He took stock of his surroundings for the first time in fifteen minutes. “I guess we’re lucky Jase didn’t walk around the corner. Or that one of your smarter animals didn’t decide to break this up.”
Her half-laugh, half-sigh flowed warm against his throat. “Thank you.”
“For?”
“Not pressing me. Giving me a chance to get sane about this.”
“Ah, that would be my noble streak.”
He eased back far enough to look down into her face. The undertow of insecurity lurking in the depths of those amazingly expressive eyes grabbed him hard. For a moment he felt winded, as raw desire made space for a strong surge of tenderness. He brushed the backs of his fingers along her cheekbone, pressed a kiss to her nose, another to her lips, a third to her chin, then pushed himself away from the wall. Away from temptation.
“I think this would be a good time to go ring my solicitor friend, see if he can’t fit a Corelli in this afternoon.” He touched a finger to her lips, then stepped away. “Don’t go getting too sane about this, okay?”
Slumped against the wall, T.C. watched him walk away. She wanted to call him back while she could still taste him on her lips and feel him on her skin, while the fever of need still burned in her blood. Before the return of sanity. But what would she say?
Yes, I want you to make love to me. I want your scorching kisses and velvet-cloaked caresses, your incendiary words and soft midnight whispers. I want to feel beautiful and strong and craved; I want to feel like a woman who is your equal. But how could she call him back when her insecurities cast such a thick shroud over her desire?
She feared the afterward, when his male hunger was slaked, when he tossed her a casual goodbye and a consolatory kiss, then sauntered off into the sunset. She feared the desperate ache of withdrawal from the loving she’d grown addicted to, and most of all she feared the loneliness of the nights that stretched ahead with only her hollow pride for company.
It was those fears that constricted her throat and dried her mouth as she watched him walk away. It would take less than a night of loving to become addicted to Nick, and despite the power of the attraction, despite everything he could make her feel, he was still a man who didn’t know the meaning of home, a man who liked to move on. He was still perfectly unsuitable for her.
Eight
When he drove down the road less than an hour later, she should have been relieved, able to breathe again, but instead she thought about the day when he would head down that same road en route for the airport, and it felt as if her heart plummeted to her toes. And maybe it stayed there, because her feet seemed to drag heavily through every long drawn-out hour of the day, right up until the setting sun painted the horizon in multicolored dusk.
Then a sense of expectancy quickened her blood, and any noise prompted her heart to bound into her throat. She tried to distract herself with television, flicking indifferently past a score of channels, thinking that at least the volume would prevent her ears from straining for the sound of his vehicle. Fat chance. Minute by minute, her restlessness grew until she couldn’t sit still any longer.
She punched the off button on a noisy sitcom and blew out an exasperated puff of air. How lame was she? Sitting here in the semidarkness waiting for him to come home, not even knowing if he would drive back tonight. And if he did, what would she say to him? Certainly nothing that he wanted to hear.
Tell me what you want, Tamara.
Well, Nick, I want what you want, with the same intense hunger I felt in your kisses, in that one grinding pulse of your hips, in your voice, so hot and tight. But I want it every day for the rest of my life.
No, she didn’t think he would want to hear anything quite that honest.
That’s it, she declared with savage purpose. I will not sit here torturing myself any longer. I need company. She tried Cheryl’s number, but no one answered. Undeterred, she changed into narrow white jeans and her favorite lime-green stretch shirt, brushed her hair until it gleamed with life, touched her lips with gloss and headed out the door.
At the sound of an approaching vehicle, her hand stilled on the lock. Not his car, she realized after her pulse had done its first crazy stop-and-go, but the low throaty roar of a powerful bike. The sound resonated through her body and she didn’t move—couldn’t move—as a single headlight arced across the garden, then caught her in its searching eye. Seconds later the bike throbbed to a halt beside her.
It was a big, dark, dangerous beast of a bike, the kind that made her blood pump faster with reckless images of the forbidden. The kind that fit Nick as perfectly as his black biker’s jacket and faded denim jeans.
He killed the engine, and the silence vibrated around her, keeping time with the accelerated beat of her heart. The sight of his booted feet, spread wide and planted on either side of the monster bike, made her own legs tremble. Her gaze floated upward, all the way to his full-face helmet, and even through the smokily opaque visor she could feel the intensity of his gaze.
Watching her.
She moistened arid lips, felt his gaze touch her, burn her, as he removed his helmet. The contrast from smoky shades of darkness to pure light-filled blue was breathtaking. It was like looking into the center of the sun. Then he lifted a hand to rake the unruly hair back from his face, breaking the searing connection.
T.C. cleared her throat. “Where did you find this baby?”
Humor sparked in his molten eyes. “The stork sure didn’t bring it.”
“It would have had to be a mighty big stork,” she mused, moving around the bike, compelled to look, to touch.
“You like her?”
“No way is this a feminine machine.”
“No? She reminds me of Stella. All that brute power, scarcely contained.”
She smiled. Yes, she could see that. Liked that he’d drawn the comparison, and the way he called Star the Italian version of her name. The less ordinary, the more exotic.
“Plus I don’t much care for the notion of throwing my leg over anything I refer to as ‘he.’”
Well, no. She could see that, too. She touched a fingertip to the handlebar, cleared the heat from her throat. “You asked if I like her…. I’m not sure anyone could simply like a beauty like this.”
“You’re right. I’d forgotten how it feels to ride one of these. To open her up and feel all that power surge through you.”
He laughed, the sound low and throaty and as shockingly arousing as his words. T.C. rubbed her hands over her goose-bumpy arms. She felt his gaze follow the action, caressing her bare skin into complete awareness, brushing the length of her throat, resting on the curve of her waist. Touching the painfully tight thrust of her nipples.
“You’re going out?” All the laughter was gone from his voice.
“Yes.” But if you ask me to stay, if you ask me to take a ride with you…
He didn’t ask, and in the awkward silence she found herself circling the bike again.
“So…did she follow you home or what?” She trailed her fingers across the back of the wide leather seat. It was sleek and surprisingly cool, a stark contrast to the rough heated edges of her own mood.
“Graeme loaned her to me for a couple of days.”
“Graeme?”
“A partner in Kermit’s firm. We were at school together.”
“Your solicitor friend,” she guessed. Then, “I can’t imagine a suit riding one of these.”
He shook his head. “There you go with your preconceptions again.”
She leaned back against the door of her truck and folded her arms across her chest. “What do you mean by ‘again’?”
“You’d made up your mind about me long before we met.” He climbed off the bike, his expression unreadable. “That’s why you’ve been so wary of me from day one. Because of who you think I am.”
What could she say? That she’d been building a defense? That she feared she would fall for him totally, completely, inextricably? All she could say was, �
��I have to go.”
He uttered a polite, “Have a nice time,” turned and walked away.
T.C. was halfway to town before she realized she hadn’t asked him what he’d found out from his solicitor friend.
Nick hadn’t hesitated when Graeme offered to loan him the Ducati. He’d thought the ride home would help cool his simmering blood, but the moment he’d seen her standing there with her tight jeans and gloss-slicked mouth, he’d felt the burn like a flamethrower in his gut.
It had burned harder when she’d refused to talk to him—when she’d run away again—and hadn’t let up the whole night, not even when he heard her vehicle cross the stock-grid into the yard. Not yet eleven, he noted. She can’t have been having much fun. He tried to smile but barely managed a sneer.
Her soft footfalls sounded in the hallway. He heard them pause outside the office door; then he heard nothing but the wild pounding of his heart. His nostrils flared instinctively, and he swore he could smell her light enticing scent. He knew her essence filled his senses, had done so all week, ever since that first kiss.
He was instantly hard, intensely hard.
If you knock on that door, there’ll be no more noble streak. There’ll only be me and you and enough fire to incinerate this whole county.
He felt the sheen of heat on his skin and the coiled tension of every muscle as he sat, barely breathing, poised like some big cat intent on its prey. When he heard her footsteps retreat toward her room he almost howled with frustration. Instead he cursed whatever odd quirk of conscience or honor or pure male pride insisted he wait for her to come to him.
T.C. rose early and pushed herself hard throughout the next day, hoping to drive yesterday from her mind. “Might as well hope you’ll grow wings and morph into Pegasus,” she told Duke as she rugged him late in the afternoon.
The phone was ringing as she came into the house, tired from physical exertion and edgy with the prospect of facing Nick. She grabbed the receiver without thinking. “Hello?”
Her greeting was met with a beat of silence long enough for her heart to bound and lodge in her throat. Surely not…not after a week of silence.
“Hello?”
T.C. pressed a hand to her chest and closed her eyes. Thank God! There was someone there. A voice. A woman.
“Hello?” the woman repeated. “Is anyone there?”
“Yes. Sorry. This is Tamara Cole. Can I help you?”
Another curious beat of silence. “Now I’m confused. I was sure George said you’d moved.”
“Who is this?”
“Oh, how rude of me.” The woman sounded more richly amused than contrite. “I’m Sophie Corelli. Could I possibly speak to Nicky?”
Nicky?
“I’ve been trying to reach him for days, and he never returns my calls.”
“I’ll see if I can find him,” T.C. said weakly, although if he was in the office, he would have picked up Sophie’s call. God forbid she would have to hunt him down in his bedroom or shower.
Cordless handset clutched to her chest, she peered around the partly open office door. No one home. Mind made up to take a message, she went in but found her purpose immediately overtaken by curiosity. Carefully she set down the phone and looked around. There wasn’t much to see.
A blank computer screen, paperwork stacked in several untidy piles, a couple of notes scrawled even less legibly than his shopping list, a tray of computer printouts—charts of some kind—and sitting on top of them a pair of metal-rimmed glasses. She ran a tentative finger along one ear-piece and told herself the strange little tug around her heart was the reassuring notion of Nick with an imperfection, not the incredibly endearing image of him wearing glasses.
“Looking for something?”
She turned quickly, backing away from the desk as if she’d been caught snooping…which of course she hadn’t. Luckily the bookcase provided support for her sudden weak-kneed breathlessness when he came into the room, wet hair flopping over his forehead, shirt untucked and hanging open.
All endearing thoughts evaporated in an instant haze of heat.
“Tamara?”
“Oh…a…um…call. For you.” Four words, four syllables, yet she had trouble stringing them together. Swallowing, she looked away, focused on the phone instead. “It’s your sister.”
“That narrows the field to four. Any idea which one?”
“Oh. Yes. It’s Sophie.”
The corner of his mouth twitched—with irritation?—as he swung into the chair and swiveled it toward the desk. When he reached for the phone his chambray shirt stretched taut across the breadth of his shoulders, and her attention was drawn to several tendrils of hair curling over his collar.
Oh, help! This room is definitely too small and too poorly ventilated.
“Sophie? You still there?”
He propped the phone between his chin and shoulder while he buttoned his shirt. What was it with him and dressing in her presence? She edged along the wall until she heard his weight shift in the chair and felt the dark unsettling touch of his gaze. Ignore it, she told herself. But when she started to move, more overtly this time, he simply rolled his chair into her path.
Satisfied she wasn’t going anywhere but incredibly irritated by her attempt, Nick turned his attention to the phone call. “How did you get this number?” he asked at the end of Sophie’s introductory small talk. Sophie held a masters in small talk.
“From your partner, natch.”
Nick swore. Sophie laughed. Tamara looked up from contemplating her toes, then away again just as quickly.
“George said you were only in the country for a day or two. Math was never my strong suit, but I can add. You’ve been there well over a week now. What gives, Nicky?”
“Ever heard of taking a break?”
“Didn’t you just get back from a break—in Alaska, of all places?”
“Your point?”
“Hmm…wrong season for skiing, and I don’t recall any decent climbs or white water nearby, so it must be a woman. Oh my God, is that why Joe’s little woman is still there? You are too much, Nicky!”
“She wasn’t Joe’s—” He stopped himself right there. Swore silently when Sophie crowed with malicious delight. Willed Tamara to look at him, but she continued to stare fixedly at her toes.
“This is soooo priceless,” Sophie cooed. “I can’t wait to share.”
“It’s none of George’s business.”
“You think he hasn’t made it his business? He’s been in a hellish snit about your little bequest, and he can’t bear to have you in the same country. What I can’t decide is why he’s still paranoid. Is it still about Emily?”
Nick scrubbed a hand over his face. “Don’t call him to make trouble, Soph. Tell him I don’t want anything of his, especially his wife, and I’ll be out of the country this time next week. Will you do that?”
“Why not?” He could hear her shrug. “No skin off my nose.”
After he recradled the receiver, Nick realized he had been gripping it with viselike intensity. Straightening his fingers was actually painful. Man, but he hated the way Sophie’s troublemaking could still steam him…almost as much as George’s paranoia. Was it any wonder he chose to live on the opposite side of the world? With barely contained frustration, he shoved his chair away from the desk and found Tamara eyeing the door.
“Thinking of running away again?”
Her fitful gaze jerked back to his. “It’s not quite like that.”
“Isn’t it?” He slapped a hand down on the arm of his chair. “You’d have been locked behind your bedroom door ten minutes ago if I hadn’t blocked your exit.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just…”
“Just what? Just that you don’t have the guts to talk straight to me?”
She recoiled sharply, as if the words had stung, and Nick wanted nothing more than to back down, to apologize to her, and that only made him angrier.
“Stay, for once,” he bit out. “Talk t
o me.”
“I don’t know how to talk to a man like you.”
“A man like me?”
With a rough curse, he thrust his chair forward, startling her into knocking several books from the shelf at her back. Nick ignored their heavy tumble to the floor. He felt an insane urge to keep going, to surge out of the chair and demonstrate what sort of edgy, frustrated man he had become.
“Tell me, Tamara. What kind of man do you think I am?” he asked with dangerous calm.
“The kind I can’t relate to. Joe drove me nuts with his stories. Nick’s gone kayaking in Peru. Nick’s joining an Everest expedition. To me your life is… I don’t know…larger than life.”
“What about this past week, Tamara? Don’t you feel like you’ve been relating to me, cuz it sure as hell felt like we were relating down in that shower bay yesterday.”
Hot color flared in her cheeks, hot memories in her gaze; then she looked away, and Nick cursed out loud. He hadn’t meant to bring that up. What was it with her? She had a way of getting under his skin so damn quick he barely felt the pinprick, and right this minute she was so far under he could feel his skin stretched taut.
“Don’t you think it’s time you started judging me with your own eyes instead of on an old man’s ramblings?”
That brought her gaze charging back to his, so heated it seared him with green fire. “How can you talk about Joe like that? He wasn’t some rambling old man, he was your father!”
“He wasn’t my father.”
She stared at him, stunned into silence.
Gaze fixed on the ceiling, he rocked back in his chair and expelled a short harsh breath. “I don’t know why I said that. It’s not something I talk about.” Not because he was ashamed, but because it didn’t make any difference to who he was. Not anymore.
Addicted to Nick Page 10