by Cat Schield
If she only knew. “You weren’t sitting on my couch in your pajamas before.”
Her sigh was barely audible over the blood thundering in his ears.
“Good night.” Calling himself every sort of fool, he headed back upstairs. Leaving his bedroom door open in a halfhearted invitation, he fell onto the mattress. Hands behind his head, eyes on the ceiling, he strained to hear footfalls on the stairs. The house was completely silent except for the breeze stirring the curtains on either side of his window.
His nerves stretched and twisted, but she didn’t appear. He caught himself glancing at the doorway, expecting her silhouette. As the minutes ticked by, Nic forced his eyes shut, but he couldn’t quiet his mind and the past two days played through his thoughts with unrelenting starkness.
With a heated curse, he rolled off the bed and stalked downstairs. It didn’t surprise him to find her exactly where he’d left her.
“You are the most stubborn woman I’ve ever known,” he complained. “I don’t know what the hell you expect from me.”
Even his mother had given up trying to keep him in Sherdana when his heart belonged in an airplane hangar in the Mojave Desert. But for years Brooke had relentlessly pushed herself into his life until he couldn’t celebrate achievements or face failures without thinking about her.
“My expectations are all in the past,” she said, pushing to her feet.
And that’s what was eating him alive.
They stared at each other in motionless silence until Brooke heaved a huge sigh. The dramatic rise and fall of her chest snagged Nic’s attention. The tank top she wore scooped low in front, offering him the tiniest hint of cleavage. Recalling the way her breasts had tasted this morning, he repressed a groan.
“Brooke.”
“Don’t.” She started past him. Nic caught her wrist. At his touch, she stilled. “I thought I was pretty clear this afternoon when I said that I’ve given up on you.”
“Crystal clear.” Nic cupped her face, his fingers sliding into the silky strands of russet near her ear.
“Then what are you doing?”
“Wishing you didn’t have to.”
He brought his mouth down to hers, catching her lips in a searing kiss that held nothing back. She stiffened, her body bracing to recoil. He couldn’t let that happen. Not now. Not when he’d stopped being principled and noble. Not when he wanted her with a hunger that ate at him like acid.
Taking a tighter grip on her wrist, he slowly levered it behind her back, compelling her hips forward until her pelvis brushed against the jut of his erection. The contact made him moan. He deepened the kiss, sweeping his tongue forward to taste her. Her lips parted for him. A soft whimper escaped her throat as she writhed in his grasp, but whether she fought to escape or move closer he couldn’t be sure.
“I want you,” he murmured, setting his mouth on her throat and sucking gently.
Her body trembled, but her muscles remained tense. Labored, uneven breaths pushed her breasts against his bare chest.
“Damn you, Nic.” It was in her voice, in the way she tilted her head to allow him better access to her neck. She was furious and aroused. “It’s too late for you to change your mind.”
“It’s too late when I say it is.” He released her wrist and cupped her small, round butt in his palm. The cotton pajama bottoms bunched as he gave a light squeeze.
She gasped, set both hands on his chest and shoved. It was like a kitten batting at a mastiff. “This isn’t fair.”
“Fair?” He growled the word. “Do you want to talk about fair? You’ve tormented me for five years. Strutting around the hangar in your barely there denim shorts. Coming to peer over my shoulder and letting your hair tickle my skin. How hard do you think it was for me to keep from pulling you into my lap and putting my hands all over you?”
“You never...” She arched back and stared up into his face. “I had no idea.”
“I made sure you didn’t. But it wasn’t easy.” He wrapped his fingers around her red curls and gave a gentle but firm tug. “And it wasn’t fun.”
* * *
Brooke was electrified by Nic’s admission; the twinge in her scalp when he pulled her hair merely enhanced her already overstimulated nerves. She welcomed the discomfort. The fleeting pain chased the last vestiges of self-pity from her mind and grounded her in the moment.
Taking her silence and stillness as surrender, Nic bent to kiss her again, but Brooke turned aside at the last minute. Even though this was what she’d wanted when she’d bought her plane ticket, she wasn’t the same woman who’d gotten on the plane in San Francisco.
Nic wasn’t deterred by her evasion. He kissed his way across her cheek and seized her earlobe between his teeth. Her knees wavered as his unsteady breath filled her ear. Meanwhile, his hands moved over her back, gliding beneath her tank top to find her hot skin and trace each bump of her spine.
“What’s wrong?” he murmured as his lips investigated the hollow made by her collarbone.
“You want me to give in.” He was doing whatever it took to make her putty in his hand. “Just like you used to want me to leave you alone. It’s always about what you want.”
She felt as much as heard his sigh. His hands left her body and bracketed his hips. He regarded her solemnly.
“I thought this was what we both wanted.”
A breeze puffed in from the terrace, chilling Brooke. Where a second earlier the room had been dark, moonlight now poured over the tiled floor and bathed Nic’s splendid torso in a white glow. Her mouth went dry as her gaze traced the rise and fall of his pecs and abs, the perfect ratio of broad shoulders to narrow hips. Although still in shadow, the planes of his face seemed more chiseled, his jaw sharper.
Her pulse began to slam harder, throbbing in her wrist, her throat and between her thighs. She found his eyes in the dimness, fell beneath the hypnotic power of his gaze. A rushing filled her ears, the incessant movement of a stream as it surges past boulders and fallen trees, unstoppable. Once upon a time, she’d been like that, full of purpose and joy. Then she’d let her doubts bottle her up.
Was she really going to stand here being annoyed with him and waste another second of the limited time she had left bemoaning the cards fate had dealt?
She held out her hand to Nic. He linked his fingers with hers and drew her toward the stairs. Without saying a word they entered his bedroom and came together in a slow, effortless dance of hands, lips and tongue. Pajamas landed on the floor and Brooke stretched out on Nic’s king-size bed, his strong body pressing her hard into the mattress as they kissed and explored.
Words were lost to Brooke as Nic’s fingertips rode her rib cage to the undersides of her breasts. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so heavy and so light at the same time. Arching her spine, she pushed her nipples against his palms. Stars burst behind her eyelids as he circled the hard buds, making them ache with pleasure before at long last drawing one, then the other, into his hot mouth.
The sensations snapping along her nerves made Brooke quiver and gasp. She was hungry for Nic to touch her more intimately, but her senses had gone fuzzy, her body languid. His hand rode upward along her inner thigh with torturous precision and she followed its progress with breaths growing ever more faint. By the time his finger dipped into her wet heat, her lungs had forgotten how to function. She lay with her eyes closed, her head spinning as he filled her first with one, then two fingers, stretching her, finding the spot that caused her hips to jerk and the first shuddering moan to escape her throat.
And then he replaced his hand with his mouth and adored her with tongue and teeth. Sliding his hands beneath her butt, he lifted her against the press and retreat of his kiss. She tried to squirm, to escape the tongue that drove her relentlessly toward pleasure so acute it hurt, but Nic dug his fingers into her skin and held her
captive. Mewling, Brooke surrendered to the slow, tantalizing rise of ecstasy.
Nic hadn’t made love to her like this the first time they were together. Five years of anticipation had made their lovemaking passionate and impatient. Nic had satisfied her three times that night, his large body surging into hers, filling her completely. She’d come with desperate cries, unable to articulate the incandescent heights to which he’d lifted her.
But the rush upward had been followed by only a brief respite to catch her breath and savor the afterglow. Nic had proved insatiable that night and when at last they’d spent the last of their passion, she’d fallen into a deep, dreamless slumber.
This was different. As if recognizing this was their last time together, he made love to her with his eyes first and then his hands. Languid sweeps of his lips across her skin soothed her soul and set her skin aflame. Words of appreciation and praise poured over her while his fingers reverently grazed the lines of her body.
By the time he slipped on a condom and settled between her thighs, Brooke wasn’t sure where she ended and he began. He moved slowly into her, easing in just the head of his erection, giving her time she didn’t need to adjust to him.
Tipping her hips as he began his second thrust, she ensured that his forward progress didn’t end until he was fully seated inside her. He groaned and buried his face in her neck. She dug her fingernails into his back, reveling in the fullness of his possession. For a long moment neither of them moved. Brooke filled her lungs with the spicy tang of his aftershave and the musk of their lovemaking. She closed her eyes to memorize the feel of his powerful body as he began moving.
Measured and deliberate, Nic rocked against her, thrusting in and out while pleasure built. He kissed her hard, his tongue plunging to tangle with hers. Their hips came together with increased urgency. Brooke let her teeth glide along Nic’s neck. He bucked hard against her when she nipped at his skin. The thrust rapped her womb where their child grew and sent her spiraling toward climax. She must have clenched around him because suddenly Nic picked up the pace. Together they climbed, hands pleasuring, bodies striving for closeness. Brooke came first, Nic’s name on her lips. He drove into her more urgently and reached orgasm moments later.
His strong body shook with the intensity of his release and a hoarse cry spilled out of him. What followed was the deepest, most emotionally charged kiss he’d ever given her. Brooke clung to him while her body pulsed with aftershocks and surrendered to the tempest raging in Nic. If she’d thought their lovemaking had forever branded her as his, the kiss, tender one moment, joyous the next, stole the heart right out of her body.
“Incredible.” He buried his face in her neck, his breath heavy and uneven, body limp and powerless.
Brooke wrapped her arms around his shoulders, marveling that this formidable man had been reduced to overcooked noodles in her arms. Grinning, she stroked the bumpy length of his spine and ran her nails through his hair in a soothing caress.
“Am I too heavy?” he murmured, lips moving against her shoulder as he spoke.
“A little, but I don’t want you to move just yet.” She was afraid any shift would disrupt this moment of perfect harmony.
“Good. I like it just where I am.”
They stayed that way for a long time. Legs entwined, his breath soft and steady on her neck, his fingers playing idly in her tangled curls. Brooke couldn’t recall if she’d ever enjoyed being so utterly still before. She didn’t want to talk or to think. Only to be.
But as with all things, change is inevitable. Nic heaved a mighty sigh and rolled away from her to dispose of the condom and pull a sheet over their cooling bodies. The breeze had shifted direction and the air that had seemed dense and sultry an hour earlier was swept away.
With her head pillowed on his shoulder and Nic’s fingers absently gliding across the small of her back, the lethargy she’d experienced earlier didn’t return.
“I can feel you thinking,” Nic said, his eyes closed, a half smile curving his lips.
“That’s illogical.”
His chest moved up and down with his sigh. “If I was in a logical frame of mind, I wouldn’t be lying naked with you in my arms.”
“I suppose not.”
“What’s on your mind?”
Not wanting to share her true thoughts, she said the first thing that popped into her head. “If you must know I was thinking about getting a cat when I get home.”
“Really?” He sounded genuinely surprised. “I thought Glen said you guys grew up with dogs.”
“We did, but dogs are so needy and some of my days can go really long with classes and office hours. I think a cat would be a wiser choice.”
“I like cats.”
“You do?” She couldn’t imagine Nic owning anything that needed regular feeding or care. “Wouldn’t a snake be a more suitable pet for you?”
“A snake?”
“Sure, something you only had to feed once a week.” She chuckled when he growled at her.
“No snakes.” He yawned. “A cat. Definitely.”
Brooke could tell by the sleepiness of his voice that she was losing him. “But a cat is going to jump on your worktable and knock things off. It’s going to wake you in the middle of the night wanting to be petted and yowling at you for attention. They ignore you when you give them commands and never come when they’re called.”
Nic cracked open one eye and smirked at her. “Yeah, a cat. They’re definitely my favorite kind of nuisance.”
It took Brooke a couple seconds to realize he had connected her behavior to what she’d just said about cats. In retaliation, she poked him hard in the ribs and he located the ticklish spot behind her knees that had her squirming. It didn’t take long for their good-natured tussling to spark another round of lovemaking.
Much later, while Nic’s breathing deepened into sleep, Brooke lay awake in the predawn stillness and tried to keep her thoughts from rushing into the future. The hours she had with him grew shorter every second. So instead of sleeping, as the sky grew lighter, Brooke lost herself in Nic’s snug embrace, savored the way his warmth seeped through her skin and awaited the day.
The nausea that had plagued her the day before began as the sun peeked over the horizon and gilded the window ledge. She breathed through the first wave and sagged with relief when her stomach settled down. Remembering how the previous morning had gone, Brooke knew she had to get back to her room. Nic might not be the most observant of men, but even he’d be hard-pressed not to notice if she was throwing up in his bathroom.
Last night while in the grip of insomnia, she’d decided not to tell him she was pregnant. If he hadn’t made love to her with such all-consuming emotion, she might have accepted that they could go back to being friends, affectionate but disconnected by distance and circumstances. But now she realized that they had to make a clean break of it. It would be best for both of them if he didn’t know the truth.
Before her stomach began to pitch and roll again, Brooke untangled herself from Nic’s embrace and eased from his bed. Her head spun sickeningly as she got to her feet and snatched up her pajamas. Naked, the soft cotton pressed to her mouth, she raced from the room and down the stairs.
If Elena was shocked to see her streak by, Brooke never knew because her focus was fixed on crossing the twenty feet of terrace to the guesthouse and reaching the bathroom in the nick of time. Panting in the aftermath, she splashed cold water on her face and waited to see if the nausea had passed. When it appeared the worst was over, Brooke climbed into the shower.
She was dressed and repacking her suitcase when a soft knock sounded. Heart jumping, she eased the door open, expecting to see Nic standing there, and was surprised to see Elena bearing a tray with a teapot and a plate of bread and assorted preserves.
“Ginger tea is good for nausea,” she anno
unced, slipping the tray onto the dresser. “I understand you are leaving for Sherdana today.”
“Nic is going. I’m heading for Italy.” But her plan to visit friends in Rome had lost its appeal. More than anything she wanted to head home to family and friends and start the process of healing in their comforting embrace.
Elena’s eyes narrowed. “You let me know if you need anything before you leave.”
Seven
Awaking to an empty bed hadn’t been the best start to Nic’s day, but he reasoned he might as well get used to disappointment because he wouldn’t ever wake to Brooke’s smile again. The sun was high by the time Nic finished his shower and headed to the first floor. Elena was dusting the already immaculate furniture. She shot him an intensely unhappy look as he poured himself a cup of coffee and he wondered at her barely veiled hostility.
“Have you seen Brooke this morning?” he asked, carrying his cup to the terrace doorway and peering in the direction of the guesthouse. The trip to Kefalonia’s airport would take forty-five minutes by boat and another hour over land. They would need to leave soon.
“She has eaten breakfast and had some last minute packing to do.”
“Is Thasos ready with the boat?”
Elena nodded. “She is a nice girl. You shouldn’t let her go to Italy by herself.”
“She is going to visit friends,” he explained to the housekeeper, while guilt nibbled at the edges of his conscience. “She knows her way around. She lived in Rome and Florence for a year.”
“You should take her home.”
Nic was startled by Elena’s remark. He’d been thinking the same thing all morning. Unfortunately that wasn’t possible. Reality dictated he should distance himself from Brooke as soon as possible, but the thought of letting her go off by herself disturbed him.
If she didn’t get on a plane bound for California, he would spend the next two weeks worrying about her traveling alone in Europe instead of focusing on the issues at home and the necessity of finding a wife. Nor did he have time to escort her to the gate and satisfy himself that she was heading to San Francisco. He was expected back in Sherdana this afternoon.