"And you just thought you'd plan all this behind my back, Cary Carmichael!"
"Eva," he said, giving me a look that said, duh! "You're your own worst enemy sometimes. I felt it my duty as your best friend to push you down the right path. Seems like you're enjoying the new scenery."
I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling embarrassed and self-righteous at the same time. Nick kissed me on the cheek and walked toward the couch, then collapsed in an undignified, too-much-frantic-sex kind of heap. Cary gave him the once over and smiled.
"Not the only one enjoying the new scenery, I see," he said smugly.
"I've died and gone to heaven," Nick announced, making me turn my glare towards him instead and start to tap my foot on the floor. "Angel," Nick said and nothing more. As though that said it all.
I decided to ignore the both of them and check my bags, but first..."What do I need to pack still, Cary?"
"Nothing, it's all done," he replied, flicking through the channels with the remote. "Two suitcases of clothes, one of personal stuff including your sheet music. Anything else I'll send through the post."
I stood there for a second and realised this was actually happening. I was leaving Cary. And Nashville, but it was the fact that I was leaving Cary that broke my heart. Sweet, funny Cary, who had taken one look at me strumming my guitar aimlessly one lunch time in a park near where he works and walked over to strike a conversation up. We'd become fast friends. Two weeks later I moved into his house and ever since he has been my cheerleader, my front row fanatic at gigs that I played, my foremost fan. My best friend.
With a shock of absolute terror I realised I was going to cry. Standing in the front room of the house we'd shared for almost eight years, Cary watching TV, Nick spread out in a post-coital daze on the couch, and I was about to let all cowgirls down worldwide. I contemplated running. Hiding out in my room until the tears stopped. I considered going to the kitchen and drowning my sorrows in a beer or two from the fridge. Several different options rolled through my mind, but none of them manifested quickly enough to be of any use.
A sob escaped me before I could stop it, before I could cut it off at the pass with an alcoholic distraction or pretend I was OK whilst trying not to run to my room to hide out. Nick's eyes flicked up to me, comprehension and concern dawning on his face. But it was Cary who reached me first and wrapped me up in his solid arms, resting his cheek against mine, catching the tears as they trickled out of my closed eyes.
"Shh, sweetie," he crooned, running his hand up and down my back. I hiccoughed unattractively and started to bawl. God, was this embarrassing. "It's OK," he said softly in my ear. "It's all gonna work out just fine."
He didn't realise I was crying for him. For the loss I'd feel when he was no longer in my life. He thought I was crying about my Dad, or maybe Jessie and her boys, or maybe just the fact I was heading home to face my past. He didn't realise I'd miss him and I was crying too hard now to get the words out and explain.
But Nick did. It never failed to surprise me how much of me Nick understood. Because he said in a low, even voice from his still semi-reclined position on the couch, "We can come back and visit, angel. I'm sure Cary would be happy to see us once a year."
Oh, and didn't that make me cry even harder. Nick knew what I was feeling and he'd offered me something so precious in those words. He offered his understanding, his acceptance of my need to have Cary in my life forever, and he'd done it by using the word: us. Not just sending me back to see Cary, but that we would both come to Nashville - once a year.
"And I could come visit you once a year too," Cary suggested, getting the message loud and clear from Nick's words and simply slipping straight into the best friend role of support.
"It's... It's too... too... far for you to... to... come," I blubbered against his shoulder.
"Nonsense!" he declared resolutely. "Besides, I need to branch out from cowboys every now and then. Fancy myself a nice, big, rugged Kiwi to spark things up once in a while. Variety, they say, is the spice of life after all."
"We have some rugged, handsome Kiwis," I admitted, then sniffed loudly.
"Yes, sweetie," he whispered quietly in my ear. "And you've got yourself the pick of the bunch. Don't you dare let him get away, y'hear?"
I nodded into his chest.
"He may not wear a cowboy hat, Eva," Cary said even more quietly, for just my ears to hear. "But he's cowboy through and through."
"I know," I whispered back. "He's my dream, ice-blue eyed, perfect cowboy." And why did I just admit that? - even though this was Cary, my best friend whom I shared almost everything with - I can't believe I just said that!
Cary chuckled and gave me a squeeze around my waist. "I think he heard that, sweetie," he said though a beaming smile.
Oh darn it all to hell.
"We'll just pretend he didn't," I announced.
"Yeah, sweetie, that'll work," Cary replied, smirk in full swing, then following it up with a wink. "You two love birds get some sleep," he said louder, "I'll drive you to the airport just after three."
I checked my watch as Cary stepped back. Four hours sleep, it wasn't much, but better than nothing. Cary kissed me on the forehead, nodded to Nick and walked out of the room. I stood still, head tipped forward, eyes to the ground, frown in place. This was awkward.
Nothing happened. So I began to relax slightly and think Nick hadn't heard what I'd said to Cary. Maybe it would be OK. We'd just go to bed, grab some sleep, and then head out to the airport. Cool as a cucumber. I still kept looking at the floor, but now started to fidget slightly as well.
"So," Nick said from right in front of me. Great. He'd heard. "Dream, ice-blue eyed, perfect cowboy?"
I didn't say anything. I watched as his hand slowly came up from his side before me and long fingers clasped my tipped down chin, then he tilted my face up to his. His ice-blue eyes were all melty, his face soft, his kissable lips slightly parted, a small curve to the edges matching the crinkle that surrounded his eyes. He stared at me for several moments, neither of us said a word. Then he took my hand, fingers entwining with mine and led me from the room.
We entered my bedroom, my mind only barely registering that Cary had indeed packed up all of my personal belongings - the wardrobe was bare, the drawers in the dresser all open slightly showing nothing was left within, the walls and table tops all bereft of knick-knacks and paraphernalia. Nick closed the door behind us with his booted foot, and turned me to face him just before the bed. With slow methodical hands he began to undress me. Pulling my T-Shirt over my uplifted arms and head. Sliding his hands down my arms, over the sides of my chest and then around to the back to unclasp my bar. He pulled that forward and let it fall to the floor. His eyes never left mine as both thumbs softly caressed my nipples, making them pucker and come to little taut peaks. Then his hands were on the denim skirt I wore, zip slowly lowered, skirt shimmied over my hips to the floor. My underwear followed.
We stood still for a moment. Him still fully dressed, me now in my cowboy boots and nothing else. Nick's eyes sparked with hunger and something softer. His fingers came up and trailed down my cheek, then pulled away, leaving heat where they'd been and a loss at their absence. He started to slowly lift his own T-Shirt over his head. I noticed - after taking in the glorious sight of his naked chest and ripped abdomen - that he didn't have half the normal ASI essentials strapped to his belt. Just a cellphone. But the belt was unbuckled swiftly, his boots toed off and the jeans lowered to the floor. He kicked them all aside and stood before me in white boxers and white socks.
He looked perfect.
I could hardly breathe through the effect he had over me, simply standing there in white underwear and nothing else. We stared at each other, not just at our faces, but the whole package before us. My eyes trailed over his muscular chest and shoulders, down his stomach following the trail of that dark haired V that disappeared inside those white boxers; tempting me, teasing me, making me pant with the need to rea
ch out and slip my hand inside, to see where that trail led.
I couldn't stand it, I reached forward and managed to get one finger around the inside edge of his boxers before his hands came out and clasped around both my wrists, stilling my explorations.
"We have four hours to catch some sleep before we leave and over twenty hours on board a plane back home. Are you tired?" he asked, his eyes boring into mine. "Or can sleep wait for the plane?"
I frowned. He had to be joking. Sleep now and miss feeling his beautiful body move against mine, move inside mine, or sleep on the boring twenty hour flight back home.
Nick's lips twitched. "I think we're on the same page, angel."
"Your page better not be curling under the covers and getting some shut-eye, cowboy," I warned.
He laughed, a gorgeous unrestrained chuckle rumbling through his chest. "Hadn't featured in my dreams, Eva, not gonna fucking lie."
"Then get those boxers off, cowboy, and show me what you have been dreaming about."
His smile broadened. "You think you're ready for my fantasies, angel?"
"I think you're talking too much, when you could be doing instead," I shot back.
"Oh," he said slipping out of his boxers and socks, while I kicked my boots and socks off as well, "them's fightin' words there, missy," he said in an exaggerated western accent. "C'mere, cowgirl," he muttered, snagging my waist and hauling me flat against his chest, then he tipped me over backwards, our hips pressed firmly together and proceeded to kiss the living daylights out of me - no holds barred.
God he could kiss. He could light the world afire with his mouth and tongue and teeth alone. His lips devoured mine, his hands caressed and teased and coated me in feather-light touches, sending delicious shivers of excitement coursing through my entire frame, goose flesh to rise all over my skin and heat to pool between my legs, then unfurl slowly out towards every possible nerve ending throughout my body.
I groaned and he swallowed the sound down, sweeping his tongue in a tantalising discovery of my mouth, tangling with my own, challenging me to match his pace, his passion, his desire. It wasn't hard to do, this man drove me crazy with lust. But not only that, he filled me up with everything I could possibly have ever wanted and left me breathless from the rush it caused. I had never felt this connection to another and the closer - physically - I seemed to be getting to Nick this time, eight years after our initial introductions, the more intense that connection seemed to be.
As if he was becoming more than just the body my body craved. More than just the man who featured in all my dreams. More than just ice-blue eyed, strong and capable and handsome and... perfect in every way. Eight years ago I spent one night in this man's arms and when I stood up to leave and looked down at him sleeping so peacefully in the bed we'd shared, I discovered my heart had simply gone. And now, wrapped up in his arms, tumbling to the bed - limbs entangled, tongues entangled, bodies entangled - I realised he'd kept it safe for me, for this moment, when we were back in each other's arms, back sharing the same bed. He'd cared for it and nurtured it, just as I had done the same to his.
And right in that moment, on the brink of facing my past back in New Zealand, moving on from my time in Nashville, starting afresh the way we should have done all those years ago, but couldn't, Nick Anscombe gave me my heart back. With care. With passion. With an unrelenting desire to forever be a part of my heart from this day forward.
And I accepted it, just as I returned his in an equal fashion. And as I did, I realised I was indeed home. Even though we hadn't got on the plane yet, hadn't left Nashville for Auckland, I could have been anywhere in the world as long as it was with Nick... and I would have been home.
I lay kisses down his body as fervently as he laid them across mine. But my desire to show him how much I loved him in that moment won out, because it was my lips that reached their goal first. My tongue that stroked up the underside of his straining erection as his hands fisted into the sheets at his sides and a small, masculine-sounding groan came up his throat and out between his lips.
"Angel," he said in that way he does, that makes me feel like I'm the only one who could make him respond this way. "Ah, fuck, angel, that is so good."
His hips bucked up into my mouth, seeking a deeper connection. One hand released the sheets at his side and fisted in my hair gently instead. It didn't take long, with me sucking and nibbling his length with my lips and teeth, and then stroking and rolling everything else, for him to cup my head with both hands and begin to establish a rhythm of his own. Controlling my movements, making sure he could sink deep inside my hot wet mouth, but not too far, just enough to feel like pure bliss.
He groaned and rocked. His hard length twitched with the need to release, I tasted his pre-come as my tongue flicked over the broad head of his cock; so sweet and enticing. I wanted more and took him even deeper in an effort to encourage his loss of control. But Nick is a man who is very much in control, even when he doesn't appear so.
He pulled out of my mouth with a popping sound, slipped his arms under my armpits and hauled me up over his body. My legs settled either side of his hips, expecting to feel him sink in as we lay there; his back to the bed, our chests and stomach and groins flat against each other. But in one swift, heart thumping move, he rolled me over with him now on top, lifted my leg out and up and slammed himself home.
I gasped, then followed it with a groan as he swirled his hips in a circular motion as soon as he was fully seated. He lifted my leg higher, throwing my ankle over his shoulder, while he pressed my other leg out wide and low. It was an unusual position, he was able to go deep, but on such an angle it just made me want more and more. Never quite reaching the right spot, but so close. So close that I kept thinking the next thrust would do it, but it never did. It was a sublime tease. Completely at his mercy. After only a minute I began to whimper and plead.
"So," he said on panting breaths. "Dream." Thrust. "Ice-blue eyed." Thrust. Twirl of his hips. "Perfect." Thrust. "Cowboy." Thrust. Twirl of his hips. "Is that what you think, angel?" Thrust; once, twice, three times and then as if he lost his train of thought a series of hard and fast thrusts, and loud groans accompanying each one, for a few seconds. "Oh, fuck," he murmured, burying his head in the curve of my shoulder and neck. "What was my fucking point?"
"Nick?" I said through another groan-come-whimper.
"Yeah, angel?"
"You talk too much." A laugh above me, a twirl of his hips and then he was off chasing our orgasms, shifting my leg and his body to allow me to breach that final hurdle that had hung so tantalisingly close, but just out of reach, for way too long. Making the resultant orgasm crash into me like a tsunami when it finally came.
"Oh, God!" I cried out as the first wave hit. Then he did something else, something sinful with his hips and another orgasm crashed into the first, bowling it over, swamping it utterly and wholly sweeping me away. I managed a gasp, followed by a groaned out, "Nick" as the orgasm consumed me - completely.
"There it is," he breathed next to my ear, still thrusting hard and fast. "My name on those beautiful lips as you come."
He covered said lips with his mouth and kissed me soundly, fire shooting through my nerves with the depth of passion he showed. He didn't stop for the longest time, my body being pounded into the mattress but I felt so alive with every hard rock of his hips, so complete with every fast thrust deep inside. I craved every single moment, I treasured every single second of him moving in such a proprietary way inside and out of me. His possession obvious and welcomed by me.
"Watch me," he instructed, making me open my eyes lazily to find him staring down at me with ice-blue fire that stole my breath. "This is what you do to me, angel. This is fucking heaven right here, right now."
And with two move hard and frenetic thrusts inside he came. His face morphing from determined and lust-filled to ecstatic and entirely full of bliss. I felt his sex stiffen and pulse, and then the hot warmth of his seed coating my insides, and co
mpletely unexpectedly I came in a rush right along side him, unable to deny my body's response to his.
"Oh, fuck!" he whispered hoarsely in my ear, his head having come down in one swift thud onto my shoulder as though he simply couldn't hold it up anymore.
Sweat soaked our skins, my body tingled all over, and heat washed off from Nick. And there was nowhere else I would have preferred to be. I could have quite easily have slept like that, Nick still inside me - softening slowly - our hearts beating in tandem, chest to chest, our sweat and evidence of our love making mingling between us. It was heaven, right here, right now, just as he said.
Then Nick spoiled the moment, by mumbling - and it was definitely a mumble, I think he was half asleep - those wretched words. Which I obviously wasn't going to be rid of any time soon, if his smile against my skin and the rumbling laughter I could feel through his chest was anything to go by.
"So, dream, ice-blue eyed, perfect cowboy, then. Care to elaborate, angel?"
No, I did not.
And I was revising my position on that statement. Because Nick was fast becoming sexy-yet-annoyingly-persistent-dog-with-a-bone instead.
Laughter met my silence as he rolled off to the side and tucked me under his arm and against his chest.
"Never mind," he announced cheerfully, gently stroking a hand down my side. "I'll get it out of you eventually. You are so mine, Evangeline Rowe. Inside and out."
Chapter 23
And Then He Dashed All My Hopes And Crushed My Fragile Heart
I knew he was right. I was his. Inside and out. There was no denying what I felt for this man, who was sleeping soundly beside me, wrapped up in my body and limbs, as I lay there and contemplated how close to perfection I had come. And how close to losing it all I still was.
There was nowhere else I wanted to be and although returning to New Zealand and facing my past - on so many levels - was frightening beyond measure, I wouldn't have it any other way. Sure, I was scared. Scared of seeing my Dad die, of missing the chance to say, I love you, despite my mixed memories of my childhood and his absence as I grew up. Despite it all, I loved my Dad and I needed to say those words - even if he was still unable to say them back.
Sweet Seduction Serenade Page 23