This man was different. Something in him called to something in her, and she was rapidly forgetting all that she’d been sure was true. She didn’t care. If he didn’t kiss her, something precious would slip through her fingers. It didn’t matter how she knew that.
She just knew.
As his warm hand closed gently against the side of her throat, his thumb sliding softly across her jaw, Lexie met the dark, mysterious gaze and lifted to her tiptoes, unwilling to wait.
Artlessly, she touched her lips to his. There was an innocence in her kiss that undid him, that reached down inside his scarred soul and made him want to believe.
When she placed a slender hand over his heart, he felt her gentleness steal down his veins, warming him from head to toe.
Tenderness had been lacking in his life. All his life. He found himself wanting hers with a desperation he didn’t want to resist. Instead he wanted to stand in the sunlight of this entrancing woman’s joy. Wanted to reach out to her, to find out how he could possibly repay her for the glow she had cast on his day.
He could almost believe in magic, standing here in Lexie’s ethereal kingdom. It could not be real—she could not be real. Women were not like this, so free and guileless, wanting only him, not what he had.
Then Lexie sighed, and Nikos forgot all that he thought he knew. The only thing that mattered right now was getting closer, not letting her go.
He wrapped her in his arms, slanting his mouth over hers, fighting the hunger that was growing by leaps and bounds, surging past his control. Thoughts of anything but the sweet, warm woman in his arms fled in its wake.
Lexie didn’t know what to call this firestorm sweeping through her veins. All she knew was that she’d never felt like this in her life. She had to get closer, had to break down the boundaries of skin that separated him from her. She slid her fingers down his sides, reveling in the difference between them. His chest was deep, his body hard, everything about him intense. Where she was soft and fluid, he was rock.
He was magic, and the one gift she gave herself every opportunity she had was magic. Mostly she dedicated herself to creating it—
But she needed it, too.
Lexie twisted her fingers into the soft cotton and pulled. She heard his muttered gasp at the same time she felt the heat of his skin, the ridges of muscle. Lexie dug in her fingers and heard him whisper.
“Open for me,” he ordered. His knee slid between her thighs, and lightning heat sparked through her body.
Desire shot through her. Lexie’s knees went deliciously weak, and next she knew, he’d swept her up in his arms and laid her on the bed, which began to swing.
“Will it hold us both?” His voice was rough, low, his eyes burning dark coals.
She couldn’t look away. Couldn’t breathe. Thrill rippled over her skin. “Yes.”
He leaned down and gave her another searing kiss, this one with very little gentleness left.
She didn’t mind, not one bit. There was no gentleness in her, only this endless need, this heat and hunger that roared like a brushfire through her brain. Lexie pulled at his shoulders and he tumbled to the bed, his hard body covering hers.
“Tell me you want this,” he growled, his hot mouth suckling at her throat. “I will stop, but please…if you do not want me, tell me now.”
She wanted him. Man, did she want him, as she’d never wanted anything before. But a little shred of sanity stilled the fingers caught in his wavy dark hair.
“Nikos,” she whispered. “What is this?”
He lifted his head, his eyes dark, burning deep. “I do not know. I’ve never felt this way before.”
“I don’t—” She swallowed. “I don’t do this. I don’t know what—”
“Nor I,” he admitted, pulling away slightly. “It makes no sense.” She saw the loneliness returning. “I should go.”
Lexie knew it was up to her now. He would stop. He would leave if she asked.
And she had a deep, unshakable sense that they would both regret it forever.
“Do you believe in magic, Nikos?” She summoned a faint smile, her heart pounding to hear his answer.
He looked down at her, saw the nerves. And he knew without understanding how that if he left now, something precious would slip from his grasp. Maybe it was only magic, only illusion.
But tonight, it felt real.
“I would have said no, until I saw this place. Until I met you.” He traced her cheek. “Now I am not so sure.”
She lifted one slender hand to his face, and he wanted to believe.
“One night of magic,” she whispered. “It’s more than most people have.”
To his surprise, she didn’t ask for promises. Instead she kissed him.
And then logic didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was need and hunger and longing for something he didn’t know how to name. Something he had to have, beyond all reason, all sense, all the careful order of his world.
Her untutored caresses, her surprised delight in his touch, all of them told him that what happened in these moments would matter long after tonight. Finally, Nikos knew how he would show her what her glow meant. He would bring a lifetime of experience to the task of making love to this woman as she’d never been loved before.
He set about his task with the determination of every other venture of his life, with careful planning, with measured control—and in only moments, Lexie had swept them all away as a child clears a table of blocks.
It was new, all of it, with this woman. As if he had never made love in his life, though he had hardly been a monk. He felt curiously innocent as Lexie explored his body, stripping his heart of its world-weary grime as she stripped away his clothes. She discovered his body as though it were a stack of Christmas presents, unwrapping him with a child’s abandon, free with her delight.
Then she pressed a kiss to one eyelid and the second. Pressed a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth.
Her tenderness destroyed him. Made him yearn.
She gave her body with the same lack of guile, and she made him want to give her…everything.
It was the hardest task of his life to go slow when he wanted to gulp her up in one big bite, one long swallow of her sweetness.
Somehow he managed, peeling away her clothes with shaking fingers, pausing to kiss and caress.
Lexie sighed. She whimpered. She smiled and moaned. Her eyes teased and sparkled, then darkened with a desire that ran as deep as his own.
How sweet she tasted, like peaches left to ripen on the tree. Her breasts plumped under his touch, her nipples exquisitely responsive to his tongue. When he lifted her to his mouth, her hands tightened in his hair with a jerk so hard he yelped.
And they laughed. He never remembered laughing during lovemaking, not ever before.
Then he didn’t laugh anymore, intent upon driving her insane before he was.
Lexie could barely focus on Nikos looking at her with black eyes burning with passion. Casting any remnant of caution to the wind, she captured that crazy sexy mouth of his. Nipped his lower lip as a lioness would bite her lover when mating. As she swirled her tongue over his lips, his fingers worked their magic at her center. She stopped breathing, bucking against his hand.
“Lexie,” Nikos growled. “You make me crazy.”
She couldn’t talk for the fever that gripped her. He redoubled his efforts and she soared, panting with the sheer rapture rolling over her. He teased her with light nips and long, slow swirls until she thought she’d scream. The thick silk of his hair brushing the insides of her thighs in slow, unexpected moments … the touch of his hands rolling her nipples gently, then closing with urgency about her breasts—all played counterpoint to the warm satin of his mouth, drawing her to a fever pitch.
When her mind splintered into ecstasy, electricity surged through every nerve ending, burning her alive.
He rose above her, dark eyes glittering, the lover of her dreams. “Lexie…” he groaned as he drew her close, pla
cing his hands on her hips as he renewed the torment. She gasped as each new sensation slammed into her.
“No—” she pleaded. “I—I can’t.”
“Yes,” the pirate’s smile demanded. “Oh yes, you can. Fly with me, Lexie,” he cajoled. “Fly again.”
She was the best kind of lover, generous and without shame. She didn’t hold back, her responses lusty and thrilled.
And then she was pulling him to her, urgent and demanding, her hands all over him, driving him beyond all control. It was all he could do to protect her before it was too late, his fingers fumbling as they hadn’t since he was a teen.
He braced himself over her, seeing the rose in her cheeks, the heat in her eyes, and for a moment, Nikos wanted to freeze time because all too soon, it would be over. A curious pain invaded his heart, almost a premonition that a night like this would never come again.
It should not surprise him. He still wasn’t sure it wasn’t all a dream.
“Now, Nikos,” she whispered. “Please, come with me now.”
If it was a dream, he would never forget it. And he would pray to dream it again, night after night.
“Now, sweetheart,” he said, his voice rough to his own ears. Then with one deep thrust, he made them one.
Lexie gasped, and Nikos stilled, a groan working its way up from his throat. He watched her eyes widen and wondered if she could possibly feel as good as he did.
And then she smiled so rich and wicked that he thought perhaps he’d found his pirate queen. He bent to her mouth and thought no more, wanting only to go deeper, to capture the elusive temptress with grease under her fingernails and laughter in her eyes.
He growled low in his throat and closed his eyes. “Lexie, this—you—it is more than I ever—”
She placed a finger on his lips and covered his mouth with her own, hungrily, luring him to move again. She felt his skin hot against hers. As he moved within her, another storm built, and she welcomed it, soared with it, clutched at his strength, his power, his desire rushing her dangerously over the edge of a waterfall, her will to resist utterly lost. The night air sang with their passion, their cries and murmurs tumbling in the air.
She was lost in him, so lost she cared not at all to be found, gladly drowning in the deep, dark mystery that was a man called Nikos. She didn’t care if he was a pirate. She didn’t care if she went overboard into that swirling, boiling, storm-tossed sea of bliss into which he’d pulled her, sinking into a realm of sheer, iridescent, shimmering magic.
A magic she’d tried all her life to create.
And finally found in this man’s arms.
When she came, she cried out, and Nikos caught her cries in a kiss. He tried to hold out to take her up once more, but she was a wild thing in his arms, her eager caresses demanding that he join her. It was a battle of wills won only by his greater strength, and when she shuddered in his arms again, he gratefully surrendered, losing himself as never before.
The swinging bed creaked slightly as the cooling breeze drifted across their sweaty bodies.
Lexie sighed deeply, barely able to move for the sheer contentment that spread slowly through every cell. Golden moments of pure, liquid desire left in their wake a bone-deep quenching of a thirst she hadn’t known she suffered.
As his long, caressing fingers drifted lightly across her skin, she felt, for the first time in her life, what it was to be cherished.
She would never forget the man who taught her.
Bittersweet longing for things she couldn’t have suffused her. But practiced in the art of living for the moment, Lexie pushed foolish longings away.
She felt his lips against her forehead, a benediction. She closed her eyes and drank in the scent of him, of their loving, of the night’s perfume. All but wallowing in the luxury of his nearness, she wriggled closer, gratified when he pulled her to him and breathed a deep moan of contentment himself. Almost a growl… definitely male. She shivered at the sheer sensual delight of his sounds and his scent.
Heart thundering, he bundled her into his arms and held her close. Lexie stroked his hair and kissed his throat, sighing softly as she slipped into slumber, her breath soft against his chest. Nikos fought to stay awake, not wanting to find out it had all been a dream.
But Lexie’s magical bed swung slowly, like a cradle, and finally, sleep claimed him.
He was gone. Lexie knew it as soon as she awoke.
She might have even thought she’d dreamed him, except that her body ached in delicious new places.
Rosebud leaped up to the bed, setting it to swinging again. Lexie could recall the sway of the mattress as Nikos poised above her—
She swallowed hard and rubbed the cat’s head as she stared into the rapidly-lightening morning sky. She knew nothing about him, really, not even his last name. Yet she knew everything important.
She wouldn’t know where to start looking for him, but he at least knew where she lived. Would he come back to find the magic again?
Lexie shivered with exquisite memories of the night. It wasn’t like her at all. She couldn’t imagine doing it with anyone else. But Nikos…
He hadn’t been unmoved, either. She could still see the way his eyes had smoldered. See the flare of surprise, the split-second of vulnerability when she’d known that he’d been shocked, too, by the power of their joining.
Rosebud purled a trill and butted Lexie’s hand with her head.
“I know, I know. I need to get up.” She wanted to lie here forever, lost in memory. She rolled toward the empty space where he had lain, and she caught his scent on the pillow. Tenderly, she pressed her cheek against it and breathed him in.
Tears pricked her eyes, and she brushed them back impatiently. Maybe he’d be back. He’d felt it, too, hadn’t he?
Reluctantly, she let go of the pillow and stepped from the bed. She picked up her clothes from the floor, glad she had no neighbors, only a valley past the screened-in porch.
As she walked through her house, she realized that he’d already destroyed her refuge. Everywhere she looked, she could now see him.
She wouldn’t feel sorry for herself. She’d been a more than willing participant. Even if she never saw him again, she’d never forget. She’d hold the night in her heart forever. He’d just set the benchmark for the rest of her life—she had to thank him for that. She might never find another man like him, but now she would know if she were settling for second best. She’d had the best holding her in his arms last night.
Head high, she walked toward the shower, detouring by the coffeepot when she saw the scrap of paper, a sheet torn from the notepad beside her phone, the letters of her name dark and scrawling.
And her foolish dreamer’s heart skipped a beat while she opened it with fingers trembling faintly.
Lexie—
I wanted to stay and watch you wake up, but I made promises I must keep.
Last night was special. A dream.
I will see you later today. I want to hear you laugh again.
Nikos
He had felt it, too. “Come back, Nikos,” she whispered, hugging the cat. “If it was a dream, let’s dream again.”
She twirled across her kitchen, scratching Rosebud’s head and humming until the cat yowled to be put down.
“He’s going to come back, Rosie. He takes his promises seriously.” With a smile, she headed for the shower.
Chapter Two
His mother was sick and he’d flown to be with her.
He’d been in an accident and was lying near death’s door.
Lexie ran through a litany of excuses why Nikos hadn’t shown up. Yesterday had come and gone without a word. The possibilities ranged from terrifying to merely humiliating.
Face it, Lexie. You don’t know him. And it’s not like you have the best track record with men.
Her phone rang, and her heart leaped. “Hello?
“Hey, girl.”
“Spike.” Her shoulders sank.
“Not who y
ou were hoping for?”
“Not at all—” she answered too hastily.
“Okay, give. Who is he?”
“There’s no he.” She shook her head to clear it. “What’s up?”
Spike hesitated. “Okay, you don’t want to talk about it, but you know I’m here if you do, right?”
Lexie bit her lip and willed back hated tears. “Thanks.”
When she said no more, Spike spoke instead. “I know your big meeting is today, so I’ll make it quick. I wanted to run an idea past you for an appetizer that might just be an amazing addition for the gala.”
The gala. Something she was good at, and all she should be focusing on at this crucial point.
“I’m all ears.”
An hour later as Lexie walked into Poseidon Productions headquarters, she had her head on straight. She was focused, Nikos shoved firmly in the past. He hadn’t appeared. Enough said.
It was probably for the best. Some day she’d feel philosophical again, able to laugh about the turn her life had taken. Until that fateful night, she’d thought the upcoming job on the Poseidon gala the most exciting development that had happened to her in a long time. It was a superb opportunity to build A. Grayson’s reputation, to prove herself in a setting more lavish than many Hollywood set designers were allowed.
She should have been thrilled.
She was.
It was understandable to be nervous.
She was that, too.
She should not want to go back home right now and wait.
She didn’t, no, she absolutely did not.
Okay, a little bit she did.
And she was pretty certain the reason had a name.
And dark, wavy hair.
And ebony eyes.
And—
“Ms. Grayson?”
Her head jerked up, and she remembered with a start where she was. The man before her would have seemed very handsome before she met Nikos. He was just the type many women would admire: blond, Ivy-League looks, urbane polish—all the respectable traits that had never appealed to Lexie.
Texas Magic Page 3