Текст книги "Drowning in Fire"
Автор книги: Hanna Martine
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Drowning in Fire
The Elementals – 3
Hanna Martine
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to Cyndi Culhane, Lynne Hartzer, and Erica O’Rourke for writerly help in the developmental stages; and to Eliza Evans for her ever-insightful input on the completed manuscript.
Also, thank you to my husband, who really took one for the team and made a brave, brave sacrifice when he brought me to the Big Island of Hawaii for “research.”
PROLOGUE
Three years ago
KEKO
“I’m not a damn babysitter.”
Keko stomped after the Chimeran ali’i, her bare feet kicking aside old, brown leaves and crunching through patches of crispy April mountain snow. This was a shit assignment, one far below her well-deserved and hard-won position, and she’d growl at the retreating bare back of her uncle until he realized that.
“Chief, wait.”
He finally stopped, one big hand on the flap of his tent, his dusky shoulders sloping under the weight of a sigh. Slowly he turned around to face her, his black eyebrows, dusted with silver, rising with growing impatience. At least he wasn’t deaf. There was still a chance.
“Send Bane,” Keko demanded, moving as close to the ali’i as was allowed by clan law. “Or Makaha. I’m the general, for fuck’s sake.”
Someday, after she threw down the challenge and wrested the position of ali’i away from her uncle, she would delegate assignments appropriate to a Chimeran’s worthiness. Until that moment arrived, she would forever argue to get her way.
A gust of frigid Utah wind swept down the mountain and raced through the leafless spikes of the tightly packed stand of trees. Keko mentally reached deep inside her body, touching the heart of her fire magic, and turned up her inner heat. The ali’i did so as well, and wispy layers of steam lifted off the exposed skin of their torsos like wings.
“You’re impertinent is what you are,” he replied. He wasn’t that much taller than her, but there was a reason why he’d been ali’i for nearly two decades. The way he commanded respect with a simple stare was unmatched. She consistently tried to emulate it.
“And difficult,” he added. “But you’re also my second and you’re the most capable, the most skilled.”
Damn straight she was. “So—”
Chief lifted a hand, his palm a paler shade than the native Hawaiian tint to his skin. “The Senatus deliberated for a hell of a long time before finally agreeing to grant the new Ofarian leader an audience. There are reasons we’ve kept our distance from the water elementals, not the least of which being they are historically greedy, pompous, and want to control everything. There’s no one we trust more than you to shadow him his entire time here, make sure he doesn’t overstep his bounds.”
The flame inside her flared in frustration. “That’s babysitting.”
“It’s guarding,” he snapped, and she was forced to take a step back. Only for him would she do that. Chief drew himself up. “You will bring him to and from Senatus gatherings. You will explain to him the group’s procedures and history, what we do and don’t cover. You will keep him within range at all times and monitor any communications he has with his people.”
Yes, sir was on the tip of her tongue, but she just couldn’t bring it out.
“And you will report back to us everything he says or asks, and your answers. Tell us how he is different away from the meetings, if there are any contradictions to his behavior. Keep an eye out for anything suspicious. This is an evaluation period for him and his people before we consider giving them a seat around the bonfire.”
“Do I have permission to kick his ass if he falls out of line?”
Chief gave her a rare grin, one that pulled at the deep lines around his eyes. “And that’s exactly why we chose you to do this, Keko.”
She ran a hand up and down her bare arm, dragging little orange sparks in its wake. The mid-day sky looked heavy with snow. “What’s he like? What do you already know about him?”
Chief shifted, his big feet making new prints in the old snow. “A limited amount. He is new to the leadership, having been part of an overthrow of the Ofarian government two years ago. Only after he took over did he learn his former leaders had been hiding knowledge of other elementals’ existence.” Chief let out a huff of breath, bathing her in a wave of Chimeran heat. “He’s been pursuing contact with the Senatus for over a year. He’s persistent, I’ll give him that. Determined. Very serious.”
“Great.” Keko rolled her eyes. “Sounds like a blast.” She waved a hand in the direction of the large olive-green tent she, her brother Bane, and the warrior Makaha shared. “So are we all supposed to cuddle up with this Ofarian at night and make him feel warm and snuggly so he spills his secrets?”
Chief snorted. “He’s Ofarian, which means he’s spoiled and arrogant. He’s taken a hotel room in town at the base of the mountain. You’ll be staying in a room next to his.”
“What?” She would miss sleeping in the night air, no matter how cold it was. Temperature didn’t mean much to her kind.
“I’m done arguing. It’s an order.” Stern brown eyes, the nearly black shade all Chimerans shared, nailed her in place. “Now go pick up Griffin Aames from the airport, get him to his hotel, and bring him to the gathering tonight.”
Chief disappeared into his tent, the flap snapping closed behind him.
Keko marched to her tent, grabbed her small, threadbare duffel of clothes and things, and started on the two-mile hike down to where they’d parked the car. Despite her reluctance over the assignment, at least she got to drive. There were only a few vehicles in the entire Chimeran valley back home and very little need for them, but she loved getting behind the wheel. It felt so free. So very modern. So outside her own culture.
Icy wind swirled through the open car windows as she sped for Salt Lake City. She’d tied her hair back, but long, black strands still whipped at her face. This was when she loved to leave Hawaii, to feel cold new climates like this. To strengthen her magic by having to use it at all times to keep warm.
The designated meeting spot, she’d been told, was a corner of the day-use parking garage under the light pole labeled 2E. She found it, swung into a parking place, and sat. When her knee started to bounce with impatience and her belly rumbled with hunger, she jumped out of the car to head over to the vending machines perched near the elevators. Another incredible thing her people didn’t have: food and drink at the drop of a coin.
A few steps away from the car she remembered the biggest rule about being seen outside of the Chimeran valley, especially in colder areas where Primaries lived: clothes.
With a growl she went back to the car and pulled out a pair of flimsy sandals with an uncomfortable strap between the toes and the lone sweatshirt she owned: a pilled gray zippered thing with “Minnesota Gophers” in cracked red and gold print across the front. At least she still had on the holey jeans with the frayed, wet hems, and one of the white tank tops she favored. Putting clothing on Chimeran skin was like scraping nails over silk. Not that she’d ever worn silk, but she’d seen pictures and had read descriptions of it in the old, dog-eared magazines that sometimes made it to the valley. The things she did for Primary comfort and Secondary secrecy . . .
Leaving the sweatshirt unzipped, she went to the vending machines and popped change into the slots, pulling out a bottle of Coke and potato chips. She’d eaten half the bag when a deep voice sounded behind her.
“You must be my ride.”
Turning around, she screwed off the Coke cap with a hiss. The guy who stood halfway between her and the car wore jeans and boots and a fitted black coat with all sorts of zippers and pockets. His hair was very short and nearly as dark as hers. Thick, straight, low-set eyebrows were the most prominent feature on his face and made him seem intense and serious.
She glanced around the otherwise empty garage corner. “Don’t think I am.”
He nudged his chin toward her car. “Two E,” he said. “Where I’m supposed to meet you. You must be Kekona.”
To trust him or not? He wasn’t anything like the pampered, self-important Ofarian she’d pictured. Not this militaristic-looking guy who couldn’t be more than a few years older than she.
The man stood impossibly straight, as though someone had shoved a pole up his ass. “You’re Secondary and I’m Griffin Aames.” There was absolutely no intonation to his voice.
Oh, this guy was going to be a bag of fun.
“And what brings you to the lovely state of Utah?” she asked.
He had a really good check on his emotions. Only a slight shift of his feet gave away his frustration. “For the Senatus gathering. Was there a secret code somewhere I missed?”
And just like that, the first spark of attraction lit an unexpected flame inside her. To be fair, it didn’t take much for her. For him though, there was nothing. Just a patient stare as he waited to be chauffeured to his fancy feather bed.
“No code. You just have to get past me.” She lifted the Coke to her lips and took a swig, never taking her eyes off his.
A gust of wind barreled through the garage, opening one side of her sweatshirt and folding it back from her body.
Bingo. Griffin’s brown eyes—lighter than a Chimeran’s but still pretty dark—flicked to her chest. Flicked. Nothing more. She never wore one of those bra things—no Chimeran woman did—and she knew very well how she looked. The thin white tank top stretched over brown skin and even darker nipples. There wasn’t much of her to be left to the imagination, and modesty had never been one of her strong suits.
It had been a long time. For her, at least. Maybe a month since she’d had any sort of physical contact, let alone full-on sex. And right then she was looking at the most wonderful sort of challenge, wrapped up in an olive-skinned package: the guy she’d been tasked with shadowing for the next seven days. The Ofarian with the one-note expression whose business-only walls were so thick not even hard nipples could noticeably break through them. The very opposite of who she was. The water to her fire.
He was not Chimeran. He was kapu. Forbidden.
But then, wasn’t she supposed to find out things about him that he didn’t reveal to the Senatus? Sex always seemed to bring out the hidden, no matter who was involved. She was willing to bet Griffin Aames wasn’t any different. He was locked up so airtight she guessed that once those walls came down, there would be no stopping the onslaught of everything he’d tried to hold back. She couldn’t wait to discover what that was.
But that was enough teasing the unsuspecting Ofarian for one day, especially since they’d just met minutes ago. There was an art to seduction, to the chase, and applying it to someone who was not a Chimeran slathered on an extra layer of excitement. Getting around what her clan had declared to be kapu would be a fantastic, fun challenge. Keko folded closed the Gophers sweatshirt.
Griffin carried a structured black duffel with barely a travel scratch, and with a clearing of his throat, he swung it around to dangle off the back of one shoulder. He was an inch or two above six feet, not that much taller than her.
“I’m not carrying that for you,” she said.
His eyes narrowed slightly, and she found she liked the tiny movement of his thick eyebrows. It was easy to hide expression under those things, so when they actually twitched she knew there was something going on in his gorgeous head.
“Wasn’t expecting you to,” he replied.
“Good. Now that we’re clear on that.” She circled around him to get to the car, wondering the whole time—the whole ten seconds—if his eyes had tracked the back of her head . . . or her ass.
With one hand on the door handle and the other clutching her drink and potato chips, she swept a good long look around the parking garage. No one else was around.
“Where’d you come from?” she asked as he went around to the other side of the car, threw open the passenger side door, and tossed his bag in the backseat.
“San Francisco. But of course you already knew that.”
“I did.”
His door still open, he planted one hand on the top of it. “Where are you from?”
She laughed, because the Chimerans had never revealed their home to anyone not born with fire. “Nice try.”
When he shrugged, she found herself intrigued by the fluidity of his shoulders, how he’d suddenly broken out of his rigid mold. The straight face remained, however, along with the severe line of those eyebrows.
She folded her arms on top of the car. “How’d you know I was Secondary?”
Without hesitation, “Your signature. I can tell you have magic, that you’re not a Primary human. I can feel you.”
This man was infuriating, in the best possible way. She had no idea if he knew what his doublespeak implied or if he was doing it on purpose. And she found that she loved it, that ambiguity. So did the fire inside.
“Must be nice,” she said, overly casually. “I wish I had that.”
He cocked his head, looking genuinely interested. “Why?”
“So I can tell when I come across a Primary. I’d know who to avoid.”
He looked at her for a long, long moment before saying, “Right. Of course.”
He made no move to get into the car so she asked, “What do you mean by ‘signature’?”
His stance relaxed some as he considered her.
“You’re going to be asked a lot of questions while you’re here,” she added. “Might as well get used to it.”
Another few moments of consideration, then he inhaled and glanced around the garage. “Hard to explain. It’s a feeling in my head. Like a smell, but not really. I know you’re Secondary. I just don’t know what you can do.”
Time for a real test. Tilting back her head, throwing him a challenging smile, she asked, “What can you do?”
He pulled out his phone and tapped the screen once. “Adine? Yeah. Salt Lake City airport, parking garage, row 2E.” Griffin stood stock still. So did Keko, waiting. Intrigued. “You got ’em? Great, thanks.”
Hanging up the phone, he threw a look into the corner, where Keko had previously noticed the telltale black ceiling bubble of a security camera. She’d heard the Ofarians had some reach, some pretty impressive technological skills, but to access international airport security at such quick notice?
“Okay, then. If you’re looking for proof.” Griffin was looking straight at her, his body never so much as twitching, as foreign, whispered words escaped his barely parted lips. Movement to her right caught her eye.
A pile of gray, crunchy snow piled up against the side of the open parking garage melted without a touch, without heat. In a slow, glittering stream, it snaked its way toward her, rolling across the black asphalt and the yellow parking dividing lines. The water coiled around her legs, up toward her hips. Once, twice, a third time around her body. Reaching, reaching, but never quite touching. A brilliant dance of water and light in the cold grayness of the garage. Then the coil of magic water receded, sinking slowly back down to the dirty surface under her feet.
The word that came to mind was . . . sensual.
Her focus snapped back to Griffin Aames. Though his expression had not changed, she knew he was grinning. Deep down, this had pleased him.
“Now,” he said, so evenly she felt a distinct hum between her legs, “what can you do?”
Inhaling deeply, pulling up the fire from inside her body, she licked her lips, letting a roll of flame follow her tongue. Then she opened her mouth, showing him the spark that forever danced in the back of her throat. When she clamped her lips shut, swallowing down her magic, she gave him a look full of promise and said, “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
• • •
That night, Keko paced along the outside perimeter of the cage of wind encircling the Senatus gathering. She could see into it—the three elemental Senatus delegates and Griffin sat on cheap lawn chairs around a bonfire—but heard nothing. The wind barrier erased their words.
Bane and Makaha took up positions at other points surrounding the gathering, though this deep in the pitch black mountains they were unlikely to be discovered. Aaron, the only air elemental in attendance other than the Senatus premier, leaned against a nearby tree, holding the soundproof wind cage in place.
As always, Aya, the self-proclaimed Daughter of Earth, was the only elemental of her mysterious race in attendance. The dainty Daughter perched gingerly on the edge of her chair, the fire that rose from the logs highlighting the unusually lovely golden tint to her skin and the pure white shock of her hair. The green of her eyes did not reflect the firelight at all. She said so little but she was always watching and listening, always alert, and her presence never failed to intrigue Keko.
The ali’i, shirtless and barefoot, lounged back in his chair. The Senatus premier wore a cowboy hat and a flannel coat lined with fleece, his deeply wrinkled eyes focused intently on Griffin, who had been speaking for a long while with stiff, controlled hand gestures. Puffs of cold, white air escaped from between his lips every time he opened them.
The Ofarian was incredibly easy to look at. Keko knew power and leadership when she saw it, and it turned her on more than it probably should have.
Their flirting—however subversive it had been—ceased that afternoon and evening as she’d performed her job and explained to Griffin how the Senatus worked. The order of speaking, the presentation of issues, how the premier was voted in on five-year intervals, among other things she found boring but which Griffin listened to with an attentive ear.
Now, inside the wind cage, an argument broke out. That much was plain by the tension in the four bodies and the vehement way Griffin was talking, his gestures getting bigger, his eyes blinking less.
The ali’i was the first to jump up and stomp through the wind barrier. Keko couldn’t look away from Griffin, who’d risen to his feet with a powerful grace. Right then and there she knew he was a fighter, some sort of soldier. A different kind of warrior than a Chimeran, but a warrior nonetheless.
As Chief grabbed Keko’s arm and spun her away, she saw the premier and Aya approaching Griffin in a calm manner.
“The Ofarians are making aggressive moves to integrate into the Primary human world.” The inner fire raked at Chief’s voice, making it gritty and rasping.
Keko blinked, not sure she understood his anger. “And?”
“He thinks we should do the same. Rather than hiding out in our own little worlds, he wants us to figure out ways to inch the Secondary world into the Primary. And if he gains a seat in the Senatus, that will be his main objective.”
A brief, alien cold swept through Keko. The various Chimeran clans spread all over the Hawaiian Islands had always been deliberately separate from the humans. The Queen had decreed that necessary over a thousand years ago when she split off from the other Polynesian immigrants. And now this Ofarian, this water elemental, wanted to shatter that by forcing all Secondaries to follow his people’s lead?
“Why?” she asked.
Chief wiped his mouth and let out a short, bitter laugh. “Because they have nothing. The magic they once peddled to the Primaries is gone now, along with all the money it used to bring in. They go to Primary schools and are taking jobs in Primary businesses because they have to. Griffin says it’s starting to work for them but I don’t know. It’s dangerous. So, so dangerous . . .”
Keko agreed.
Yet she’d always embraced danger.
Looking over Chief’s shoulder she saw that Griffin was alone now, gazing into the fire and dragging a slow hand between his ear and chin. She could hear the crackle and pop of the flame-consumed logs now, which meant Aaron had dropped the wind barrier.
“I want to know more about his motives,” Chief told her, his voice dropping. “I want to know everything. You know what to do.”
Just then Griffin looked up and caught her staring. She didn’t look away.
Oh, she knew exactly what to do. And only a small fraction of it involved listening.
She nodded. Pure business, all general. “Yes, sir.”
As the Chimerans and air elementals split off for their respective camps, and Aya did that silent thing where she melted back into the night shadows and disappeared without a trace, Keko pulled the car keys from her jeans pocket and jangled them.
“Let’s go,” she called to Griffin. He looked at her for a drawn-out moment before finally turning his back on the fire and following her.
Griffin was silent the whole ride back to the hotel. On the way to their rooms that were next to each other but not connected, the only sounds were his boots on the carpet and the rasp of fabric as he took off his jacket. She waited while he drew out his keycard and slipped it into the lock. When it blinked green, he pushed open the door, then froze. Turning his head he said to her, “Come in. I want to talk to you.”
The ali’i’s orders were but a niggle in the back of her mind, a mere fly compared to the volcanic rumble the sound of Griffin’s command strummed inside her. But she played it cool and sauntered past him. The door clicked shut behind her.
She’d barely made it into the little hall opposite the bathroom when Griffin grabbed her shoulder from behind, spun her around, and pinned her against the wall with a straight arm. Then his elbow bent and his body closed in.
Queen help her, she felt herself go wet, felt her whole body get switched on. Rough sex was how it was done in the Chimeran stronghold, and, as their general, it was the way she demanded it when she chose a partner.
“You’re not just my driver, not just my tourist guide,” he murmured, getting closer and closer until all she could see was his face. “You’re their spy.”
Keko arched her back, pushing her torso away from the wall and into his hand.
For a second his desire was betrayed in the flash of his brown eyes, but then his fingers dug deep and hard into her shoulder.
“You’re supposed to tell them everything I say and do,” he ground out. “Aren’t you?”
The pulse between her legs was crazy now. The fire inside her raged. She could barely control the pace of her breath or the sexual itch scratching its way through her body.
“Well, thank the Queen you know,” she said. “Now we can just get to the fucking.”
Beneath those thick eyebrows his eyes widened, glowing with lust. His desire had its own color, and there was nothing he could do to disguise it or paint over it.
The moment caused his grip to slacken and Keko took advantage of it. Lunging. A forearm across his chest, she shoved him against the opposite wall. That second of surprise on his face was wonderful and sexy and a powerful turn-on.
Then she smashed her mouth against his.
Resistance lasted barely a breath, then he groaned—a great release of sound and pent-up energy that made his whole body shudder—and he was kissing her back with such force she felt it in the jump and shiver of her inner fire.
A water elemental—kapu, forbidden—was making her feel this way, and that made the whole thing all the more taboo, all the more sweet. He had no fire magic, yet he was burning, his lips and tongue and pressure made of heat and power.
Suddenly the contact broke and she was left reeling, empty. Griffin had taken hold of both her shoulders and had pushed her away, off of him. Her eyelids fluttered open to find his expression a swirl of confusion and base lust. His chest pumped almost violently. He looked stripped out of his skin, a completely different man from the stiff, serious, focused Ofarian she’d gathered from the airport. And he had no idea what to do with that, how to react.
Keko’s lips curled up in triumph.
She lifted her hands and coiled her fingers around his wrists. Slowly, deliberately, holding his eyes with hers, she dragged his hands off the curves of her bare shoulders, sliding them over the ridge of her collarbone and down to her breasts. No bra, of course, just the thin layer of the worn white cotton tank top. She filled his big hands perfectly.
Griffin sagged, an unfettered low groan escaping his lips. Though he caught and righted himself, she’d seen it. She’d witnessed the crack in his exterior, the way this contact had freed him. She loved that almost as much as the way he was pressing his hands to her. Grabbing her with dire need. Dragging his palms over her hard nipples.
He was no longer looking into her eyes, but at her chest, at the way he was touching her. His bottom lip dropped open, and it was way too full and inviting to keep her coherent.
“Kekona,” he whispered, yanking down the strap of her tank top to expose one breast. His eyes snapped back up to hers. “Now look what you started.”
She was used to starting things. Back home, as general, that’s how clan rule laid it out. If she wanted to sleep with someone, she had to approach them and make the offer. Of course they could refuse, but she was used to being the aggressor, the pursuer. She loved it. That power had come with her high status, which she’d fought so long and hard for.
So when Griffin yanked her closer, a claiming hand sliding around her back to spin her toward the bed, she went into immediate general mode. This was her scene, her beginning.
But just because she liked the way he’d reacted when she’d smashed open his shell, she would let him think he had the better of her. For a second. Maybe two.
When he’d gotten her close to the bed, the hand around her back moving swiftly to her ass, she wrapped a foot around his ankle, slapped an arm around his shoulders, and used his shock to whip him around and throw his larger body onto the bed. He landed with a great bounce on the mattress, his limbs going tense in defense for a brief moment, then slackening as he watched her smile wickedly.
Hands on hips, she jutted her chin at his jeans and boots. “Take them off.”
He came up on his elbows. “I don’t take orders. I give them.”
“Funny, so do I. Tell you what, maybe I’ll give you a turn.”
No smile. Just a frenzied stripping. That Mediterranean skin covered all of him evenly. Born with it then, no sun lines to indicate he had any sort of time outdoors. Pity. She would have liked to trace a line between dark and darker skin with her tongue. Maybe she’d make one up in her mind and do it anyway.
She was right about him being a fighter. The hardness of his body and the lean lines of his muscles gave it away.
After he’d toed off his boots and kicked away his jeans, he leaned back on the bed and crossed his legs at the ankles. With a leader’s confidence, he looked at her down his prone body, over the beautiful erection stretching up toward his belly. “You’ll have nothing to tell them,” he said, “unless you tell them about this. And you won’t.”
With a single step, her balance perfect, she climbed up and stood at the edge of the bed, her ankles bracketing his.
Whipping off her tank top, she said, “Don’t want you for your words.”
She thought that maybe that would coax out a smile, but any emotion he harbored came through the hot glitter of his eyes and the way they were fixated on the zipper of her jeans. He wasn’t giving a verbal order, but she sure as hell was going to obey.
When she ripped open her jeans and stepped out of them, letting him know that not only did she despise bras but that she hated underwear just as much, he made a wonderful garbled sound in the back of his throat. Stomach muscles clenching, he rolled up to sit and wrapped his hands around her calves.
“Great stars,” he breathed, his eyes roaming up her parted legs, across her abs and around her breasts. “You’re fucking amazing.”
Bending, she pushed at his shoulders, laying him flat again. The tension in her thighs was overwhelming as she lowered herself to straddle his hips, the pulsing, needy place in her body hovering just above his erection.
Taking him in hand, loving the contradiction between hard and smooth in her palm, she whispered, “I am totally telling them you said that.”
Desire rattled through her body, a crazy, driving demand that wanted absolutely nothing other than for him to be inside her. She fit herself to him, making the initial entrance, then took her time working her way down. At her first curl, that first undulation of her hips, his eyes shot open and his fingers dug into the crease between her thighs and hips. He stared at where they were joined, low grunts set in time with her thrusts.
Hands planted on his iron pecs, she rode him as he drove up into her. Nothing delicate about it. Nothing remotely soft about this kind of passion.
In the back of her mind she was thinking that it was too perfect, the way they found a rhythm that seemed to mutually satisfy. Their movements were in sync, two musicians meeting for the first time who struck faultless sound on the first notes of collaboration. Like they already knew each other.
The angle was superb, where he was hitting her inside. Her fire magic was begging to be let out, building and building alongside her orgasm.
Chimeran sex was full of fire. It was a battle of wills, of flame and heat, both inside and out. Fire intensified everything . . . but Griffin was no Chimeran, and even though he was water, she feared the unknown. She feared what her body might do to him. She feared hurting him.
She feared learning firsthand why sex between two different elementals was kapu.
As though just to prove her wrong, he drove into her harder, the slap of their bodies drowning out all other sound. That’s when she lost it, when she came with such speed and such a powerful storm that she had no time to rein in the inner fire that always paralleled her pleasure. Tiny licks of flame rolled behind her closed eyelids.
Griffin cried out and she opened her eyes to see him gritting his teeth. Chimerans loved the burst of intense heat that accompanied orgasm, considered it the ultimate satisfaction, but she could not tell if his expression was pain or pleasure. She tried to lift herself off him, to protect him from the heat that must have been immense for someone uninitiated, but he grabbed her so hard she bruised, and continued to pump her body down on his. Asking for more.
