Let It Burn by Dee Ellis

could feel like I wanted him to own me. Could feel like I needed him somehow. Because I did.
    His smile was like the sun and the heat in his eyes and the warmth of his laugh were too. I needed light in my life again. Needed it; that’s why I felt I could need Cage. Because he could own me and bring me light and warmth. But I could have it ripped away again if what he did every day, what he loved to do every day from the sounds of it, went wrong just once.
    Didn’t matter if I wanted Cage Cooper. Even if he maybe wanted me. I couldn’t let myself have him. Because loss was a truth he couldn’t deny. Something I would have to risk by letting him close. I couldn’t take that risk.
    Something told me losing someone like Cage would be like losing the sun.

Cage
     
     
     
    Charli chose to run. Woman didn’t know she couldn’t run too far from me. Not after I realized just what I had found. Charli was it. I don’t know what made me so certain. Because I was certain. The minute I looked at her and she looked back up at me, it had been there. The something that I needed.
    It was everything that she had. I wanted to take the sadness out of her eyes, make her smile again. I wanted to hear that sound from the back of her throat as she came for me and know it meant she was mine. Somehow I think Charli knew just what happened when we met and so she ran. I would let her run for now because, to be honest, it had freaked me the fuck out too.
    Oh I talked a good spiel about knowing I had a woman out there, waiting for me. I knew it had been true for my parents. Maybe even for Regan and Parker. If I had really, truly believed all that talk, I wasn’t sure. I wanted to of course. I wanted more than burying myself in someone just to scratch an itch.
    I wanted to want someone badly enough that it felt like that itch could never go away. That I could take them again and again, give them everything and take everything and it wouldn’t be enough. There had never been someone who I had thought for one moment could make me feel that. Who could make me want nothing but to consume them and let them consume me.
    Then I looked into the sad, beautiful eyes of Charli Dixon and I knew. That I wanted to consume her. Needed to. As badly as I wanted her to consume me. It was so sudden and so absolutely unexpected. I thought I had been looking for it and maybe I had. Not in the right places, obviously.
    Because the moment I wasn’t, there she was. Of course she ran because it was terrifying. To look into someone’s eyes and know that was it. This person was it for you and you wouldn’t need or want anything else again.
    Just by being near her, looking into her eyes and watching her look back at me, I knew. Charli was my it and we both knew it and she was so terrified she ran.
    “Tell me about Charli, Sweet Sara.” I urged once the group broke up and began milling about the atrium.
    “What, exactly, do you want to know, Cage?” Sara knew me and that meant she knew about my sordid past.
    “Everything. I want to know everything.” My voice carried with it more than a question, it was a plea and she seemed to take note.
    “Not yet, Cage. No you don’t, not yet. I just got her," Sara looked stricken and I was startled to hear a bite in her voice, “We need her here. More than you need a body to warm your bed, Cage Cooper.” Well shit, that stung.
    “Sara. Not her. I don’t know why, but not her.” I knew by the weariness in her bright green eyes she didn’t buy it.
    “Before you get to her, you go through me, Cage. I adore her,” I was shocked to see Sara’s eyes gloss over, “for purely selfish reasons. Reminds me of someone from another life. I don’t have it in me to let you hurt her. Charli is better than a fuck and a fuck you. Which is your typical M.O., yes or no?”
    “Not exactly,” I winced as we stepped away from the kids, our voices low, “but I have a few more notches than I’m proud of. Sara...I thought I was searching