Harlequin E Contemporary Romance Box Set Volume 3: Falling from the SkyMaid to LoveWhen the Lights Go DownStart Me Up

by Sarina Bowen

  In a moment, he had his hands under her shoulders, lifting her into a sitting position as he pulled his mouth away from hers. He slid his heels beneath his butt and rose up in one smooth motion to tower over her, shirt gaping wide over her bra, which barely covered her breasts in its disarray.

  He held out a hand to her. His heart was still pounding from wanting to lay her out on the grass and drive into her until her cries pulled the neighbors from their houses. When she took his hand at last, he yanked her up to press against the full length of his body.

  He narrowed his eyes and stared at her mouth as she licked her lips. She grabbed the plackets of her shirt with her free hand and held them together. He didn’t know how he’d manage to walk without limping, since his dick was now an iron bar in his pants.

  “Unless you want to be a helluva lot more naked in this park, we need to leave. Now.”

  Chapter Twelve

  She got half her buttons done on the extremely brisk walk back to their hotel and gave up on the rest. Nick had one of her hands locked in his as he tugged her along the sidewalk and though it was probably clear to any passers-by that they’d engaged in some semi-public fooling around outside, so be it.

  She didn’t know any of these people anyway.

  The narrow hallway to their room, with its faded floral runner and delicate half-circle table with an artistic display of twigs in a vase, passed in a blur of anticipation and Nick’s hard hand tightened on hers until the pressure on her bones almost hurt.

  She didn’t even notice him unlock the door before they were inside the room, Nick kicking the door shut with his foot and flipping the lock as she braced herself to be pushed up against the wall and ravished, yes, fuck it, I mean ravished.

  But when he turned to her, he slowed. Stepped close to her but not up against her. And just stared.

  After a moment, self-consciousness crept over her exposed skin. Hot and fast and hard, she knew how to handle. How to lose herself in the moment, in the urgent need to touch and suck and stroke, and fall deep into pure sensation and heat as she let her armor fall—literally, in the case of her clothes. After all, Maxie’s clothes were the way she controlled how people around her reacted to her.

  But this…this was different.

  Slow, as Nick reached down and unbuttoned the few buttons she’d managed to fasten and pushed the shirt back off her shoulders, letting it slither down her arms to drop to the floor. Naked, as he unhooked her bra and stripped it from her the same way. Soft, as his hands floated over her skin, barely brushing against her as he looked at her with an intensity that made her feel so damn exposed to this man who saw more than she wanted. More than she’d ever allowed anyone else to see.

  Slow, naked and soft, she didn’t know how to handle.

  “Wait.” She stopped, not sure what to say next. Or why she was asking him to wait. She flattened her palm against his chest and felt the slightly rough weave of the cloth beneath her hands.

  He waited, hands resting on her hips, looking down at her with patience and a new kind of affection in his eyes.

  “Whatever you need.”

  “I don’t really know.” She ducked her head and then looked back up at him as she started picking at the buttons on his shirt. “I just started to feel like the only one without pants again.” She laughed at herself, although it didn’t feel funny. “Even though that’s the only thing I’m still wearing.”

  Nick pressed his forehead against hers for a moment. His hands cradled her face as he lifted his head enough to press a kiss directly between her eyebrows.

  “S’okay.”

  He stepped away from her and she almost protested. She didn’t want him to stop touching her. She just needed to feel less naked in front of him in this quiet, brightly lit room with the sounds of people passing on the sidewalk in front of the hotel humming in a low murmur through their window.

  Nick stopped at the foot of the bed and faced her, a small smile on his face as he finished unbuttoning his shirt and took it off, draping it over the footboard. She watched as he stripped, a plain, simple removal of shoes and jeans and briefs without any suggestiveness, even when he pulled a condom from his pocket and dropped it on the quilt, until he stood naked before her.

  And fuck, there was the hard bubble of warmth in her chest again. He had seen her vulnerability in that moment and matched it with his own, an action that blew through her defenses like a tornado through a haystack, leaving her bare and exposed again, but this time not alone.

  She kicked off her shoes. Shed her jeans and underwear on the way to the bed and laid down with Nick, the afternoon breeze belling the sheer white curtains at the window. Instead of hard and fast and hot, they were slow and easy with each other. The slide of hands on skin was like a warm melt of honey as she rolled into him and lifted her mouth to his.

  Nick’s hand slid down her back and over her butt, stopping at her thigh and lifting her leg to cross his hip and tangle with his, opening her up to him. She stroked his soft hair and kissed the side of his neck when his hand reached, still slow, still easy, between them until he held her in the palm of his hand as her hips rocked against him.

  Slipping on a condom and slipping inside her both happened with such ease that she never stopped the slow roll of her hips against him. Just kept moving through the gradual build of pleasure and pressure, keeping her muscles loose and her half-shuttered eyes on Nick’s face as he stroked her back, her hip, the curve of her ass. Leaned forward to steal a kiss.

  He watched her face all the way through the climax that rolled over her like a slow-breaking wave, flushing heat and pleasure down her spine to the tips of her toes and leaving her muscles soft like taffy in its wake. She felt herself tighten on the hardness of him and trigger his orgasm, his hips jerking suddenly against her, sparking off bursts of pleasure that made her gasp and laugh at the surprise.

  “Shit. Every damn time.” She shook her head and sank into the thick, fluffy quilt, arms and legs still draped over her lover.

  Nick pressed his mouth into the curve of her neck. She felt his lips move as he mumbled at her. “Hmm? What?”

  She reached her arms up high and pressed her palms to the headboard, arching her back in a curving stretch that unkinked her spine, audibly so, and stretched her loosened limbs.

  “You turn me inside out. Every. Damn. Time.” She grabbed the back of his head with one hand and tugged on his hair in time with her words.

  “Sorry.” Still muffled.

  “No, you’re not.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Dork.”

  “Actor.”

  She giggled. “Not right then.” He quaked against her with silent laughter.

  Rolling just far enough away from her, he stripped off the condom and got rid of it before curling back around her. She pressed her lips to the top of his head.

  “Nap now. Dinner later.”

  His voice was barely audible, the heavy weight of him against her a good sign that he was already most of the way asleep.

  “Real food.”

  “Okay.” She smiled again, wrestling that hard knot of warmth in her chest into submission. Worrying about what she ate was just a thing he did because of his freakish healthiness. It did not mean that he cared about her well-being, not beyond that of any other person he…

  What? Any other person he did business with? Slept with? Stayed up with all night at the scene of their burned-out warehouse before feeding them and taking them home with him?

  Why was it so damn hard for her to admit that they were more to each other than casual fuck buddies?

  Not that the sex wasn’t the hottest she’d ever experienced. Ever.

  She snorted at her own excess.

  “Relax, funny girl,” she muttered, pretty sure she was the only one listening at this point. Nick was breathing heavy and slow against her chest, scrunched so low in the bed that his arm was practically wrapped around her ass and his knees were tangled with her feet. “Eno
ugh with the navel-gazing, okay?”

  Ups and downs aside, she’d escaped from the city and the stress for a quick getaway with her incredibly hot and generally excellent lover-slash-boss and she was damn well going to enjoy it.

  Whether or not she meant something to him beyond fabulous sex and aggressive banter?

  She didn’t care.

  Yeah, right.

  “I like you anyway, Nick Drake,” she whispered, losing sight of the drifting sheers at the window as her eyes grew heavy and fell shut. As she fell asleep the silk of Nick’s hair was under her mouth and the steady beat of his heart was under her hands.

  When they woke, hours later, the long shadows of the evening were crawling across them as fading light eased through the open windows. The first quiet moments of consciousness were smashed by the growling rumble of somebody’s stomach.

  “That one wasn’t me,” she protested at Nick’s raised eyebrow. And then laughed when he started tickling her sides before bouncing off the bed and heading to the bathroom, where he slapped on a light and cranked up the water.

  “Let’s get out of here. I’m starving. As long as your stomach won’t give up and die if you eat two real meals in one day,” he called from beyond the open door.

  She sat on the bed, ab muscles tight from laughing, wondering if she’d imagined that one moment of silent connection when she’d first opened her eyes and found Nick watching her in the dim light.

  She let it go and hopped out of bed.

  Just roll with it, remember?

  Dressing for dinner required some careful thought. A city girl still wanted to represent, even when antiquing in Lake Geneva. No way was she going to be mistaken for some suburban yuppie couple.

  And although she usually felt like Nick’s eyebrows were about to climb into his hairline every time she showed up in something other than classic Lincoln Park Trixie attire, she couldn’t deny that he seemed to enjoy ripping her more exotic outfits off her body.

  She was perfectly aware that her own control-freak urges played into her enjoyment of clothes as costumes. Dressing to project a particular image, even if only for a few hours, allowed her to control exactly how people saw her. Every detail, each addition to or subtraction from an outfit made an impact on people, and she prided herself on treating the entire process with an almost scientific precision.

  She hadn’t thought Nick understood any of that, though, so she was pleased to hear him ask if she’d packed “something a little more motorcycle-club hottie.” Maybe he was learning how to play, after all.

  It was almost as if he wanted to play with her in the amusement park that was her wardrobe. Maybe it was something about being out of the city, far away from everyone who knew him that let him find this sense of play. But in the same vein, she suddenly didn’t feel the need to put on her typical costume-slash-armor. There was no one here whose opinion of her she wanted to manipulate.

  And she didn’t feel the need to do that to Nick. He saw even the things she tried to hide from him, so there didn’t seem to be much point to it in any case.

  After denying that she had anything held together with rows of safety pins or trailing black cobwebs of lace, she finally threw a pillow at him to shut him up and pulled on cropped black pants, a silky white tank top, and flat, strappy black sandals.

  She unhooked her bra and pulled it out one of the armholes after Nick sighed in mock disappointment at her staid outfit.

  She smoothed her hands down over her breasts and stomach, aware that her tightening nipples were clearly outlined against the thin white silk.

  There was more than one way to represent.

  His eyes narrowed and grew dark. He looked back at the unmade bed and then at her again.

  She winked.

  He laughed. “If you’re at all hungry, you should stop that before you get into trouble.”

  She strolled up to him and slid her hand down his bare arm until she felt the hard metal edge of his watchband links under her fingertips. She tugged his wrist up until she held it directly in front of her eyes.

  She tilted his wrist toward her.

  Seven-thirty.

  Twisted it gently back toward Nick and opened her eyes wide. Made an innocent observation. “Looks like it’s still early to me.”

  * * *

  Dinner was very, very late.

  Getting seated at the French bistro on the corner required a bribe slipped to the host. This wasn’t the city. You couldn’t count on finding a restaurant open past 10:00 p.m.

  Dinner flew by, conversation easy and silly or, as the subject called for, focused and intense. She caught herself marveling over how easy it was to talk to Nick and shook her head.

  “What?” Nick used his fork to spear the last blackberry from the top of the tart they were sharing and popped it into his mouth.

  She dropped her own fork and pushed the dessert plate closer to him. Ugh. Not another bite.

  “I’m so full I could puke.”

  “Nice.” He shook his head and smiled, digging into the last bites. She wasn’t off the hook, though. “Why were you shaking your head?”

  Damn the man and his perceptiveness. Also, that OCD inability to let any conversational strand go without chasing it down to its last gasping breath. She shook her head again. He threw a hand out as if to say, See? That’s what I’m talking about.

  “I’m just surprised sometimes.” She chose her words carefully. “How easy it is to talk to you. Considering we don’t actually have anything in common.”

  Nick frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “You know.” She stuttered, suddenly off her game. “Other than your constant need to find out from me whether or not your mom’s flushing her fortune down the toilet with this play, we’re nothing alike, really.”

  “Wait. What?” Now he dropped his fork and leaned forward on the table, elbows propped to either side of his plate as he stared at her. He indicated the two of them. “You know this isn’t just me keeping an eye on my mother’s money, right?”

  She shrugged and avoided looking at him.

  “Sure.” Even she could hear how flat her voice was.

  “Hey. Look at me.”

  Her knee-jerk reaction was to look anywhere but, just because he’d told her to. After a minute of feeling him staring at her face, though, she gave in and looked up. She threw her shoulders back and lifted her head high, staring right at Nick.

  Their table was hidden deep in a far corner of the bistro, the atmosphere dim and romantic with a trio of tea-light candles flickering at the edge of the scarred-wood table against the wall. Nick’s hair looked black in the candlelight, pushed back messily in waves that reminded her of how hard she’d twisted her hands in that soft hair just an hour ago. His straight dark brows were drawn together, his head cocked a little to one side.

  He reached a hand across the table and caught her wrist, drawing it toward him.

  “If all I wanted was a business report, Maxie Tyler—” his thumb was stroking the inside of her wrist and she knew he could feel her pulse ramp up at his touch “—then I’d make you show up at my office every night to debrief my assistant. But that’s not what this is.”

  Her heart was racing, just from the touch of his hand on her wrist. Goddamn it.

  How did she get to this point? Where all it took was a touch and she was ready to open her chest at this man’s command and bare her insides to him?

  “So, what is this?” She braced herself to hear it, not doubting for one moment that he’d tell her the brutal truth.

  To her surprise, he hesitated. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but she thought that maybe his cheeks even flushed redder as he drew her hand up to his mouth and brushed his lips against her knuckles.

  “This is what I’d call a love affair.”

  Shock like the sudden downhill free fall of a rushing rollercoaster hit her stomach and flipped it.

  “Love?”

  It was possible that her voice actually squeak
ed.

  For a moment, she thought Nick was going to back down. His eyes skittered around the room, his hand on hers loosening as if he were about to let her go. But then she clapped her free hand to her face, elbow braced on the table, and groaned. In the instant of her starting to protest, he found his feet, metaphorically, and settled. The grin popped back onto his face and he rubbed her hand briskly between his own.

  “You don’t believe in it?”

  She could only see out of her right eye with her hand of denial still masking most of her face. One eye was enough to see his shit-eating grin as he settled back in his seat, still tangling the fingers of one hand with hers, not letting go for a moment, even when she tugged at his grasp.

  This was a man who was prepared to defend the position he’d staked out on this conversational hill until the last man fell.

  “You’re not in love with me.”

  She made her voice firm, determined not to retreat from this battlefield. She pulled her hand from her face and gripped the edge of the table instead, ignoring the voice in the back of her head that mocked her for what her statement oh so obviously ignored. She’d said nothing about whether or not she was in love with him.

  “Maybe not.”

  She sighed and loosened her grip on the smoothly varnished wood.

  “Yet.” The flash of his grin said that he knew she’d been eyeing that conversational escape route and he planned on blocking her on all sides. “But this is more than just you and I figuring out that we set fire to the bed whenever we manage to get in one.”

  She saw it, the moment his memory of taking her in the opera-house balcony, or on the warehouse floor, flashed through his mind. His gaze raked down her body, as much of it as he could see with her sitting at this high table, stopping to fixate on her breasts. She felt it as if his hands cupped her and his thumbs scraped over her nipples, making them draw up into hard points. She didn’t have to look down to know that he could see her reaction to him.