Sparks Fly

Chapter Twenty-Five: Interrupted and Cross-Examined

Teagan

He wasn't lying when he said that Rain was making it harder and harder to keep his distance. Everything new he uncovered about the woman behind the Ice Queen persona only attracted him more.

Was he crazy?

Before, when she'd told him she had killed her mother, Teagan hadn't even blinked. It was madness, but he'd been intrigued rather than scared.

He'd suspected there were layers to the woman named Rain Sullivan. He just hadn't been prepared for how deep some of those secrets were buried. It made him wonder what she kept out of her story, because he knew there was more to it than the misplaced guilt of a young girl who snuck out to attend a party.

There were holes in her story that made the bone-chilling despair in those violet eyes such a heartbreaking sight.

Her pain was like a magnetic force to him. Though he tried to put his own pitiful childhood behind him and lived as though he didn't care for the consequences of his actions, he couldn't fight her. The more she pulled away, the deeper he fell under her spell. The less she said in words, the more he listened for the signs so many others missed.

Because despite all the reasons she was all wrong for him, the only thing that mattered was that he had one good reason to ignore the rest.

It was the power she'd held over him since the moment he'd laid eyes on her.

The same spark that had ignited between them at that party so long ago, spiraled out in flames with every taste he got of that sweet mouth of hers, every small bit of truth she slowly relinquished to him.

Today, the fire extinguished everything but the need she aroused in him.

The violet pools of her eyes grew languid, resembling molten velvety depths that could drown him in oblivion if he let go long enough. Purple black holes that beckoned to his lonely soul, and he was too weak to put up much of a fight.

Who moved first he couldn't tell. But that hardly mattered when the end result was the fiery explosion he'd craved since the first kiss they'd shared in the college's parking lot.

Heat. God, he'd never realized how cold a man could become from the superficial matchbox flames that came with one night stands and impersonal relationships. Those flames hardly singed anymore, the fire quickly extinguished in a couple of minutes. But this... this was different. With the Ice Queen, the fire was all-consuming and allowed little room for reasoning.

It dimmed at times when he remembered to keep his distance, but it never died. It was a constant source of warmth that made it impossible for him to turn away.

The taste of her was everything he'd ever craved, everything he'd been denied, all in one. Sweet and tart, soft lips and sharp tongue, peace and chaos, a completely imperfect perfection. And all he could think was more. The sigh that passed through those red, pliant lips of hers as she melted into him wasn't nearly enough. When those same lips parted to allow him entrance into the hot depths within, his mind filled with all the ways he could get closer to her, deeper.

It was insanity, this hunger for so much more than he could ever deserve, but for a man starved, it was as natural as breathing to selfishly want it anyway.

"Isn't it a little early to be crawling into your lady friend's pants?" a raspy voice slurred.

Teagan tensed even as the need to take the woman in his arms burned through his veins. It was an almost painful thing to have to shoulder back into the rigid armor of control he donned to protect himself. Yet he managed to pull away from the fire simply because he refused to subject Rain to the embarrassment that came with being caught fraternizing with Granite Woods' scum.