Fireworks: Riley by Liliana Hart Page A

his phone out of his pocket, but knew it was useless even as he tried to check his text messages and email. He was in the middle of nowhere, and cell service was only good closer to the city. His focus had been split since the beginning of the dig, and his thoughts kept going back to the text Maggie had sent the day after he’d arrived in Egypt.
    Looks like we’re not pregnant again. Looking forward to trying again. Miss you and love you always.
    They’d had the same results for more than a year now, and he knew without being there how painful that message must have been for her to type. Each month had been a little more difficult than the previous, and watching the disappointment and heartbreak on her face tore him in two.
    Somehow, over the course of the last several months, making love had turned into a mission to get pregnant. Not that he didn’t enjoy those intimacies with his wife. Maggie was an adventuress in and out of the bedroom. But being intimate with each other should never feel like a chore. And fitting in sex between their hectic schedules and when Maggie was ovulating made it feel like nothing but.
    What they needed was to get back to the basics. To take some time away where it was just the two of them—no work and no worries. Where they could play and laugh and experiment. Where they could spend twenty-four hours a day secluded and naked, exploring each other’s bodies and satisfying only each other.
    The thought of Maggie naked—that lean, supple body stretched out before him—her breasts rosy tipped and begging for his mouth to suckle them and her wrists cuffed and fastened to the headboard, had his cock swelling behind the zipper of his cargo pants. He couldn’t remember the last time they “played” with the various toys and restraints in their collection.
    He’d always had a varied and unusual sexual appetite. Not as unusual as his brother Cooper, but enough that not all women were comfortable with the things he enjoyed. He’d respected that choice of his partners before he found Maggie, but he hadn’t always been satisfied. But Maggie was his sexual match in every way.
    Riley took a long sip of water from the canteen slung at his hip and then poured some on the back of his neck to cool his heated skin. He had the urge to say to hell with the dig and get on the first flight out of Cairo. He could have Maggie naked and trussed up in the restraints attached to their bed, her pussy spasming around his cock as she cried out in release, in less than twenty-four hours.
    “Dr. MacKenzie.”
    Riley blew out a sigh of frustration and willed his body back under control before he turned around to see who was calling him. He took his glasses out of his shirt pocket and slipped them on.
    A young woman of nineteen or twenty sashayed from the covered area she’d been working under and stopped just in front of him, so their bodies were almost touching. Riley took an automatic step back.
    She was a pretty girl. Not overly bright. But she at least had good hands and didn’t damage the artifacts. Her white blond hair was pulled in a loose bun on top of her head and strands of hair fluttered around her heart-shaped face. Unlike the others on his team, she didn’t bother with long pants and the light cotton shirts that acted as a natural cooling system for the body. He’d tried to tell her the benefits, but she’d been determined to wear the tiny shorts and halter-tops. At least she’d gotten a great tan out of it.
    She was one of his newer interns. Rachel. Or maybe Rebecca. He had a tendency to go through interns like water, so he never bothered to learn their names unless they proved they could make it through an entire dig without crying or messing something vital up. He didn’t tolerate incompetence. Too much was at stake.
    “Is there a problem?” he asked.
    “Oh, no, Dr. MacKenzie.” She batted big blue eyes at him and he looked down at his watch, wondering if he could make it back to the city