Harlequin Presents February 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2: Sold to the EnemyIn the Heat of the SpotlightNo More Sweet SurrenderPride After Her Fall

by Sarah Morgan

  For a guy who liked to plan, he was certainly enjoying making it up as he went along.

  Which somehow was making this hotter.

  ‘This is where you live?’ Lorelei said a little breathlessly as they pulled up.

  ‘Penthouse.’

  She looked around. ‘Must be nice being in the centre of everything.’

  ‘It has its compensations.’ Like now.

  ‘At least you can park somewhere. So we’re safe from the public ordinance.’

  He liked her turn of phrase. He also liked that she was betraying a little feminine nervousness. No, sweetheart, you’re definitely not safe.

  ‘Nash?’ She put her hand on his knee and for a moment he had the thought she was going to climb over and straddle him in the goddamn sports car. But then he realised that was his fantasy and she was just looking at him with a question in her eyes.

  He didn’t want to answer those questions. Except he was remembering something she’d said to him. Here was I, thinking you were a gentleman, but you’re just a man...like all the rest.

  He winged the door. ‘Stay there. I’m coming to get you.’

  ‘No, Nash—’

  ‘Yes, Nash.’ He gave her a slashing smile and in a fluid movement was out and around to her side of the car.

  She looked up as he winged her door and hesitated a moment. He liked that hesitation. It made him want to reach in and scoop her out, to take instead of ask, but Lorelei seemed only to need a moment to make up her mind. She swung her lithe legs out, never taking her eyes from his, reminding him in every movement of her class and her poise and why he needed to be a gentleman... She literally stepped out of the car and into his arms.

  He felt the delicacy of her bones, the softness of her bare arms as they wound themselves around his neck, the scent of blossoms and honey bees from her hair or her skin or simply the way she was. She brought her lips to his, confident and sure, before his mouth slanted over hers and his plans for tonight disintegrated.

  He had intended to thrust deep, to make sure they both got the message that this was about dealing with a problem—sexual attraction—and overturn any idea this was a romantic scenario. They were both grown-ups. They’d both been here before. It wasn’t going to go beyond that. Yeah, he was going to make her understand...

  Until now, with her in his arms, one hand curled against his cheek, her lips soft and responsive beneath his, when the kiss turned tender and romantic and deeply fulfilling on some atavistic level he didn’t want to explore. Not now.

  Not when he had this.

  He heard her sigh his name.

  Obeying primal instinct, he tucked his hands under her bottom, shaping the incredible contours, and lifted her until she was sitting on the bonnet of the Veyron. Thinking he needed to get her sky-high and they were currently below ground, he wondered what in the hell he thought he was doing. But he needed to kiss her more.

  One more taste, he promised himself, pulling her in tight, feeling the warm skin of her waist as his hands delved under the silky fabric of her top. She wrapped her arms around his neck, her fingers tangling in his hair, making soft, satisfied little noises in the back of her throat that warned him this was quickly going to move out of control if he didn’t get her off the car and somewhere private.

  But it was Lorelei who broke the kiss, pulling back, eyes wide, breath coming fast, her whole body quivering. She looked around, not yet past caring.

  Nash found himself bringing a hand to her cheek. ‘There’s just us. You and me.’

  Her eyes softened. She touched his hand with her fingertips. It was a small gesture but he couldn’t help entangling his fingers with hers, taking that small rough palm in his own.

  ‘Inside?’ she said a touch anxiously.

  ‘Inside,’ he agreed.

  * * *

  Nash lifted her from the bonnet and, taking her hand, strode to the elevator. He swiped the pass key and the doors closed. Even as Lorelei turned into his arms, pressing her face to the hard solidity of his chest, she felt the ground give way beneath her as they were hurled skywards.

  She was breathing him in—heady, musky, spicy, hot male and, faintly, soap. The kind of plain soap she liked, not fancy. He was all kinds of good things, and even as her mind was running ahead, fantasising wild and wonderful, she wanted to cling to this moment, when it was just her, burrowing into the strength and solidity of him, and him tightening his hold on her.

  She was vaguely conscious of a slight ping, the doors sliding open.

  He lifted her as if she weighed nothing and carried her into his apartment.

  As he kicked shut the door she took in the downlit expanse of modern masculine interior design. Smooth parquet floors, oyster walls and carpeting, and floor-to-ceiling windows that gave onto a multimillion-euro view of the velvety star-scaped vista of Monaco’s famous marina. Lorelei had been in some fancy homes in this town for parties and receptions, but she’d never made love in one. Faintly she thought there was something to be said for a sky-high room with a view when it came to romancing a woman.

  There was also something to be said for being literally swept off her feet.

  ‘Nash?’ She brought her palm hesitantly to his cheek.

  He caught her hand, kissed her palm fiercely and kept going. He kicked open a door and Lorelei could see two dressers, a huge eastern rug, a vast bed. A man’s bed—so different from her own ice-blue silk Art Deco double. She registered chocolate-brown linens and a neatness and uniformity to everything that made her smile a little. But that smile faded as he released her, and she slowly slid down his body until she was standing on her own two feet before him.

  She instantly felt a little dwarfed. His shoulders were impossibly wide, and the power of his sheer masculine dominance over her physically and, she suspected, sexually in this encounter gave her a moment of pause.

  To even things up it would probably be best for her to step into his arms, initiate what she wanted, make her own demands... And yet as she waited to find her own rhythm in this dance all she felt was longing. For him to kiss her again, to be tender with her, for this to be somehow different from what she’d ever known before. She didn’t know why this man, why...

  ‘Let me see you,’ was all he said, in a voice so soft it was velvet over her sensitised skin.

  Obediently she toed off her canvas lace-ups, but Nash was already enclosing her in his arms, as if he couldn’t help himself, his hands at the back of her neck, tugging at the ribbon that held her top in place.

  ‘Let me,’ was all he said.

  So she let him. He was having trouble with it, and so close against him she could feel his tension. She could offer to help...

  But when she lifted her hands he shook his head, bent his head, and his hot breath whispered against her ear. ‘Let me.’

  The ribbon gave and with infinite care Nash was peeling off her top, bending down as it fell away to press his mouth to the gentle swells of her breasts above the delicate floral pattern of lace just screening her nipples. He unfastened her fragile gold bra and it drifted to the floor, a cobweb of silk and lace. Lorelei registered the spike in heat between them as Nash viewed her bared breasts in the soft light, felt the splay of his large hands beneath the slight under curves, closed her eyes as his thumbs dragged across her nipples.

  ‘You are so beautiful,’ he told her.

  She opened her eyes to find his expression first intent upon her own and then dropping down. She followed his gaze, drinking in the intensely intimate sight of his big tanned hands cupping the curves of her breasts.

  ‘I want to see all of you,’ he told her in a roughened voice.

  Lorelei unzipped her jeans and his hands joined hers to slide them over her neat hips, to peel them down, helping her carefully to step out. His hands were slightly clumsy as the
y settled on her waist, and he was clearly drinking her in as she stood naked except for the tiny scrap of white silk that made up what passed for her panties.

  ‘God, you are more than beautiful,’ he said, almost reverently, and Lorelei, who had been praised for her looks by too many men, and had thought those words had long lost their ability to move her, let alone hold an ounce of truth, believed him.

  She stepped against him and began pushing his T-shirt up, baring an abdomen packed with muscle, a wide, hard chest lightly covered in dark hair. The feel of his skin under her hands was remarkably smooth and hot. His body was like a generator for heat. She ran her hands up over his deltoids as he lifted his arms to reef the cotton off, and she had her first proper look at what had been filling out those clothes.

  He had a simply magnificent body—all height and large frame, which were the gifts of the gene gods. Although what he’d done with it, Lorelei thought a little light-headedly, the stripped, lean muscle and the grace with which he moved, wasn’t to be overlooked.

  No, she wasn’t overlooking anything—including an erection she wanted to explore pressing against denim. But Nash didn’t give her the opportunity to do anything about that as he dipped his head and began kissing her, lifting her so that her toes barely touched the carpet, his hands on her buttocks, moulding her against him. until she felt the long, thick ridge of that impressive erection pressed against her belly.

  He released her slowly and dropped to his knees on the rug, his hands cupping her hips. She swayed in against him, shivering as he placed a hot kiss on her belly, and another, and another lower down. He was touching her there, through the silk, and then the silk was sliding down her legs and there was just his mouth, and Lorelei slammed her hands down on the back of his head, tangling her fingers through his silky thick dark brown hair, clutching as the muscles in her thighs convulsed. The faint ache in her hips that was always there after a long day on her feet was nullified by the almost painfully sensitive pitch he brought her to, until pleasure began streaking through her.

  Her soft cries came unbidden as the dam burst and the waves of pleasure went on and on. Nash’s tongue moved almost reticently as he gauged just how much she could take as her body convulsed. Just as she thought she was coming down he brought her up again, and again she peaked. When she was weak and clutching at his shoulders, swaying on her feet, he rose up like some kind of victorious sea god emerging from the deep. He gathered her in his arms and Lorelei, a little weakened and blurry from her orgasms, saw his eyes were wild, his tongue swiping a lower lip wet with her essence. He gave her a slow smile full of sexual promise and she just stared helplessly at him.

  What had just happened? Alors, she knew what had happened, but it had never happened to her before more than once at one time...and he had been so understanding of what she needed...

  He lowered her onto smooth, cool sheets and her skin prickled not with cold but with anticipation as Nash stood over her. Slowly he began to unbutton his jeans with one hand, the other palming a square foil wrapper.

  ‘Such a boy scout,’ she approved a little unsteadily as the condom wrapper crackled.

  ‘Always.’ His eyes never once left hers and Lorelei watched as the denim parted, revealing his taut pelvic cradle, the cut marks of his abdominals, the deep grooves alongside his lean hips.

  He shoved down his jeans and briefs in a single movement and gave her a slow smile as he saw the look on her face.

  ‘I’m an engineer by trade, Lorelei,’ he assured her with a wink. ‘It’s my job to make sure things fit.’

  Lorelei watched him roll on the latex. She knew she ought to be taking the initiative, climbing into his arms and at least setting the pace, but somehow none of that happened.

  Nash came over her, so big and dominant she should have taken pause. He dwarfed her, yet her shiver had nothing to do with reluctance.

  ‘Are you going to kiss me, Lorelei?’ His deep voice teased her.

  ‘Oui.’ She put a hand to his chest, but instead of giving him a kiss she reached up instinctively and stroked his jaw with the backs of her fingers, wanting to stay the moment.

  Nash stilled. The blue of his eyes darkened almost to black as he caught her hand and pressed a hard kiss to her knuckles, then he brought his mouth down on hers. A hot, passionate stamp of possession. He wanted her.

  Everything Lorelei had decided, conjured, felt about Nash Blue did a somersault. Everything she’d been holding up to protect herself tumbled away. She had wanted him from the moment she saw him, which was a first for her, but she wanted something else and she wasn’t sure what that was yet...

  As his mouth roamed over her face, her throat, her shoulders, she inhaled the scent of spices and soap and man, splaying her fingers in his thick dark brown hair. She reached lower, spreading her hands over his broad back.

  Feeling oddly vulnerable, she let her thoughts flicker back to all the female interest in him today. She wondered what would have happened if she wasn’t here. Was this what he did? Found the prettiest girl, scooped her up in his fast car and took her off somewhere...?

  ‘Nash,’ she said, perturbed by the anxiety she could hear in her own voice, ‘what are we doing here?’

  He smiled—a slow, unbelievably beautiful smile she had never seen before. There was an expectant tension in his hard muscled frame as he came over her, and instinctively she lifted her hand to his shoulder. His skin was so warm, his body so solid. She felt as if she could be anything, do anything, if she had this solidity behind her. It was a silly girlhood fantasy, long robbed from her by life and experience, but she was allowed it, wasn’t she? Just for tonight? Tomorrow was soon enough to face cold reality, where she was on her own, but in the moment she had this.

  She suddenly didn’t care about all the other women, didn’t care that she’d offered herself up to him at that racetrack. She didn’t care about anything but the feeling of rightness having him here with her gave her.

  ‘I believe we’re making love,’ he said, in that deep, rich voice that flowed like warm honey through her limbs and made her pliant as she drew his face down to hers.

  ‘Nash...’ She said his name, pressing her lips to the base of his throat. ‘Nash...’ She said his name as she placed kisses along his jaw, nuzzled him. Wanted him.

  She reached down and stroked his erect, heavy penis with her hand. His face so close to hers grew heavy with sensual pleasure, and his eyes beneath those sinfully thick black lashes were hot and sexual. He was so beautiful and so male Lorelei couldn’t stop looking at him. She didn’t want to stop. She felt powerful but also vulnerable at the same time, and never so female.

  He took her hand and helped her guide the hard silken length of him to the entrance of the wet, hot heart of her body, his eyes never leaving hers. The head of his penis probed gently, and then he moved into her with one long, slow thrust.

  Lorelei moaned, trying to accustom herself to the unfamiliar feeling of fullness.

  ‘How is it?’ His glittering blue eyes were close to her own as he brought their temples together.

  ‘Wonderful,’ she whispered, and in that instant she believed him about making love.

  Filled by him, she wrapped her legs around him, taking him deeper. The passionate kissing, his mouth riding against hers as he surged inside her, the careful way he held her even as the pressure built for him—all coalesced into an intense emotional experience as she began the steady climb towards a blissful fall.

  CHAPTER TEN

  LORELEI lay in his arms, her face obscured by the cascade of her pale curls, her delicate beige-tipped breasts rising and falling rapidly as she slept. Faint tear-marks still glistened on her cheeks.

  She had wept. She had pressed her face into the curve of his shoulder and wept after the first time they’d come together. Her whole body had quaked in his arms. He told himself so
metimes that could happen for a woman, and he felt in Lorelei that her emotions were very close to the surface. But what didn’t happen were the emotions he had felt...

  Protective. Passionate. And stirred to action. Because those tears, he sensed, were not just a physical reaction to the intensity of what had happened in this bed.

  So he had held her as she cried, and soothed her with his body, until somehow he was inside her again—and this time everything was so much slower, as if time itself had altered to fit the rhythm of their entwined bodies and he was giving her what she needed.

  Sex he understood. Physical pleasure was one of the necessities of life—like water and sunlight and racing at high speeds around a track.

  He wasn’t entirely sure he understood this. What had happened in this bed.

  It was nearing dawn. The first fingers of light had come creeping through the shadeless windows and there were pale shadows across the covers. The day was approaching and he didn’t want it to come. He wanted to still time a little longer.

  Watching her sleep, he felt almost as if he had captured some wild nymph from the woods and brought her to capitulation in his bed. She was so delicate, almost fey, he realised with a faint smile at the direction of his thoughts. She needed to be handled with care...and that should be sending warning bells off in his head, he thought, even as he stroked the silken curve of her bent arm.

  His smile faded. Only hours ago he’d told himself this was merely the slaking of an appetite. He’d reasonably assumed his interest in her was powered by his sexual attraction to her body, as it had been with dozens of other women over the years.

  But something else was at play here.

  Even now he wanted to mark her so that other men would know she was his and wouldn’t lay claim to her.

  What am I doing here?

  He didn’t know.

  Apart from the obvious, which was pressed against her hip and demanding his attention—or actually hers. It would be too easy to stroke her body to wakefulness and bury himself inside her, allow mindless pleasure to provide answers. But they had been doing that all night and his own stamina in itself had been a surprise. He’d never doubted his sexual prowess, but last night had been...rare.