“You’ve lost weight, though.”
“Maybe. I have a scale, Nolan. I don’t need an update.”
He frowned, but then he nodded. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. I just don’t want to think about It today. Or tomorrow. Okay?”
“Tomorrow?” His frown deepened. “You want me to come back tomorrow?”
“No. I want you to stay the night.”
He blinked. “What?”
She took his hand. “Will you come down to the water and talk?” He’d told her more than once that the view from their strip of beach was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. It seemed like a good setting for what she wanted to say.
His only answer was a nod, so she led him by the hand around to the back of the house and down to the beach. When they got near enough to the water that the sand was flat but not wet, she sat down. After a second, he joined her, stretching his legs out. His scuffed, black Doc Martens were covered with sand.
“What’s goin’ on, Ani? Are you worse?”
She remembered the first time he’d called her ‘Ani.’ No one had ever called her that, and he hadn’t asked if she minded. She didn’t mind at all. It was nice to have a name only he called her.
“No, not worse. Not yet. And I said I don’t want to talk about that. I want to talk about my list.”
“Jesus Christ. No. I’m sorry, but I’m not helping you with that shit anymore. You’re gonna get yourself killed.”
She laughed at that irony but didn’t comment on it otherwise. “No. There’s nothing else like the bar that I want to do. That was stupid, and I’m sorry I dragged you into it.”
He nodded, watching the water. “Okay. So what, then?”
“How do you feel about me?”
He turned and stared at her. “What?”
“Do you like me? It feels like you do.”
“Yeah, I like you. I like you a lot.”
She smiled. She’d been sure, but it still felt good to hear it. “I like you, too. Do you…do you think I’m cute at all?”
He combed his hair back with his fingers in that way that he had. “Jesus, Ani. What the hell?”
“Is that a no?”
“No, it’s not a no. I think you’re beautiful. You know you’re beautiful.”
“So you wouldn’t mind having sex with me?”
His eyes bored into her, his dark brows drawn down over them. “What the fucking hell?”
His answers weren’t exactly encouraging, but she didn’t have time for doubt. “I’ve never had sex, Nolan. I’ve been too busy with It, I guess. I’ve never done much of anything. I kissed a boy once, in the hospital, but that was gross. He had bad breath, and there was slobber. I would like to have sex with you. I want you to spend the night with me. In my bed. If you’re okay with that.”
He stood and walked down to the water. Analisa sat there, not sure what to do. She’d been expecting a different reaction. She’d figured that offering sex was a pretty sure thing.
Finally, when it became apparent that he wasn’t going to move, she stood and went to him, stopping just behind him. “If you don’t want to, that’s okay.”
Without turning, he said, “No, it’s not that. I want to. But why me? You’re…you. You must have had lots of chances before now.”
“Not really. Like, I said, I was busy. And I don’t just want to fuck. It’s not on my list because I want to have an orgasm. I can do that myself. I do do that myself. I want…to make love. I want to be close like that and have it be emotional. I want to have sex with love.”
Now he turned, and he looked crushed under a load of guilt. “Fuck, Ani. I’m sorry. I don’t…fuck. I don’t love—”
She covered his mouth with her hand, not wanting him to finish that thought. “That’s okay. I don’t expect you to. You shouldn’t. But I do. That’s on my list, too, to fall in love, and it happened. I think it happened. I think I love you. No—I know I do. And it’s okay that it’s just me. I feel it, and it’s enough.”
His eyes got the shine that came before tears, and she absolutely did not want that. So she rose up on her tiptoes and kissed him.
And, oh. Oh. Holy jeez. His lips were amazing, firm and like velvet, and no slobber at all. There was the barest hint of stubble, like he’d shaved that morning but now in the afternoon he was starting to get prickly. She liked it.
For the first second or two, he simply stood there. Then she licked his lower lip, and he made a weird sound in the back of his throat. He opened his mouth over hers and brought his arms around her, one hand holding her head, the other on her back, and he kissed her, overwhelming her inexperienced lips and tongue. His tongue pushed hard into her mouth, searching.
Oh, Graham Douglas had had absolutely no freaking idea what he had been doing. Because this was how kissing was supposed to happen.
She moaned, the sound surprising her, and he grunted as if in answer. And then he pulled back—not far, though. He released her mouth and leaned his forehead on hers, his heavy breath caressing her face.
“Fuck, Ani. I don’t want to hurt you. Are you sure you’re up to this?”
“Yes. Please.”
He kissed her forehead, his lips lingering on her skin, his hands cradling her head. “Okay. Let’s go inside, then.”
~oOo~
Once in her room, she wasn’t sure what to do. But he knew. He pulled her close and kissed her again, his hands moving to the hem of her sweater and lifting it up. She raised her arms, and his lips left hers as he pulled her top over her head.
After he tossed it away, he laid his hand over her collarbone. “I love your freckles,” he murmured.
She blushed. But then she put her hand over his and pushed it down until it covered her breast.
Oh. Just the weight of his hand, the heat, was fantastic. She felt her nipple tighten up under the satin of her bra. Wanting more, she reached back and unclasped its hooks. He pulled it down her arms, dropping it to the floor at her feet, and then both his hands came up and covered her breasts.
His palms were hot, the skin rough. She closed her eyes and focused on that touch. When he moved his thumbs over the tense peaks of her nipples, she felt it like a shock. Her body even jolted, out of her control. She opened her eyes again, and he was staring down at her. She thought she saw something, something important, in the deep blue of his eyes.
Something she wanted.
“Will you lie to me?”
His brow creased. “What?”
“Will you tell me you love me?”
He dropped his hands, and she felt the loss so quickly and acutely she could have wept.
“Ani…”
“I know you don’t. It’s okay. But I’d like to know what it’s like to be told that. Just to hear it.”
When he took a step back from her, she knew she’d pushed him too far. It had been a dumb thing to ask of him. She reached out and grabbed his wrist, pulling him toward her again. “Never mind. It’s okay. Forget I asked.”
“I’m sorry.” His regret was clear in his eyes.
“It really is okay. I want to keep going. Okay?”
He nodded, but he didn’t touch her. Instead he shrugged off his kutte and then looked around the room. Seeing what he was looking for, he went to the armchair next to the window and laid the kutte over its arm. Then he reached over his shoulders and grabbed handfuls of his hoodie, pulling it up over his head. He’d had a beater on, too; that came up with the hoodie.
She’d never seen any of his body until now. He had a big tattoo on his back, from his right shoulder and down over his shoulder blade: the word HORDE across the top, the word HAVOC at a ninety-degree angle, sharing the same H, and, in the space those words framed, the same horse head with the flaming mane that was on the back of his kutte. On the back of his right arm, over his triceps muscle, he had a round tattoo that looked something like a clock. Or maybe a compass. Probably a compass, but unlike any she’d seen. All of his ink was black and grey.
And then he turned around.
“Holy shit,” she whispered. “Look at you.”
He grinned. “You like?”
“God, yes.” His arms were brawny, a long, thick vein trailing over each bicep, and two other veins crossing the meat of his forearms. His chest was chiseled, with just a light but even dusting of short, dark hair over his pectorals. His abdomen was grooved with muscle and hairless but for a thin, dark line leading from his navel into his jeans. God, he was too beautiful to be real.
She kicked off her shoes and opened the buttons of her jeans. He stood and watched as she shimmied out of them, pulling her panties down with them. Then she was naked and not sure what to do about it.
Before she could feel too self-conscious, though, she saw his eyes flare and darken, becoming almost black, and he murmured, “Look at you.”
Still in his jeans and boots, he crossed back to her and embraced her. The skin of his bare arms and chest felt absolutely, perfectly, breathtakingly wonderful on her own bare skin. When he kissed her, she let her body do what it wanted, and she sagged into his arms, reveling in the way he held on, supporting her, protecting her. As his tongue moved in her mouth, making nerves party all through her body, he tightened his hold and lifted her feet off the floor, then walked them to her bed and laid her down.
He loomed over her, his knee between her legs and his hands framing her shoulders. His hair flopped forward, and she reached up and combed her fingers through it, loving the way he closed his eyes and turned toward her touch.
He opened his eyes. “Let me know if I do something you don’t want. I don’t want to hurt you or scare you.”
She wasn’t scared at all. Impatient, excited—yes. Aroused—oh hell, yeah. But not the least bit scared. She nodded, and he bent down and sucked her nipple into his mouth. He was gentle, but still the sensation was so intense and unexpected that she cried out. When he started to pull back, she clamped her hands on his head and held him where he was.
She felt his chuckle against her breast, even that stimulating her nipple, and her hips bucked and jumped.
His hand went to her hip and then smoothed over her belly and down. His fingers touched one of the little crystals in her skin just at the top of her mound, and he lifted away from her breast and looked down at her.
He grinned. “Nice. I’ve been wondering about this.”
She looked where he was looking. “It’s called a Christina.”
“It’s hot as hell.” He circled the crystals, then moved farther down, his rough fingers sliding between her folds as his mouth sought out her other breast.
Well, what his fingers were doing felt a whole lot different from the way it felt when she did it. “Oh, God! Nolan!”
He released her nipple but didn’t move from her breast. With his mouth still on her skin, he groaned, “Fuck, you’re so wet. My God.” He trailed his tongue from her breast up to her neck as he slid a finger into her, and she arched up, feeling like her body was full of sparks. “And tight,” he murmured in her ear. “You’re small, Ani. I don’t want to hurt you.”
She wrapped her arms around him and turned her face to his ear. “Don’t stop. I want this so bad. You won’t hurt me.”
“Okay. Let me do this first.” He moved, looking down at her, and brought his fingers back to her clit. With his eyes locked on hers, he rubbed over that nub, which felt totally electrified. Masturbating was a complete waste of time, because it felt nothing at all like what he was doing, even though he was doing basically the same thing she did.
But oh—oh—oh. Oh, it was good. All of her joints tingled, and she felt a hot fist curling up in her belly. As her muscles everywhere else tensed up, those between her legs got loose, seemed to stretch and seek. Nolan must have felt that happen, because at the same time, he started to move his hand much faster, changing his pattern and focusing completely on that one small point. His eyes stayed on hers, and she felt honor-bound to maintain the connection.
And then she couldn’t. A riot of sensation exploded inside her, moving from her clit all the way to the roots of her hair, and her eyes rolled up in her head. Her body bucked and flailed, entirely beyond her control. He kept going, not letting up, while she keened and thrashed, until she could take no more. She grabbed his wrist in both hands and pulled him away, her body curling around him, holding him close even as she held him away.
When she was able to relax, he shifted to her side, leaning on his free arm and looking down at her. He looked almost as astonished as she felt. When she let go of his arm, he brought his hand to his mouth and sucked his fingers.
Then he smiled.
“You’re more beautiful than ever when you come,” he said.
That was the most romantic thing she’d ever heard. It might even have been better than hearing ‘I love you.’ Because it was sincere.
She smiled and trailed her hand down his arm, easing over the curves of muscle.. “I want to come again. With you inside me.”
Grinning, he pushed off the bed and opened his belt. “Your wish is my command.”
SEVEN
Nolan got rid of his boots and clothes as quickly as he could, pausing to grab a condom out of his wallet. He only had two. If he’d known he was going to spend the night with her, he’d have brought more.
He’d just have to go out and restock.
Analisa lay transverse on the bed, her chest still heaving lightly as she recovered from the exertion of her orgasm. As he undressed, she watched, her light eyes sharp and eager. When she saw his cock, her eyebrows went up, and he couldn’t resist a grin. He liked that she was impressed.
He was impressed, too. She was absolutely beautiful. So thin and delicate that he had trouble believing he wouldn’t break her, the lines of her ribs, hips, collarbones showing under that fair, freckled skin. Her small, pert tits were topped with rosy little nipples that turned hard and dark at his touch. Her pussy was beautiful, too—firm and smooth, those clear crystals just below a tidy triangle of golden hair. And so small. When he’d slid a finger into her, just one, she’d felt almost impassably tight. He would need to go slowly.
He dropped his wallet on his jeans, the chain rattling as it fell. Before he could tear open the condom packet, she said, “Wait.”
Maybe she was changing her mind. He’d be disappointed—crushed, even—but he wouldn’t push. “It’s okay. We don’t have to.”
“No, that’s not it.” She rose up onto her elbows, and her hair slid over shoulders and swung down her back. “Can we not use that?”
“What? No. I don’t want to risk anything.”
“I’ve never had sex, and you can’t catch cancer. You’re safe. And it doesn’t matter if you have anything.”
Sometimes the matter-of-fact way she talked about her nearing death really slapped him. “I don’t. But that’s not what I mean. Can you get pregnant?” He didn’t know if the cancer, or the treatment, would have affected that.
“I guess so. Would that be a bad thing?”
“Uh, yeah. Ani, what are you saying?” He sat next to her, on the side of the bed, and his cock, not at all bothered about their conversation, stuck out like a flagpole. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m never gonna get to be a mom. That’s on my list, but it’s never going to happen. If I got pregnant, I’d at least get to sort of be one for a little while. I could count that.”
“And then the baby would die with you.” He hated to say such a thing, so baldly true, and he hated the way she winced when he said it, but he thought she was doing what she’d done at the bar. Not thinking past the thing she wanted: her list. Her life. Her death. Forgetting that there were consequences, even if she wouldn’t be around to face the
m. “I can’t, Ani.”
Her arms slid out from under her, and she dropped back to the bed. “Fuck. I suck. I’m sorry.” She put her hands over her face.
He turned and laid his hand on her belly, which sank far below her ribs and hipbones. “It’s okay. You don’t suck.”
Under her hands, she said, “I do. I’m a selfish asshole. I get it if you want to go.”
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