'I promise I won't let you go.'
Billie heard the words, and then felt his kiss, tender and sweet. Her feelings welled inside her like a spring overflowing.
Once, when she was twelve, she had gone to LA to visit her Dad, and they had gone for a hike. An enormous, three day hike.
They'd driven into the mountains in the dark and as it began to get light they set off into the dry scrubby hills.
All day they'd walked.
Will had carried most of the stuff, but even so, by the afternoon Billie had been exhausted and scratched with blisters on her feet and pain between her shoulders from the weight of her backpack.
But then something amazing had happened. The sides of the gully got steeper and the creek they had crossed a half a dozen times changed.
It got warm, then warmer. Greenery appeared. By the time they were ready to camp, the water was like a hot bath and they had soaked away the soreness in their muscles. The next morning, a little further up the trail from their camp they had found a place where steaming water boiled from beneath the surface.
Will had told her that they weren't far from the actual San Andreas fault and that the water was hot because it was coming from down in the crust where the heat that kept the planet alive could warm it. Like some kind of primordial font.
Will had told her that night, sitting by a small fire under the stars, that she should always remember that she was just the same. Living heat. That life would cause her to crack and fault lines would run through her life, but she should not be scared because that's how the heat and life got to the surface. Thats how love flowed.
Billie felt the truth of that now. Like something inside her had shifted, and life was boiling up inside her. Where she had been cold and brittle, now steam was boiling and charging through her to get to the surface.
The kiss, which had been tenderly halting, was suddenly not close to enough for her. Her skin flushed and she pressed herself against him, so she could feel the coolness of him.
He felt the change in her and responded immediately. Their hands ran over each other, not resting, but outlining each other until Billie got frustrated with the lack of skin contact and Stone pulled away chuckling at her and whispered down
'Settle Little Petal. I will take it off ' and yanked his shirt over his head discarding it quickly and doing the same for her.
When they pressed back together Stone could feel the heat of her bubbling under her skin like a fever.
'So hot' he whispered against her mouth, her warm breasts, squashing against his lean chest.
'The rest.. off...' she growled in his ear, hooking her fingers in her own shorts and dragging them down.
Stone heard her need and when he stepped back to undress, he looked at her and was arrested by the sight of her.
The lamplight shadowed one side of her face, accentuating the tilt of her cheekbones and limning the edge of her lips in gold. His fingers itched to touch her soft, silky skin, but he felt a little nervous too. She was a sorceress standing there, her eyes flashing emerald and silver, her skin flushed with her desire.
He dropped his pants and came to her. She dragged a breath in through her teeth and Stone saw her jaw clench with what he thought was an urge to bite him.
Then a shiver went through her and she stepped forward and placed her palms flat against his collarbones.
They looked into each other's eyes and he couldn't help smiling at her intensity but not for long because slowly she slid her hands downwards, grazing his nipples, then down his belly, over his hips, around behind him where she paused to squeeze his bottom, then back up and over his shoulder blades, where she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her ear to his chest, his heart already picking up speed.
