скачать книгу бесплатно
“I’m twenty-six, not sixteen.” She laughed, sounding more nervous, he was sure, than she’d intended. “It’s just that I’m acting a little out of character here and I don’t want to lose my nerve.”
Damn, she was cute. He rubbed his thumb in a light circle over her knuckle and leaned in conspiratorially. “Lose your nerve for what?”
He’d asked it as a taunt, finding her all too easy to tease and loving the fast rise of red to her cheeks. Only when she turned, head tipping back as her gaze lifted to his, the wild blush he’d been hoping for wasn’t anywhere to be found. Instead a sort of uncertain determination lit her face, making him wonder just what she was struggling with.
Brushing a stray curl from her brow, he caught the quick dart of a pink tongue across the swell of her bottom lip, felt the pull of this thing between them tugging him closer, making him want to take advantage of the empty stairwell, the dim lighting and the mouth that was driving him to distraction.
He needed to get her out of there. Into his b—
No. Not yet. This one was different.
Those soulful brown eyes searched his, the lingering intimacy fraying the tether of his restraint. The soft press of her body against his, unraveling his control.
“My nerve for this,” she murmured, her breath a fluttery rush against his skin an instant before she kissed him—pressed her mouth to his and tasted his lips with the barest flick of her tongue, demolishing the man he’d wanted to be for her and giving rise to the man she’d invited in.
Hell.
Tucking the hand still holding hers at the small of her back, he drew a slow breath at that most enticing spot just below a woman’s ear. Let her quiet shudder and sweet scent flood his senses and wreak havoc on his body.
“That’s what you want?” he asked in a low growl, knowing it was but wanting to hear her say it just the same.
“I’ve been worried about avoiding complications so long I think maybe I’ve been missing a lot of the simple stuff too.” She swallowed, heat pouring off her as she finished, “I don’t want to miss this.”
She couldn’t get any better. “Then you won’t.”
Ten minutes later, amid gasps of laughter and lust, Garrett turned the key and Nichole’s front door swung open under the combined weight of their bodies. Spilling into her front hall, Garrett righted them both, kicked the door closed with a sweep of his leg and threw the lock. She backed across the open hardwood, barely a step ahead of him, eyes glittering, lips curved and parted as her breath came in shallow pants.
Her gaze swept the length of him and the now persistent flush of her cheeks deepened, driving the blood hard and fast to his already aching groin. Reaching for him, her slender fingers curved around his belt, pulling until he allowed her to tow him closer. Close enough that he could reach around her, cover the firm curves of her ass with his hands, slide lower still to the backs of her thighs and hoist her up against him.
Her breath caught as her ankles locked behind his back, the soft brown of her eyes going nearly black as her pupils pushed wide.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he groaned, fighting the urge to take her there against the wall.
Nodding distractedly, she went to work on the buttons down the front of his shirt, pushing at the panels like she was revealing Superman’s emblem beneath. And when she answered, “You too,” her eyes glazing at the sight of him, taking a building in a single bound didn’t seem so impossible.
The door to her room was open ahead, and the sight of her neat bed with its delicate lilac print spread made him harder than he could ever remember being. Hell, yes, he was hungry for the sex. For her body. For the pretty pink that tinged her skin and the sounds she’d make when he took her over the edge. He wanted all of that. But this—this anticipation burning through his veins—was for what would come after. For the part that was going to be different. The part he would wait for until he’d wrung every moan and gasp Nichole’s body had to offer out of her.
At her bed, he set her back on the mattress, supporting himself on one arm.
Legs still wrapped around his hips, she looked up at him. “I don’t even know your name.”
He’d opened his mouth to tell her when something in the depths of those deep dark eyes gave him pause. Something excited.
The corner of his mouth kicked up. Lowering his voice to a taunting growl, he asked, “So the question is, do you like it better that way?”
The half-moan, half-gasp that escaped her slender throat was answer enough to just about push him over the edge.
Had he actually thought she couldn’t get any better?
Perfect. This hot, hard, mouthwatering male specimen was her sunset. Her uncomplicated simple pleasure. This was the fantasy she could finally afford to play out. The reckless adventure she hadn’t dared to dream. And, more, it was safe.
Because she didn’t even know his name.
Women didn’t plan forevers around nameless men. They didn’t get the wrong idea. Misinterpret intentions. Or get caught up in dreams that would take them nowhere.
They got a single night sans complications.
This was the one night of wild abandon she’d been unconsciously saving up for for three years. Longer than that if she was willing to look back. But she wasn’t. Not tonight. Not when this moment, right now—as the familiar stranger above her lowered his mouth to the hollow between her breasts—was too good to miss even one second of.
Those blue eyes peered up at her as the corner of his mouth twisted into a mischievous smile. “This little bow here,” he murmured gruffly, “has been begging me to play with it all night.” Then, catching one loose string between his teeth, he tugged until the knot slipped free, taking Nichole’s next breath with it.
She hadn’t thought of the peach cami as particularly sexy, hadn’t consciously drawn attention to herself for years. But at the rough sound of appreciation scraping from his throat as he used his hand to part the tiny expanse of soft cotton between her breasts just that much further, she flushed with the pleasure of knowing it was.
His tongue swirled deep in the hollow there, wetting the skin first and then blowing a cool breath across it after, making her belly turn and twist.
There wasn’t enough contact between them. Not for the way her body was beginning to ache. To heat. To need. He was above her on the bed, his weight supported on one arm and the knees that straddled her thigh.
His tongue made another wet foray across the swell of her breast and then stopped within a warm, teasing breath of her nipple. So close.
Arching into him, she offered the straining bud to his kiss, begging him to push her bra aside and take. But just as quickly he eased back, drawing another wet trail up to her collarbone, her neck and then to the decadent spot behind her ear that had never felt quite so sensitive as this.
“I want you naked, Nichole,” he growled against the spot, making her heart skitter and pound.
“You know my name,” she gasped as his palm smoothed over her belly to the hem of her shirt and pushed it up.
Pulling the gathered fabric over her head, he tossed the shirt aside and stared down at her breasts, covered in a plain cream demi-cup. “And you don’t know mine.”
She swallowed hard.
It shouldn’t have been exciting. She only wanted to think of it as a safeguard, a defense against this man who’d stirred the first response her body had known in three years, and quite possibly the strongest ever. But there was no mistaking the playful taunt in his tone. This was sexy gameplay. Or maybe a second cousin to it. It had to be some relation based on the way the words alone and all their suggestive implications licked at the needy, achy places within her. Places she hadn’t thought existed.
A flick of his finger and the front clasp opened. Another and she was bared to him. The peaks of her nipples tight and straining for a touch only he could give her. And now, watching the way that electric blue glaze zeroed in on them, she didn’t think she’d manage her next breath if he didn’t ease them.
“Naked, Nichole.”
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_3926e7fe-ed15-5824-a169-08f00d671eb8)
BACKING OFF THE BED he helped her out of her jeans and panties. Staring in blatant appreciation at her naked form spread out before him, he shed his shirt with a few efficient jerks and went to work on his belt.
Nichole’s mouth went dry, her eyes wide. And then she was on her knees at the edge of the bed, pushing his hands from the wide length of leather and running her own up the steep plains of his chest. She’d felt the power in his shoulders when he carried her, seen the definition across his pecs when she’d opened his shirt, but this—nothing had prepared her for the hard-cut terrain of his shirtless form.
He was like a work of art. A Greek god. A veritable playground of muscle and man. And he was only half undressed.
“Naked,” she murmured, her fingers jumping the crest of each abdominal ridge as they descended back to his belt, tugged the stiff leather until the buckle freed, before moving on to his straining fly.
He stood patient before her as she opened his zipper with trembling fingers. As if he sensed her need to be an active participant rather than a passive player. But still he touched her all the while, never breaking contact, his hands always moving, coasting over her bare shoulders, her neck and back as she pushed the denim low on his hips. His thumbs brushed the line of her jaw, the swell of her bottom lip, the hollow at the base of her throat as she eased the stretchy waistband of his white cotton boxer briefs over the thick head of his erection and saw for the first time his actual size.
Big. Like everything else about him.
Different. Than anything she’d experienced before.
Exciting. In a way she’d never known.
Unable to resist, she closed a hand over him, testing the steely length.
“Nichole.”
At the gruff sound of her name she lifted her gaze up, up, up until she met the blue burn of his. Intense. Barely contained. A shocking contrast to the light touch he’d treated her to. The look in his eyes said he wanted to throw her back on the bed and take her hard. Let the weight of his body hold her down.
Wow. Okay. She was pretty sure she wanted that too.
She gave him the space to toe off his shoes and discard his jeans, retrieving his wallet and the condom within in the process.
Breathless with mounting anticipation, she waited for him to rip it open and roll it on … frowned as he tossed it onto the bed instead.
Please don’t let him be one of those guys who only wants to wear protection at the very end. She was so excited, so caught up in the magic of what was happening, the wet blanket of a conversation about risks and necessity and protection really wasn’t one she wanted to need to have.
At her questioning stare, his brow quirked.
Okay—so, yes. She was going to have to have the conversation. “Umm, you’re going to wear that? The whole time, right?”
The eyes above her looked briefly confused, then cleared completely. “I would never take that kind of risk, Nichole. Not with your life. Not with mine.”
The conviction in his words was unmistakable, and left her with no doubt about his sincerity or commitment to their mutual protection. Which was incredibly sexy.
Almost as much as when his mouth tipped in a way that suggested a secret lingered behind his crooked smile. One he looked forward to sharing with her.
“What? You didn’t think the fun and games were over yet, did you?”
She swallowed, unwilling to admit that in her experience the bulk sum of “fun and games” took place between the time the condom went on and came off. “I—I don’t know.”
He leaned in closer, and then closer still, so the light pressure of his mouth against her ear and his bare chest at her shoulder guided her down to the bed. “Not even close.”
Nervous laughter escaped her even as her inner walls clenched with unmet need.
His hand moved between her legs, cupping her sex as he held her gaze. A single thick finger slid between her swollen folds and then inside her. Deep and deeper. Slow and steady. He withdrew to paint a light circle around that throbbing bundle of nerves—the callused pad of a workman’s finger adding sensation when she was already beyond what she’d believed she could take—his gentle, rough touch a decadent sensual contrast.
Different.
Every single thing about him.
About this night.
Another slow thrust of his finger and her hips rocked to meet him. Her back arched and the desire pooling warm and thick through her belly spilled free, making her slick, making her beg. “Please. I need—”
“You need more?” A second finger joined the first, this one pushing a gasp from her lungs instead of words.
Want coiled tight within her, making her pulse around his slow thrusts. Making her skin heat and her center burn. “I need you—”
“To make you wait? Make you so hot and ready …” the strong draw of his mouth on her nipple stole conscious thought “… that when you finally fall over the edge it’ll feel like forever?”
“Oh, God.” Her body seized, liquid heat scorching through her veins, pushing her fast toward the very edge he’d threatened to pull her back from. “I—I’m so close. Please—it’s been so long. Please.”
His touch far inside her, he met her gaze. “How long?”
Another deep thrust, this one slower, so she felt the curl of his fingers stroking, teasing some wicked spot that promised to make her its slave.
“Years,” she admitted on a broken gasp, unable to bear the intensity of his stare a moment longer.
His hand stilled. Withdrew as the bed sagged under his shifting weight.
Her eyes shot open, panic slamming through her. He couldn’t stop. Not now. “No, wait—”
Only then she saw he wasn’t leaving the bed at all, but rather moving between her legs. His wide hands spread them apart in a way that with any other man would have left her feeling vulnerable, exposed. Not with him. Not when his big hands slid beneath her bottom and wide shoulders braced her thighs. Not when he looked into her eyes and said, “No more waiting.”
And then his mouth was covering her, his tongue mimicking the actions of his fingers and hands only moments ago … only it was different. So very, incredibly different. So much more … intense. Stimulating. Hard and soft and wet and strong. Everything. He was delving inside her and then licking a path to her most sensitive spot.
Stroking.
Nibbling.
Circling with the wet velvet point of his tongue.
Making her gasp and cry and beg and scream.
And then he closed over her … drawing deep against the throbbing, needy ache. Pulling sensation from every tingling extremity … centering it all … at that one … concentrated … spot.
She was falling.
So hard. So good. So long.
Finding her release had never been so incredible. Not even close.
Maybe it was the anonymity. Or semi-anonymity anyway, since he’d made it clear he knew her name, saying it again and again in a deep, rumbling voice that stroked her every nerve like the wet tongue that spoke it.
And then he was crawling over her, giving her a taste of his body atop hers.
His lips grazed her neck. Tender. Lingering. He was going for the condom, but not in any rush. And she realized he was savoring her as he’d savored their sunset.
Oh, no. That fluttery sort of ache in her chest, making her want to link her arms around his neck and pull him closer, didn’t belong there. Or maybe it did. Maybe it was just a normal side effect of endorphins being released and not her reckless heart getting ahead of her. She didn’t know. What she needed was an expert. Someone with a point of reference when it came to “casual.”
She couldn’t even believe she was thinking it—and while she was still in bed with her blue-eyed stranger. But maybe Maeve was right and she should talk to—
“Garrett,” came the gruff, deeply masculine voice from above her.
Her eyes blinked wide as the flutter in her chest dropped into her belly, turning leaden and still.
“I can feel you getting tense.”