Hotter Than Wildfire by Lisa Marie Rice

real, real surprise, because though her voice was soft and sensual, her music wasn’t sexual to him.
    The woman herself was, though. And how. Man, from the second he saw her he’d been stunned senseless. It was only the realization that she was in mortal danger that punched him back to reality.
    When he wanted sex and there wasn’t a woman around, well, his hand knew its way around his body. He could take care of himself.
    Not this time, though. Nope. After a couple of hours of wood, disgusted with himself, he’d gone into the bathroom to take care of the problem, and that’s when his little head blindsided his big head.
    His fist wouldn’t do it. Just wouldn’t cut it. Little head didn’t want the fist. Little head wanted her .
    Another woman wouldn’t do it, either. That was the real shocker. There wasn’t one woman Harry could think of that he desired a billionth as much as he desired the wounded woman on the hospital cot in his study.
    No fist.
    No other women.
    He was shit out of options.
    So he kept the woodie while watching over her. It hurt, but it would have hurt him more to leave her side. To think that she might need something and he wouldn’t be there to get it for her, man, no way.
    Eve moaned and he straightened, watching her face. Her head shook from side to side, eyes beating behind her lids, tracking back and forth like windshield wipers. Whatever she was seeing in her sleep was wildly troubling, scaring her. Fierce cries were throttled in her throat as if even in her sleep she was trying to be quiet. Her breathing speeded up, became ragged. Her legs thrashed.
    A choked whimper rose up out of her throat, the cry an animal might make in the woods at the sight of a terrible predator. A minute before dying. Her heels scrabbled against the sheets as in her dream she tried to scramble away.
    Tears leaked from the corners of her tightly shut eyes and the whimper became a keening sound that made the hairs on his forearms and his neck rise.
    Nightmare city.
    Harry knew all about that. Knew all about the terrors of the night, particularly when they echoed the terrors of the day.
    Harry reached out a hand to shake her gently awake when her eyes suddenly opened, wild and terrified. She gasped, the sound loud in the dark room.
    “It’s okay,” Harry said immediately. God, he wanted to wipe that terrified expression off her face. “It’s just a nightmare. Don’t worry. You’re safe.”
    “Safe,” she repeated in a whisper and shuddered. She said it as if it were an unfamiliar word, an unfamiliar concept.
    Something in his chest tightened. Safe. He was going to keep her safe or die.
    Harry reached out with his thumb to wipe the tear tracks on her cheeks. “Yeah,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Safe.”
    Her eyes roamed around the dark room, though there weren’t that many features for her eyes to fixate on. Harry belonged to the Minimalist School of Home Decoration.
    The room wasn’t giving her any clues, so her gaze roamed right back to his face.
    Harry was used to masking his emotions, had done it all his life. The world was one huge knife just waiting to plunge into soft hearts. He kept a hard carapace around him at all times, surrounded by very strong don’t fuck with me vibes.
    That didn’t work here. She needed reassurance and Harry didn’t know how to do reassurance. So he did the only thing he could. He let down his defenses, for just a moment.
    Everything down, shield, vibes, even his woodie, a little. Because the thought of this magical, beautiful woman wounded and terrified and encased in nightmares was a real downer.
    He looked her straight in her huge, frightened eyes. They glowed green with an almost unearthly light in the gloom of the room, reflecting the lights in the living room. She stared at him, eyes wide, unblinking.
    “You’re safe here, absolutely,” Harry said again. He’d raised his voice a little and it echoed in the room.
    She blinked and breathed out. He realized