by Gina Wilkins
His dark brown hair was disheveled, tumbling onto his bruised and bandaged forehead. There was another bruise darkening on his left cheek, and a smudge of dirt on his right. His bow tie was crooked; his once-pristine-white shirt spotted with dirt and blood. His jacket was torn, his pants wrinkled, and both were dusty from the tramp through the woods. A small clump of dried leaves had stuck to the toe of his right shoe.
He should have looked rather foolish. Out of place in the elegance of this almost-sterile, tidy home. He didn’t. Even after the misadventures they’d shared during the evening, he looked more regal, more composed, more supremely in command than any man Nicky had ever known. She glumly suspected that it was she who looked out of place.
“My housekeeper lives in a separate wing off the back of the house,” Andrew explained. “I’d rather not disturb her at this hour, so I’ll show you to your room, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course not.”
He nodded and motioned toward the curving stairway. She climbed it slowly, holding on to the polished mahogany railing for support. Her feet were beginning to throb after walking so much in the high-heeled shoes. She was more tired than sleepy, but a hot shower and a soft bed sounded very good to her just then.
She wouldn’t mind sharing either of them with Andrew, she thought wistfully, then steeled herself against such wayward, unwise fantasies.
“First door on the right,” Andrew instructed.
Without looking at him, Nicky nodded and opened the door to the first bedroom on the right. It was lovely—antiques and lace—and looked completely ready for an impromptu guest.
Andrew set her bag on the floor, pointed out the attached private bath, and brusquely but politely urged her to make herself at home.
“How many bedrooms do you have?” she asked, curious about the size of the house in which she’d be sleeping.
“Five. Four in this wing, and the master suite down at the other end of the hallway, past the stairs. That’s where I’ll be if you need me during the night.”
Nicky glanced at her watch. “Night is almost over. I think it officially counts as morning now.”
He gave her a fleeting smile. “That’s why I gave you a bedroom that faces west, rather than east. I didn’t think you’d be ready for sunlight for several more hours yet.”
“Thank you.” She set her purse on a delicate Queen Anne writing desk and turned to face him, tucking a curl behind her ear in an automatic, self-conscious gesture. “I’m sure I’ll be very comfortable here.”
“Sleep as long as you like,” he told her. “I doubt that I’ll be up before noon.”
She moistened her lips and glanced at the big bed. It looked comfortable, but a bit lonely. She reminded herself that sided slept in other lonely beds, though few as lovely as this one.
Andrew moved toward the doorway. “Good night, Nicole.”
She had a sudden, inexplicable twinge of panic at the thought of being left alone in this beautiful room. “Andrew?”
He lifted an inquiring eyebrow beneath the thick bandage. “Yes?”
“Are you all right? Is ... er, is your head hurting?”
He touched the bandage. “It’s fine. A little sore.”
“Don’t get the bandage wet.”
“I won’t. Good night.” He turned again toward the doorway.
She clenched her fingers in front of her. “Andrew?”
Again he paused. “Yes?”
“Thank you again for helping me with the dog. I feel much better knowing she has a good home now.”
“I didn’t do much for the dog, but you’re welcome, anyway.” Once more, he moved toward the doorway.
Nicky took a step toward him. “I, um—”
He turned to face her, his hands on his hips, a look of question on his face. “Is something wrong? You don’t like the room?”
“The room is lovely,” she admitted, suddenly sheepish. “I just thought—well, I thought maybe you’d like to kiss me good-night.”
His nostrils flared with his sharp inhale, his only visible reaction to her bold suggestion. “I don’t think that would be a very good idea.”
“Why not?”
He grimaced and glanced at the bed. His expression told her what she’d wanted to know. “You’re old enough to know the answer to that,” he said gruffly.
At least it hadn’t been lack of interest that had made him seem so eager to rush away from her. She found that knowledge reassuring as she took another step toward him. “Just a kiss?”
“Nicole...”
She rested her hands on his chest. “I, for one, would sleep much better,” she assured him, smiling.
“You’re laughing at me again,” he murmured.
“No,” she assured him. “Not at you.”
She could have explained that she was laughing at both of them—for being such an oddly mismatched pair, for being drawn together despite their obvious differences. Or maybe at herself, for falling prey to the old fairy tales and fantasies, for casting herself as Cinderella for even this one night. But she kept quiet.
This wasn’t a time for words.
She lifted her face to his. “Kiss me, Andrew.”
He seemed to fight an inner battle that lasted perhaps a full minute. And then he lowered his head to hers and kissed her with a fierce hunger that nearly melted her kneecaps.
“I wasn’t going to do this,” he muttered against her lips, though he didn’t release her. “I didn’t want you to think this was the only reason I asked you here tonight.”
She didn’t want to talk about why he’d asked her. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer. “It doesn’t matter,” she whispered. “I want this, too.”
Whatever the outcome, she had wanted him since he’d kissed her at midnight and something deep inside her had acknowledged her fate.
He took her completely unaware when he suddenly bent his knees, scooped her up into his arms and lifted her high against his chest. And then he turned and strode through the open bedroom door, carrying her as effortlessly as if she were a child.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and looked at him in wonder. He still looked serious and stern and formal, but there was a rather primitively possessive glitter in his pale eyes as he carried her to his bed.
And this, she thought dazedly, was exactly why she couldn’t seem to resist him. Every once in a while, he simply took her breath away.
He carried her through a sitting room and into an enormous, masculinely furnished bedroom where a bedside lamp glowed softly in readiness for them. The covers on the king-size bed had been turned back, and the heavy, dark curtains were drawn. Would his thoughtful and efficient housekeeper be surprised to find that he hadn’t come home alone? Or was this something he did frequently?
Andrew set her on her feet beside the bed, his gaze locked with hers. “Tell me now if you want to change your mind,” he said, his voice a bit gravelly.
“No,” she replied evenly. “But first I want you to know that, whatever you might think of me, this isn’t something I do often. Or lightly.”
What might have been satisfaction flashed through his eyes, and then he smiled faintly and cupped her face in his hands. “Neither do I.”
She searched his face and recognized the truth in his words. She should have already known, she realized. Andrew was too much in control to act on impulse very often.
His romantic encounters would be as carefully planned and executed as his business decisions. He wouldn’t often take risks, or behave rashly. He was acting out of character now as surely as he had when he’d entered the noisy dance club. When he’d rescued the dirty stray, and then disarmed a young robber. When he’d tramped through the woods and over fences to drink home-brewed liquor with an eccentric old recluse.
And, though she couldn’t help wondering how he would feel about everything—how he would feel about her—later, after he’d had time to sleep and recoup, she wanted him to remember at least part of the evening
with nothing but pleasure.
She placed her hands over his and smiled up at him. “Have I mentioned that you have beautiful eyes?” she asked whimsically.
“Thank you,” he said, typically grave about it.
She couldn’t help laughing at his formal courtesy, even under these intimate circumstances. “Well?” she prodded. “Aren’t you going to say something nice in return?”
“I’m trying to think of the words to tell you how beautiful you are to me,” he answered simply. “I saw you across the ballroom this evening and I was ... stunned. I knew then that I had to meet you. That I wanted you.”
Once again, he’d rendered her speechless. She felt her eyes go damp and misty, her throat tighten. “Oh, Andrew,” she whispered. “That’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
Abandoning the last of her doubts, she threw her arms around his neck and lifted her mouth to his.
Andrew pulled her tightly against him, kissing her as though he needed her more than his next breath. His intensity was one of the things she found particularly endearing; his thoroughness something she especially admired. She suspected that he would make love as competently and painstakingly as he did everything else. She was growing more impatient by the moment to find out.
He slid his hands slowly, savoringly, down her sides, shaping her curves. His hands lingered at her hips, then traveled slowly around to cup her bottom. She pressed closer against him, reveling in his warmth, his strength, his blatant arousal.
Carefully, he lowered the zipper on her short black dress, his fingertips tracing her spine as he bared it. She shivered with pleasure and kissed his jaw, then the slight cleft in his chin. He slid the dress off her shoulders and let it fall.
She had worn a strapless black bra, black bikini panties and dark panty hose beneath the garment. Panty hose weren’t the most flattering underclothing, she thought with rueful humor, but the dress had been too short for garters or thigh-high stockings. She smiled at him and kicked off her shoes, then proceeded to show him how quickly a woman could peel off a pair of panty hose.
She found herself flat on her back on the bed almost before she’d tossed the flimsy hosiery aside. Laughing and breathless, she watched in admiration as Andrew made short work of his sadly tattered tuxedo, revealing a firm, muscular body that was every inch as perfect as she’d envisioned. Karate had proven to be a most practical form of exercise for Andrew, she thought approvingly. And then she pulled him to her.
He kissed her, spending a long time exploring her lips, her mouth, her taste. Now that they were in his bed, he seemed in no hurry, and she was enjoying his kisses too much to rush him.
His hand slid down her bare arm, and then to her side, so close to her breast that her nipple tightened and tingled in anticipation. She arched slightly upward, invitingly.
Leaving his hand where it lay, he released her mouth to kiss her jaw, her throat. The expanse of bare skin above the lacy top of her strapless bra. She closed her eyes and arched higher, the invitation far less subtle.
He nuzzled the lace edging, tracing just inside it with the tip of his tongue. Nicky’s fingers clenched in his hair. Her breath seemed to be lodged somewhere in her throat. And then he slid the fabric out of the way and took her into his mouth. And her breath escaped in a cry of pleasure.
Her prediction had proven delightfully true. Andrew made love slowly, intensely, thoroughly. Spectacularly. By the time he reached into the nightstand drawer for protection, she was hot and trembling, so tightly drawn she felt as though she would shatter if she didn’t find her satisfaction soon.
“Hurry,” she whispered as he tore neatly into the foil packet.
His hard mouth quirked into a faint smile. “This will only take a moment,” he promised.
True to his word, he returned to her quickly, positioning himself above her. She looked up at him, her lower lip caught between her teeth as it occurred to her suddenly that something was wrong. Though rather flushed, Andrew’s face was still set in that serious, composed and rather detached expression she’d noted the first time she’d seen him.
Was their lovemaking really affecting him so little, when it was so terrifyingly momentous for her?
And then she looked deep into his crystal-blue eyes. And she saw just a hint of the dangerous, reckless side of him that he must have worked so hard to conceal during the past few years. The side of him that had taken over during the robbery this evening; that had probably driven him to prove himself in his business, despite his youth and his heritage.
She realized then that he wasn’t detached at all. And that he was very much in need of someone who could look beneath his rather forbidding exterior to see the very special man within.
She smiled tremulously and touched his hard, stern cheek. “Andrew,” she said.
Just his name. A name that was rapidly becoming her favorite.
He smothered her smile beneath his mouth, and that hint of wildness was in his kiss, as well. The clues were there, she realized, wrapping herself tightly around him. One just had to care enough to look for them. She couldn’t help wondering how often he allowed anyone close enough to try.
And then he moved against her and whatever coherent thoughts she’d had slipped away into a haze of mindless pleasure.
Whatever else she might suspect about him, she was soon left in absolutely no doubt about one thing. Andrew was very, very thorough.
NICKY COULDN’T SEE a clock, so she had no idea of how much time had passed before her mind began to work again, though her thoughts were still vague and sluggish. Exhaustion was beginning to claim her. She burrowed into Andrew’s arms and allowed herself to drift off, utterly content.
“Nicole?” Andrew’s voice was a gruff growl in her ear.
“Mmm?”
“Be here when I wake up.”
It was worded as a command. Something in his tone made it almost a plea.
Telling herself it was only her satiated weariness making her eyes burn, she smiled, pressed a kiss to his damp chest and murmured, “I’ll be here.”
His arm tightened around her bare shoulders. “Good.”
His even breathing told her that he’d already fallen asleep, as Nicky dozed off just as the room slowly lightened with the beginning of a new day.
She never would have dreamed that the old year would end quite like this.
ANDREW DIDN’T KNOW how long he’d slept, but he suspected it had been several hours. Nicole hadn’t stirred, and he tried not to disturb her as he turned his head to look at the bedside clock. Without his glasses, the oversize luminous numerals were blurred; he squinted them into focus.
One o’clock. When was the last time he’d slept past noon? He couldn’t remember.
He glanced at the woman beside him and smiled. Nicole was still dead to the world. Which gave him the opportunity to study her as long and as closely as he liked.
Her dark curls were wild and tangled, looking every bit as delightful against the pillows as he’d imagined they would. Her face was soft and unguarded in sleep, her cheeks lightly flushed. There was a smudge of mascara on her right cheek, just below her eye. He found it endearing rather than unattractive.
He couldn’t imagine ever finding Nicole unattractive.
Funny. Ashley had always looked prim and neat and unruffled, even after lovemaking. She’d lived in fear of having her makeup smudged or her hair mussed. And yet she had never looked as beautiful to him as Nicole did now.
Nicole lay on her stomach, her pillow cradled in her arms. The sheet covered her to the middle of her back, above that was only smooth, creamy bare skin. His palms itched to stroke it again. He could still remember how soft, how warm, how silky it had felt.
A strand of hair rested on her cheek, close to the corner of her mouth. He wanted to stroke it away, to replace it with his lips. He wanted to taste her, to devour her, to bury himself deeply inside her and lose himself again in that incredible pleasure he’d found with her before.
<
br /> He wondered if he would ever get enough of her. Would ever look at her without wanting her.
He was in serious trouble, he realized with a deep frown. He wasn’t himself where Nicole was concerned. And he didn’t know what to do about it.
For the first time in longer than he could remember, he was apprehensive about the future. No woman—Ashley included—had ever held the power to hurt him. He hadn’t thought any woman ever could.
Now he wondered if he’d been foolish to be so smugly confident.
Something about Nicole scared him, even as it drew him. He wasn’t quite ready to define his feelings for her. He only knew that he wasn’t at all ready to let her go.
And he’d known her less than twenty-four hours.
He was really in trouble.
As though his wary thoughts had disturbed her, her lashes fluttered, and then her eyes opened. He couldn’t help wondering if she would wake disoriented, if she would look at him with a question in her eyes, trying to remember his name.
But her dark eyes were perfectly clear when they focused on his face, her smile radiant.
“Andrew,” she said, and the remnants of sleep made her sexy voice even huskier than before. As usual, it affected him powerfully.
Feeling as though it had been days since he’d touched her, rather than hours, as though he would starve if he didn’t taste her again soon, he pulled her unceremoniously into his arms and covered her mouth with his.
When he finally allowed her a chance to breathe, she giggled softly and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Good morning to you, too,” she said.
They were the last coherent words he allowed her to speak for quite some time.
THEY SHOWERED together, taking their time about it.
“This bathroom is absolutely decadent,” Nicole commented, peering through steamy glass at the large, luxuriously appointed room.
“It came with the house,” he replied lightly, concentrating on the soap patterns he was making on her back. Water dripped from his wet hair and down his face; he’d removed the bandage from his forehead earlier, though Nicole had tried to convince him to wear it a day longer. He’d reassured himself that he looked a bit battered, but not seriously injured. He didn’t intend to think of the embarrassing incident again.