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  Jess stared up at him. A maelstrom of insane emotions broiled inside her.

  Lust.

  Hate.

  Contempt.

  Hunger.

  Frustration.

  Want.

  Need.

  Desire.

  Submission.

  “Y-you…” She stopped. Licked her dry lips. Swallowed. “You really are a conceited wanker, aren’t you?”

  The insult fell from her in a rasping whisper.

  Her belly churned. Her pussy fluttered.

  Desmond’s lips curled in a slow, arrogant smile. “And yet, there’s something you really want to do to me now, isn’t there?”

  Jess’s breath stuck in her throat. An image of them both utterly naked and dripping in sweat flashed through her head. Desmond was pinning her wrists to a wall with one hand as he yanked her leg up beside his hip, pumping deep and hard inside her with long, powerful thrusts.

  A soft whimper escaped her at the thought.

  Desmond’s pupils dilated at the sound. His nostrils flared. He held her imprisoned with his blue gaze, not moving, not drawing closer to her or touching her in any way. Just holding her with the potent force of his stare.

  And the dominating hunger in his eyes. “Isn’t there, Captain Montgomery?”

  Oh god. Oh god oh god oh—

  “Submit to it,” he murmured, his voice a smooth caress, like velvet and whiskey and everything male she’d ever fantasied about. “Do what you want to do and do it now.”

  “And if what I want is to knee you in the balls?” she whispered, even as her breasts grew heavier with the need to be touched…sucked.

  “It isn’t.”

  “What do you think I want to do, Des?”

  His nostrils flared again. “Kiss me.”

  Her pulse pounded in her ears. Her sex throbbed in perfect harmony, a rhythm of undeniable, wanton desire.

  And surrender.

  Oh god, was she really going to—

  “Kiss me, Captain.”

  It was the raw urgency she heard in his voice that undid her.

  Before she could question her sanity, she gave herself over to the elemental desire searing through her. Surrendered to the unexpected need he awoke in her.

  Submitted to it.

  And kissed him.

  Chapter Three

  An inferno of concentrated pleasure consumed Desmond. A firestorm of sensations and desire he’d never experienced before.

  For a split second, he hung on the edge of surprise, immobilized by the sheer perfection of Jess’s lips on his. From the moment he’d laid eyes on her striding towards him across the Wallaby Ridge runway, he’d been sexually attracted to her.

  But she’d made it clear she despised everything he stood for and, as a consequence, he’d relegated that sexual want to the deep places in his soul he only drew upon when it was his hand that relieved the sexual energy in his body, not a willing partner.

  Jessica Montgomery would, he’d decided, forever be beyond him.

  And then he’d caught her looking at him with unquestionable desire. Caught her studying him with conflicted lust.

  From that very second, he was as much a slave to his desire for her as he was a slave to his need to right all his father’s wrongs.

  If the PM hadn’t called when he had, Desmond may very well have taken Jess right there in the burnt-out remains of the Broken Downs living room.

  Instead, the politician had called. Desmond had spoken to him, confirming with the man that the captain of the Wallaby Ridge Rural Fire Brigade’s suspicions of arson were not without merit. And all the while, he’d thought of what it would be like to kiss her.

  To remove her clothes.

  To seduce her into admitting her desire for him.

  To make her scream his name as he brought her to the brink of orgasm over and over.

  To hear her beg him to let her come as she submitted to the pleasure he wrought on her body.

  The conversation with Australia’s leader had, for what it was worth, long been over before Desmond ended the call. Words had left his mouth of course. Professional words, intelligent words, words that answered all the PM’s questions, but his brain had been solely on Jessica Montgomery and the desire he saw in her eyes.

  Her desire for him.

  A desire she’d surrendered to.

  A desire about to render him her slave if he didn’t regain control of his own lust for her.

  His cock pulsed, flooded with a dire urgency to be free of the constraints of his suit pants. His head swam as her tongue swept over his, challenging him to deepen the kiss. Hell, he’d never been so consumed so quickly by such concentrated desire from a single kiss.

  He groaned, the ragged sound of capitulation taking him by surprise. He didn’t capitulate to anyone.

  Jess whimpered in return, burying her fingers in his hair.

  The scraping of her blunt nails over his scalp sent a rush of wicked sensations through him. Fresh blood flooded his groin, turning his cock into a rigid pole of painful pleasure. For a perilous moment, the need to surrender to that pleasure engulfed him, and then he reached for her wrists and removed her hands from his head, yanking them behind her back.

  He hauled her hard to his body and took complete possession of her mouth.

  She moaned into the kiss, melting against him. Her beaded nipples rubbed against his flesh through their clothes, telling him just how much his control of her body aroused her.

  He plundered her mouth, sweeping his tongue against hers before sucking it with a long, slow motion.

  She rolled her hips, grinding the curve of her pussy against his thigh.

  He’d never been with a woman so short before. The height difference both frustrated and excited him. He wanted nothing more than to feel the heat of her pussy radiating over his erection right now, right this very second. And how easy would it be to lift her off the ground and fuck her against the wall when they were in a more appropriate place? How exquisitely easy would it be to embed himself into her sex as he stood; to have her thighs wrapped around his hips in the most carnal embrace?

  Another rush of searing pleasure consumed him. His head swam again. His cock throbbed.

  Tearing his lips from hers, he dragged his mouth over the line of her jaw, reveling in not only the way her body shuddered at the exploration but in the way she rolled her head to grant him greater access to her throat.

  Fuck, she was perfect.

  He captured her earlobe with his teeth. Nipped it hard before salving the point of pressure with his lips.

  Jess shuddered against him again, her gasp shaky and ripe with need. “Oh god…” She rolled her hips again. “I didn’t…expect…”

  Desmond brought her wrists together in his right hand and smoothed his left hand up the delicious curve of her rib cage, stopping only when his fingertips brushed the side swell of her breast.

  She hitched in a breath, arching her spine as she did so.

  “I want to touch you, Captain,” he stated against her ear, struggling with the tenuous threads of control he had over his desire to take her right there. “I want to cover your breast with my hand and feel your nipple rub against my palm.”

  “Fuck…” She ground her sex to his thigh once again. “N-not here…” she said, the words a hoarse moan. “It’s not…we can’t contaminate the…the…scene…”

  A lick of admiration heated the already singeing desire for her running through Desmond’s veins. He knew more than one female firefighter who got off on fucking at fire scenes. Had been propositioned more than once by said women. He didn’t understand the kink, but Christ, if Jessica Montgomery begged him to fuck her right there on the charred ground, right now in the broad daylight, he’d be struggling to say no.

  Be damned if the Broken Downs resident staff crossed the plastic strip around the scene of the fire marking it as a no-go zone. Be damned if Evan Alexander returned to collect them before the pre-arranged time.


  She didn’t beg him, however. When, with a shaky groan, she disengaged herself from his arms, he let her.

  Just.

  He pulled in a slow breath, watching her distance herself from him with a single backward step.

  “Fuck,” she muttered, not looking at him.

  He stood motionless, waiting. Letting her find her calm even as he ached to destroy it, to render her vulnerable to the turbulent desire raging inside her.

  To make her his on every level.

  In the short time he’d known her, he’d come to realize Jess didn’t like not being in control of a situation. His arrival here hadn’t just threatened her professional control, it threatened her personal control as well. Their first few conversations had been heated but without profanity, yet as they spent more time in each other’s company, her control over her language slipped, returning only when they discussed the fire scene.

  If he pushed her now, forced her to truly succumb to the desire simmering inside her, they may both experience the best sex of their entire lives, but she’d hate him when it was over.

  And he knew, more than he knew the Broken Downs fire wasn’t an accident, that he didn’t want Jess Montgomery to hate him.

  Quite the opposite in fact.

  He wasn’t just aroused by her; he was drawn to her. Intrigued.

  He wanted to get to know her more. Not just to sleep with her. Not just to discover how she’d been affected by his father’s incompetence. Not just to right a wrong if it was there. Not because he was attracted to her ability as a firefighter and fire scene investigator. He wanted to know her—the prickliest, most foul-mouthed, feistiest captain of any fire brigade he’d met.

  Which was as unexpected as the instant lust he felt for her.

  But so much more potent.

  “Fuck,” she muttered again, flicking him a quick glance.

  Without uttering a word, he returned his sunglasses to his face and took his own step backward.

  “That was…” She shook her head, the next glance she gave him heated with anger. “That won’t happen again. Got it?”

  He didn’t answer.

  He could tell by the way her jaw bunched, by the way her gaze slid over his face, his body, with agitated frenzy, that she didn’t believe her own statement.

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Do you. Fucking. Get it?”

  “Let’s return to the living room,” he said for an answer, walking past her.

  He wasn’t entirely certain, but she may have called him a fucking pretentious arsehole under her breath as he did so.

  It took longer than she thought it would. Almost six hours in fact. Six fucking hours. In the six hours they were at the scene of the fire, Jess couldn’t deny the bastard knew what he was doing.

  Before they reentered the burnt-out living room, he’d produced a pair of blue latex gloves from the inside pocket of his suit jacket and tugged them onto his hands. He’d adjusted his tie, loosening it a little. The innocuous act had sent stupid licks of heat into Jess’s core. She didn’t know if it was the hint of smooth bronzed skin she saw at the base of his neck, or the idea that he’d yet to really let his poised control release, despite the hungry, damn near animalistic intensity of their earlier kiss.

  If that’s what he kissed like when still buttoned up and restrained, what would he be like—

  She’d cut the wholly disturbing and thoroughly enticing thought dead. Yanking her own gloves from her back pocket, she’d pulled them on, glared at him—fuck, he still hadn’t said a word since “Let’s return to the living room”—and stomped her way to the blackened perimeter of the fire scene.

  He’d chuckled, the sound a smug acknowledgement of his effect on her.

  After that, however, it was six hours of the most sublime professionalism and insight she’d ever witnessed.

  There was no questioning why he was considered Australia’s best fire scene investigator. No questioning why he was paid exorbitant amounts of money by the country’s criminal prosecutors and insurance companies.

  Desmond Russell might be an arrogant arsehole whom tapped into her previously unacknowledged fantasy to be seduced by a suited bastard, but damn, he was amazing at his job.

  At the end of the six hours, as the sun was beginning to hide behind the flat western horizon, painting the already umber-red Outback a blazing vermillion, Desmond had revealed to her more signs and evidence the fire had been deliberately lit than she thought possible.

  He’d confirmed her belief the seat of the fire was in the living room and not the kitchen, specifically the fireplace, an area the residential staff swore had been clear of wood or any other ignitable materials before they’d locked up the homestead for the night and returned to their cottages.

  He’d identified wax residue on the floor between the fireplace and what had once been the antique armchair given to the Deputy PM by the French Foreign Affairs Minister. She had questioned the darker stains on the burnt floor in her sweep of the room immediately after the fire was extinguished. They were what had initially made her suspicious of the cause of the fire. Desmond not only recognized their existence, but the uniform spacing of each one leading to the destroyed chair.

  He’d studied the broken glass of the windows—where each shard sat, the shatter pattern of each. He spent minutes studying smoke deposits on what surfaces remained in the gutted room. He picked over debris with the delicate skill of a heart surgeon, treating every little bit with equal scrutiny and care.

  He removed debris and lightly cleaned the areas under his inspection, exposing fire burn patterns Jess hadn’t been aware of.

  He lifted fingerprints from charred furniture and surfaces.

  He dictated observation after observation into his iPhone.

  He included her in every contemplation, asked her opinion often. She didn’t know if she hated him for that fact, or desired him even more.

  Both, most likely.

  Damn it.

  It didn’t help he’d made her feel his equal during the whole six hours. Nor that, more than once, she’d caught him watching her, an enigmatic light in his eyes.

  A desire.

  A question.

  Could she answer that question? It was a carnal one, of that there was no doubt. One she felt in the very centre of her existence. But it was also something more. Something…deeper. Could she surrender to the answer of that question, given everything he was—a big-city suit, an arson investigator here to do her job?

  Darius Russell’s son?

  “Captain?”

  Desmond’s murmur raised her inspection from the burn pattern he’d exposed on the charred floor in front of the living room fireplace. She met his stare, their faces level, their knees almost touching where they both crouched opposite each other. “Yes?”

  God, why did her fucking heart try to smash its way out of her throat every time he called her Captain?

  “Tell me how my father failed you.”

  Jess sucked in a breath, the stench of burnt wood and fabric coating her tongue and biting into her sinuses. It was a smell she was very familiar with, and yet, ever since her brother’s death, it tore her instantly out of the present and placed her at the scene of the house fire that had killed him.

  Could she tell Desmond that? Would he understand? Or would he belittle her anger, her grief. Blood was, as they say, thicker than water.

  She stared at him, searching his eyes for any condescension or aggression.

  There was none, just an unwavering focus on her face and a calm control she found strength in.

  “He refused to acknowledge evidence I found that showed a fatal fire wasn’t accidental,” she said, the words dry on her tongue.

  “Someone you loved?”

  Her heart clenched at his low question.

  “Someone I loved. A lot.”

  He studied her, his expression unreadable. “I am sorry,” he finally said, “for your loss.”

  She swallowed. God, she wasn’t prepared fo
r this Desmond, with his tender empathy and words. Smug, big-city suit Desmond she could deal with. Hell, even make-her-cream-her-undies-with-just-an-arrogant-kiss Desmond was within her power to cope with, but this Desmond?

  Damn it, why was her heart beating so damn fast?

  Catching her bottom lip with her teeth, she nodded.

  His gaze held hers. Imprisoned her. Warmed her.

  She swayed towards him, stopping only when she realised what she was about to do—kiss him. Capture his lips with hers and kiss him stupid.

  Oh god. Again.

  Desmond’s nostrils flared. His jaw bunched. “When we get back to Wallaby Ridge,” he said, his voice strained, “I want you to—”

  “Oi! You guys done? I’ve left the chopper running on the helipad.”

  At the sound of a loud shout behind her, Jess jolted to her feet.

  She shot a look over her shoulder, finding Evan Alexander standing at the perimeter of the fire scene.

  “Remind me to have a word with your aviation firefighter about timing later,” Desmond said, wry humour in his voice.

  She swung her stare from the waiting helicopter pilot back to the investigator. What had he been about to say? He wanted her to what? Join him for a drink in the Outback Skies pub? Join him for dinner?

  Join him in bed?

  Let him tie her up?

  Have wild, crazy monkey sex with him?

  Her pussy did that wholly unsettling throb at the last few options. A soft hitching groan tickled her throat.

  Desmond regarded her with unwavering focus, towering over her.

  He misses nothing. Nothing. How does that make you feel?

  Angry.

  Excited.

  Aroused.

  Damn it.

  Pivoting on her heel, she tugged her gloves from her hands. “I’m done here,” she yelled at Evan as she began to stride toward him. “I got all I needed.”

  Bullshit. You want more.

  Evan cocked an eyebrow. “Okay.” He slid a curious gaze over her shoulder. “Russell?”

  “I need more,” Desmond’s smooth voice played with Jess’s sanity.