“That was a pretty prestigious win. I know the Linear guys were a little surprised. They never expected somebody nonmilitary to win it.”
She still didn’t get it. Didn’t see the top-five pattern.
Didn’t see that she was the pattern.
She guessed some more, and they talked about other things he’d done and ones they’d done together.
“I’m going to have to think about this longer. I can’t believe I can’t guess it right off the bat.”
Honestly, he couldn’t believe it either.
They were silent for long minutes, him rubbing her naked back with the tips of his fingers and listening to the storm outside. They couldn’t go anywhere until that passed anyways.
“I let Zac know we were here. He said to wait out the storm.”
She nodded against his chest. “Your backpack is at the bottom of the ravine.”
“I know. Finn is going to be a little pissed since he let me borrow it. Not to mention it’s going to be a bitch going the last two days with no prepackaged food.”
“You’re not going to quit?”
“Ha. Who are you talking to, woman? There’s nothing in the rules that says we have to eat MREs. I’m certainly capable of feeding myself in the wild for two days. I’ve done it longer than that under much harsher conditions. Not only am I going to finish WAR, I’m going to win.”
“Of course you are,” she whispered. “That’s what you do. Phoenix. You rise from the ashes and go and do and win.”
Why did that not sound like a good thing? “Wildfire…”
His lifestyle was crazy. He knew that. In the beginning stages of their relationship, he’d gone out of his way to help her adjust to the travel, the cameras, the people who sometimes surrounded him. He wasn’t a movie star, or someone truly famous like Cade Connor, the country music superstar who was dating Riley’s best friend, Peyton. But Phoenix’s life could get overwhelming.
Yet from the very beginning, Riley had handled it in stride. She was confident in her own abilities as a nurse—which were way more important and impressive than somebody who could jump out of an airplane anyway—and always seemed willing to let him have the limelight when needed for his stunts.
They’d made the crazy life work. Done whatever they’d had to to make it work. So what was this emotion weighting her voice now?
Resentment? How could he have missed that for so long?
“Wildfire, if I have been unfair to you these years with how I lived my life, I’m so sorry.” He started to sit up so he could look her in the eyes, but she pushed him back down.
“No. Don’t apologize for all the amazing things you’ve done. All the amazing things you’re still going to do.”
“We can still do them together.” Desperation tore at him. There was something in her voice he couldn’t quite label, but it was bad. It was the heart of why she’d left him. “Do you want to come on more trips? Fewer? I know you love it here in Oak Creek. I know your job is here. With the new Adventure Channel show, I’ll have a lot more flexibility and say in where and when I go.”
Maybe now was the time to tell her. The greatest adventure. What the tattoo really meant.
“Listen. I don’t know how you and I got so far off our track. And I’m so sorry I didn’t recognize there was a problem.” The feel of the skin of her back under his fingertips was the only thing keeping him sane. “I want to tell you about the tattoo. About my greatest adventure.”
“No! I want to guess.”
Her words were emphatic enough that he was sort of stunned into silence. “Okay.”
“The wakeboarding tournament you won in Dubai.”
“No.”
“The race across the volcano in Iceland.”
“No.”
“Kiteboarding in Nepal. Surfing in Maui. BASE jumping in Brazil.” Her voice was becoming more and more frantic. Jesus. What was going on here? Once again, something he didn’t understand.
“Riley, stop.”
“Freeclimbing the Todra Gorge. Winning the motocr—”
He kissed her. He did it to shock her and get her attention, but her lips fused to his in a way that turned the tables.
She hooked her leg over his hip and swung herself up so she was lying fully on top of him, never taking her mouth from his.
He slid his fingers into her hair at her nape, holding her in place. Her tongue licked along his bottom lip, and he nipped at it.
She scored her nails across his shoulders and neck in retaliation.
Wildfire had always given as good as she’d gotten.
God yes, he wanted this. He wanted to slow it down, take their time, but when she began kissing her way down his jaw, over his chest, then across his abs, then…
His hips shot off the floor and breath hissed out of his throat when she took him into her mouth. His hands flew down to her head, holding her, guiding her, not that she needed it.
He was alternating between panting and cursing as she licked his length. When her tongue slid over his crown, his head arched back, lifting his shoulders off the ground.
“God, Wildfire.”
“I love driving you crazy.”
She’d always been able to. But, hell, she drove him crazy when her mouth wasn’t even on the same continent as his dick.
She took him deep inside her mouth again and every coherent thought flew from his mind. His fingers were still wrapped in her hair. He loved the feel of it—no matter what color it was—through his fingers as her head moved up and down.
“I’m not going to last another thirty seconds if you keep that up.”
She worked him with her hand as she peeked up at him, devil in her eye. “Maybe I don’t want you to last.”
In all his travels he’d never seen anything as beautiful as her so confident and sexy with her sly smile.
But he knew as soon as this was over, they’d be going back to whatever was broken between them. He didn’t want that, or at least he wanted to delay it for as long as possible.
Definitely longer than thirty seconds.
There was one good way he knew to make sure that happened.
The best possible way to make that happen.
She was about to take him in her mouth again, up the score in some sort of game he didn’t understand the rules to, when he sat up and grabbed her by the waist.
She squealed as he lay back down on the ground, dragging her up his chest until her thighs were on either side of his head.
“Now let’s see how long you can last with the roles reversed, Wildfire.”
“Riley, I am—”
Whatever she was going to say was lost as he wrapped his hands around her hips and pulled her down onto his mouth.
God, he loved everything about this woman. Loved her brain, loved the way she laughed, loved her smile, loved her taste.
Definitely loved the way she sighed his name over and over as he devoured her.
She tried to pull away as her sounds became more fevered, but there was no way he was going to let her go.
He knew the exact moment she passed the point of reason and got caught up in what her body was feeling. She collapsed forward, catching her weight on her hands, and ground down against his face. He worked his tongue against her clit over and over in the steady motion he knew she wanted, her thigh tensing under his hands as he held her open to him.