Born Into Fire Read online

  Chapter Six

  Erion paused in trailing a finger from nipple to pussy. Color glowed brighter where he touched. Fire danced through her hair, and an amber glow radiated just beneath the surface of her skin. She was magnificent, and she was his…for this moment. He leaned forward and brushed her lips with his. She opened her mouth. Fire sparked behind her eyelids. Tongues tangled, and he closed his eyes in wonderment of the heat radiating from her.

  Awe turned to savage hunger. Erion devoured her skin with his mouth—her lips, chin, neck, breasts. He rolled his tongue against one nipple, then the other, and finally sucked the first into his greedy mouth. Tiny sparks stung, then snapped. Kenna arched her pelvis.

  She needed him.

  “Airiana.”

  The whispered name startled him. He faltered.

  “Erion?” Kenna questioned.

  He sucked in a breath. She lay before him on the cusp. He had sworn to keep Aiden from interfering with her emerging element. Yet Erion himself now posed the greater danger. And all because she was his mate. Anguish tightened his chest. What sort of sick cosmic joke was this? Most Elements went lifetimes, even eons, before encountering their mates. Yet he’d found his barely into his life as an Element, and she not yet born into fire. And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

  “Please,” she pleaded.

  His cock throbbed. Pre-cum dripped from the slit in the crown. He needed to pound into her channel with all the power of his body and his element. Already, her fire drew on his air with an intensity that said she was near emergence. If she transformed while their bodies were joined, would he be able to keep his element from emerging?

  “I need you.” She reached down, fingered her slit, and parted her folds.

  Moisture clung to her curls and glistened on her flushed pussy. Heat radiated out and upward. His cock jerked. He had to be inside her. She was safe as long as he stayed in human form.

  Kenna grabbed his arm, pulled him close, then wrapped her legs around his waist and rubbed her juices on his belly. “Don’t stop.”

  Heat like thick, molten lava scorched a trail across his cool skin. Erion grasped her legs and opened them wider. He wrapped his fingers around the base of his rigid shaft, fit the head to her opening, and plunged into her. A torrent of need built like a churning whirlpool leading to his center. Faster. Harder. Her hot sheath sucked him deep, gripped him, and scorched his length. Friction increased.

  Flames leaped to life in the glory hole furnace. Wind rattled the rafters. Erion stamped down his element. A mental cry of agony rang through his head even as weightlessness fell in on him. Pleasure radiated out from his core. His orgasm began to build—an all-encompassing sensation. Slapping sounds of their wet joined bodies penetrated the rapture. Erion snapped from the trance. No! He could not shift. Kenna lifted to meet his frenzied thrusts. Faster.

  Her channel tightened around him. Another moment and she would orgasm—this time, with him inside her. Her skin glowed. He startled at the sight of an ethereal aura surrounding her. Nearly white, the energy radiated from her in dancing waves. Of its own accord, his wind funneled from his core into the primal fire smoldering within her.

  His heart soared. Like the gravitational pull of the sun, her fire drew his energy. Heat intensified, glowing brighter. Spasms clenched her internal walls tight to his shaft. Hot cream flooded from her pussy onto his balls. Scorching heat radiated from her and surrounded him.

  He gritted his teeth against the compulsion to merge. Kenna opened her eyes. Fire glinted in her desire-clouded gaze. If he stared into that fire…No! Erion pulled from her body. The white light snapped back around her like a rubber band. She cried out. He forced back the shock of separation. Her fire had died without his air. He breathed in ragged gasps. Her element was safe…and he had remained a man.

  He lifted her from the table and set her feet on the floor. “Bend over and hold on.”

  She stared, eyes unfocused, and he roughly turned her. “Grab the table,” he ordered.

  She grasped the edges. Erion gripped her hips, slipped his cock inside her channel, and pistoned into her drenched passage. She rose onto tiptoes, giving him deeper penetration. He groaned. Arm muscles bunched as his grasp on her hips tightened.

  He ran his thumb over the dimples just above her buttocks. She threw her head back, auburn hair cascading over her shoulders. He thrust into her with greater force. Kenna convulsed around him. Her entire body clenched and trembled with release.

  The exquisite friction drew his balls up tight. Blood rushed from his head. “Ah, fuck.” A final thrust, hard and deep, lifted her off the ground. His cock pulsed as hot ribbons of cum shot from his shaft. He remained buried full hilt until the last of the spasms ebbed. He wrapped his arms around Kenna and clutched her close to keep her from collapsing.

  Erion closed his eyes, trembling, and breathed deeply of her scent. What had he done?

  ****

  Erion leaned against the wall. He’d put on his jeans but left the button undone. He shouldn’t touch her again, but he’d proven he could and not shift into element form—and he intended to have as much of her as possible until she was out of reach. He wasn’t sure what he’d do once her fire emerged, but getting as far away from her as possible was number one on the agenda. The moon might not be far enough, but he’d bury himself in some hole in China if he had to.

  Once her element emerged, it would call to him with an intensity that would make what they’d already experienced look like child’s play. And it would be like that every time their sparks were compelled to merge. If not the first time, eventually, he would consume her. She would never be safe with him.

  “We’re going to begin with an easy piece,” Kenna’s soft voice broke into the cloud of desperation forming around him. She dipped the tip of a preheated blowpipe into the crucible and gathered molten glass on the end. “You want to pick up the glass like you might gather honey on a spoon.”

  He heard the words, but his attention was on the movement in her arms, the flow of energy between her and the heat. He’d never seen anything like it. She had no concept of how she controlled the fire in the glass. He bit back the laugh that had been tickling the back of his throat since she’d stretched the red-striped tube socks with toes cut out over her arms.

  “I didn’t see socks in the art-store supplies.”

  Kenna chuckled. “This glass is about two thousand degrees.” She cast him a glance over her shoulder. “Which explains the orange glow.”

  “Smart-ass.”

  “You’d be the expert on asses,” she said, “since you’ve been staring at mine the last hour.”

  “It’s a beautiful shape.”

  “My ass or the glass?”

  A corner of her mouth twitched, but she kept her eyes on the glass as she rolled the ball of molten mass onto a thick flat sheet of steel to cool as she shaped it. When she picked up the blowpipe and pressed her lips to the tube to blow, Erion took a step toward her.

  She put up a hand in warning. “When you’re near, I get feverish. I need to work the piece before it cools.”

  “So once you commit to a blowjob, you see it to the end?”

  She rolled her eyes but snorted a laugh and continued to blow and work the piece against the fruitwood blocks.

  Minutes turned into an hour, and Erion found himself lost in a world of shapes and color he hadn’t known existed. Her world. Though she wasn’t yet aware of it, Kenna had already begun to merge with her art. She lost herself in the art and seemed unaware of his presence until she picked up a new tool, named it, explained its use, then demonstrated with a patience that touched him.

  First, she formed a bottom, then began blowing sides. Erion soon recognized the beginnings of a scalloped bowl. Once the cantaloupe-size bowl was formed, she curled one end up on itself, then began blowing something into the bowl’s center. One, two, and finally three thinner scalloped bowls shared the space in a variety of fluttering shapes and iridescent
blues, pinks, and purples. The sea, Erion thought, and pictured filmy sea creatures floating through their watery element. She transferred the piece to an iron rod she’d called a punty and spent another half hour finalizing sides and edges.

  When she finally sat back, scrutinized the piece, then proudly pronounced it finished for now, Erion forced himself to breathe, then extended a hand. “Come here.”

  Kenna smiled, and mischief sparkled in her hazel eyes as she rolled the socks down her arms. She dropped them on the floor and hurried toward him. His cock thickened, pushing boldly against his jeans. His balls tingled and tightened. Kenna stepped into his arms. Heat pulsed in his core.

  A tremor rocked his belly. Fire, her element, the cause of both color and form, was calling not just his element, but his body, emitting powerful waves of energy. Always, Element sought Element. The body was the pleasure point. But now…Erion breathed deep and kissed her, releasing a breath into her mouth and, despite knowing he only shortened their time, fed the fire emerging in her.

  The tingle increased, vibrating out his cock. As her element drew closer to the surface, she would need more from him. Like any hungry beast, she would take as much as he allowed. She deepened the kiss, her mouth moist and warm. He envisioned endless days with her at the furnace, him feeding her fire while she created art, her feeding his need for her. Tasting her, licking her, fucking her. He was her mate. It should be him who completed her just as she would him. Instead, he was the man who would spread dirt over her empty grave if he stayed with her.

  Kenna hugged him tighter, and his heart wrenched. Those days would remain a dream. He would stay until that last moment before she transformed. The Giris. Right now, he planned on making her come, again and again, until she screamed. Then burst into flames, his mind quietly added, but—Erion’s mind jerked to attention in unison with the slam of a car door.

  Aiden Stiles.

  Kenna broke from the kiss. She hurried to the window on the street side of the workshop and shoved back the curtain. Hairs prickled on the back of Erion’s neck. Aiden strode up the driveway.

  Erion was instantly behind Kenna. He slipped an arm around her waist and pressed his chest to her back. He forced back the impulse to shift into element and wrap her in a protective vacuum. She wasn’t ready to shift—he sure as hell wasn’t ready to confess the truth about himself. Fear of telling her and fear of Aiden exposing him shot to the surface in a chaotic jumble. How will I explain the truth? Would she feel betrayed?

  She turned in his arms. “It’s only Aiden. I met him at the gallery. I’ll give him credit for tenacity. The guy won’t take a hint.”

  “Aiden.” The name rolled off Erion’s tongue with disgust.

  “He’s harmless,” Kenna said.

  Erion looked past her out the window. She was mistaken. The tall, blond-haired man walking up the driveway was anything but harmless. What was he up to? Aiden knew Erion was here just as Erion had sensed his presence, yet he was paying a visit as any normal human would.

  Erion dropped his gaze back to Kenna’s face and trailed a finger along her cheek. “We men know a good thing when we see it.”

  She shrugged. “There’s a big difference—and I don’t mean that.” She glanced at his crotch and grinned. “I hope you don’t think I sleep with all the men I meet, because I don’t.” She winked. “Just the smart-asses.”

  Gratitude washed over him. If he hadn’t found Kenna before Aiden exposed his element to her, she would have bonded to him, perhaps even desired him. But she desired Erion—without the bond. She might not understand why she wanted him, but she did, and no one could take that from him.

  Kenna planted a kiss on his jaw. “I’ll get rid of him.”

  Erion released her and lifted his gaze to stare out the window and straight into Aiden’s eyes. Fiery embers crackled in those blue depths. Wind whipped inside Erion in reaction to the Fire Element’s proximity. Erion veiled his thoughts, especially his feelings for Kenna. The Fire Element couldn’t be allowed to glean any information about the driving force behind their connection. A terrifying thought struck. Was it too late? Had Aiden already deduced Erion’s feelings for Kenna? Was that why Aiden had attacked him? No. That didn’t make sense. If Aiden knew, he would simply wait for that moment of weakness when Erion and Kenna’s spark’s merged, then kill him and take Kenna.

  Aiden strode four more paces and reached the door as Kenna opened it. “Aiden, I’m sorry, but I wish you had called. I’m working and don’t have time for company.”

  Aiden smiled, but a pulse in the side of his jaw belied the action. Frustration showed on Kenna’s face. If she had any idea how her open choice of him over Aiden fueled his anger, she would get as far away from Aiden as possible.

  “I had hoped I was more than just company,” Aiden said.

  Satisfaction shot through Erion when none of Kenna’s heat ignited for Aiden.

  He stepped forward, and she automatically moved aside. He halted in the threshold, his eyes locked with Erion’s. “I thought you didn’t have time for company.”

  “Erion and I are working.”

  “Erion,” Aiden repeated, then murmured, “Air.”

  “What?” Kenna glanced at Erion.

  Erion gave her a soft smile. “Erion is Albanian for wind.”

  Her brow furrowed, and his heart leaped at the thought she might recognize the significance of the name.

  She smiled. “I like it. Now,” she started for the furnace, “if you’ll excuse us, Aiden.”

  Aiden’s gaze dropped to her ass, and Erion realized he smelled their sex. Aiden’s gaze jerked to the open button of Erion’s jeans, then up to his eyes.

  “Careful,” Erion cautioned. “She is not yet aware of her element. Force her before her time, and I will kill you.”

  Aiden sneered. “As you did when you ran from me in the parking lot?”

  Erion gave a mocking laugh, then inhaled a small breath and sent a quiet swirl of air across the room. The edges of Aiden’s shirt ruffled.

  The space around Erion heated with the narrowing of Aiden’s eyes. The look dissolved into a condescending twist of his mouth. “No,” Aiden telepathically replied, “her fire is still buried within. You have no claim.”

  “What was that, Aiden?” she asked.

  “I said, you fixed the flame. I see your furnace is working.”

  “Yes,” she replied absently and bent over the scalloped bowl.

  Aiden’s glare cut back to Erion. “She is mine.” He took a threatening step forward.

  “I have to work.” They both turned to see Kenna sitting at her bench, brows raised. “Put away the testosterone. Aiden, I’ll see you later.”

  “I can show you out,” Erion said.

  “I know the way.” Aiden’s gaze narrowed. “And I will be back.”

  The door blew open.

  Aiden stopped.

  “Damn door!” Kenna cried.

  Erion glared. “I’ll be waiting.”

  Aiden whirled and strode through the door without a backward glance. Erion took three steps, softly clicked the door shut, and faced Kenna.

  She stood, arms crossed over her chest. “Want to tell me what that was all about?”

  “He’s a prick, and I didn’t like him checking out your ass. He wants in your pants.” It wasn’t a lie. The Fire Element did want her, body, mind, and soul. Suddenly Erion realized what he had to do…and his heart broke.

  Chapter Seven

  Half an hour later, Erion sat on a high stool with Kenna standing between his legs. They faced the furnace, her back to his chest. His hands covered hers as, together, they dipped the heated blowpipe into the crucible and gathered a melon-size glob of molten glass. At twenty-four hundred degrees, the glass looked almost white. His insides felt as liquid and hot as the dripping glass.

  Subtle shifts in her movement pressed her rounded ass against his groin. He tried to focus on the glass, but her scent filled his nose. Her body warmed where it pressed agai
nst his. Sweat rolled down his back and beaded across his brow, but she seemed oblivious to the increase in temperature. She hadn’t covered her arms with the socks.

  As he knew it would, her element was gathering strength. Triggering the transformation would be easy. Once the Giris was complete, Erion would deal with Aiden, then he could leave, knowing Kenna was safe from Aiden…and him. But not just yet. A few more minutes, one last taste before he said good-bye forever.

  Bubbles rose out of the mass. Kenna bent and lowered the temperature on the furnace to two thousand degrees, then straightened and again snuggled her ass firmly against his hardening cock. He groaned, grasped her hips, and ground his erection into the sweet cleft.

  “To be a good student, you must pay attention.”

  “I can’t help it if I’m hot for teacher.” He covered her hands with his again.

  Kenna continued to turn and roll the molten core. “Now we begin forming the shape of the glass.”

  She hadn’t told him what they were making, but promised it would be worth the effort. As long as he kept his hands on hers, he didn’t care. Heat coiled up from the furnace and slid between their arms, blanketing her skin. With her emerging element, a coral glow radiated out from her flesh and blended with the amber glow from the glass.

  Erion held his breath. Air swooshed from his arms, fanning the heat waiting for a single command from her to ignite. Her concentration was on the glass. With gentle pressure, she pushed his leg, turning them both toward the marver, where she rolled the glass onto the steel surface.

  “This will cool the skin—”

  “I can cool your skin.” He blew an icy breath against her neck.

  Kenna shivered but said in a stern voice, “We’re focusing on the glass. We need to form a skin, so we can blow bubbles.” She cast him a wicked glance over her shoulder, then faced forward again.

  The momentary distraction caused the molten form to slip from the blowpipe. She reached out and grasped the edge of the heated glass.