His mouth worked and he finally managed to get a few hoarse words out. “So why did you run?”
“Because I was afraid—” He was already wincing. “I was afraid of what I felt for you. Last night—it was just so intense, it was like there was another woman in the bed with you. When I woke up I ran, because I could hardly recognize myself.”
She leaned forward, kissed his chest right over his heart. She could feel its slow, regular beat.
She tipped her head back to study his face and told him the stark truth. “I was so rattled by you, by what was happening. It just scared the hell out of me.”
Nicole rose on tiptoe, cupped his shoulders, lifted herself up against him and bit his lower lip until he let her in. It wasn’t a slow kiss. She took it straight from zero to a hundred in a second.
She was naked and could feel everything that happened to him as she kissed him. At first he froze, surprise coming off him in waves at the unexpected kiss. She was plastered against him.
The sudden sharp breath, the heavy erection trying to rise under his jeans against her lower belly, such a powerful movement it made her vagina contract in desire. His hands on her hips moved to her buttocks as he pulled her tightly against him, positioning her to rub against his penis—and he froze. Carefully, as if he were handling something full of nitroglycerin, he eased back and away, the only connection between them his hands still loosely at her hips.
Nicole’s eyes fluttered open, the heat that had flared up so fiercely and brightly slowly dissipating.
“Sam?” she whispered. He was pulling away? But he was aroused, massively. She had felt it against her own skin.
“No.”
“No?” she echoed hollowly.
“Not right now. Not yet, anyway.” He looked down at her, at the drops of blood on her white shirt on the floor. “You need to be ready.”
Ready? She was ready all right. Blood pooled heavily between her thighs, her breasts felt full and heavy. She didn’t need any foreplay.
“I’m ready, Sam.” If Nicole hadn’t felt the words leave her lips, she would never have believed that that throaty, velvety voice laced with sex could possibly be hers.
“Mmm.”
Shifting sideways, Sam did something complicated to the complex shower control and a rush of hot water came flowing out, steam billowing out in the room, shrugging off his shirt. “First things first.”
He bent to kiss her cheek.
He was moving slowly. Last night, half the time he had moved at warp speed. So this was going to be his show and he was going to take it slow. Okay. Some of that sexual tension relaxed a little. They were going to make love, but clearly not right away.
He picked her clothes up from the floor, put them on a chair together with his own shirt and rose, big thigh muscles flexing, jeans clinging to him like a lover. Oh wow. Who knew she could be so susceptible to beefcake? Who knew that his enormous chest could take her breath away, that watching his thigh and stomach muscles contract as he rose slowly from a crouch could make her own thigh muscles twitch?
He shot out a hand to test the temperature, grunted, then eased her into the stall as if she were the queen of Coronado Shores.
Ah, the hot water pummeled her sore muscles. It felt wonderful. She turned under the showerhead, face uptilted, eyes closed, savoring the sensation.
She opened her eyes and saw that he was getting drenched. He still had on his jeans.
Nicole gave a half laugh and pointed at his jeans. “Shouldn’t you take those off?”
Sam’s dark eyes gleamed as he opened a bottle of shampoo and poured a little into his hand. “Nope. Denim chastity belt. Best in the world. Worked in high school, works now. Boner’s got no place to go. Now turn around and tilt your head back.”
She obeyed, sighing with pleasure as his strong fingers began working up a lather. A strong scent with a deep note of sandalwood washed over her. Sam’s shampoo. She remembered smelling it in his hair as she ran her fingers through it, then clenching her fists in his hair as she started coming. Scent memories are locked into the most primordial part of the brain, she knew, and this one nearly knocked her off her feet as she remembered the hot feelings connected with this smell. She moaned.
“What? Did I hurt you?” His large hands stilled. Oh man, this was embarrassing. She was being turned on by hisshampoo.
She leaned against him heavily, head tilted back onto his shoulder. “No,” she said, as the water rushed over her. “You didn’t hurt me.”
“Good,” he grunted. His strong hands went back to kneading, fingertips digging in, somehow knowing exactly where the knots of tension were. She could feel every inch of him against her naked back. The dark swirls of chest hair tickled her upper back and she could feel his tight abs contract as he moved to pour more shampoo into his hand.
His penis was huge behind the wet denim, hard and hot enough to radiate heat through the stiff material. She wiggled her bottom and felt him surge against her, fingers stilling in her hair.
That denim was less of a chastity belt than he thought. She wiggled again, rolling against what felt like a moving hot steel rod in his pants.
