He growled his approval. “Very what?”
“Hot. Like you.”
He was getting there, his temperature rising along with an erection that was growing harder with every beating pulse of his blood and a need to be inside this woman that was damned near combustible. “I’m seriously thinking it’s time we took this inside.”
“How’s the spa going?”
“It’ll do.”
“Is it bad luck to make love the night before your wedding?”
“I’d say it would be bad luck for the both of us if we didn’t.”
She smiled up at him, the moonlight lighting up the highlights in her hair, matching the golden flecks in her cognac eyes, not waiting to move inside as she got to work unbuttoning his shirt. “That’s the right answer.”
They peeled their clothes off each other as they went, and made it to the bath almost naked, desperate for the touch of skin against skin and the slide of flesh against flesh.
“Perfect,” he said, testing the water.
“Almost,” she said, scooping rose petals from a bowl and scattering them on the surface, the rose perfume released and rising in the heated water.
“I’m going to come out smelling like a flower,” he protested.
“No,” she said, “you’re going to come out smelling like me. If you play your cards right, that is.”
He growled and dragged off what was left of her underwear, testing her slick folds, finding them incendiary as he discarded his own in the rush to get her into the spa after him. He pulled her astride him. Her breasts bobbed on the water, her dark nipples an invitation to his mouth and his swirling tongue, while her core teased his tip, rocking him against her swollen clit.
Until he pulled her down hard as he drove into her and she gasped and cried out and it was like their first, frenetic time together again, except this time it was better, because this time it wasn’t just a moment, this time was a taste of forever.
Afterwards, on the bed where he’d finally bundled her, he pressed his lips to the tattoo on her back. “This is you,” he said, “my phoenix, reborn and strong.”
“You have a lot to do with that.”
“No, you did it, Ava. You had it in you all the time. You pulled yourself from hell and made yourself new again. I’m so proud of you.” He traced the lines of the stylised phoenix on her shoulder and saw her eyelids flutter closed.
And then she spoke. “I can’t forgive her, you know. I don’t think I ever will. But I feel like I understand her more now. She was a prisoner too.” Then she gave a long sigh and opened her eyes. “I was speaking to Dare about the babies.”
His fingers stopped where they were on her skin. “Oh?”
“She let me feel them move. It was incredible. I felt them tumble under my hand. So tiny, but already so strong, and I didn’t want to say anything then, but I’ve been thinking ever since...” She pressed herself up on her elbow and looked evenly at him. “I wondered if I could do that? After all that’s happened, could I be a mother? I mean, a good one?”
“Oh, Ava,” he said, reaching for her hand, pressing his mouth to the back of it, “I’ve seen you with children. You love kids and they love you. You’d be the best kind of mother.”
“Do you really think so?”
“I know so.”
There was moisture in her eyes and he reached up with the pad of one thumb and gently wiped it away.
“I think I’d like to try, that is, if you wanted to. I think I would like to have your babies.”
He felt moisture dampen the corners of his own eyes then, and it was no wonder, as his heart swelled so big for this woman, there was no room for anything else inside his chest. He slid his hand behind her head, lacing his fingers through her hair. He’d never thought himself a poet, but he felt himself coming over all William Shakespeare right about now.
“You know how much I love you, Ava? Do you know how long I will love you? I will love you to the ends of time and I will still be there for you, wherever we are, whatever we are. We’ll be together forever. I promise you.”
Ava smiled, her eyes bright. “I love you, Caleb. Thank you for teaching me how to trust again. Thank you for teaching me not to be afraid of love. Thank you for not giving up on me, when, by rights, you could have walked away.”
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her towards his mouth. “I’m never walking away from you, Ava. Never. Trust me on that.”
“I do,” she said, testing out the words she’d need tomorrow, before his lips met hers and his kiss told her it was true.
The End
The Hot Aussie Knights
Headed by grandfather Leonard (The Legend) Knight, the Knight family is fire-fighting royalty in Australia. Two generations have followed in Leonard’s highly distinguished footsteps and nowadays, despite being scattered across the length and breadth of Australia, it’s the five Knight cousins who keep the Hot Aussie Knight legacy alive, working hard and playing hard, day and night.
Book 1: Hot Mess by Amy Andrews
Book 2: Burning Both Ends by Sinclair Jayne
Book 3: Long Hot Summer by Victoria Purman
Book 4: Burning Love by Trish Morey
Enjoy an exclusive excerpt from...
Hot Mess
Book 1 in the Hot Aussie Knight series
Copyright © 2017 Amy Andrews
Logan Knight stood at the upstairs windows of the firehouse with his brother Duncan indulging in one of their favourite pastimes – guess the panties. So far they’d spotted several thongs, a lot of bikini briefs and the odd pair of grundies—granny undies.
One of the advantages of the house being in the centre of Brisbane was its proximity to the large population of female workers.
