They sat in silence for a moment, looking at each other. Nicole swallowed.
Do something, dickhead, he told himself.
Clutching the wheel tightly, because he didn’t trust himself to touch her, he leaned over to her, slowly. She was still a moment, then moved her head to meet his, hands in her lap. Their lips met over the central console.
The first real taste of her was electric. He felt it down to his balls. The merest taste, a brush of the lips, then, heads tilting, a deeper taste.
Oh God, it was like drinking fine wine. His nose was against her cheek. Close up, she smelled even better. They should just bottle up that smell and call it Desirable Woman. Men would follow women wearing it over cliffs.
He opened his mouth and licked her tongue, feeling her in-drawn breath from his mouth. Oh Jesus. One more second and he’d tilt her seat back, climb on top of her, lift her skirt, rip her panties open and drive into her.
He could barely breathe from the excitement. They had to take it inside. He didn’t give a shit, but presumably Nicole would mind being caught humping in the front seat.
He lifted his head, watching her eyes slowly open, like huge dark blue headlights. She looked dazed, the skin over her cheekbones flushed. She was aroused. Not as much as he was—that would be impossible—but she was definitely turned on.
“Let’s go up.” He was whispering. Everything felt fragile, as if the moment were of glass and could shatter at too loud a sound.
“Okay,” she whispered back.
There wasno small talk in the elevator going up. Nicole couldn’t utter a word, her throat was too tightly closed. What was there to say, anyway? She couldn’t have made any small talk that wouldn’t arrow right back to what they were about to do.
Sam Reston stood beside her, looking as if he were about ready to explode, with an enormous erection tenting his pants. Any possible comments she might make about the weather or the building or the food they’d just eaten would be inane.
The very air felt charged, as if something enormous, something dark, surely momentous, possibly dangerous, were coming closer with each second.
This hadn’t actually happened to her before—going to a man’s house on a date having already accepted the idea of sleeping with him. Ms. Cool always kept her options open, never promising anything. A number of men who thought going to bed with her was a done deal had been left hanging. She made no promises and always reserved the right to say no if she became uncomfortable with the idea.
She wasn’t going to say no now. She couldn’t. It was as if Sam were this…this dark wizard who’d somehow cast a spell. Cast a glittering net over her so she couldn’t escape, couldn’t go back, could only go forward. The way an arrow, once loosed from the bow and embedded in flesh, can only be pushed forward, never pulled back.
There was this huge, rushing stream of dark sensuality, flowing directly toward his apartment and his bed, and she was caught in it.
At the thought of being in Sam Reston’s bed, her vagina tightened, hard. Oh God, she was so aroused, she could feel the lips of her sex rubbing together as she moved.
This was absolutely new territory for Nicole. Another country altogether. One so far away from her knowledge of herself she could have been on an alien planet.
She couldn’t say anything. Her voice would betray her agitation. She was barely holding on to a semblance of control, trying to keep her breathing regular, but it was all but impossible when she realized they were minutes away from bed.
At the thought, at the heated images in her head of Sam Reston’s broad, naked shoulders above her, dark eyes staring into hers, long legs twined with hers, her vagina clenched again, her stomach muscles pulling sharply.
Heavens, she was minutes from orgasm, just from riding in the car and walking beside this man! Her heart pounded, her knees were weak.
This was ridiculous. Insane. Nicole was not highly sexed. Even in Geneva, footloose and fancy free, with all the money in the world and a city of diplomats and bankers at her feet, she hadn’t dated that much. Certainly hadn’t slept around.
She was hard to please, easily bored. Cool and in control, always.
Not now. This rough former soldier had somehow shaken her so hard she’d come away from her moorings. She was so filled with nervous excitement she had to stop herself from drumming her fingers on her purse.
She looked up, once, then looked away. He was watching her, dark eyes fixed on her, unwavering in his attention. Most women wanted their dates to pay attention to them, but this was way beyond first-date vibes. He was a soldier, and he was fixed on her as if she were a mission.
She’d never been in an enclosed space where the silence had weight and density. The silence felt like a living thing in the cabin, alive and sinuous, thick, snaking around them like an invisible fog.
It robbed her of breath and, obviously, of all common sense because she found she wanted to jump Sam Reston’s bones. It was hard to think of a more un–Nicole-like thought, but there it was.
He exerted a pull she’d never felt before, though it was true she’d never gone out with anyone like him before, either. Her dates up until now had been elegant metrosexuals. Certainly not big and tough like Sam, incapable of playing those sophisticated man-woman games she was so good at. Sam didn’t hide his desire in any way. He wasn’t playing in any way. It was as if his desire were a huge emery board, filing away a layer of her skin until she was rubbed raw.
She chanced another glance up at him then away again, fast. He was still focused on her, jaw muscles jumping, eyes narrowed into slits.
Her heart jumped and she had to remember to breathe.
