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“You needed something. You were watching me.”
“And wondering how the hell it felt so fucking good just to watch you,” I say, relieved to speak the truth—and it is the truth. “Like I said. We are not the sum of how many times or ways we fuck, and that’s new territory for me. I’m trying to figure it out.”
“I’m trying to figure all this out, too,” she confesses.
“Does that mean you like being in my bed?”
“I like many things about you, Nick Rogers, that I didn’t expect to like, but yes. I do.”
“We’ll figure it out together,” I promise, scooping her up in my arms, her gorgeous, naked body pressed to mine. She is so tiny, and yet she’s seized my world in gigantic proportions, in ways I never thought any woman capable.
I stop at the side of the bed, setting her down on the mattress, and to ensure my control stays firmly intact, I adjust my cock back inside my pants. And I did so just in time, considering she’s now scooted across the bed, then rolled to her side to prop up on one elbow. Her breasts are displayed; the curve of her waist, the rise of her hip are sexy as hell, and I’m hard as nails all over again. I toe off my shoes and slide into bed with her, pulling the covers over us, and before she can protest, I’m turning her back to my front and pulling her close. And just the feel of her next to me, the sweet amber scent of her, consumes my senses, in every right way. The truth is this woman is everything I’ve known right in this world.
“Nick,” she says softly.
“Yes, Faith?”
“Why are you not naked with me?”
“If I do that, I’ll end up inside you.”
“And that’s bad why?”
“Because,” I say. “Tonight, I really want you to know that I see the beautiful, talented part of you, not just your body.”
She gives an insistent tug and twist, rotating to face me, her fingers curling on my chest. “If there is anyone in my life who I believe sees beyond the surface, it’s you.”
“And yet you thought I was upset because we didn’t fuck tonight,” I say. “Which means you don’t trust me, or us, yet.”
“It’s not about you,” she says, “or us. It’s about my own baggage that I wish didn’t exist.” She touches my cheek. “But whatever the case, I don’t need a knight in shining armor.”
“And I told you,” I say, “I know that, but the more evident that becomes, the more I seem to want to be that for you. And I don’t do the knight routine.”
“Well, then, if you are going in that direction—and it appears that you are—you should know that my knight, should I want one, would be inside me right now.” She leans in, her lips a breath from mine, her fingers tearing away the tie holding my hair in place before her fingers are diving into the loose strands. “Be inside me right now, Nick.”
She presses her lips to mine, and the minute her tongue touches mine, I need her. I just plain need this woman, and I don’t hold back. I kiss her and touch her, and it is not long before my pants are gone, and I give her what she wants, what I want. I press inside the wet heat of her body, my hand sliding up her back, fingers splayed between her shoulder blades, molding all her soft perfection to every hard part of me.
“Now I’m inside you,” I murmur, my lips closing down on hers, my tongue licking against hers in what becomes a drugging kiss that has nothing to do with fucking and everything to do with how much this woman is inside me. And I still don’t taste murder. I don’t taste lies. There is just hunger. Hers. Mine. Ours. And we savor it, and each other, with slow kisses, our bodies moving in a gentle dance. My lips on her shoulder, her nipple, her neck. My hand everywhere I can find skin. But it’s when she whispers my name—when she says, “Nick,” in that same way she kisses me, like I’m the only way she can take her next breath—that I knowI can’tbreathewithout her.
I tangle fingers in the silk of her blonde hair and pull her closer, her mouth lingering one of those breaths from mine. “What are you doing to me, woman?” I demand, but I don’t give her time to respond. I kiss her, and the instant our tongues collide, there is a shift between us, the hunger turning darker and more demanding, and I drive into her, pulling her against me, her face buried in my neck until she trembles into release. I quickly follow with shuddered finality, but there is nothing final about my desire for this woman.
I hold her close but force myself to release her and walk to the bathroom, returning with a towel I offer her. She’s barely slipped it between her legs before I’m behind her, pulling her back into my arms, wrapping my body around hers. Neither of us speak, but I can almost hear her thinking as hard as I’m thinking. I want to clear my conscience and tell her everything, but tonight is about her art. Tonight is about us sharing her life, a life.
Fuck. That’s what I want.
I could tell her the truth now, about why I sought her out with the hope that together we can solve the mystery of our parents’ deaths. However, not only is this night her night to celebrate her art, and I would never strip that well-deserved joy from her, but she’d push me away before I solve this mystery and save her winery. Before I am certain that she is not in danger, more exposed without me than with me. And the moment I opened us up to possibilities, I knew, even if she did not, that I wanted her in my life, not just my bed. And the minute I decided she wasn’t a killer, I became a liar who needs her to trust me, when her reaction to me tonight says she does not. Not fully; not yet. And somehow, while she exposes herself, while she gives me that trust, and before I reveal the truth, as I must, I have to convince her that just as we are not the sum of how many times or ways we fuck, neither are we the sum of my lies.
Chapter Two
Faith
I wake to the soft glow of a new day, a barely realized sunbeam splaying through the bedroom windows, and the woodsy, wonderful scent of Nick surrounding me, his hard body wrapped around mine, and I don’t want to wake up. I shut my eyes again, reliving this weekend in random little pieces, starting with our arrival at his house. His expensive cars in the garage. Me calling him a “rich guy,” which he claimed with pride and a declaration of hard work, boldly himself, and it had stirred both envy and arousal in me.
“Let’s go inside, Faith,” he’d said.
“Yes,” I’d replied. “Let’s go see what a man like you calls home.”
“A man like me,” he’d repeated. “You can explain that later. Naked.”
