Nicole stared blindly at the door panel because if she looked at him again, she’d move toward him or reach out to touch him and he looked like he was barely controlling himself. She barely hadherselfunder control. When the doors swooshed open, Sam put a hand to her back and her knees nearly buckled.
A large well-lit expanse of highly-polished hardwood floor stretched out left to right. At each end of the corridor were huge plate-glass floor-to-ceiling windows filled with a crimson glow. One side of the building gave out over the ocean, the other side onto the bay.
Sam took her elbow and moved them right, walking them down to the end of the corridor.
Nicole’s heart was pounding. There wasn’t going to be an hour of sipping whiskey and listening to music while she leisurely decided whether she wanted to take the next step. Once inside his apartment, they were going straight to bed, she could feel it.
Sex pulsed around him like an almost visible aura. As they walked, their eyes met at the same time, then Nicole’s gaze slid away. It was too intense. She was burning up.
She could feel everything, every inch of her body. She was as aroused as she had ever been in her life, after one kiss, the only physical contact his big hand on her elbow.
All she could hear were her own heels, clickety clacking over the hardwood floor, in time with her trip-hammering heart. Sam moved utterly silently, like a huge, dark wraith.
They reached a door on the left-hand side, the side that looked out over the ocean.
He swiped a card down a slot and put his hand on a panel by the side of the door. The panel flashed green and slid open to reveal a keypad. Sam punched in five numbers and with a soft whirring of precision machinery, the door slid into the wall.
Straight ahead was a corridor of broad light-colored maple planks opening onto a large living area. The back wall was glass panels giving out onto a balcony, the sea darkly purple in the distance.
Nicole stood on the threshold, suddenly unable to make a move. Sam stood beside her, waiting.
She looked up at him, dismayed, unable to step forward, unable to go back. Her knees shook. She was suddenly seized with an attack of nerves. Everything about this felt new and scary.
Somehow, he understood. He was so worked up he had an erection like a hammer in his pants, but he didn’t push her over the threshold or take her elbow and walk her through.
He didn’t move.
“Welcome.” The deep voice was soft as he gestured with his arm at the open doorway. He said nothing more, simply waited for her. The unspoken message was very clear. Stepping into his home had to be her choice.
Trembling, feeling as if she were stepping through an invisible barrier into another life, Nicole entered.
The house smelled good—of clean textiles and lemon polish and the sea breeze coming in from an open window, white cotton curtains billowing with the wind coming off the ocean.
A hiss, a metallicwhumpbehind her and the door was closed and locked.
She was in.
She was going to do this.
Oh yes.
The next second her back thumped against the door and Sam Reston’s entire weight was against her as he kissed her wildly. Not the fragile, tentative kiss in his car. Oh no, this was as if he were trying to inhale her, while punching his skin through hers. A deep kiss, wild, going on forever.
Oh God, his taste! Like a fresh mountain stream pumped full of male hormones, calculated to drive any woman wild. His mouth ate at hers, coming at her from various angles, as if one weren’t enough. And it wasn’t.
Her bag plopped to the floor, followed by her jacket.
Nicole could now hold him to her heart’s content, though “holding” was a bland term for what she really wanted to do—crawl into his skin, feel every inch of that hard, delectable body, not with her fingertips but with her whole being. She twined her arms around his neck and arched her back. His chest muscles were so cut, she could feel them through his jacket, shirt, and her dress and bra, hard, ropy ridges of muscle, moving against her. Nicole astonished herself by rubbing against him, for the sheer pleasure of it, and because she was burning up and he seemed to be the only thing that could extinguish the fire.
His penis was hot and hard and huge against her belly and she could feel the pulses running through it against her skin. She tightened her hips, rubbing herself against him, and heard him moan in her mouth. Sam crouched and lifted her with an arm across her bottom, aligning his penis with her mound. She ground against him and the answering pulse of his penis against her made every muscle in her body contract.
Sam growled and leaned into her even more heavily, mouth grinding against hers, hips grinding against hers…
It was unthinkable that there be anything separating them. It was as if they both came to that conclusion together, at the very same instant. She reached up, swept his jacket off those broad shoulders. Her shaking fingers tugged at his tie and before it floated to the ground, she was at his shirt buttons, freeing the round bits of plastic from the eyeholes, pulling the tails out from his pants. She couldn’t take off his shirt because his hands were on her bottom, holding her up, so the shirt fell off his shoulders just enough for her to feel the curly chest hairs and hard muscles of his chest against her. It was maddening that she still had the barriers of her dress and bra between them. She ached to feel him, hard to soft. Absorb some of that strength and heat through her skin.
Sam’s callused hands ran up her thighs, bringing the skirt of her dress up, until he touched her panties. Her very expensive, mauve silk panties which she expected he’d let slither down her legs, like in some perfume ad, once he let her feet touch the floor again.
What happened next happened so fast she couldn’t follow the movements. A ripping sound, a zipping sound, rough fingers opening her up and—oh my God!—he was in her, impossibly hard, impossibly hot, deeper than anyone had ever been before.
