Sharing Hazel: Lick of Fire Page 5

  Ah well. There was always tomorrow.

  He didn’t know if something of his disappointment showed on his face or if she was simply thinking along the same lines he did, but when she said, “I could use a steady hand to wash my back,” her slight grin and husky voice confirmed that the separation had felt very long for Hazel too.

  Darkness was beginning to fall when they reached their home, a one-story ranch at the end of a long gravel-covered driveway.

  “Did you get it painted?” Hazel asked, squinting at the house as she exited the car. “It seems lighter.”

  “No, I just cleaned the sideboards. But I did get some work done inside. Wanna see?”

  He was already unlocking the heavy front door, which was made of just one thick wood panel. Swinging it open, he let her enter first.

  “Later,” she said with a yawn. “That shower is calling my name.”

  And indeed, she made a beeline for the bathroom, Paris right on her heels. She peeled her clothes off before he could offer to help, but he didn’t mind merely watching. There was no teasing to her undressing—she really did seem tired—but even so, each inch of flesh she revealed made Paris ache to touch her.

  Finally nude and comfortable in her own skin, she turned on the water in the shower stall, though she didn’t climb in and worked on pinning up her hair instead while the water warmed up. It involved a lot of twisting, a couple of elastic hair bands and probably a generous dose of magic to finally make her multitude of long braids behave.

  “You’re just gonna watch, then?” she asked, flashing him an impish smile as she pulled the shower door open. “And here I thought you’d missed me.”

  He undressed so fast that he only climbed in a second after her. She had her back to him and already water cascaded over her silken skin, forming trails and paths he ached to follow with his fingers and mouth.

  “Will you soap me up?” she asked, throwing a smoldering glance over her shoulder.

  In his haste to comply, Paris dropped the bottle of shower gel. He didn’t chastise himself for it, though, not when bending down to retrieve it gave him the perfect opportunity to graze his teeth against the irresistible curve of Hazel’s ass.

  She gave a choked gasp at that, and Paris was tempted, oh so tempted, to remain down here and coax that sweet sound from her lips again. But no, there’d be time for that later, and time, too, to satisfy the need pulsing through his hardened cock. For now, she’d demanded to be soaped up; how could he resist this offer to worship every inch of her sensual body?

  Pouring a generous measure of ‘spring rain’ into his palm, he started with her shoulders, so vulnerable-looking now that her pinned hair left them exposed. He could feel tension there, and spent a moment massaging those knots until they loosened with a sigh from Hazel. Stepping a little closer to her, close enough that his cock nestled against the crack of her ass, he reached around and stroked her collarbones, working his way down to her breasts in slow circles. She leaned back against his chest as he did, offering him a plunging view over her shoulder.

  Although on the small side, her breasts were, to him, sheer perfection. He could have spent the rest of his life teasing her nipples to hard peaks so he could pinch them between his thumbs and forefingers, over and over, drawing sultry whimpers from his mate’s throat that went straight to his groin.

  One day, he promised himself not for the first time, he’d take her apart by touching nothing more than her nipples. They were so sensitive, so responsive that he was convinced he could make her climax like that. She’d beg and plead for more, of course, and it’d be torture for himself not to succumb, but once he pushed her past that edge, once he showed her—

  “Not that I’m not enjoying this,” she murmured, wiggling her ass against his cock, “but I need more. I need you. Now.”

  And with that, Paris’ plans to take his time and rediscover every last bit of her washed down the drain with what was left of the shower gel.

  “As my lady demands,” he breathed, his hands already roaming over her ticklish stomach to cup the apex of her legs. She spread them a little, allowing him to discover wetness that had nothing to do with the shower.

  Ever so briefly, a question flitted through his mind: did she maybe need him inside her to remind herself of what it felt like to be fucked by him after another had taken her? He chased the thought away. Even if it was the case, now was hardly the time to ask.

  Nuzzling her neck, he pressed her pliant body forward, guiding her hands to rest on the tiles. Water continued to cascade over them and he quickly changed the angle of the nozzle so her hair wouldn’t get soaked. As he ran his hands over her sumptuous curves, she parted her legs a little more, giving him full access to her core.

  He clasped her hip with one hand and gripped his cock with the other. He thought briefly of toying with her, of teasing her until she was begging for him to ravish her… but already his own will was frayed, the goddess in front of him inflaming his desire beyond control.

  “God, I’ve missed the feel of you,” he groaned, tracing her slippery folds with the tip of his cock. “I want to—”

  “Yes,” she cut in breathlessly, bucking back against him so brusquely that the very tip of him slipped inside her. “Yes. I want that too.”

  If this wasn’t permission to plunder her, he didn’t know what was.

  He plunged inside her without further warning, driving his cock deep. She moaned, almost sobbed, and the sound electrified him. Gripping her hips tight, he surged into her repeatedly, and with each thrust his ardor only flared further. His mind narrowed down to the sensations of her body around his, of the blissful music rising from her throat, and he lost all sense of time.

  He couldn’t have said how long their coupling lasted, the slams of his hips against hers only encouraged by the way she pressed back against him. All he knew was that each deep slide scraped his nerves raw, pushing him higher and higher until he was ready to explode—but he wanted Hazel to shatter first.

  And shatter, she did, with a cry of his name that made Paris roar out his own bliss.

  The aftermath of ecstasy was a long, languorous embrace, chest to chest and lips to lips. Paris’ mate was home at last.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Paris climbed out of the shower first, grabbing two towels from under the sink. He quickly dried himself with one before tying it up at his waist. When Hazel finally turned off the water and came out from behind the curtain, he wrapped her into the second towel, gently patting her dry as he did.

  She let him work, seemingly content to put herself in his care. He loved that soft, satisfied smile on her face, a little sleepy, a little dreamy, but so tender as she looked at him that it felt like she was caressing his cheek. Throwing the towel over the shower curtain bar, he swooped her up into his arms just to hear her laugh. God, he’d never get enough of that laugh. Even if he heard it once a day for the rest of his life, it still wouldn’t be enough.

  She curled up against his chest, pressing a kiss at the base of his neck, and he carried her, bride-style, to the bedroom. He wasn’t much of a homemaker, but fresh sheets and a bouquet of flowers on the dresser to welcome her back were within his abilities.

  He set her down on the bed and she slid under the sheets, opening them to welcome him next to her. He turned off the light before he climbed in and immediately drew her into his arms. He’d been sleeping poorly since she’d left for her mission. The bed had seemed too big, too empty. And there had also been that question at the back of his mind. Not jealousy, he’d promised himself it wouldn’t come to that, but simply the desire to know if she was with Petro again. Paris would be fine with it, just as long as she didn’t hide it from him.

  She hadn’t brought it up, though, so it seemed she was leaving it to him to broach the subject.

  “Love? Can I ask you something?”

  Her answer was a sleepy little hum. Paris thought about dropping the question, but in the end he needed to know. He was willing to accep
t just about anything to make this work, but what he needed in return was complete honesty.

  “I’ve told you before I’d be okay with it, and I mean that,” he said softly, breathing the words against the shell of her ear. “I really do. But I need to know. Did you and Petro sleep together?”

  No sooner had he finished speaking that Hazel was tearing herself out of his arms. If she’d been drifting toward sleep just a moment ago, she seemed more than awake as she retrieved some clothes from the dresser, banging the drawers closed before putting on a camisole and pajama pants.

  “No.” She all but spat out the word, and repeated it for good measure. “No, I did not cheat on you. However much it seems like you want me to cheat, that’s not something I care to do.”

  “It’s not…”

  Already, she was striding out, slamming the bedroom door behind her.

  “Like that,” Paris finished with a sigh.

  He remained where he was for a slow count of two hundred, his eyes fixed unseeingly on the ceiling. Well, he’d messed that one up rather spectacularly.

  From the day he’d met her, all he’d wanted was for Hazel to be happy. When he’d realized she was already in a relationship with a man who wore her name on his wrist, like Paris did, he’d figured she wasn’t his Hazel—not his mate, however much he was attracted to her. It could have all ended there if she hadn’t sought him out a few days later.

  She’d shown him her wrist.

  Blinded with happiness that his name was on her skin, he hadn’t stopped for a second to wonder what the two other names next to his could possibly mean. He’d kissed her, a brief caress of his lips against hers—and had realized only when she pulled back with wide eyes that she already had a boyfriend.

  He’d apologized for letting his enthusiasm get the best of him. She’d apologized in return, although she hadn’t said for what. She’d left in a rush, flustered, and something inside him had died at the thought that he might just have lost every chance he had to be with her.

  When she’d returned, three days later, the first thing she’d told him was that she was single now. Then she’d asked if he wanted to have lunch with her. They were a couple before the week was over… but she’d never quite explained why she had broken up with Petro. And she was the one who had ended it, there was no doubt about that. Petro’s sullen if silent glares made that quite clear.

  There was one other thing Paris didn’t doubt: she still loved Petro. For one thing, they were mates, and Paris believed wholeheartedly in mate tattoos, so he couldn’t imagine that she’d fallen out of love. For the other, if she didn’t love him anymore, she wouldn’t want to be around him, and would have resigned from the squad to avoid going on missions with him.

  Paris didn’t like the thought of having to share his mate, but he liked even less the idea that Hazel believed she needed to break her own heart to be with him. He wanted her to be happy, and if she had more than one mate, it meant that her happiness depended on all of them.

  Now if she would only accept that Paris meant it when he told her she could be with Petro without losing him…

  Well, of course, it’d depend on Petro accepting the situation as well; come to think of it, Paris didn’t know how he felt about it. Hazel had told him that no, Petro hadn’t issued her any sort of ultimatum, but she hadn’t said much more than that.

  When enough time had passed that she’d had a chance to cool down, he stood, threw on a pair of boxers and walked out of the bedroom. The front door was open, and through it he could see her sitting on the front porch. He went to the kitchen without bothering to turn on the lights. Without thinking, he turned to the far wall, where two doors had been installed while she was gone—along with an addition to the house behind them. Maybe now wasn’t the best time to show her.

  He busied himself for a few moments before joining her outside.

  “I’m sorry,” he offered in a quiet voice, holding out her favorite mug to her, filled to the brim with hot cocoa the way she liked it—with just a splash of bourbon. “I was just teasing you. You know I’d be fine with it if it happened, right? When I said you could and I wouldn’t hold it against you, I meant that. It wasn’t… it wasn’t a test or anything like that. I’d never do that to you.”

  While she did accept the mug from him and took slow sips of cocoa, she didn’t look at him and continued to stare out into the distance. He sat in the wooden chair next to hers, sipping on his own mug—just bourbon, this one, and only halfway full. He knew her, and knew she’d talk when she was ready. Whether she’d then call him an asshole or admit she’d slept with Petro…

  Neither option was appealing, but really, it wasn’t like he’d have a legitimate complaint about either.

  On the horizon, behind a field of growing wheat, the sky was beginning to lighten, not fully black anymore, but the deep, dark blue that announced the sun was on its way. For most of his life, Paris had lived in a city so large that darkness only existed during power outages, and sunrises or sunsets where something that was only ever witnessed in between buildings.

  Moving to Sanctuary had changed his life in many ways, not the least of which was that he’d found his mate here. He missed the bustling streets and sheer life of the city sometimes, but being able to watch sunrises from his front porch with his mate at his side certainly seemed like a good enough trade off.

  The sun had just started to drift lazily over the horizon when Hazel reached out toward him, palm up. He wrapped his hand over hers and gave a gentle squeeze. He allowed himself a small smile. If she was reaching out to him, she couldn’t be all that upset. His relief was short lived, however.

  “His brother was taken,” she said softly.

  Paris frowned as he looked at her, trying to understand.

  “His brother?” he repeated. “You mean, Petro’s?”

  He hadn’t known Petro had a brother. Then again, he didn’t really know much of anything about the man other than the fact that they both wore Hazel’s name tattooed on the inside of their wrists. A strange thing to have in common—an uncomfortable thing—but not one either of them could change.

  She gave an absent nod.

  “Okay…” he said, drawling, when she didn’t go on. He wasn’t sure why she was telling him this. “Taken by whom? The UIPP? Is he going to get him out?”

  The Unit for Investigation of Paranormal Persons was, as far as he was concerned, little more than a band of vigilantes who could only continue harassing paras because they were sanctioned by the government. They used to be strictly volunteers, but over the years they’d all but become a branch of the military. From what he knew, most missions Hazel did with the squad pitted her against the UIPP, so Paris wasn’t overly concerned when she said, “I told him I’d help him get him out.”

  A second later, his heart sank to the level of the center of the Earth when she added, “His name is Paul.”

  Without quite realizing what he was doing, he tightened his hand over hers again; this time, it probably wasn’t all that gentle.

  As time had passed since he’d met her, he’d grown used to the idea of having to share her. It wasn’t like he had much of a choice, really. His name wasn’t the only one on her wrist, and there wasn’t anything he, Hazel or anyone else could so about that. Petro had already been in her life when Paris met her—already been her lover. Paris hadn’t asked her to choose, but she had chosen, closing one relationship to start a new one. From the start, Paris had suspected that, sooner or later, Petro would reenter her bed, and that was why he’d made it clear she had his blessing—she certainly was no child to need his permission.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her. He just believed in the meaning of the mate tattoos more than she did. But that third name on her wrist… Paris had tried not to think about that name and what it meant. Sharing her with one person, someone she’d loved before falling in love with him was one thing. But sharing her with two men? Somehow, that seemed a lot more complicated.

 
; He realized suddenly that she was looking at him, her eyes so piercing he felt naked in front of her—which granted, wasn’t far from the truth seeing how he wore nothing more than boxers. As new as their relationship still was, she’d always been able to read him like a cherished book open to her favorite passage.

  “Changing your mind about how I should follow my tattoos to whatever bed they lead me to, huh?”

  ‘Yes’ might have been truthful, but in the end cowardly. And if there was one thing Paris refused to be, it was a coward.

  “No,” he said strongly, trying to convince both her and himself. “I’m not changing my mind about anything. And I’ll prove it to you. I’ll come with you and Petro. I’ll help.”

  A snort wasn’t the reaction he’d hoped for.

  “You have no combat training,” Hazel said, and while she didn’t roll her eyes, her tone certainly hinted that she wanted to.

  “Not true,” he said, not bothering to hide his satisfaction at contradicting her on this point. “I’ve taken the basic combat course while you were gone.”

  It was something he’d talked about for a while before finally signing up for the training offered by Sanctuary’s leadership. Hazel had encouraged him to do it whenever he brought it up, but she’d never pushed him to take that final step and sign up for it, leaving it to him to decide. He’d sometimes wondered if she’d prefer he not complete the training, the first step toward joining the squad in their operations to free paras from imprisonment.

  Every time that doubt crept up, he reminded himself that she wasn’t one to say anything to please whomever she was talking to. If she hadn’t wanted him to take that training, she’d have said so. And yet, she didn’t look particularly impressed now.

  “The basic course isn’t enough preparation to go in the field,” she said flatly. “What did they teach you? How to pick a codename and use communication systems?”

  “And a lot of other things,” he countered, a little miffed. “And I’m bringing my medical training to the equation, too. What would you or Petro do if his brother was hurt? Or if one of you gets wounded?”