When I unlocked the door, about four hours later than I had planned on being home, I found Trixie pacing the living room. When she looked up and saw me, she launched herself at me. I staggered back from the impact, my back going up against the door. She flung her arms around my neck, buried her face in my chest. She was ranting and raving, half sobbing, half angry as hell.
“I heard what you did, goddammit,” she gulped out, dragging in a noisy breath. She gripped my shoulders and gave me a shake. “You could have died. I thought you were gone—I called your dad. He said you were just being a cowboy and you’d be fine, but then he asked me to call and let him know if you made it home so even he was scared. It was on the news, Damon! I saw you stumble out and lay down the guy you were carrying and just—go to your hands and knees and rip off your mask and then it cut away to the paramedics working on this guy—how could you do that?”
I held her close, not realizing till I had her in my arms just how badly I needed this. I needed to feel her wrapped around me, proof I had survived.
“Just because you’re fearless does not mean that I am!” she practically moaned, looking up at me with her eyes bright with tears. “I could have lost you.”
“I’m not fearless, Trix. I was scared as hell. But I couldn’t leave a man to burn to death in that inferno.”
“I know you couldn’t. I know you’re a hero, Vance. But I’m not one. I can’t handle it.”
She buried her face in my neck again, holding on tight. I pressed her against me, held her for my comfort as much as for her own. I reminded myself I wasn’t going to push her, wasn’t going to pursue her. So I disentangled myself or started to.
“I know I smell like smoke. I better go have a shower,” I said, clearing my throat. My voice was rusty from the smoke I’d inhaled, and I was trying to peel her hands from behind my neck. Finally I ducked my head to get out of the circle of her clinging arms, and she bumped her lips against mine.
“Don’t go. Don’t do anything right now. Please, Damon. I almost lost you tonight,” she said, breathless. I saw her eyes, dark and desperate. I remembered the impact of her body that sent me reeling. I felt her wrapped around me, one leg hooked around my thigh, both arms around my neck, plastered against me. She had given me my opening, had come to me, and I would be damned if I turned her away when she felt more essential than air at that moment.
I grabbed her hips and lifted, and she wrapped her legs around my waist, her strong thighs holding on tight. I dipped my head and took her mouth, spun around so she was against the door. I kissed her, my tongue in her mouth, her sweetness blocking out the bitter smoke that had filled me, taking the taste of fear and death from my mouth and filling me with her instead. I groaned, taking more of her mouth, plunging my tongue deeper. I drew back, nipped her lip with my teeth and got a tiny moan from her for my trouble. She was delicious, she was cold water after the fire I’d survived, she was fresh air dispersing the thick smoke. She was everything clean and pure and bright wrapped around me, clinging to me like she’d never get enough.
“I need you,” she whispered against my ear and kissed the pulse point just behind it, her tongue hot and sweet on my skin.
“I’ve always needed you,” I answered her, playing it cool be damned. I’d nearly been killed, and my wife was waiting for me, afraid and hungry for me. I’d give her all of me, hell, I’d do more than that. I’d do anything she asked.
I pressed her into the door, my mouth going to her neck, sucking and licking, leaving a love bite where her neck met her shoulder and making her arch into me. I dropped to my knees and draped a long, bare thigh over my shoulder. I put my mouth between her legs, my tongue hot and wet through her cotton panties. Her hands were in my hair, and I gripped her thighs like she was my anchor to this earth. The sweet taste of her sex as I pushed aside her panties was intoxicating, like drowning in the sea and not caring at all. I was on my knees, worshipping her body, and the miracle was she was allowing it.
13
Trixie
He started so softly, his questing mouth wet on my panties, then his finger pushing them aside. The brush of his finger on the slick flesh of my sex made me dizzy all at once. Then he took first one tender lip and then the other between his lips, kissing, licking, sucking. My knees were so weak. I tossed my head back and forth against the front door, my nails scoring into the wood behind me. He turned his head and kissed the inside of my thigh, then higher, then tongued my pussy again, and I started to wail. My keening, high-pitched cry started and got louder and louder until I drove my hands into his hair to steady myself, tugging at his scalp, riding his face. I knew my slickness was soaking him, and knew he didn’t care. He had a grip on my thigh that might leave a mark as I bucked my hips in desperation.