with his own release, causing another ripple of pleasure to surge through her.

  He collapsed, enveloping her body with his, his erection still connecting them in the most intimate of ways.

  Chapter 3

  “You’re from the prison.” Instead of wanting to push away from him, she kept her legs wrapped around his body to keep him close. She felt wonderful, dreamy, right.

  He nodded. “The fire freed me.”

  His voice slid like warm honey down her spine. Everything about you is warm, she thought.

  But he answered her with a nod, so she must have spoken out loud again. “I’m from the Gratermor Quadrant.”

  “The Outer Worlds?” She shook her head. That was on the edge of some very scary alien territory. No one lived there if they could help it.

  He closed his eyes. “It’s warm there.” He blew out a breath. “Gods, I miss the heat.”

  “What were you in prison for?” She absently ran her fingers through his wheat-colored hair, wondering why she didn’t move away from him. She should feel embarrassed at what had just happened between them, since she hadn’t even spoken a dozen words to him before they’d jumped into bed. Or more accurately, he hadn’t spoken that many words. She’d babbled enough for both of them without even meaning too.

  But the human contact was more than she could resist. Just touching another person’s skin felt like heaven. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed it.

  Green eyes opened and turned hard. “Murder,” he said.

  She stilled, her hand on his cheek.

  “I won’t bother telling you I didn’t do it. Why would you believe me?”

  She searched his eyes. Why indeed?

  “Yes, why indeed.” His lips curled as if he was disgusted, but he didn’t move away.

  She tried to decide why she thought he was innocent. Or maybe not innocent, but not guilty. After all, she’d taken quite a few lives herself. Or the team had, but they couldn’t have done it without her planning skills. Did it matter that the men they had killed were all killers themselves? The team had specialized in taking out the baddest of the bad—kidnappers, rapists and baby killers. But the fact that she had been the team’s strategist and had contributed to the deaths of the targets her team had terminated made her a murderer too, didn’t
it? In the strictest sense of the word?

  She’d never really thought about it before. Since she was a child, she’d known that she was born to take down the bullies of the universes. It was her mission in life, the one thing burning in her soul.

  “Raine the Avenger,” she heard herself whisper self-mockingly.

  He narrowed his eyes. “I’m not returning to HeFO. I’ll kill myself first.”

  She raised her eyebrows. She believed him. It was there on his face. She knew what it felt like to die for something you believed in. Only she hadn’t died. Her team had.

  “I took the punishment of another. I had to, or reveal something much worse, and the bastard who framed me knew it.”

  She shifted to get more comfortable, and he hissed in a breath, the movement of her under him making him grow hard inside her once more. Desire shot through her body, her mind flashing back to the intense orgasm they’d just shared. Her channel tightened around his erection in a pleasure-filled pulse.

  She fisted her hands and battled the need to have him again. Where had her normal control gone? What had happened to her constant diligence and threat assessment? She wouldn’t let herself be distracted. “Why did they frame you?”

  “Because they could. What burns me is that it was nothing personal. I took the fall because I was an easy mark.” For a moment, he met her gaze, then he kissed her, hard and long. It wasn’t sweet like the kisses he’d given her earlier. He kissed her as if he wouldn’t let her go, as if he’d fight to the death before he’d let her free.

  He left her gasping, distracted by the rising need inside her body, which is why at first she didn’t comprehend what she was seeing when he leaned on one elbow and stripped the bandage off one hand, then the other.

  “I have to run my hands over you,” he growled. He withdrew from her and sat on his knees between her legs. His fingers wandered along her stomach, drawing her gaze with the feather-light, worshiping touch. She shivered as need spiked through her again. Her reaction to him wasn’t normal. Too intense, too amazing, as if he held the key to her body’s pleasure.