“I noticed yesterday that you had a grill attachment,” he answered, nodding at her multi-burner stove as he emptied the contents of the grocery bag into the fridge. “So I bought vegetables and swordfish steaks to grill. But first, I need an appetizer.”
“Sure. I keep a fully stocked fridge. I’m sure I can whip something together. What do you have a taste for?”
“You.” He turned to her, holding out a hand. “Come here.”
The soft words were completely at odds with the hunger in his gaze. Mesmerized, she moved forward, body and mind focused on Kane and everything he offered.
As soon as she slipped her hand into his, he lifted it to his mouth, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to the back of her hand, then another to her palm. “In The Perfumed Garden, Sheik Nafzawi talks about a woman’s pleasure and how important it is for the man to see to her needs in order to satisfy his own.”
“He-he does?” she managed to ask, watching breathlessly as Kane kissed his way from her wrist to her elbow, leaving fire in his wake. She’d read The Perfumed Garden cover to cover, yet she couldn’t recall a word of it at that moment.
“Absolutely.” He lingered at the soft skin of her inner elbow, nibbling and licking. Nadia would have never believed the spot would be an erogenous zone for her, but Kane’s expert touch caused her nipples to pearl and moisture to gather between her thighs.
He continued, punctuating each phrase with kisses as he continued up her arm. “‘You will excite her by kissing her cheeks, sucking her lips, and nibbling at her breasts. Lavish kisses on her navel and thighs, and titillate the lower parts. Bite at her arms and neglect no part of her body.’”
“I think I like this sheik,” she gasped as Kane nipped at her earlobe.
“I think I like this area right here,” he answered, his lips grazing her collarbone, her throat, then her chin. “You taste like the sweetest spices, Nadia Spiceland. I want to take my time exploring you, neglecting no part of your beautiful body.”
He claimed her lips.
Finally. Nadia twined her arms around Kane’s neck, kissing back with equal fervor. At his silent urging she parted her lips, allowing his tongue to sweep inside. She groaned, he groaned, they both groaned, animalistic grunts of need and demand.
His hand slid down her backbone to cup her ass, bringing her core against the hard ridge of his arousal. She pressed against him with a whimper of pleasure, butterflies dancing in her stomach, wanting to get as close to him as she could possibly get. He trailed kisses from her mouth to her throat, turning her until her back pressed against the end of the island. His hands swept up her arms to her shoulders then back down, pushing aside the straps of her dress. The smooth fabric slid down her body, stopping only when the straps caught the bend of her elbows, exposing her breasts.
He looked at her in silent fascination, as if he’d never seen breasts before. Tension ramped up inside her, tightening her nipples to bullet points. Slowly he raised his hands, reaching up to cup both. A jolt of electricity shot through her, making her gasp, a gasp that fell into a long moan when his thumbs slowly and lightly brushed over the nut-hard peaks of her nipples.
He rolled both her nipples between thumbs and forefingers. She reached back to grip the countertop before she embarrassed herself by melting into a puddle of need on the floor. “Your mouth,” she said, the gravelly sound of her voice loud and unfamiliar. She lurched forward, thrusting her breasts into his hands. “I want your mouth on me. Please, Kane.”
“How can I refuse a request like that? But I want to see you. All of you.” He dragged the dress straps all the way down her arms and she let go of the counter long enough to slip her wrists free. The lightweight dress glided down her body and pooled at her feet, leaving her bare to his gaze.
He stepped back to give her a long, slow perusal. She lifted her chin, bearing his scrutiny despite burning with the need to cross her arms over her body. Every woman had that moment of uncertainty, of overthinking a man’s reaction to seeing her nude. Sure, she’d been naked with him last night, but they’d been so desperate to come together that there hadn’t been a moment like this, this sensual examination.
Her breasts weren’t as large and perky as Siobhan’s, but she could make eye-catching cleavage when she put her mind to it. As for the rest of her body, well, she’d lost weight during the stress of her television days, eating pills instead of meals, her stay in rehab, and the long hours of blood, sweat, and tears getting the café up and running. She was still in the process of getting back to a decent weight, but she didn’t have much more to go before she actually got her hips and butt back.
“Nadia,” he said, and her name sounded like a prayer or a plea on his lips. His eyes lit up with the heat of his appreciative grin. “Everything about you is beautiful.”
“E-everything?”
“Everything.” He stepped closer to kiss her throat again, his teeth lingering on her collarbone. “Your smile, your sweet and spicy scent, your arousal. The sound of your breath catching in your throat, your moans and whimpers, the curve of your ear, your nipples and belly button and right toe. It’s all beautiful to me.”
She wanted to laugh, to lighten the intensity and relieve her sudden onslaught of nerves, but the truth she heard in his tone stole her breath. Gripping her waist, he lifted her onto the counter. The shock of the cool granite juxtaposed with the warmth of his hands and the fire in her blood. He caressed her breasts again, his touch almost reverent and going a long way to easing her nerves and firing her senses. She leaned forward, her breasts heavy and aching for his mouth.
She parted her lips to repeat her demand but he leaned forward to lick her right nipple then gently blew on it. Before she could process that sensation, his mouth closed over her nipple. She moaned loud with appreciation, clutching his sleek head closer. When he sucked on it she felt the pull all the way to her womb. Then he bit down with the perfect combination of pleasure and pain.
She cried out, her hips bucking against him. “Oh God, yes! More of that.”
“As the lady desires,” he said with a laugh, then repeated the lick, suck, bite maneuver on her left nipple. Moisture gathered at her entrance, threatening to dampen her thighs and the counter beneath her, but she didn’t care. Instead, she wrapped her legs around him, dragging him closer, needing him closer.
He started up the leisurely kissing expedition again, feasting on her exposed skin, making her belly flutter and clench as he kissed and licked and nipped his way down her abdomen. Drunk on the headiness of his caresses, she leaned back on her elbows, watching as he explored her body with lips and teeth and tongue.
She whimpered a protest when he bypassed the most obvious target, instead nibbling his way down her inner thighs to her knees, her calves, her ankles and toes. True to his word, or the sheik’s suggestion, he neglected no part of her body. By the time he returned to her center she was quivering and panting, almost mindless with want.
“This part of you is beautiful too,” Kane told her, cupping her mound. “Beautiful and wet. I bet it’s needy too.”
“Yes,” she breathed out.
“What do you need, Nadia? Tell me.”
She’d never been shy about asking for what she wanted, or taking what she needed in the bedroom. She saw no reason to be different now. “I want your mouth on me, Kane. The same way you did my breasts.”
He lightly traced the folds framing her opening with a sweep of his thumb, his expression drawn tight with desire. She wrapped her legs around him again, aching for him, ready to beg for him to give her what she wanted, what she needed.
“As the lady desires,” he said again, leaning forward. He slid his hands beneath her knees, folding her legs toward her chest, opening her up. Nadia was so primed for him she doubted it would take more than one stroke for her to blast off.
A keening moan of pleasure broke free from her at the first lon
g caress. She felt a shudder pass through him, then his hands slipped down to frame her slit, opening her farther for his questing tongue. The pleasure spiked like electric shocks, prickling along the surface of her skin. She sent her hands scrambling across the countertop, seeking a way to anchor herself, finally thrusting her fingers into his hair.
Passion rose hard in her and she tugged on his hair, wishing he’d hurry. He bit the inside of her thigh. She gasped, a rush of heat sweeping through her as he brought her to the edge—close, so very close—only to bring her back down, sensually torturing her with lips and tongue and teeth, with licks and suckles and bites. He feasted on her with expert enthusiasm, driving her crazy, reducing her world to just her pussy and his beautiful, glorious, amazing mouth.
Her thighs quivered with the need to come, to relieve the passion and pressure flooding her body, stretching her skin, filling her lungs. She moaned his name repeatedly, begging him for release. Just when she thought she couldn’t handle it anymore, couldn’t take another tongue lash, he sucked on her clit.
She came screaming, feet pressing on his shoulders as her hips arched off the countertop. The orgasm continued, bowing her body with the muscle-clenching force of a seizure, catapulting her right out of her mind.
“Nadia? Are you okay?” Kane’s voice sounded far away.
She stared up at the pendant lights hanging above her. “Yeah.” The word came out slurred and three syllables too long.
“Can you sit up?”
“No.”
“Let me help.” His arms curved beneath her, lifting her to a sitting position.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, giving him a drunken, ferocious openmouthed kiss, tasting her excitement on his lips. “You need to fuck me now.”
“Dammit, Nadia.” His gaze ignited as his arms tightened around her. “You make a joke of my self-control. I want nothing more than to be inside you. But I can’t be slow and sweet right now.”
“Good, because I need it hard and fast.” Her fingers dug into his shoulders. “Please, Kaname.”
“God, Nadia.” With quick movements, he produced a condom out of his pocket, dropped his pants, and tore open the packet. He rolled the condom on as she watched.
She licked her lips. “I can’t wait to suck you off the way you did me. You should know what this feels like.”
“I think I’m about to find out.” He cupped her buttocks in his palms. “Guide me home, sweetheart.”
She reached down between them, fitting the blunt head of his cock to her passion-slick opening. He slammed forward with a grunt, impaling her. Their simultaneous groans filled the air as she wrapped her legs securely about his waist. The sensation of him inside her, hot and hard and thick, made her whimper with relief.
“Fuck, Nadia.” He rested his forehead against hers, his breath shuddering out of him. “You’re like liquid fire and I’m willingly burning alive.”
He partially withdrew then thrust home again, again, again. “Don’t know how long I can last.”
“We’ve got all night for round two,” she reminded him. “We need this, just like this, right now.” She clamped her inner muscles down on him.
It was like tossing alcohol on a flame. With a growl he began to fuck her in earnest, his muscular body slamming into her like a battering ram. Nadia could only hold on for dear sweet life as he set his teeth to the curve of flesh between ear and shoulder, holding her in place for his sensual onslaught. The friction of her bare skin against the fabric of his sweater combined with the hard edge of the counter beneath her and the silken steel of his cock inside her to set her nerve endings alive.
As hard and as long as she’d come before, she shouldn’t have had another go in her. But Kane had lowered her inhibitions and elevated her desire, and her body once again tightened with the need to come. She reached between them, splaying her fingers around his surging cock, using her thumb to stroke her clit.
“Yes, baby, yes,” he uttered against her throat. “Come for me, sweetheart. Let me feel you clamp down on me again.”
Unbelievably her body answered his demand as an orgasm not quite as violent as the previous one rocked her to her core. Her nails dug into his shoulders as she bucked against him, her channel spasming around his cock.
“Fuck.” Kane drove into her so brutally it was a wonder he didn’t uproot the island. Then he tossed his head back, his features strained as he came with a loud, guttural groan before sagging against her, his head resting on her shoulder.
SEVEN
“Oh my God.” Nadia slumped against him, her soft body pliant. “We just had sex on my kitchen island.”
“Hell yeah, we did,” Kane replied, warm with pleasure and satisfaction. He licked her throat, the taste of her addictive. “I hope this proves to you that last night wasn’t a fluke.”
“I have never been so thoroughly convinced in my life.” She straightened, groaning when he withdrew from her. “But this is my kitchen counter. I roll dough out on this granite!”
He removed the condom, snagging a paper towel to wrap it in. Not wanting to be too far from her, he cleaned up at the kitchen sink then righted his clothing. “I’ll help you scour it clean,” he told her, helping her down and keeping her steady as she regained her footing. “Just tell me where the cleaning supplies are. And the garbage can.”
“Under the kitchen sink. But you can’t scour granite. It’s granite!”
He’d been in the process of returning to the kitchen sink, but turned back to her. It sounded like she was freaking out, but why? “Nadia?”
She clung to him, looking up at him with cognac-colored eyes, panic pushing away sated passion. “I think I’m freaking out.”
He cupped her cheek. After only twenty-four hours of intimacy he couldn’t be near her without touching her. He was out of his mind with wanting her, and he didn’t care. What he did care about was her having doubts. He didn’t like it. “Are you freaking out because of the sex, or because the sex was on the countertop that you roll dough on?”
She was still naked, her dress a pool of fabric on the floor. Her balance of soft curves and hard angles was poetic perfection, which told him just how sex-addled she’d made him. She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth, and damn if he didn’t feel his cock stirring again. “Uhm, would you feel bad if I said both?” she asked as she reached for her dress, stepped back into it.
“I feel bad that you feel bad.” Deciding to give her a bit of space, he rummaged beneath her kitchen sink for the supplies she needed. Realizing what he had in his hands, he straightened, his eyebrows raised. “Wait. You clean your countertops with vodka?”
She reached for the giant plastic bottle of alcohol. “This stuff really isn’t fit to be called vodka. At least no Russian worth her salt would put it to her lips. Nana Spiceland had me cleaning her kitchen with the rotgut stuff since I was five and helping her and my father Victor cook.”
She handed the bottle back to him, then pulled a thick white cloth out of a drawer. “But I cut my vodka with castile soap and rosemary oil. It cleans without streaking, without damaging my granite, and I like the smell of rosemary. Just pour it on.”
He did as ordered, then watched her use both hands to push and pull the thick cloth across the counter, her arm muscles flexing with the pressure she used. She had a strong grip, he knew, but he wondered if the pressure she exerted now was her usual strength from making pastries all day long or a manifestation of her nerves. “Do you want to tell me why you freaked out?”
She sighed as she leaned against the counter, giving him an excellent view of her cleavage. “I know I asked for this loud and clear. And I like it. I really like it. I guess, well, I guess I wasn’t expecting it to be so damn good. I mean, I know you’re used to it, but I’ve been out of the dating and sex scenes for more than three years. I’m rusty.”
What the hell? He wrapped his h
and around her wrist to get her attention. “What is it that you think I’m used to?”
“This.” She waved a hand between them, sending the scent of rosemary wafting through the air. “You’ve done this a lot, I know, and I’ve had my fair share of partners too, but this sort of intensity is a new experience for me.”
“Would it help you to know that this intensity is new to me as well?”
“Is it?” Disbelief colored her tone.
“Nadia.” He tapped the back of her hand to get her to look at him. “I’ve had lots of sex. Most of it was good and some of it was great because it’s important to me that my partner and I get what we want and need out of it. If you want, we can sit down and discuss our sexual histories and share our medical records. What I want is to make sure you feel like you can trust me.”
“I trust you, Kane.” She paused, blinking as if surprised by her words. “I do trust you. I’m just a little skittish.”
More than a little, and it was enough to make him wonder if she had trust issues from a previous relationship. “I understand. I have to admit, I wasn’t prepared for how visceral my reaction to you would be either. It’s all right to be cautious. I want you to feel safe with me.”
“I do.”
He shook his head. “If you did, you wouldn’t have freaked out.”
A flush crept across her cheeks as she dropped her gaze. “Kane . . .”
“It’s okay, Nadia.” He reached out, lifted her chin. “It’s my responsibility to make sure you trust me to keep you safe so that you’re able to let go and truly enjoy yourself, whether that’s reenacting scenes from The Perfumed Garden or something else. I don’t take that responsibility lightly. Do you believe me?”
She searched his expression. He hoped his sincerity came through. Finally the uncertainty cleared from her eyes. “I believe you.”
He released a breath. “Do you trust me to keep you safe while maximizing your pleasure?”
She folded her bottom lip between her teeth. “Maximizing?”
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