Thea nestled in against him like he was a pile of feather pillows on a bed at a five-star hotel. There was something so simplistically perfect about the way she fit with him. His hardness supported her, her softness comforted him. And damn, he’d had no idea how much he’d needed this.
If only everything between them were this simple.
The pleasure of her resting her head against the crook of his shoulder as easily as if she’d done so every day warred with the pain of knowing he didn’t have every day to hold her. He didn’t even know if he’d have one more day with her.
Chapter Seventeen
As the temperature dropped and Thea huddled in even closer, Nik’s thoughts focused squarely on her—the tickle of her hair on his arm, the rise and fall of her chest with each breath. He hoped he could control himself enough to kiss her deeply again, maybe even do a few other things too.
Would she explore his body the same way she’d explored his world—grazing her fingertips over every surface, curling around and testing the weight of him in her palm? Where would her tongue flick over him, or linger for a taste? He let out a long, restrained breath, pumping the brakes on the runaway freight train of fantasies.
She shifted to her hip, rising up on her elbow enough to gaze down at him. “You must be tired,” she remarked, misreading the sound of his exhale. “You’ve probably only slept a couple of hours in the past two days.”
He hadn’t slept at all. When she’d fallen asleep after their kiss, he’d been quick to extract himself before she woke up to his boner banging on her backdoor. Besides, after kissing her, the last thing he would’ve been able to do was sleep. The workout he’d pushed himself through had barely been enough to take the edge off.
Sharing his insomnia with women wasn’t something Nik did, not even as an excuse to leave. He figured it would freak them out or they’d try to fix him or, God forbid, spend all night discussing the minutia of their life with him. Though spending nearly the whole night talking with Thea in the hotel room hadn’t been so bad, despite the frustration of her not trusting him enough to actually try to remember anything.
How could she trust him, if he didn’t start trusting her? Right? Shit, here goes nothing…
“I doubt I’d be able to sleep. My brain has a hard time kicking off.”
A breathy laugh escaped her. Not the reaction he’d expected. “I’m not helping you too much, am I?”
Her irreverent sorry-not-sorry grin made him laugh heartily. “Don’t worry, you’re giving me more interesting things to think about.”
“More interesting? Is that what a fugitive amnesiac is?”
Nik had heard Thea playfully make light of her situation enough to recognize it as a defense. The reality of it weighed heavily on her, and he’d do whatever he could to lift the weight off.
A wavy lock of hair shadowed her eyes. He rolled up onto his side and reached out to slide it behind her ear. “I don’t think about you that way.”
“What do you think about me?” she asked. Insecurity laced her tone.
Could she honestly not know how crazy he was about her?
“Different things. Good things.”
“When you let out that deep breath, were you thinking about me?”
Every blood cell in his body pumped with heat, but he was too amused by her shamelessness not to grin. “Are you fishing for a compliment?”
“Yes, please.” Blissfully smiling, she tilted her face up as if she were about to bask in the glow of many compliments. When they didn’t immediately come, she scrunched her face and grimaced at him. “Come on. I don’t mind if my ego gets fat. More of it to love, right?”
Nik let out another hearty laugh. He was used to women trying to stroke his ego, not their own—at least not so directly. He much preferred Thea’s approach. He much preferred everything about her.
“Tell me. Please.”
“Okay, okay.” He shook his head. The fantastical imagery of what it might be like to have her touching and tasting his cock returned with a vengeance. Shit. He’d have to hedge. “I was thinking about kissing you again…and doing a few other things I probably shouldn’t share just yet. Why, were you thinking about me?”
“No.”
“No? What were you thinking about?”
The look in her eyes was pure innocence, but her voice purred with molten sex. “French fries.”
A snarl unleashed over his lips as he ensnared her in his arms. With a quick, hard twist he rolled onto his back, capturing her on top of him. Her feminine squeal of shock had him insanely hard.
Nik cuffed her forearms as she playfully, yet futilely, wrestled against him. He enjoyed her carefree smile as she tried to escape his hold. She was strong even though she wasn’t putting all her effort into it. Checking for Titan’s reaction, Nik noted the dog had lazily opened one eye. Luckily, he chose to stay content in his pizza-coma, ignoring his mistress’s predicament as it was all fun and games. But as Thea’s laughter vibrated into him, the reverberations of her body against his weren’t funny at all.
Friskiness slipped away as he set his jaw and swallowed hard. He fought the damn-near animalistic need to burn his body into hers. The primal instinct ripped through his veins, like nothing he’d ever felt before. He longed to claim her right there on the rocks before God, the CIA, and anyone else who might happen to have a drone watching. The sooner the better.
Locking eyes, he fell deep into her whiskey irises. Her eyelids drifted down, pupils widening as if she could read every dark and dirty thought swirling in his mind.
‘Slow is fast,’ the devil on his shoulder coached, exactly as his old SEAL instructors had. Go too fast and you make mistakes. Or, worse, lose the opportunity altogether. Go slow, don’t screw up, and you smoothly get to your goal sooner. The angel on his shoulder responded with the rust of a rarely used tool, cautioning he had no business even considering these thoughts with a woman whose heart might belong to someone else.
Yes, but someone too cheap to buy a ring and not interesting enough to sustain a single memory of, the devil reminded smugly.
‘Slow is smooth, smooth is fast,’ he repeated to himself before releasing her and letting his head fall back onto the sleeping bag. She playfully swatted at his chest a few times before sitting up. Instead of moving off him, she stayed, straddled over his thighs.
His T-shirt had bunched up in the tussle and the chill of the night air skirted across his hot skin. Splaying her fingers over his ribs, she drew her touch down both sides of his bared midsection.
Her fingers idly followed the channels of his oblique muscles before skirting the edge of his jeans and meeting in the middle. She had no understanding of the boiling need waiting barely below the surface. All her lulling eyes could see was his fisted grip boring into the sleeping bag as he held back from tackling her and taking her in one swift move.
Not trusting the sleeping bag’s hold, he locked his hands behind his head. The motion flexed every surface she touched, turning his body into a new, harsher world for her to explore. The ache of keeping his hands off her, allowing her to take her time, made the silky sensations of her cushioned fingertips as cutting as if she’d used dull hunting knifes—torturous in the most pleasurable way possible. He mentally gripped down on the jagged edge of anticipation as lusty thoughts bled out.
Nik’s breathing lurched into panting as Thea’s right hand moved up to swirl over his belly button. Her left remained gripped on the edge of his waistband. Everything inside of him tensed and stilled as she tested the soft texture of the dark hair trailing southbound.
The women he’d been with in the past had followed the signposts his body created for them—the definition in his muscles was practically an adult version of Chutes and Ladders, descend a few rungs then slide down the deep V to where the real games began. They’d rubbed and brushed against him enough to have a fair idea of the size and breadth of what awaited them and were usually eager to get there. Thea, on the other hand, explored only t
he exposed landscape without aiming to arrive anywhere.
Her movements were unpredictable—one minute her palm curled around the bulge of his biceps. The next, her fingertips danced airily across his rib cage. He found himself completely unprepared as she explored him. The shock of each unexpected touch killed him in the most amazing way possible, but her idle and unorganized expedition was further proof he needed to go slow with her. Trouble was, his heads weren’t exactly communicating with each other and—Cue the fucking Jaws theme music—the naughtier one was dangerously close to blowing everything, pun intended, by making its own appearance out of his waistband.
Thea might’ve understood the concepts at play, but she likely wasn’t prepared for the actuality. From the painful swelling in his jeans, he imagined tugging his zipper down right now would be akin to popping open a massive can of biscuits. Certainly as startling.
The devil on his shoulder smirked. Do it. Shock her. Pop that can! The angel froze, wide-eyed in horror, and the devil laughed and laughed.
“Why are you laughing? What’s so funny?”
His eyes popped open. Shit. He was the devil. “Nothing.”
“Tell me.” Thea grinned down at him, her knees straddling him, her breasts rounding out with each breath. Even the angel threw off her rusty halo, relenting. Sex needed to happen soon and the truth would not get any of them there quick enough.
“You were seriously thinking about French fries?”
“Why? Did you want me to say I was thinking about you, Nik?”
His tongue skirted his lips. His need for her was too great to keep the raspy husk from his voice. “My ego might be a little bit hungry right now.”
Her heated laugh sounded like the low idling vibration of an expensive sports car. Fuck if he didn’t want to hear what she sounded like being redlined.
He shifted his gaze away before he made good on the threats and promises she had to have witnessed in it.
“You must really want me to think about you, hmm?”
Nik’s eyes lifted, staring back into hers. The single word came out as a guttural growl. “Yes.”
Sliding against the ridges of his stomach, Thea’s hands plowed his T-shirt up as she maneuvered down almost to kissing range. He gnashed his teeth and snapped his hands to her hips, grasping them. Locking his elbows straight, he blocked her before she crawled over his erection and had him coming like a damn thirteen-year-old.
“So what are you going to do about it, Nik?”
Chapter Eighteen
“Everything.” Nik’s drawled-out, jagged voice scraped up my core, through my body. “I don’t want you to ever forget me.”
Long past playful grins, his lips coiled back, flashing the tips of his front teeth. My lungs cinched as his hands slid up from my hips to snake under the flannel hem of my shirt.
“God, Thea.” His voice lifted with a hint of amazement as strong fingers played across my bare skin with teasingly light strokes. Deep lines crinkled his forehead as if he were desperately trying to comprehend every skin cell he brushed. “You even feel beautiful.”
At the shock of tingling pleasure Nik’s touch stirred, my mouth dropped opened. His tongue quickly claimed the space. His abs fisting, as he pressed his upper body flush against mine.
Entwining my arms around his neck, I channeled my fingers through his thick hair and deepened the delicious kiss. His mouth consumed me and yet peripherally I could feel his palms stroking heat down my back before plunging below my waistband. At my gasp, his lips spread in a slow smile. Long fingers spread out as they stroked and kneaded the rounded flesh of my butt cheeks.
His irises widened, absorbing me like the dry earth did the melting snow. Again, his lips and tongue collided with mine, hard with need. Shifting his grip, he stroked forward around my hips. Anticipation trembled as his thumbs paused to make lazy circles on the points of my pelvic bones.
Breaking from the kiss, his lips rested against mine as we caught each other’s desperate breaths.
“Your mouth tastes amazing, but I need to taste all of you,” he ground out. His nostrils flared with a deep intake of air. Drenched in darkness, his eyes promised exquisite danger.
In one rapid motion, his hands had reached behind my knees and wrapped my calves around his back. They returned under my thighs and heaved my body higher until his teeth found my straining nipple through the flannel shirt. I gasped as he softly nipped the sensitive peak, sending electric waves shooting through to my core. Even in my shock, I dug my elbows hard into his shoulders, pressing my breast into him. “Again,” I begged.
His knees came up, supporting me from behind as he maneuvered to work one-handed to frantically unbutton my shirt. Before he could finish, the night air whipped a lash of cold across my skin. I arched my breast into his hot, waiting mouth. The more his tongue flicked and looped, the harder my hips ground into his ribs—my body seeking, desperate for something I didn’t quite comprehend.
I knew how sex worked. I knew what went where and why. But like with food, I had no idea what exactly I wanted. “More…Nik,” I panted, not sure what I even meant. Only that every part of me hungered hard for him. “I need you.”
As with before, he knew exactly how to feed my cravings. With a sudden jerk, his knees spread and his supporting hand pulled out from beneath me, letting me drop. The apex of my thighs dragged down his ridged abdomen before striking the wide, hard length of an infinitely pleasurable match. My whole body caught fire. His tongue filled me with heat as our bodies ground together, taking some of the edge off the insane need.
He swallowed hard as his mouth pulled away. His fingers moved gently up my neck and plowed through my hair. The base of my skull normally throbbed with dull pain. Now it tingled as he met my heated stare.
“God, Thea, what are you doing to me?” he raked out breathlessly before his tongue plummeted back in, tackling mine. I moaned his name as his mouth captured mine. His taste was more mind-altering than the half bottle of wine I’d drunk.
I desperately tried to keep up with his fervor, but his strength and agility proved it wasn’t necessary. He could have me in any position with the slightest move of his hands. And those hands… They seemed to know just how to maneuver around any obstacle.
His fingers tunneled under my shirt. No longer teasing, they moved with determination up my skin, driving my need deeper. I pushed my hips forward, crushing myself against his hard length and hating the clothes between us. At the sound of my rough, hungry moan, his stroking fingers clamped around my rib cage.
Pain spiked through me, ripping out a cry. The noise shattered everything. His grip, his kiss, and any connection immediately dropped, breaking and scattering as far into the night as the stars above us.
All that remained was the warm whoosh of Nik’s breath and the throbbing pulse in the soft pocket of my neck. His stubble-rough cheek scraped against the smooth plane of mine as we both pulled in air.
“I forgot you’re hurt. I wasn’t thinking straight. Are you okay?”
Titan’s cold, wet nose pressed cautiously against my other cheek.
“I’m fine,” I told them both. But even as Nik and I stayed skin against skin, a barrier had come between us.
After several long, slow breaths, Nik lifted me away from him, rolling me to my back on the sleeping bag. He gently gathered my shirt from the hem, raising it to the bottoms of my breasts. The cold air prickled my flesh as he leaned over me, dropping lusciously soft kisses across my tender rib cage.
“I’m so, so sorry I hurt you. I shouldn’t have put my hands on you.”
My heart lurched to a stop.
He regretted touching me?
The soft flannel of the shirt settled back down over my skin, my nerve endings grieving the loss of his caresses. My shoulders dropped. I didn’t know how to tell him his stopping hurt me more than his hands had. I couldn’t seem to speak at all.
With a rough push of his fingers through his hair, he scrubbed the dark spikes back
and forth. “It’s getting cold and you’ve had a hell of a couple of days. We should go.” He sounded as frustrated and unsatisfied as I felt.
I couldn’t form enough words to even protest. My mind was entranced by the sensations I feared would never be brought to life inside of me again.
I took hold of his hand as he helped me to my feet. The pad of his thumb skirted my jaw as his fingers grazed against the column of my neck. Instinctively, I arched into his palm, trusting his touch even though moments ago it’d caused me pain.
“I don’t know how I could forget. It kills me to know you’re hurting.”
This flesh with its aching soreness, sensitive bruises, and sharp twinges if I breathed too deeply was all I’d ever experienced. But when Nik touched it, when his lips kissed it, when his breath passed over it, when the deep vibrations of his masculine voice rumbled through it—the pain seemed to disappear and my soul came alive. Mine.
I wanted more. Needed more.
* * * *
Nik powered through his midnight workout, pushing any remaining energy out via sweat through his pores and hard thrusts of air from his lungs. Fuck slow, fuck fast. He never should’ve put his hands on her knowing she was hurt. He reversed his grip on the pull-up bar and restarted his count.
Whether falling asleep easily was a side effect of her concussion or exhaustion, it thankfully had allowed him to carry her uneventfully from the Jeep to the guestroom. He’d much rather have collapsed into his own bed with her legs wrapped around his waist, but he barely trusted himself to be in the same house without losing his mind again. He had to be more careful around her.
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