by Meg Lacey
Nicholas drew himself up, seeming even taller than his imposing six-foot- two-inch self. “Believe it. I was on my way to her room when I saw this convention in the hall.”
“What were you going to do in her room?” Lorianne blurted, her expression curious.
Indicating his robe, Nicholas grinned, sending Lorianne a look that made her blush from head to toe. “What do you think?”
“Oh, oh, of course.” She made a quick grab for her cup and saucer, which had almost tipped from her hands at his response.
“You’re lying,” Jackson accused. “Raven?”
“It’s true,” she squeaked. Sweet heaven, she’d have agreed with anything, even “my mother is a rooster”, to escape from this mess.
Nicholas pushed her through her bedroom doorway, stepping inside after her. “I don’t think we’ll need any of you for the rest of the night. Raven and I have other things to do. Don’t we, darling?”
Raven shivered at the murder-and-mayhem expression in his eyes, but she nodded anyway and even tried a small smile.
“We’ll clear this up in the morning. Good night.” Nicholas didn’t wait for any response as he gently closed the door.
Raven stood inside the room, not sure what to say to a man whose expression resembled a volcano in full flame. She stared at him for a moment before her brain finally kicked in. “What did you mean by ‘the rest of the night’?”
“If I know your ex out there, he’ll be keeping watch to see whether or not I leave.” He spread his arms wide. “So, looks like it’s your lucky night.”
“You’re going to spend the night here? With me?”
He gave a strangled laugh that didn’t have all that much amusement in it. “Bingo. See what happens when you get into big trouble?”
“But there’s only one bed.”
“I’d say let’s flip for it, but the mood I’m in right now, I’m going to say—” He jerked a thumb toward the bed. “I get the mattress. You get the carpet.”
“I’m not going to sleep on the floor.” She pointed toward the window. “I’d rather sleep in that tree out there.”
He looked over at the tree on the other side of the glass, which was practically obliterated by a mass of falling white flakes. “As long as you don’t mind the snow, be my guest, sweetheart.”
“You aren’t really going to be rude and insist I sleep on the floor?”
“I don’t consider it rude. It’s practical.”
“No,” she said with an emphatic shake. “Practical is both of us sharing the bed.”
“Is that an offer?” He gave her a teasing smile that would have turned her insides to mush if she weren’t so annoyed with him.
She folded her arms, a mulish expression settling on her mouth. “Absolutely not. Not the way you mean it.”
He stared back at her. “It’s your loss, sweetheart. I know a lot of women who’d agree.”
“What are you going to do, offer me references?”
He laughed. “If you insist.” Then he turned and walked over to the bed. “Let me know if you want some blankets.”
“That’s it?” she spluttered. “That’s all you have to say?”
“No. One more thing.” His hands went to the tie on his robe. “I sleep nude.”
Chapter Four
In the middle of the night, Raven adjusted her position for what seemed like the twenty-trillionth time. It didn’t help. It only reinforced how impossible it was to sleep in the only chair in the room, a brocaded ladies’ slipper chair. Whatever idiot had designed this antique had never considered that a full-grown woman might have to sleep in it some day. She’d kill for one minute alone with the designer.
In the soft glow of the lamp on the nightstand, Raven glared at the inconsiderate male sprawled across her bed. She couldn’t believe Nicholas had blithely climbed into bed a few hours before, leaving her to make her own sleeping arrangements. Regardless of his warning, she hadn’t thought he’d really do it—that he’d take the mattress and leave her the floor. Men didn’t treat her that way, not anymore. She’d held her ground, positive he was teasing.
She should have known better. Once Nicholas made up his mind a tsunami couldn’t change it. She also hadn’t expected him to boldly drop his robe on the floor without caring that she was watching him either. And she did watch. It was a point of pride not to turn away when he allowed his black silk robe to slip off his shoulders and pool on the carpet. Then after sending her another challenging stare—and without any more shame than an infant—he’d climbed into bed, slipped under the covers and was soon asleep.
Raven twisted at the memory, trying to get comfortable by tucking her legs up to clasp her knees as she remembered his well-defined chest, washboard abs and long lean limbs. It was only by the sheerest willpower that she’d stopped herself from focusing on his hips to judge the rest of the merchandise. Feeling him automatically swell against her when she’d kissed him earlier was not the same as seeing him in the flesh. Raven shifted again, pushing her hair out of her face, fanning herself a bit to cool off.
What a pity I detest the man.
She ground her teeth as Nicholas flipped onto his back, his slight snore echoing in the room. The man had the nerve to allow the blankets to slip to his waist as he’d moved, which annoyed the bloody hell out of her since he had all of them and she had none. Now he wasn’t even using them? Here she was crystallizing into a block of ice while he squandered all of that woolen warmth. One way or another she’d find a way to make him suffer.
If she’d wanted to be fair—which she didn’t—she’d admit that he had offered her blankets of her own before he passed into unconsciousness. She’d turned up her nose and wouldn’t take them. For the first half hour, her pride had kept her warm. But not now. She eyed the bed.
Maybe I could just sneak over there and swipe one or two covers…or even abscond with all of them. That would teach him.
Swearing her nose was turning blue from the cold, she suppressed another chill. Enough was enough. She struggled out of the chair and tiptoed across the room. Standing by the bed, she reached for a fuzzy rose-patterned comforter. Before she could remove it, Nicholas rolled again, this time onto his side, the blanket she’d fingered now caught under his body.
Raven scowled and spit out a lewd word, the one her mother had warned her not to use in public, a warning most of the population forgot. As her oath hovered in the atmosphere, a huge shiver raced down her spine faster than a greyhound chasing an electric rabbit.
I can see my breath in this room. Haven’t the Exeters ever heard of heat?
Raven wrapped her arms around her body, knowing that she must have goose bumps the size of mountains. She shifted her longing gaze from Nicholas to the unoccupied other side of the bed. The empty spot taunted her as if impatiently waiting for a human form to take possession and revel in the comfort. She suppressed a moan. The solitary pillow wooed her, the sheets tempted her, but the blankets completed the seduction. She bit her lip for a moment, giving Nicholas a wary glance.
What would he think if he woke up and found her in bed with him? What would he do? Another shiver, this time from a different cause sped down her spine. She didn’t want to give him the wrong idea. But then, it was her bed. It was her bedroom. He was the intruder, not her.
Oh balls, screw Nicholas.
Raven set her mouth in a stubborn line and walked around to the other side of the bed. She draped her flimsy satin robe over the end of the bed and sat down, cautiously inching under the covers. She froze, holding her breath when Nicholas moved; peeping over her shoulder, she was relieved when he settled back into his dreams. After a moment, the warmth crept into her and her eyes drooped. Her last thought before drifting off—
I’ll wake up early and he’ll never know I was here.
So much for good intentions.
Nicholas was dreaming. Dark erotic dreams that featured a warm, demanding woman and a mountain of whipped cream. He could feel the sensual tickle
as the cream covered his chest and started to melt. He could feel the weight of her as she leaned on him to place her lips on his skin, shivering as he anticipated her tongue touching him, stroking him. He stirred and inhaled, lifting his torso to mold himself to the woman whose touch burned like wildfire. He could feel every inch of his body start to shift from molten ore to hard tempered steel. He lifted his hand and placed it on her body, his palm sliding over skin smoother than satin, slipping into and under a mass of hair to cup the back of her neck. He moved his head from side to side, unwilling to open his eyes, instead wanting just to allow the sense of touch to take the brunt of the moment. It wasn’t enough. His hunger built until he was starving, knowing that if he didn’t taste he’d fade away into nothing.
He opened his eyes, stunned to find Raven draped across his body, her nose and lips burrowed into his chest like a mouse seeking a hidey-hole. Her breath stirred his chest hair, the tip of her tongue touching his skin, her wild mass of black hair sifting against his flesh, activating his nerve endings with each inhale she took.
One of her legs was lifted, knee bent to ride over his thighs, but not high enough to disguise the powerful erection that was now lifting the covers like the center pole in a circus tent. Still half-asleep, he prayed she wouldn’t move, and just as fervently prayed she would. He lay there for a moment, trying to regain control of his body.
God knew he wasn’t a saint. He was a healthy male with all the healthy male responses. The fact that women made themselves available whenever he wanted without too many problems didn’t mean he couldn’t behave when he had to. He was a disciplined man who avoided messy affairs. His hand stroked the nape of Raven’s neck. Hell, affairs couldn’t get any messier than this one. Involvement with Raven was a painful way to commit suicide in Nicholas’s opinion. He groaned as she moved, the aroused buds of her nipples stabbing his chest as her hand crept up to his shoulder.
His control broke.
All right. You want it, baby, you’ve got it.
He moved, his other arm coming around her body to lift her higher on his chest as he clenched his fist in her hair and pulled her head back to ravage her mouth. His lips met hers, harsh at first, desperate to consume before softening to coax a response. A response readily given as her tongue tangled with his. He moaned in her mouth, shivering as she did the same. His hand left her hair, surging down to lift her onto his body. He cupped her buttocks, pressing her against him as his mouth continued to plunder hers. Everywhere he touched there was heat. Everywhere she touched there was fire. He was being consumed and he didn’t give a damn. There was only now, only here, only—
Raven.
The realization so startled him that he woke completely, breaking contact with her lips as he reared back to stare at her. Her eyelids fluttered and lifted, revealing eyes dark with passion. They gazed at one another for a moment before full awareness dawned. Nicholas almost wished he had a camera to capture the sudden horror in Raven’s eyes. Of course his probably revealed the same, so maybe not.
Raven’s mouth was now opening and closing like a baby bird begging for worms. A look of such dismay landed on her face that Nicholas’s lips twitched in an unwilling smile.
“Not the expression a man hopes to see when his lady first wakes and looks at him, luv.“
“Wha…wha…wha…?”
Rapidly regaining both his customary sophistication and his sense of humor, he arched a polite brow. “Pardon?”
“Wha—what—oh— God!”
He chuckled, giving her a regretful look. “That’s flattering, but we haven’t even gotten near paradise yet.”
Raven levered herself up from his chest, unaware that her strap had slipped off her shoulder, the deep V-neckline pulled to the side to reveal the majority of a firm round breast. “What do you think you’re doing?”
All of the saliva left Nicholas’s mouth as he stared at the ripe fruit offering sin to him as surely as Eve’s apple did to Adam. He tried to speak but only garbled sounds emerged. Unbidden, his hand slid up her back and around her waist to touch the curve of her breast. He lifted his head, wanting nothing so much as a taste of her warm flesh.
“No fair.”
“Huh?” Sunk in a sea of sensuality, he grunted as if his brain had turned to soup. He wanted to lick her, circle her nub with his tongue and—
“No fair taking…”
Nicholas figured Raven must have read the expression on his face because she jerked herself to a sitting position and grabbed a blanket, pressing it to her chest. Nicholas fell back onto the pillow more exhausted than if he’d dug a tunnel from New York to China.
“…advantage. No fair taking advantage,” Raven finally gasped the entire sentence.
He stared at her for a moment before the unjustness of her accusation penetrated. “Me? What about you?”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. What are you doing in my bed?”
“Your bed? It’s my bed.”
“Not when you turned up your nose at it last night, it’s not. Possession is nine-tenths of the law.”
“This is my room and this is my bed regardless of who I have in it.” Nicholas’s jaw hardened at that thought, but before he could comment, Raven rushed on. “But that’s not the point. You were—” She stopped as if someone had pressed a button.
“Were what?”
“Trying to take advantage of this situation.”
“Oh, please. Who was draped all over me like a bed of moss over a tree when I woke up, hmmm?”
“I was not.”
“Were too. You were sprawled across me so I couldn’t move. I couldn’t get up.”
“You got up,” she said darkly. “Or at least part of you did.”
Nicholas retreated into dignity when he wanted to laugh like a loon. But the expression on Raven’s face warned him that she might take an axe to him if he so much as cracked a smile. “That was an involuntary masculine response. It had nothing to do with you.”
Now she looked affronted. “It did too.”
“Did not.” Nicholas was starting to enjoy himself. At least he would be if his whole damn body didn’t ache so much from sexual frustration. “It would have happened with any female body that happened to be in the same position.”
“That—that is the worst thing you’ve ever said to me in my entire life.”
“Surely not.”
“Yes.”
“I know for a fact I’ve said worse things.”
“You’ve never implied I’m not desirable before.” Then she bit her lip, looking down at the bedcover, adding in a conscientious tone, “At least not since I was a kid. But when I was a kid I was rather…”
Ah hell, there’s that vulnerability again, Nick thought, his gut twisting in response. “Unique. You were unique.”
Her surprised gaze flew up to meet his. “What did you say?”
Nicholas levered himself onto his elbow and smoothed her hair behind her ears. “You had the biggest eyes. You could fall into them and not escape.”
“You noticed my eyes?”
“I couldn’t help it. I looked for them because they were generally hidden under that mass of hair falling in your face, sort of like an Old English sheepdog. I was surprised you could see anything.”
Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “I reminded you of a dog?”
He grinned. “Not exactly. You’re not what I’d call the most faithful companion.”
“That does it,” she spluttered, thumping him on the arm. “Get out of my room.”
Laughing, he fended off her attack. “Calm down.”
“You insult me and then tell me to calm down. Not likely.”
He grabbed her arms and flipped her over him and onto her back. “Damn, you always were a wildcat when you got your temper up.”
“I was not,” she said, managing to give him an elbow in the ribs.
“Were too,” he said, cupping his palms over her shoulders so he could hold her down. “Either you were a wi
ldcat or you skulked around like a little ghost watching everybody from the shadows.”
She worked her leg out from under him and tried to buck him off of her. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He leaned his body weight back on her to keep her still. “I’ve known you since you were ten years old, sweetheart. I think I have a clue.”
“You know nothing about me.”
“Why don’t you teach me?”
“Maybe I don’t want to,” she said, her mouth pouting like a child denied ice cream.
“Okay, then, I know that you twist men around your finger until they can’t think straight.”
Raven stared up at him. “Everyone needs a hobby.”
“I think you’d better find a new one.”
Her bottom lip jutted defiantly. “Why should I?”
“Because your little hobby has landed you in the middle of a very sticky situation. It’s a good thing I came along.”
“Your coming along was helpful, but not necessary. What are you doing here anyway?”
“Not important.”
“It is too.”
“No, the only thing that’s important is that you are now my problem.”
She started wiggling under him, trying to get loose. “I’m nobody’s problem. I’m a free and independent woman.”
“Yeah, well Jackson is planning to change all that. Will you stop wiggling?”
Her squirming movements intensified as she panted, “Maybe your little announcement of our engagement has taken care of Jackson.”
“Nice thought, but I doubt it.”
She tried to buck him off. “Will you get up?”
He scowled down at her as his swollen member pressed against her hip. “Thanks to you, I am up.”
She went as still as a deep lake for a moment. Then a little mischievous grin escaped. “Again?”
Nicholas let her go, rolled to the side with a disgusted grunt and stood with his back to her. He grabbed his robe from the bottom of the bed, shrugged it on before turning to face her. Lord, but she was tempting. She lay there, all tousled and flushed, her eyes shining, laughter trembling on her lips. He started to say something that would cut her down to size, then changed his mind. “All right. It wasn’t just an automatic response. Satisfied?”