“What the hell? I never said you were stupid!” How was this conversation getting away from him so badly?
“You said my mind was little. My mind isn’t little. My mind is just as good as yours!”
“I didn’t mean . . .” He stopped. He couldn’t see any way out of this. Suddenly, instead of being in the right as he knew he was, he was on the back foot, struggling for territory. “Aw, shit. You’re stubborn as hell, you know that?”
“I’m stupid and stubborn?” Her eyes were flashing nine kinds of danger signals now.
“You’re stubborn. Not stupid. I didn’t say that. And I want to kiss you, damn it!”
“What?”
“That’s what I’m asking myself. You’re frustrating the hell out of me just now. So why do I want to put my hands on you so badly?” He took a step closer, rested a palm on the wall behind her. “Right. Trying to focus here. I want you out of there. I want you both someplace better. And I’m ready and willing to help you do it. I wish I could make you do it now, but I can’t see how.”
“You can’t,” she told him, her eyes intent on him, her lips parting as he leaned over her. She was leaning into him a bit too, he could tell, her breath still coming fast. “You can’t make me.”
“Reckon I’d better just kiss you, then.” He pulled her into him, and she felt as good there as she always had. Soft, and warm, and curvy, fitting him like she’d been created just for him to hold. He settled his mouth over hers, did his best not to grab her, to keep it gentle. Felt her sigh, her mouth parting for him, and suddenly it wasn’t gentle at all. Her arms came around him, her hands went to the back of his neck, slid down his back as if she wanted to feel all of him, the same way he wanted to feel all of her. And then her hands were under his T-shirt, moving greedily over him, and he was backing her all the way up against the wall. Kissing her neck, reaching his own hand inside the neckline of that stretchy shirt to hold her. Feeling the softness of her, the perfect shape of her breast filling his hand, the warmth of her skin. Hearing the moan she couldn’t suppress as his teeth grazed the side of her neck, his thumb moved over a nipple that hardened at his touch. He reached the other hand around, cupped her bottom in the soft denim, lifted her off her feet, and pressed himself into her. Felt every centimeter of her body melting against his own, and wanted to keep going, closer and closer, more and more, until he was inside her. Now.
“Nic.” Her breathless voice came dimly through the roaring in his head. “Nic.”
She was pushing at him, he realized. He came back to himself with an effort, set her down. She moved away from him, breathing hard, and he leaned his forehead against the wall, tried to compose himself.
She ran her hands over her hair, smoothing it back into place. “Wow,” she said shakily. “I didn’t know that was going to happen.”
He stood up straight to look at her, his heart rate slowing a bit at last. “I thought I could keep my hands off you. It’s just that you still look so good. Everything about you. Like exactly what I want. And ever since I saw you again, it’s like my body . . . remembers. And it wants to do it all again.” He smiled at her ruefully. “My brain doesn’t seem to have a lot to say about it.”
“Yeah,” she sighed. “That’s pretty much it, isn’t it? But not . . . not now. Not with the boys right there. I think we’d better go back inside, get our own showers, and find a couple of chaperones to keep us under control. For now, anyway.”
Chapter 25
She was glad they had the boys, an excuse to take some time, regain her equilibrium before she made any decisions she might regret. It felt right to be working in the kitchen with Nic to fix a simple dinner of bangers and mash, to give him the sausages to fry while she mashed potatoes and put together a salad. To eat at the big table while Nic displayed his surprising knowledge of cave formation and geology, drew pictures to show the boys how stalactites and stalagmites were formed.
“How do you know all this?” she asked him.
“Did a couple geology papers, at Uni. And I grew up in En Zed. I’ve spent a fair few hours in caves.”
“Wait a minute. Back up,” she commanded. “I thought you didn’t finish Uni.”
“When did I tell you that?”
“On the plane, remember? To Fiji?”
“You remember that?”
“Why? I wasn’t that—” She broke off, glanced at the boys, started over. “I wasn’t so . . . far gone that I don’t remember.”
“Did my first year and a half,” he explained, “while I played. And then it got too hard to do both, so I quit. I do plan to go back, when I’m done playing.”
“And study what?”
“Haven’t decided,” he admitted. “Engineering, maybe.”
“What’s funny?” he demanded. “You don’t think I can? I’m pretty good at maths.”
“No,” she got out, giggling helplessly into her serviette by now. “I can’t tell you now. Later.”
“Right,” he said when they had the boys in bed and were sitting on the couch in the lounge, a bottle of wine on the couch in front of them and glasses in hand. “Why is the idea of my being an engineer so bloody funny?”
“It’s not you,” she said, the giggles rising again. “It’s me. You weren’t drunk. Maybe you remember what David—my reluctant groom—did for a living.”
“An Assistant Professor of Sanitary Engineering,” Nic quoted.
“Yeah,” she smiled. “And where do I work now?”
“An engineering firm.” He began to laugh himself. “You seem doomed to repeat your mistakes.”
“I’m starting to think, though,” she told him, “that there are engineers and engineers.”
He pulled her to him, kissed her forehead. “Think I’ll be able to avoid getting dull, do you?”
“Yeah,” she sighed, letting him hold her. “I think you just broke the mold.”
They stayed like that a minute longer before she sat up again. “You said you’d like to see some pictures of Zack, so I brought his baby book. Want to look at it now?”
“Shifting gears again, are we?” he smiled. “Yeh, I’d like to see it.”
She got up and went into her bedroom, came out again with the scrapbook.
“You spent some hours on this,” Nic commented as she opened it to Zack’s newborn photo. “It looks professional.”
“I wanted it to be nice,” she said. “I wanted him to have it when he was grown, and to know that he was . . . wanted. Loved.”
“Yeh.” He cleared his throat. “Yeh, I see that. He wasn’t a looker, though, was he?” he said doubtfully, looking at the swaddled figure, puffy eyes scrunched shut, skin peeling, a tuft of black hair sticking straight up. “And why is his hair black?”
“He was beautiful,” Emma said hotly. “He was a newborn. He was big, and late in coming, and he got a little squished, that’s all. And their hair falls out, and comes back in the color it’s going to be. Didn’t you know that?”
“Nah. Haven’t been around many babies.”
He peered at another picture, taken a week or so later. “Looks a bit better in this one,” he offered. “Are you sure this is the right baby, though? Because his eyes are blue.”
“All Pakeha babies’ eyes start out blue, too. Same thing. Takes a while.”
“Is there a photo of you, earlier?” he asked.
“You don’t want to see that,” she objected. “I was as big as a house.”
He looked down at her, the smile reaching all the way to his eyes. “I want to see. House and all.”
She sighed in resignation, turned back a page. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Whoa.” He looked at the snap, the taut round belly swelling heavily over the top of her bikini bottom. “You weren’t joking. Who took this?”
She smiled softly in remembrance. “Lucy. Of course. Taking me to the beach so I could float in the salt water, defy gravity for a bit. I got pretty grouchy there, that last week when he wouldn’t arrive.
It was hot, too, which just made everything worse. I said we’d be scarring everyone else there for life, showing them that, but she insisted. And it was fun. I was so scared, and so tired by then. But that day was fun.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, sobered. “That you had to do it alone.”
“I wasn’t alone,” she pointed out. “I had my sister. Then, and afterwards.”
“She lived with you by then?”
“Yeah. I don’t know what I would have done, without her. While Zack was tiny. When I went back to work. No sleep, not knowing what I was doing, just trying to cope.” She touched another picture of herself, belly still huge but covered this time, next to her sister. Their arms around each other.
She looked up at Nic, her eyes glinting with tears as she remembered. “Why’d you do it?” she asked suddenly. “Why didn’t you ring like you said you would? The truth. Why?”
“I was too young,” he said slowly, searching for the answer. “Stupid. I thought, because this had come along, because you had come along, and it was so good, that my life would be full of things like that. Of girls. Of things that good, times like we had. I didn’t realize it was special.”
“I did,” she said. “I knew.”
“You were smarter than me,” he admitted. He reached a hand up, ran the back of it along her cheek. “Still are, I reckon.”
She turned from him, folded the book shut, reached out to set it on the table. Felt his arms come around her from behind. “You were so pretty,” he said, nuzzling the side of her neck, pulling her back against him. “When you were in my lap, on that plane. Remember that?”
“Yeah,” she breathed. “I remember.”
“Those angel eyes,” he said, his lips moving over the honey-colored curls. He reached a hand to pull them aside, kiss the skin beneath. She shivered under his touch, the feel of his lips against the sensitive skin. “You looked so innocent. I wanted to keep holding you, just give you a cuddle, and at the same time . . .” His voice trailed off.
It was easier to ask, without having to look him in the eye. “What? I’ve always wondered. If you were just looking for some company, and I fell into your lap. Literally, I know. So easy.”
He reached a hand up under the stretchy top. Over the thin band of her bra, the satiny skin of her sides, her back. At her sigh, he worked the top up to expose more of her. Both hands on her now, running up her ribs to her breasts. He pulled her against him, into his lap. Bent his mouth to the back of her neck again as his hands moved over her.
“Nah. It was this,” he said against her skin, his thumbs stroking over her shoulder blades. “All this softness. Made me want to cuddle you, but also . . . it made me want to do dirty things to you. Pull you down there with me, rub those angel wings in the mud. Watch your eyes close, see that pretty mouth on me.” His hands were on her breasts now, the light, lacy cups of her bra no barrier. His teeth scraped against the side of her neck, his hands continued to roam, and she offered no resistance when he finally turned her around again to face him.
“You’re so sweet,” he told her, pulling the top all the way off now, exposing the lacy peach bra, disordering her curls. “And it kills me. It did then, and it still does. I only have to see you, and I want you again. Even more than I did the first time.”
She sighed, her eyes drifting shut. Felt him reach around to unfasten the bra, pull it off. His mouth closed over hers, one hand reaching around to pull her more tightly against him, the other moving over her breast, thumb caressing the nipple, each touch sending a jolt of pleasure directly to her core. The flames were licking her, and she was starting to burn.
“This is a probably a bad idea,” she moaned. “But it feels so good.”
“Let’s just feel good, then,” he coaxed, shifting her over him. Finally bent his head to take that same nipple in his mouth as his hand moved to the other breast, began to play. She gasped at the dual sensations, reached out for his shoulders and held on.
He lifted his mouth to hers again, nudged her legs apart with his hand, cupped her there as he continued to kiss her, to touch her. She felt her body pulling toward him, opening for him. Needing him.
“I need to take your clothes off,” he told her at last. “I’ve been waiting to see this again for months now, and I just can’t wait any more. But I’m going to ask. You OK doing this?”
“Yes,” she sighed. “I need it too. So, yes. Please. Now.”
He stood, lifting her in his arms, and carried her to his bedroom. Kicked the door shut behind them, found the way to the bed in the darkness, laid her down on the white cotton duvet. Reached a hand out for the bedside light. “I don’t want to do this in the dark. It’s been too long. I need to see.”
“Nic.” She reached for him, pulled him down to her. Kissed his mouth, reached under his T-shirt to feel him, run her hands over his chest. “Lock the door. In case.”
He pulled away from her reluctantly, went to do as she asked. Turned again to see her there, on the bed. His pulse was hammering, but he wanted to go slowly. Let it build, make it as good for her as it had been before. One thing he was sure of. He still remembered how to please her.
Her hands went to the stretchy leggings, and he was back at the bed again, coming down over her. “Hold still. My job to undress you.” He reached for the waistband, saw her lift her hips from the bed to help him. Pulled the material down over her legs, exposing the skin to him. He needed to taste all that. Everything. He began to move down her body, felt her clutching at his shoulders, holding him, running her hands over him.
“Lie still,” he told her again. “Because I need to kiss you everywhere tonight. And you need to lie still for me.” He was at her breasts again, lingering there. Moving lower, running his hand over the band of peach lace at her hip, down her thigh. Then up her inner thigh, the skin like silk. Slowly, now. Drawing it out. Making her wait until, at last, he settled his hand over her, rubbed. Felt her jerk at the touch, the dampness of the fabric under his hand.
He kissed her through the material, softly at first. Then, slowly, began to pull the insubstantial things off her. Watched her shift, saw her struggling to open to him as he drew them down her legs, finally freed her from them. Then ran both hands up her again, until the thumbs met at the center. Put a hand on each thigh to push her legs apart, slid a finger inside her, then another, felt the heat there, the desire she couldn’t hide anymore, heard her begin to whimper as he touched her. And, finally, bent his head to her as his hand continued to move. She wasn’t waxed now, he saw. Didn’t matter. Either way was good. Really good.
She was gasping, panting against him, held fast by his fingers inside her, his hand pressing her down, his mouth against her. He brought her up, and up further, felt her excitement build, the way she was writhing under him. And he’d been right. He remembered everything. How she liked it. What made her squirm. What made her moan. And what made her, finally, convulse around him, her torso rising from the bed as she called out in incoherent abandon.
The spasms slowed, and she was pulling him up to her, grabbing at his T-shirt, pulling it over his head.
“Inside,” she got out. “Please, Nic. Please.” Her hands unsnapping his jeans, pulling the zipper down, impatiently trying to help him get rid of the rest of his clothes. Then she was holding him again as he struggled to get the condom on. Running her hands over him, as if she couldn’t wait.
He wanted to do everything, feel all of her. He was moving her, turning her. Giving her instructions, just as he always had. And getting the thrill he’d remembered so often, seeing her respond, doing exactly as he told her. Doing everything he wanted.
Finally, though, it had to be simple. He needed her under him, needed to look into the blue eyes, to see her mouth open, hear her breathing hard, calling out to him. Her legs and arms wrapping around him.
“Nic.” Her voice was urgent now, her hips pulling at him. “I need . . . I need . . . Please.”
He shoved his hand down between them, raise
d himself off her, rubbed her as he moved. Heard her breath catch, felt the change as she began to climb again. Brought her to another shuddering, gasping orgasm and, as he felt her clenching around him, finally found his own release, swearing aloud with it, over and over again.
He grabbed an edge of the duvet, pulled it over them both as he lay with her, still breathing hard. Pulled her close and kissed her, long and lingeringly.
She sighed against him. “You said I killed you,” she murmured, finally opening her eyes to look at him, her smile soft. “But you kill me too, you know.”
He reached a hand to brush the curls from her cheek, kissed her there, then lay back again and tightened his hold on her. “No leftovers, then? After what happened?”
“After what happened?” she asked in confusion.
“Ryan,” he said reluctantly. “Wondering if I should’ve been less . . . less aggressive. Didn’t think about it, though. As soon as we started, I just wanted all of you. All for me. The way I always have.”
“No,” she said immediately. “Don’t change. You’ve never scared me. And it’s what I want, too. It’s how I like it. And I’ve missed it so much.” She ran a hand over his chest, levered herself up so she could move over him, leaned down to kiss him. “I want it exactly the way you do it. But I need to go get into my own bed, in case the boys wake up.”
“I’d rather you stayed with me,” he said, pulling her leg over him so she was straddling him, then reaching for her breasts, running a thumb over each pink nipple until they hardened at his touch. “We’ve got some catching up to do.”
“I know we do,” she sighed, shivering as he continued to caress her. She couldn’t help rubbing herself against him, just for a minute. Because it felt so good. “But I can’t.” She pulled her leg across him reluctantly, leaned over the bed and groped for her underwear and leggings on the floor. He ran a hand over her bottom, down her legs. Held her there a moment, pressing her down, before he pulled her up to join him again.
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