Page 54 of In the Dead of Night

When he did, looking into the clear depths of her eyes was like seeing the light of sunrise after a long, dark and stormy night. It was as if he could breathe again after being oxygen-deprived.

“Until now,” he whispered.

“Being with someone…Nick, it’s a big step.”

Turning to face her, he set both hands on either side of her face. For the span of several heartbeats, he let her beauty, both inside and outside, sink into him, warm the coldness of his soul. “That’s why I needed to tell you about Nancy and the baby. I’m not…I don’t have it together yet, Sara. I’m working on it, but there’s a big part of me missing. A big chunk that was just ripped away that day, and I haven’t been able to get it back.”

“It’s okay,” she whispered.

“Is it okay?” he returned. “Is it okay for me to look at you and want you so badly I feel it all the way to my bones? Is it okay for me to feel that way, knowing I’m not whole? That I’m probably not capable of giving back?”

“Or maybe you don’t realize how much you give back.”

It was one of the kindest things anyone had ever said to him. But Nick didn’t believe it. “There’s nothing left inside me to give. I’m tapped out. Spent. Grief did that to me. One of us gets the short end of the stick.”

“Maybe we should take it slowly.” She started to rise, but he grasped her hand and pulled her back onto the sofa.

Suddenly, he couldn’t bear the thought of her walking away. From this moment. From him. He knew it wasn’t fair. But the need was diamond-sharp and cutting him with every beat of his heart.

He didn’t want this precious moment in time to slip away. If Nick had learned anything in the last year, it was that the now is what counted.

“Is this slow enough?” he asked, and lowered his mouth to hers.

* * *

THE KISS shocked her system. Pleasure short-circuited the synapses firing in her brain. Every nerve ending in her body sizzled and snapped. All she could think was that she’d stepped out of the shallows and into the deep.

At the age of twenty-seven, she’d been kissed by plenty of men in her lifetime. She’d had two serious, albeit tepid relationships that had ended through no fault of her own. She was no stranger to passion or the pleasures of being intimate with a man.

But Nick’s kiss was like nothing she’d ever experienced. On a physical level, he elevated the act to an art form that made every erogenous zone in her body weep for more. On an intellectual level, she understood fully the emotional risk he was taking. The fact that he was willing to put his own painful past aside to get close to her shattered the last of her reservations and tore down the protective walls she’d erected around her heart.

He kissed her long and hard and so thoroughly she forgot to breathe. She didn’t know if it was the lack of oxygen or the rush of blood from her head to other areas of her body that made the room dip and spin. His focus was total and so intense she couldn’t catch her breath.

They were sitting on the sofa, angled so that they were face to face. A gasp escaped her when he eased her back and came down on top of her. All the while he was kissing her as she’d never been kissed before in her life. Need such as she’d never known fired inside her, flames licking higher and higher.

Vaguely, she was aware of thunder outside the bungalow. While the wind and rain lashed the windows, she and Nick dealt with their own storm inside.

He deepened the kiss, and she opened to him, inviting him inside. She could feel his labored breaths against her cheek. His muscles trembling against hers. She could feel her own ragged breaths tearing from her throat.

“I want more of you,” he said darkly. “More of this.”

His words whispered through her brain like a sigh. But Sara was beyond answering. Beyond rational thought. The only information her brain processed at that moment was the feel of his body against hers and the insistent pressure of his mouth.

A sigh escaped her when his hand closed over her breast. Even before she realized she was going to respond, her back arched, giving him full access. He slipped his hands beneath her shirt. With a flick of the wrist, he opened the front closure of her bra.

Her breath left her lungs in a rush when he cupped her. She nearly came up off the sofa when he trapped her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers. Sara had never considered herself a sexual person. She’d always been shy and reserved, able to go months without so much as a sexual thought. Nick had changed all of that with a single kiss and a touch so powerful it made her forget who she was.

Sara writhed beneath his ministrations. Her breasts ached. Her entire body seemed to be on fire, burning from the inside out.

Sitting back slightly, Nick looked at her. Sara stared back at him, aware of the sweat beaded on his forehead. But it was his eyes that unnerved her, that made her want with such intensity that it verged on pain.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered and reached for her shirt.

A protest died on her lips when he gently pulled her shirt over her head. Her bra lay open, exposing her breasts. Feeling vulnerable, Sara moved to cover herself with her arms, but Nick stopped her. “I want to see you,” he said and ducked his head.

A cry erupted in her throat when his mouth closed over her nipple. Sensation rushed the length of her body, pooling and spreading like wildfire. Vanity forgotten, she reached for him, her fingers fumbling on the buttons of his shirt.

“I want to see you, too,” she whispered.