Chapter 182 182

Chapter 182 182
Emma's POV:
"We need... we need a condom," he said, probably realizing at that same moment for the first time ever.
"Nightstand," I said. "Top drawer."
He looked at me.
"I'm practical and I know what I want," I said. "Don't overthink it."
He reached over and I watched his hands, those shaking too-warm hands, tear at the wrapper with fingers that could bend metal if he wasn't careful, and his whole face was tight with concentration because he was terrified of ripping the thing inside.
"Do you need help?" I asked. Not teasing. Genuine.
"I got it."
He got it. Barely. And I watched him from the pillow, and something in my chest was so full it hurt, because he was trying so hard and he was so scared of hurting me and his hands were trembling and his eyes were half gold and he was beautiful. Not like a magazine. Beautiful like someone who cares so much it's tearing him apart.
He settled over me. Forearms braced on either side of my head, like he'd seen in movies probably, and I opened my legs and he reached between us and the first contact made my breath catch.
"Go slow," I said.
He pushed forward. So slow, so careful his arms were shaking from the control, and the feeling was a lot, his body radiating heat that I could feel inside me, this warmth that had nothing to do with friction and everything to do with whatever the gold was.
I made a sound. Small.
He froze.
"Don't stop." I put my hands on his shoulders. "That was a good sound."
He moved. Slow, watching my face with those gold-edged eyes, checking, always checking, and I wanted to tell him to stop worrying but I also loved that he couldn't, that he was so focused on me his own pleasure was secondary. He found a rhythm. Slow, then less slow. My legs came up around his waist and the angle changed and I gasped because the warmth went deeper, concentrated where our bodies met, this radiating heat that spread through my hips and into my spine.
Then it happened.
His eyes went full gold, all at once, and the heat in his hands spiked hard and I felt it through my skin where his palms pressed into the mattress near my head. He pulled back, pulled out, rolled off me and onto his back, and the pillowcase near where his head had been was smoking. A thin curl of white rising from the cotton.
"Shit." He sat up. Grabbed the pillow and threw it on the floor. "Shit, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry—"
I sat up. Looked at the pillow on the floor. It had stopped smoking. Small burn mark, maybe the size of a quarter. Then I looked at him: sitting on the edge of my bed, hands clenched between his knees, gold pulsing in his eyes, his whole body rigid with the effort of holding whatever was inside him locked down.
He was terrified. Not of the fire. Of himself.
I looked at the pillow again. At the small brown mark. At the room, which was fine. At my skin, which was fine. At my sheets, which were fine. The fire hadn't spread. It had barely existed. A scorch mark the size of a quarter on a pillowcase, and he was sitting there looking like he'd burned the whole house down.
"Breathe," I said.
"I almost—"
"You didn't. Breathe."
I watched him do it. Eyes closed, shoulders dropping, the gold pulling back in stages. His hands unclenched. The heat faded. I put my hand on his back, between his shoulder blades, and rubbed a slow circle. Nothing sexual in it. Just steady.
And I thought about the problem. Because that's what this was, a problem, and problems have solutions, and I'd spent three weeks rewriting chapter seven of my novel because the fire system didn't work and I'd figured that out by understanding where the fire came from and how it moved. This was the same thing. Different stakes. Same logic.
His hands. The heat went to his hands. When he was on top, his hands were braced against the mattress, the sheets, the pillow. Cotton and polyester and goose down. Combustible surfaces. The heat had nowhere to go except into things that could catch fire.
But when he touched me, the heat went into my skin. And my skin didn't burn. It got warm. It felt good, better than good. His hands on my waist, my face, my thighs, all of that had been warm, intense, but never painful. Never even close to painful.
So the answer wasn't less heat. It was different contact.
"We're not done," I said.
He opened his eyes. "You still want to—"
"We're not done, Lucian." I knelt behind him on the bed and kissed his shoulder. His neck. The back of his ear. "You didn't hurt me. Nothing caught fire. We just need to figure out the positions."
"The positions?"
"Your hands." I took them. Turned them over in mine. Still warm, but not hot. Not anymore. "When you're on top, you're bracing on them. The heat goes into the mattress, the sheets, the pillow. What if you weren't holding yourself up?"
He stared at me. And I could see him getting it, the pieces connecting.
"Lie back," I said.
He did. I straddled him, my knees on either side of his hips, and took his hands and put them on my thighs. "Keep them here. On me. The heat goes into my skin, not the sheets."
"What if I burn you?"
"You didn't burn me before. Your hands are hot, Lucian, but they're not fire. It's more like a heating pad. Trust me."