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Her face was hot, eyes averted, but she nodded.
He was getting on with it. Quick, before she changed her mind.
Dawn hadn’t lightened the windows in the bedroom. Nick followed her in, padding like a big, silent panther behind her.
He went from window to window, jerking the curtains closed. He peered at the window fastenings, the warped wood, the peeling paint, the thin, uneven glass. “This place is a security nightmare,” he growled.
She had nothing to say to that. She’d never given it a thought before. Now she would probably obsess about it all the time.
Nick scowled at her antique bed: the carved bedposts, the fluffy comforter, the puffy bolsters, a heap of larger pillows, smaller pillows on top, lace and satin and embroidered pillows for accents. “Sweet Jesus, what’s with the pillows? There must be twenty of them!”
“Don’t ask,” she said primly. “It’s a girl thing.”
He swept his arm across the bed, tumbling them all to the floor with one ruthless swipe. He peeled back the comforter and top sheet, tossed them over the wooden footboard, leaving a snowy field of unbroken white. A blank canvas, waiting to be filled.
He nodded toward the bed.
She clambered on, feeling foolish and shy. There was something so businesslike and deliberate about how he just got right down to it. She couldn’t see his face all that well. She hoped desperately that the semidarkness would help her ease her well-documented sexual hang-ups. Though with her luck, they would probably come crowding back into her bed, now that she was back in the real world.
The bed creaked under his unaccustomed weight. He pressed her down onto her back. She shivered against the chilly sheet, but then he climbed on top of her—and oh, he was so big, so heavy, and all over her. Steely hard and so hot, smelling of soap, and beneath it, the tang of male musk. His feverish heat, his concentrated intensity, left her breathless. Water dripped from his hair. He pinned her down as if he were afraid she would wiggle away.
Like she had a chance in hell.
Then he started kissing her. Doubts, fears, sexual hang-ups, it all melted away into a creamy swirl of excitement. A clutch of hunger.
His lips were warm and coaxing at first, but the kiss changed, became demanding, compelling, using a silent, wordless language she hadn’t known she understood until she found herself obeying every unspoken command. She opened to his seeking mouth. She touched his tongue with hers, and the contact set off a sweet shimmer of heat, making her nipples tingle and ache, her back arch, bringing forth a liquid rush between her legs. Her thighs fell open. Her breasts felt taut, swollen and sensitive where they rubbed his chest.
He lifted his face from hers, smoothing her hair back. It took her a minute to recognize the dry, jerky sound coming from him as laughter.
“I’m nervous,” he admitted.
That racked her overstimulated, jittery body with a burst of giggles. “You? Oh, come on! Give me a break.”
“Really. I swear. I can’t touch your clit, so I’m out of my comfort zone. I like to start with a girl’s clit. It’s like the key to the castle.”
It was a needle jab of annoyance, to hear about his sexual routines with other women. Mr. Sensitivity.
She shoved at his chest. “Great,” she snapped. “I’m glad that you have to do something different from your usual sexual routine. Maybe it’ll set me apart from the teeming masses just enough so you won’t be shouting other women’s names. One can only hope.”
His body vibrated with laughter. “No worries, babe,” he said, settling his weight between her legs. “You’re in a class all your own.”
She struggled for breath. “Key to the castle, my foot,” she scoffed. “It’s not like you have to convince me. The castle door is unlocked. In fact, it’s wide open. And the drawbridge is down.”
He went very still, staring intently down into her face, as if he could see right into her. He cupped her face. “Maybe you don’t understand what I’m getting at,” he said. “I don’t just want to fuck you. I want to make you come until you scream and fly to pieces. White-hot, high decibel, end of the world orgasms. You get me?”
She stared up into the shadows that hid his eyes, openmouthed.
“Like this afternoon,” he went on. “On the island. Remember?”
Like she was ever going to forget it, in this lifetime or the next. She forced out a nervous cough, as the heated memory played in her head. Of how helpless, how terrified she had been. How unspeakably vulnerable. “Ah, yes,” she whispered. “I, um, do remember that.”
“I liked that,” he said lazily. “That was special.”
“Oh,” she said inanely. “Uh…yes. It was.”
He kissed her till she was gasping for air, and lifted his head again. “I’ve never felt anything like that,” he went on, nuzzling her temple, his hot breath tickling and caressing. “Didn’t even know that kind of thing was possible, to tell you the truth. But now I’m hooked on it. It raised the bar for me. I won’t ever be satisfied with less.”
Oh, man. She was so in for it. Tension gripped her. “Well, you should know. That was kind of an aberration for me,” she confessed.
