Flashfire

  “Good riddance,” he muttered.

  “I like my boots,” she protested, knowing that they had become a joke between them.

  “I like your feet better.” He sat on the rock, tipped her backward, and caught one foot in his hand. His other arm was locked around her waist, holding her captive against his bare chest. Cassie couldn’t resist him. She touched him, running her hands over his muscled shoulders.

  Lorenzo ran his thumb along the bare arch, his gaze simmering, then kissed her instep with deliberation. Cassie shivered. He locked his fingers around her ankle, his tongue both tickling her and arousing her. She squirmed and found his erection beneath her buttocks, the size of him arousing her even more.

  He closed his eyes at her move and she did it again, wanting only to ensure that his desire was as great as her own.

  “Tease,” he muttered.

  “You should talk.”

  His smile flashed again. “I’ll show you teasing.”

  He ran his fingers around her ankle, his tongue and teeth making her ache for more of him. A steady stream of kisses and nibbles made her keenly aware of every inch of her skin—and make her want to feel him against every bit of it.

  Cassie quickly undid her jeans and peeled them off. Lorenzo stopped his caress while she removed them, then bent to kiss the inside of her bare knee. She wriggled, because that tickled, too, then saw the mischief in his eyes.

  He watched her through his lashes as he kissed his way closer to her panties. He could have been a different man, one less refined and more driven by his passions. He had a day’s growth of dark beard and it prickled against Cassie’s skin, reminding her that Lorenzo wasn’t all polish all the time.

  At least not with her. His eyes shone golden, reminding her of the powerful dragon he could become, and Cassie’s mouth went dry.

  Then he locked his hands around her waist and slid them down, taking her underwear with them. His thumbs moved against her skin, making her tingle with anticipation. He cast the teal-green panties aside without a backward glance, gripped her hips and bent to taste her. His tongue was more relentless this time. He drove her to the cusp of orgasm at least four times, easing off just before she climaxed, cheating her over and over again. Cassie could have screamed in frustration, but Lorenzo only chuckled, his breath warm against her thighs. She was burning with desire for him, her need far greater than it had been even with the firestorm.

  Because Lorenzo himself was casting the spell over her.

  If she was beguiled, Cassie didn’t want to break free of his enchantment.

  But she would get even. She moaned in frustration when he withdrew the next time, leaving her vibrating on the cusp of orgasm. He smiled a wicked smile, and she took advantage of his distraction to pounce on him. Lorenzo fell backward, surprised but still cradling her fall.

  “Payback time,” Cassie declared, then closed her mouth over his erection.

  He gasped. His hand locked in her hair. She heard him exhale shakily and felt him get larger. She caressed him with both hands as she teased him.

  She loved how he whispered her name.

  When he was just on the verge of exploding, she stopped. He groaned and she flicked her fingertips across him. He arched his back and ground his teeth. She loved how much he wanted her and how he didn’t mind showing it.

  He made to reach for her, but Cassie held up a finger. “Don’t move. I’m not done with you yet.” He lay back with some reluctance, his gaze locked upon her. She peeled off her shirt and preened for him as she had once before. Lorenzo’s eyes shone. She reached back and unfastened her bra, tossing it toward him. He caught it in one hand, rubbed his thumb across the cup that was still warm from her body, his gaze never leaving her.

  She straddled him, let him look, then slowly crouched atop him. She lowered herself onto his erection, taking his strength inside of her in one smooth move. He inhaled sharply, his gaze brightening.

  “You’re not allowed to come before me,” she murmured, then began to rock on top of him. Lorenzo groaned.

  Then he grabbed her hips in his hands, coaxing her to a steady pace. Cassie watched him even as he watched her. She felt him become even bigger inside of her. She felt his thighs flex beneath her. She saw the sunlight touch his skin with gold. She saw his eyes darken and she knew he was close.

  He slid his hands over her, the brush of his fingertips driving her to distraction. She felt her whole body begin to tingle, the cumulative desire rising to a fever pitch. She felt a trickle of perspiration on her own back and saw the same shimmer on Lorenzo’s tanned skin.

  He reached up and caught her face in his hands, pulling her down to him. Their kiss was openmouthed, hungrier than ever before, almost bruising in its intensity. He moved inside of her with power. Cassie ground herself against him, letting her tongue duel with his in a ferocious dance.

  Then Lorenzo slipped his hand between her thighs. He touched her with surety while he drove deeply into her. And when he pinched her clitoris, Cassie’s orgasm flooded through her body with savage force. Lorenzo roared as he found his release as well, his bellow of pleasure enough to shake the earth.

  Cassie lay panting, sprawled across his chest, entranced by the thunder of his heart beneath hers. “Again,” she demanded, kissing his nipple. He didn’t hesitate for a second, but rolled over, easing her beneath him. She was lying on her belly, Lorenzo’s heat braced protectively over her.

  He pulled up her knees on either side. One arm slipped beneath her, holding his weight even as his fingers closed over her breast. His other elbow was near her waist, that hand sliding through her pubic hair.

  She knew how he was going to caress her and spread her legs wider to invite his touch. He slid his strength inside her again and she closed her eyes at the size of him, at the press of his thighs behind her own.

  “This time, you can’t come until I do,” he whispered against her neck, and Cassie couldn’t wait for his torment to begin. She rolled her hips, smiling when he growled with pleasure; then his fingers moved and she was lost in his embrace once more.

  Salvatore intended to trespass again.

  But this would be the last time.

  His anticipation rose as he worked his way closer to the hidden portal, easing through the veils of the ages, through the gossamer dimensions that overlaid each other. He let the whispers of other times slip past him. He felt the caress of material items lost and those yet to be possessed touch his skin. He smelled perfume and food and rot and promise, a heady mix of scents that did not belong together outside of this sphere.

  It would have been easy to have become distracted in this carnival of sensation, but Salvatore had a destination. His fear was that he would never find it. He didn’t care if he ever returned to the world he had abandoned—he had kept his promise and was done with that realm. Salvatore feared only becoming lost in this place, spending all of eternity drifting, like a thief trapped in the house of another.

  It was the scent that finally oriented him. The smell of water and of stone, of shadow and of pale light. The smell of fog and salt and mist, and the inside of a woman’s elbow. He knew that elbow. He knew that woman.

  She was why he had risked this intrusion again.

  He finally found the threshold to the Wyvern’s realm again, although it took him longer than it had before. He had the sense that his back door was becoming elusive, probably because it was closing against him.

  But he was through it, that scent drawing him onward to his destination.

  Salvatore followed it with diligence, impatient yet needing to move with stealth to ensure that he wasn’t discovered. He nearly wept when he found the house. He was shaking when he climbed the stairs. He swallowed when he heard the music and the laughter.

  And smelled one distinctive perfume.

  His first tear broke
after he knocked for admission, when he heard the achingly familiar tread of a woman’s foot, when he heard her call back in jest to another in the room.

  He feared in the last moment that she wouldn’t recognize him, that he was too aged for her to know who came to her door.

  Then she opened the portal. His Angelina. She was dressed in sumptuous red and gold, the silk shimmering with its own light, the pearls at her throat gleaming. Her feet were bare, her elegant toes peeping from beneath the hem. She held a glass of wine in one hand, and her hair was still coiled high.

  She froze, eyeing him in mingled astonishment, hurt, and hope. “Salvatore,” she whispered, her gaze dancing over him.

  The evening was young, he realized, his favorite time of the nights he had spent in her abode. No one was as yet drunk; the conversation sparkled; the world seemed to be full of possibilities.

  Salvatore knew that he was returned to the moment when he should have returned to her, when he had not returned, when pride had kept him away. Salvatore didn’t believe he could change the past, but he did believe that he could try to repair his mistakes.

  “I am sorry,” he said, awkward as always with the dialect that flowed from her lips so eloquently. It was important, though, that he apologize in her native tongue. “I was wrong.”

  She stared at him for a minute, an endless minute that made him fear her response. She glanced back at the revelers in her establishment, then stepped closer to him. Her eyes were dark with concern, filled with the knowingness that being outside the stream of time gave her. “The fire will still happen on this night?”

  He nodded. “I cannot change it. I can only make my peace with you.”

  “And Lorenzo?”

  “I kept my promise to you. She is his match, in every way.” He smiled, knowing he had done right by his son. “Between us two, we have ensured his future.”

  Angelina nodded. They eyed each other for a long moment, perhaps both guessing that this might be the last time they met.

  Forever.

  Would their souls find each other again? Salvatore could only hope as much. Would he see her in whatever afterlife there might be? Again, he could only hope for the outcome he desired.

  “How did you come to be here?” she asked. “I did not know you had such powers.”

  “I don’t.” Salvatore could not help from glancing over his shoulder. “I don’t know how long it will last.”

  A twinkle dawned in Angelina’s eyes. “You are breaking some rules, I would wager.” She had always loved making mischief, defying expectation and pushing the limits. “You are cheating again!”

  Salvatore grinned, unable to help himself. Then he sobered, guessing his heart was in his eyes. “I had hoped it would be worth the risk.”

  Angelina glanced back at her patrons, then eased a little closer to him. She offered him the glass of wine, and when he sipped, unable to look away from the majesty of her eyes, she leaned closer to whisper, “Take me for one last ride, my love.”

  His heart clenched at her endearment. She had forgiven him.

  Against all expectation.

  “It’s too early in the evening,” he protested. “People will see . . .”

  “It is too late for so many things.” She laid her fingertips across his mouth, silencing him with the touch he had yearned to feel again for four centuries. “If you are stealing moments, Salvatore, steal this one for me.”

  And as had always been the case, Salvatore could deny Angelina nothing. It was how he believed a great love should be.

  He knew when he reached for her, when he surrendered to her request, that he would never find his way back through the realm of the Wyvern again.

  Salvatore did not care. He had arrived at the destination he had always dreamed of reaching.

  And as he soared above the city of Venice with his beloved Angelina laughing in his embrace, far across the ages, the breath caught in the chest of a dragon sleeping in a mansion outside Las Vegas.

  The silvery dragon’s eyelids flickered as he dreamed.

  He smiled.

  He shifted shape, becoming an old man once again.

  His heart beat one last time, then stopped forever.

  Cassie was an addiction. Firestorm or not, Lorenzo was never going to get enough of this woman. Even knowing about the Dragon Bone Powder didn’t change his conviction—he understood exactly what Niall had meant.

  The magic at root was Cassie’s own. She entranced him. She fascinated him. She excited him and surprised him, and Lorenzo dared to believe that perhaps the firestorm had been right. Perhaps it had chosen the perfect partner for him. He liked that she was unafraid of his dragon nature, that she was undaunted by his attitude and that she was prepared to push him to change.

  He loved her.

  And he wanted to make love to her for the rest of his life. He had to make this work. He had to give them a future.

  When she languished beside him after two orgasms, her skin faintly flushed, her smile of satisfaction was all the reward he needed. For the first time ever, Lorenzo was content to lounge with a lover after the loving was done. He stretched out beside her as the sun rose higher, trailing his fingertips over her breasts and belly.

  “You could sunbathe nude,” he suggested, tracing a tan line with one fingertip.

  “Not smart in a world full of predators,” she replied.

  Her words, though lightly uttered, reminded Lorenzo of unfinished details. Who would defend her in his absence? He frowned, then glanced toward the car. “You could come with me.”

  She watched him for a minute, then sat up abruptly. “You’ve got some scheme, I know. You think you’re going to survive this feat.” She glanced back at him. “But I can’t imagine how.”

  “That’s not your job. I’m a professional.”

  She watched him for a minute, her eyes narrowed. When she spoke, her words were low with concern. “What if you’re wrong? What if you do die?”

  Lorenzo shook his head, dismissing the idea. “What if you come with me?”

  “Where, exactly?”

  “That matters less than the fact that you would never be able to look back.”

  “I’d have to go with you in the car.”

  Lorenzo nodded. “It’s the only way to ensure your safety.” He thought of Caterina, knew Cassie was different from his first love in every way. But there was no point in telling her the destination—she could only go there at his side.

  Cassie studied him then, and he wished he could will the words from her lips.

  He wanted her to trust him.

  He wanted her to join her life to his.

  He wanted her to come with him.

  But he wanted her to choose to do so.

  Cassie averted her gaze and he knew what she would say. She shuddered. “I’m not sure I could do that. I’d have to leave my house. My friends.” She turned back to him, unable to hide her horror. “I’d have to be buried alive in that car.”

  Lorenzo nodded. “With me.”

  She swallowed and shuddered again. “I don’t like closed spaces. I don’t like darkness, and I don’t like being underground.” She met his gaze. “I would completely freak out. I wouldn’t be rational, and I wouldn’t listen to anything anybody said.”

  Lorenzo averted his gaze. He couldn’t even express how much her answer disappointed him.

  “You have to tell me how the illusion works.”

  Lorenzo caught his breath. “I can’t do that,” he admitted quietly, his chest tight.

  To his surprise, Cassie reached out and took his hand in hers. “I can’t go with you. Not because I don’t trust you. Not because I don’t want to be with you. But because I’ve never faced my fear of darkness, and when I freak out, I’ll endanger both of us. Your escape m
ight fail because of me.”

  Lorenzo blinked. Once again, Cassie had surprised him.

  “I could beguile you,” he offered.

  “Would the beguiling even hold?” Cassie asked. “Didn’t you say that beguiling worked best when the suggestion was something the person wanted to believe?” Lorenzo had to nod agreement to that. Cassie smiled, but her smile was rueful. “No one is ever going to persuade me that being buried alive in a car is a good thing.” She leaned down and kissed his cheek. “Not even you are that good.”

  And there was nothing Lorenzo could say to that.

  Except to create an alternate plan.

  He respected her conviction, her fear, and her choice.

  And he’d prove that to her.

  That was the only way to win her heart.

  What if he met her after the spectacle, after he’d used the flashfire song, after his connection to the Pyr was severed? Could they make a life together then? Lorenzo dared to hope.

  Lorenzo stood up, returned to the car, tugged on his jeans, then walked around the vehicle, ensuring that the scratch on the rear right fender was the only damage. He’d spent a fortune retrofitting this vehicle for this stunt, and it was more important than ever that he survive.

  Balthasar was a problem that had to be solved.

  Immediately.

  If Cassie wasn’t coming with him, if she wasn’t his to defend on Saturday, he had to ensure that there was no threat to her. He couldn’t rely upon Erik and the other Pyr, not over an issue so critical. He had to somehow ensure her safety himself.

  Lorenzo peered at the scratch on the rear fender as if it was much more troubling than it was. He was exhausted, but that was irrelevant. Cassie’s survival had to be guaranteed. His only chance of a future with her was if they both survived independently, then he sought her out.

  He’d find her anywhere. He knew that.

  Lorenzo sensed Balthasar’s presence somewhere nearby, and tried to target him with old-speak. He wished he were better at it, but even this crude effort might do.