Despite the fact that I was standing up, my body was crushing under some emotional weight, while at the same time I felt as if my head might float away. It was too much. It was unbearable. How had I ever thought I loved him?
“I’m going away,” I said, and turned to Nicholas. “I’m going to Italy.”
He went very still. “When?”
“Now.”
The words were out, and I would follow them into action. I was getting on a plane. The first flight I could find with luxury seating. The only way I’d managed to live through Marcus’s lovemaking was by rationalizing it as the act of a desperate but decent man. If he wasn’t decent, he might have lied to me about being faithful, might have had a gay lover while we were married.
The bottom fell out of my stomach at that thought, and I pressed a hand up over my mouth.
Nicholas was in front of me within seconds, grasping my shoulders. “Breathe.”
I shook my head, my mind desperate to escape the vile thoughts that were oozing in. “I can’t…” I was panting, shaking, not even able to focus on his face which suddenly loomed in on mine, and then—
He was kissing me.
Kissing.
And my swirling, tumbling world slowed down into simple sensations—his hands cupping my face, his lips gliding over mine, the exquisite taste of him—a hot mysterious flavor that I couldn’t identify, of salt and heat, and it was mixed up with the scent of his skin and the tingling that spread across my body as one of his hands slid from my cheek to cup the back of my skull, his fingers tangled in my hair.
It was a slow exploratory kiss, as if he was testing something, checking something, wanting something, but not taking it yet. And my body responded by turning liquid, as if someone had filled my skin with warm molasses that heated me until I burned, until I ached for more.
And then suddenly it was over. He pulled back and let his hands drop to his sides, and instantly I could see clearly again. In fact, the world around me sparkled with clarity and potential, but I wasn’t looking at the world. I was looking at Nicholas. His pupils were very dark, he was breathing through his mouth, and color rode high on his cheeks.
“That,” he said softly, “was the wrong thing to do.” He nodded to himself, then pulled in a shuddering breath before taking two steps back away from me and thrusting his hands into his back pockets. My gaze dropped as he did that, and I couldn’t help noticing the bulge at the front of his jeans.
I closed my eyes and swallowed, wondering what I’d just done. But I couldn’t block out his husky voice.
“Only, I’ve wanted to do that for a long time. Since Jill’s wedding. Since I saw you in that silver gown…”
I should never have worn it. It had been completely out of character. But I’d grown tired of being good old reliable Louella, and some part of me had wanted to break away from the woman whose husband hadn’t desired her and to be acknowledged as sensual, so I’d worn a gown with a split up one leg and cleavage. It had been stylish, classical, but…sexy.
And I’d felt good in it, but I’d never intended for Nicholas, of all people, to respond to it.
“…and this morning, when I realized you’d had sex with someone else—”
My eyes snapped open. “What?”
“You don’t think I believed that lie about grieving for your marriage?” His eyes had narrowed again. “You came out wearing different clothes, and when I asked you if anyone hurt you, you said Quite the opposite, and unless I’m wrong, the opposite of pain is pleasure.” His hands came out of his pockets. “If you were going to have sex with someone, I wanted it to be me.”
I couldn’t breathe then. He wanted to have sex with me—had wanted it for some time—while I’d barely glanced at him, so caught up in my own life, my own problems. I had no idea where any of this was leading, but I wanted to be honest about one thing…
“I did not have sex this morning.”
I could have added Not that it’s any of your business, but I’d let him kiss me. I hadn’t stopped him. And I wasn’t going to reprimand him either. I’d enjoyed it too much, and it had stopped my meltdown in its tracks.
“Then what made you upset?”
I shook my head, wishing he’d let that go.
“Alright, but don’t go to Italy.” He held my gaze for several heartbeats before he added, “Wait until the police sort this out. You’re strong enough to do that.”
Now I am.
Somehow—magically—his kiss had restored my equilibrium. I could stay and see what the police operation uncovered, instead of jumping to terrible conclusions. Nicholas had startled me out of a meltdown with physical intimacy, and I could tell myself I was simply reacting to my first kiss from a new man in over a decade.
But I’d been kissed before I met Marcus. I’d even had sex, but this was different. When Nicholas touched me it was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. Even his hungry gaze made me feel shockingly alive. I had no idea what that meant, but I didn’t want to run away from it, so I said, “All right, I’ll wait.”
He nodded, and that steady gaze held me captive. “I know I stepped over the line.” His voice was soft, but there was no regret in it. “And while I’m your bodyguard that won’t happen again.”
For some reason my breasts were tingling, as if they wanted to be pressed against him, against that hard muscled chest I’d seen. “When you’re not my bodyguard…?”
Throbbing silence filled the room and I thought I saw those biceps tense.
“I’ll want more.”
We simply stared at each other then, and I couldn’t think past the roaring of blood in my body. It pounded in my ears, maddening me with the desire to feel him, to taste him. I knew he wouldn’t allow that now. He’d reverted to ‘duty’, and had himself under control.
I needed to emulate that, but one day we’d be free to explore the attraction, and before that time I had to work out if I wanted to, because I suspected that once we began, it would be very hard to stop.
“Go to bed now,” he said, and there was no innuendo in the command, but we both knew what the future could hold. We both knew that my bed might one day contain both of us.
Clearly, that would be up to me.
I gazed at him a moment longer, then I walked out of the library, up the stairs and into my bedroom where I stood looking at my bed. Slowly and deliberately I stripped out of my clothes and even the pendant, and got in naked.
I hadn’t done that in the whole time Marcus had been gone, and it was reckless of me to do it now, only…I felt desirable. Nicholas had made me feel desirable, and that was such a delicious sensation I wanted to revel in it, to feel the cool sheets against my throbbing skin, and to touch myself.
I did that so rarely, but tonight I was desperately aroused after that kiss, and it seemed…right, to slide my fingers across my breasts, stroking and rolling the nipples, then down across my belly to part the fine hairs and delve into the soft folds that were already slippery and sensitive.
It would be ridiculously easy to orgasm. I knew that. But only seconds after I started touching myself, I felt an odd pulling on the sheets, then pressure as something landed on my ankle.
I squealed in horror and flung back the bedding, scrambling up the bed and snapping on the bedside lamp, knocking a picture frame off in my haste.
In seconds, Nicholas was inside my room, his gaze sweeping for intruders, before coming back to rest on me, trembling against the headboard, stark naked. I was pointing at the quilts.
“Something…” I said, then I jumped off the bed and ran behind him, more frightened of what had tried to grab me than embarrassed by my condition. “My ankle. It touched me.”
I didn’t understand what was happening. The quilt was flat on the bed, and from my vantage near the door, I could see there was no-one under it, still Nicholas crouched and checked, then he looked in my adjoining bathroom and wardrobe.
At last he came back to my bedding and carefully unraveled it.
“Fuck.”
The kitten.
I could see it lying still from where I stood in the middle of the room and all of the air fell out of my lungs.
Golden fur…
History was repeating itself.
I slid to the floor and hugged myself against the hollow pain opening up in my chest, tearing me apart. “I killed it…”
Decades spiraled back, and I could hear my mother’s voice shouting close to my head that I thought it would deafen me, You shouldn’t have touched it, clumsy fool! Now look what you’ve done. God help you if you ever have a baby. You’ll kill that too!
“No, look it’s okay. Hey…” Nicholas said. Then I heard movement. “Hey, it’s okay.”
But I wasn’t looking at the kitten. I was hugging myself and rocking, falling deeper and deeper into the dark place. “I said I’m sorry. I won’t do it again,” I whispered over and over, feeling the badness suffocate me.
I wasn’t there anymore, but I still felt hands, lifting me, moving me, and then I was in a bed that didn’t smell of jasmine. This bed smelt of sunshine and musk and there were arms around me, pulling me in and somehow the darkness of the past, like crows’ wings beating my head, slowed and eventually stopped.
I breathed. I relaxed. And at last I slept.
“Louella.”
I wriggled on the warm sheets, wondering what was tickling my ear, and then I realized it wasn’t the sheets entrapping me. I was encircled by arms.
I opened my eyes and was disoriented by the golden walls and bronze curtains. And then I remembered. The guest room. Nicholas.
The kitten…
I stiffened and rolled in his arms to face him. His eyes were shockingly blue in the morning light filtering through the curtains, but I ignored that. I ignored everything to say, “I killed the kitten.” Because the past was so terrible, so present, I had to deal with it.
“No you didn’t.”
“Yes I did. I saw—”
“You stunned it,” he said softly, his breath warm on my face. “But it’s alive and well. See for yourself.” He hooked a thumb toward the door.
I jerked myself up on one elbow to peer past his naked chest to a box by the door where the kitten was licking itself. Then I pulled in a shuddering breath, feeling it fill the cold empty places inside me.
Alive.
I stared at it for the longest time as my heart slowed into a steady rhythm. I hadn’t killed the tiny precious creature. The past had not repeated itself. I swallowed and nodded, beyond relief. Then I closed my eyes and rolled onto my back, pulling the sheet up with me to clutch it at my throat. “I’m not a murderer,” I breathed, feeling the last of the dark shadows receding back into the ugly box in my mind.
“No you are not.” He said nothing for a moment, just breathed beside me. Then, “I’m the one who let the kitten out. I should have put it in a box to start with, and I most definitely should have shut the door behind me.”
I nodded. I wasn’t really listening. It didn’t matter. What mattered was the fact that I hadn’t harmed it. My mother was incorrect. I wasn’t so clumsy and careless that small innocent creatures would die in my care. Maybe there was hope for me yet.
“I’ll take it home today,” he said.
“Thank you.”
More seconds passed while I breathed in and out and the layers of inbuilt fear dissolved.
At last he said, “You’re naked in my bed. I expected you to be freaked out about that.”
I nodded. “Give me time.”
He chuckled and turned to face me. “You’re not telling me off.”
I tilted my head to look at him and with my anxiety gone, I was suddenly shocked by how handsome he was, all ruffled black hair, smiling eyes, white teeth and lips that—up close—looked very kissable. “You’re not laying down bodyguard rules,” I said, and heard the huskiness in my voice.
His smile faded. “I want you so badly my teeth hurt,” he said quite seriously. “But you’ll notice I’m keeping my hands to myself.”
I swallowed again, and this time it was nerves. I was right on the edge of a choice. For all I knew, this might be as close as I’d get to making love with him because at any point I could talk myself out of this recklessness.
Only, I didn’t want to.
The past twenty-four hours had been horrible, and I couldn’t take any more of that. I needed good, clean and normal. So I did the simplest thing. I rolled onto my side and kissed him—because I knew I would enjoy that—slow to start, not wanting to frighten myself, but I didn’t expect his warm hand to slide instantly onto my hip, pulling me closer. I also didn’t expect it to then slide down to caress my butt cheek. And I especially didn’t expect myself to turn into a shivering hot mess, puddling around him.
But I did.
His confident caresses woke every tingling nerve-ending under my skin and that undid me. Meanwhile Nicholas took advantage of my gasp to deepen the kiss, to pull me even closer so I could feel his erection pressing against my belly. Then before I could marvel at the novelty of that, he was looming over me, his hand sliding up my stomach to cup a breast while he made love to my mouth so thoroughly I could only shudder as my body responded in ways I’d never imagined it could.
My breasts ached as his thumb slid over one nipple, almost negligently, and I could do nothing to stop myself arching my back and moaning softly, deep in my throat. Then his lips left mine and kissed their way down my throat. My head fell back of its own accord, and when his hand slid under my back to hold those breasts up where he could reach them, I relaxed into the dizzying sensations that tingled and ricocheted around me, stinging and clutching and burning.
It was wildly overwhelming, but in the middle of it was pleasure, swirling randomly until his lips closed over one nipple and he suckled it gently. Then the pleasure concentrated in one place and I felt like I was being drawn into a white hot whirlpool.
I made some sound I barely recognized as my own—a keening hungry growl, and he pulled me closer, making a growl of his own as he licked and sucked and drove me completely insane.
Somewhere amid the writhing, I felt his fingers slide down over my stomach and through the fine pubic hair to slip into the slickness he’d encouraged, and then there was nothing but pleasure and moaning, winding deeper inside me like a corkscrew.
A tiny part of my brain marveled that such sharp sensation were even possible, let alone that I’d found someone who knew how to deliver them, but there was no logic inside me to fear the consequences of such addictive bliss while I greedily wanted to experience it.
So when the orgasm took me, surging up my body like thousands of clutching fingers, I didn’t care about anything other than the release of it, and a half-groan-half-squeal of euphoria emerged that was so shockingly loud it appalled me.
In the aftermath, he stopped what he was doing and laid me gently back onto the bed. All I could do was stare up at him, panting with a combination of shock and admiration.
I shook my head, then licked my dry lips, trying to find my voice which came out croaky. “How did you do that?” So quickly.
He shook his head and pressed his lips together as if he was holding something in. His breathing was as ragged as mine, his eyes very dark as he stared at me, from the top of my head, down my blushing body and then back.
Eventually he said, “I’ve never had sex like that before.”
I frowned. “You haven’t had sex yet.”
“Oh yes.” He nodded. “That was sex. That was fucking amazing.” Then he kissed me again, this time slowly and languorously, his hand on my body soothing me in long strokes, rather than honing in on erogenous zones.
And I relaxed. My body came back me calmly, easily, and I suddenly wondered if I was in the hands of some sort of Woman Whisperer.
When he pulled back, I asked, “How experienced are you?”
“I’m observant,” he said, and went back to kissing me, then he rolled me easily up onto his body where I sprawled ove
r him, and when I pulled away from the kiss, I was immediately aware of how much smaller I was. All those tanned muscles and his extra height against my slim, pale frame could have intimidated me, but there was a playfulness about him that relaxed me completely.
I could feel his erection pressing into my belly again, and despite what I’d just experienced, I felt desire warm me from the inside out.
He raised an eyebrow, “And now, predictably, I want to be inside you.”
I nodded. I very much wanted to make love with a man while I was facing him—I knew that would be healing for me—and I especially wanted that man to be Nicholas. He was not only gorgeous, I felt safe and…light when I was in his arms. I’d never experienced that before, and like the pleasure, I wondered if it would be addictive.
But that was a fleeting thought, and not something that would stop me. So I meshed my fingers with his and pushed them up over his head, holding them away from me while I kissed him. And I took my time, licking and nibbling and then exploring his mouth and arousing myself all over again with the taste of him and the trembling I could feel in his body.
When I pulled away to kiss around to the side of his neck, and then behind his ear, he said, “Do you have any idea how close you pushed me with all that moaning you did? Seriously. I’m right on the edge.”
I wriggled my belly against him and he groaned.
“Add to which, I don’t have a condom,” he said. “Because this was the last thing I planned for.”
“Nor I,” I whispered softly in his ear, then I followed that with the tip of my tongue and some hot breath.
“I am going to die. Right now. Of a heart attack,” he groaned, his fingers clutching onto mine.
I kissed my way back to his lips. “No you won’t.” Then I kissed him again, slowly, seductively, and with every intention of putting him out of his misery.
But when I pulled away, he said, “If this isn’t going to happen—”
“It is,” I promised, loving the way his chest rose and fell with each gulping breath. “I have no diseases to report.”
“Ditto.”
“And I can’t get pregnant.” My IUD ensured that. “So…” I lifted my haunches and his erection sprang up with it, allowing me to guide myself onto it while I stared down into his eyes.
Husband Heel (Husband #3) Page 8