Blaze by Susan Johnson

like a brand on her own aching want. And all the complexities of who she was and why she was here were reduced to trivia beside the raging tide of desire racing through her mind and body.
     
    "I understand, bia." The rough-soft voice breathed into her ear, his hardness brushing a languid pattern upward. "Perfectly." His mouth left a fiery trail down her throat, his teeth lightly nipping her satiny shoulder.
     
    She shivered, trembled, died a little at the restrained hunger of the tiny bites, and her arms finally left her sides, drifting up in slow motion to grip his strong shoulders. Holding on against the mists of desire enveloping her, she dreamily murmured, "We should talk money…" Still not completely lost to reason, she breathily added, "… Your claim—"
     
    "Claims," he absently corrected, his hands already moving upward. He removed her arms from his neck and carefully placed them at her sides; then, grasping the thin straps of her chemise, he slid them down, returning to gently tug the fine embroidered silk over the fullness of her breasts. The lacy bodice tightened, not designed to be taken off that way. Single-minded now, Hazard improvised. Forcing her ripe breasts upward with one hand, he gently eased the taut fabric over the swelling curves. Blaze felt his hands like flame on her skin, the pressure sure; she felt the filmy material slide over the cresting tips of her nipples leaving her tingling with want. She trembled, felt the silk of his hair brush her skin, warmth rushing in an intoxicating turbulence downward from her sensitive breasts to a new and irrepressible desire. Balancing tremulously on the heady fringes of the unknown, in a soft rush of words, she whispered, "We really… should talk… about—"
     
    "Later," Hazard interrupted very softly, just before he slowly drew the tip, the nipple, the entire aureole into his mouth and teased gently with his teeth and tongue until Blaze felt sure she would swoon from the pleasure.
     
    In a remote corner of her brain, Blaze realized she should break away, stop this irrational surrender to this man who shocked and thrilled her simultaneously. It was sheer insanity… but an insanity she was powerless to resist.
     
    Hazard only briefly considered how this luscious woman sent up as a sweet bribe was corrupting his principles—only very briefly—and then his head lifted, his hands moved downward and he began unbuckling the narrow leather belt twined around her slender waist.
     
    Blaze was pressed back against the wall near the small table, crushed between it and the throbbing hardness of Hazard's lower body. His lean hips moved rhythmically against her in slow dance of persuasion and lust that caused a tremor in the fingers undoing the gold buckle at her waist. She could feel the full length of him, his roused masculinity like a battering ram testing the way for entry. And when he finally opened the clasp and slid the belt free, it was as if he'd opened her long-dormant passion. Dropping the belt to the floor, he drew her closer, slid a hand down her bottom, and, bringing her up on her toes, forced her to meet the full urgency of his hunger.
     
    Like magnets to the Earth's poles, Blaze's hands glided up Hazard's dark chest, lifted high on his shoulders, and, lacing her fingers around his powerful neck, she melted into his frame. "I shouldn't be doing this," she breathed in a sweet surrendering sigh.
     
    It was the patently coy phrase and what sounded like a carefully orchestrated sigh that suddenly, like a cold drenching cloudburst, brought Hazard to his senses. He froze for the count of ten, looking down into the perfect face. Bloody hell, he thought, hot anger cresting in seconds, was he gong to fall into this strumpet's arms like so much docile meat? Not that he had any intention of selling his claim, but the whole easy acceptance of her brazenly offered body demeaned him.
     
    Suddenly the crude and deliberate victimization by Buhl Mining mattered