“Hopefully, things have died down by now,” I murmur.
And I can’t help thinking that our escape from the press’s eye was beneficial for me too. One of the things I love most about New York is the sense of anonymity it provides. It’s easy to blend in here, easy to vanish into the masses. Here, it’s easy to start over. Unlike back home, where nothing is ever forgiven or forgotten.
“If things haven’t died down,” Nick says, “we’ll just have to find another place to explore.”
“Sure, why not?” I reply, pushing away my grim thoughts and trying to keep my tone as light as his. “Although, it’s going to be hard to top three weeks on the Icarus.”
“How do you feel about Paris?”
Thankfully, he’s not here to see me gape. “I don’t know how I feel about it.” I drift over to one of the sumptuous sofas and sink into the corner of it, tucking my legs under me. “I’ve never been there.”
“Never?” He says it as if I’ve just confessed to a crime. “Every artist owes it to their work to spend as much time as possible in Paris. How does your schedule look next month?”
I close my eyes, wishing I could play along with this game. But next month is when Claire is due back from Japan. Next month, she’ll be sitting here in this beautiful apartment again, and I’ll be looking for work and someplace cheap to live. “I’ll have to check with my secretary and get back to you.”
“I’m serious, Avery. I want to take you to Paris.”
“I don’t have a passport,” I say, grasping for the closest excuse that isn’t an outright lie.
“A minor detail, which I can take care of for you in less than a day. You’ll only need to be available to go. You can do that, can’t you?”
I exhale softly and gaze out at the view that doesn’t belong to me. Nick and this glittering, jet set life I’m enjoying with him doesn’t belong to me either. It’s been all too easy to ignore that fact, but very soon it’s going to come crashing down on my head.
“Ask me again next month, and we’ll see.”
He’s silent for a moment, and the weight of his contemplation is palpable. “All right, then. I will ask you again next month, Ms. Ross. In the meantime, I’d like to explore some of those long-distance celebration options we left open for discussion.”
I smile. “Is that right, Mr. Baine?”
“Yes. You can start by telling me what you’re wearing.”
Chapter 34
For the remainder of the week, I throw myself into my work. Creatively, I am on fire as never before, but a big part of my obsessive hours at the easel is the fact that I’m missing Nick.
We’ve talked every day this week, and even though hearing his voice and receiving his frequent, often wickedly dirty, texts has helped make the week apart more bearable, by the time he is finally due back from London, I am practically giddy with excitement to see him.
Any hope I have of playing it cool vanishes completely when he calls me from the tarmac at JFK Friday afternoon.
“We just touched down,” he tells me and I can hear the anticipation in his voice too. “I’ll be at the Park Place building within the hour. Be ready for me.”
“I’ve been ready all day,” I tell him. “And Nick? I’m not wearing any clothes.”
“Jesus, baby.” His deep voice turns to roughened gravel. “In that case, I’ll be there in half the time.”
I don’t want to consider how he actually manages to cross the city so quickly, but, true to his word, Nick is standing outside the fifth floor apartment door in record time. I make good on my promise too, opening the door to him naked and utterly shameless.
He steps inside, looking urbane and handsome in his dark gray suit and white business shirt. His attire may be boardroom sophisticated, but the look in his stormy blue eyes is pure animal.
“Hi,” I say, smiling up at him. “What took you so long?”
His answer is something close to a growl. He drops his leather bag on the foyer floor and kicks the door closed behind him. As soon as he’s all the way inside, I lose all patience for my game. I just need him. I launch myself at him and he catches me in his arms, holding me aloft as I wrap my bare legs around him and attack his mouth in a desperate kiss.
He carries me like this, kissing me with equal ferocity as he effortlessly navigates the hallways of the apartment, bringing me into the guest bedroom where I’ve been staying since I began living in Claire’s place. Nick’s hands are firm under my ass, his expensive suit soft and silky against my bare breasts and torso. He is strong and protective and utterly in control, yet I can feel his measured discipline burning away under the fever of our joined mouths.
His eyes are turbulent with passion when he finally tears his lips away from mine. “I can’t go slow right now.”
“Don’t,” I say, as much a command as it is a plea. I moan with the force of everything I’m feeling. “Nick, I need—”
“I know, baby. Me too.”
Tossing me onto the mattress, he quickly strips out of his clothing. Then, gloriously naked, he steps toward the bed where I watch him, reclined on my back and levered up on my elbows. He looks so beautiful, so magnificently male, it makes my mouth water and my sex clench hard and wet with desire.
After a week without seeing him, now I gorge my senses on the sight of his muscled body and smooth, suntanned skin. I know every inch of his powerful physique. I have traced each honed plane and valley, memorized the taste and texture of every delicious inch. His clean, spicy scent is imprinted deep within me, so much so, that just the faintest inhalation now wrings a whimper of unabashed need from my lips.
He doesn’t make me wait a second longer. Thank God.
Retrieving a condom from the box I now keep in the nightstand beside the bed, he takes the packet between his teeth and climbs on top of me, straddling my hips. His erection juts high and proud and immense from the dark thatch at his groin. He is virile and gorgeous, and, right now, he belongs solely to me.
“This time, let me do that,” I tell him when he starts to open the condom.
He hands it over and I reach out to roll the protection over his length. My fingers slide down his thick-veined shaft with the condom, and I can’t resist cupping the heavy sac beneath. My touch draws a moan from his lips and a shudder of pleasure from his body.
I love that I have this effect on him. I love that he makes me believe he is as wild for me as I am for him.
I love . . .
Oh, God. I love so much about this man.
I glance up to his face and find him staring at me—staring through me, as he’s managed to do from the moment we first laid eyes on each other. Can he see what he means to me? Can he possibly know how hopelessly I’m falling for him?
“Lie back,” he commands me, his voice gruff.
When I obey, he draws back from me, positioning himself between my legs and parting me wide. I’m already soaked and ready for him, but he bends to kiss my sex as if it’s a temptation too strong to resist. He strokes me with his tongue, penetrates me, sucks at my clit in a deep, urgent rhythm that has me writhing beneath his mouth.
Just when I think I can’t bear another second of pleasure and torment, he releases me and guides his cock to the slick opening of my body. I cry out as he enters me, my sheath gripping him tightly as he pushes inside, plunging to the root in one delicious thrust.
I gasp his name and then I am lost, overcome by sensation as our bodies crash together in a desperate, almost violent tempo. All the weeks we’ve been apart, the hours of longing, are obliterated by the intensity of our joining now. I’ve missed him, missed this fierce intimacy that connects us.
Nick’s hot gaze holds mine as we rock and claw and strain together, both of us surrendered to the enormity of our hunger for each other. I let go first, unable to stop the massive wave of pleasure as it rolls up on me. Moaning under the force of it, I spiral over the edge in a shattering orgasm.
Nick’s control is stronger than mine, but I c
an see in the savage beauty of his face that he’s losing the battle too. A ragged shout boils out of him and he drives into me again and again, each thrust harder, deeper, until the pressure is too great, even for him. He comes on a wordless roar, a sound that’s raw and unhinged, beyond erotic.
“Fuck, I needed that,” he utters hoarsely against the side of my neck as we lie there together, our bodies still connected. He lifts his head, frowning as our gazes meet and hold. “I needed you, Avery.”
Whether he means it as an accusation or admission, I can’t be sure.
“You have me.” It’s the truth, and I can’t deny it from him. Not even when all of the warnings I’ve been given about getting too close to him clamor in my head like alarms. I reach out and caress the rigid slope of his cheek. “There’s nowhere else I want to be.”
His frown deepens in his answering silence, but his gaze does not break mine. And for the briefest second, I see what he cannot—or will not—put into words.
I matter to him. I’ve gotten inside.
If only for this moment, I’ve slipped through his forbidding walls.
But then he blinks and those emotional shutters of his fall back into place as firmly as an iron gate. He rolls off me, out of my reach.
“Stay here,” he says, removing the spent condom as he gets out of bed.
I watch him walk into the adjoining bathroom, trying not to feel abandoned to my feelings and the swiftly cooling sheets. After disposing of the condom, he walks out of the bedroom, back toward the living area of the apartment.
He returns a moment later holding something behind his back.
I sit up near the edge of the bed, folding my legs beneath me. “What are you doing?”
Naturally, he doesn’t tell me. “Close your eyes,” he says as he approaches.
“Nick—”
“Close them.” I obey on a huffed, impatient sigh. “Now, hold your hands out in front of you. Palms up.”
I comply, waiting to feel him place something in my hands. But he doesn’t. Instead, he wraps a length of something sleek and cold around my wrists. I gasp at the sensation, my mind working to process what I’m feeling. Small, cool spheres press against my skin in a long strand, clicking softly as they are wrapped and twined around my crossed wrists.
“Beads?”
Nick doesn’t answer. Remaining maddeningly silent, he continues to bind my hands together. The bond is tight, but not so much that I couldn’t break free if I wanted. And the cool beads have now begun to warm from my body’s own heat.
“You can open your eyes now.”
My lids lift and I glance from his hooded gaze to the gleaming strand of pearls that are wound no less than half a dozen times around my wrists. I don’t have to ask if they’re real. This is Nick, after all. But even with my limited firsthand experience with fine things, I can tell the creamy pearls are authentic. And must have cost a small fortune.
“A little something I picked up for you in London.”
“You can’t be serious.”
And yet he is. His expression is enigmatic, but his eyes study me intently. “I hope you like them.”
Like them? I’m wearing easily multiple tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of gemstones as casually as if they’re the rope line off the Icarus. “They’re . . . incredible, Nick. They’re too much.”
“As soon as I saw them, I knew I wanted to see them on your naked skin.” His smile is decadent. “And now that I have, I can think of several other interesting ways I’d like to see you wearing them.”
Just the suggestion sends a rush of heat to my core. “You’re crazy.” I shake my head, overwhelmed by his gift, and the fact that he would lavish this kind of luxury on me. “I don’t think I can accept—”
“Yes, Avery. You can. And you will, because it pleases me to see them on you.”
He reaches out, gathering my face in his hands. Leaning toward me, he takes my mouth in a slow, searing kiss. I melt into him, helpless to do anything but bend to his will now. As I shift on the bed to meet his possessive kiss, the pearls slide against one another. The thought of damaging the gems is almost too much for me to take.
“I’m afraid they’ll break.”
“They won’t.” He smoothes a strand of loose hair from my face. “So long as you’re honest with me—and with yourself—these pearls are stronger than any rope. They’re stronger than steel. Like trust, Avery, the only way they’ll break is if you pull away from me.”
Trust. Honesty. Two things I’ve never been able to give another man—not to anyone in a very long time.
Nick has my trust. He has my honesty, too, at least when it comes to the passion we share. The obsession we both feel for each other is real. I’ve never been more honest about something in my life.
In bed with him, I have no barriers. And I want it all. I want to give him everything too. I won’t let myself think about all of the things I can never have with him.
Not now, when I’m one shaky breath away from weeping with the force of everything I feel for this darkly compelling man.
He joins me on the bed and kisses me again, easing me back onto the mattress with him. My bound hands rest on my stomach, and it’s all I can do not to reach for him as he lavishes my belly and breasts with a trail of hot kisses and fiery licks of his tongue. I’m shivering with need and anticipating the many clever ways I know he’ll have me at his mercy now.
I can do nothing but submit as he takes hold of my bound hands and guides my arms over my head. His fingers trace slowly down my sides, raising goose bumps in their wake and wringing a shaky sigh from my lips.
He claims my mouth with renewed ferocity, while his fingers skim between my thighs. My cleft is soaked with my own juices, still hypersensitive and swollen from before. Nick delves inside me, at the same time thrusting his tongue deep into my mouth to stroke and spar with mine.
We kiss as if we haven’t just had each other moments ago, as if we will never get enough.
Nick strokes my sex, rubbing my clit with his thumb and sinking his fingers deep into my sheath. I moan, feeling my body contract around him, greedy for more. As I arch and writhe in time with his thrusting fingers, he plunders my mouth with urgent, bone-melting kisses.
I don’t notice that he’s withdrawn his fingers from within me until I feel him turning my hips in his strong hands, guiding my lower body onto its side. Then his touch glides slickly over my anus. I tense at the first stroke of pressure, pulling against my bonds. It’s unexpected, but then so is the jolt of excitement that arrows through me as Nick’s fingertip rims me, pushing in a testing rhythm against my tightness.
I open my eyes and find him staring down at me. He says nothing, but his gaze doesn’t leave mine for a moment as he strokes me more intimately than ever. Touching me in ways I’ve never wanted anyone to before him and never knew I could crave so fiercely.
His thumb on my clit is making me wild with need, and the slick finger toying with my ass is enough to push me to the razor’s edge of madness. I bite my lip at the delicious pressure of his touch as he gently penetrates me. My pussy is drenched, coating his fingers and the tight hole of my anus as his digit thrusts inside.
The intensity of my arousal, and my need for release, is too much. When combined with the restraints that trap my hands and prevent me from touching Nick, the depth of my need is almost unbearable. I moan and writhe, mindful of my bindings, yet desperate to come.
“I know, baby,” he murmurs against my parted lips. “I’m going to give you what you need.”
He pivots to reach for a condom, his fingers never leaving me, never slowing their sensual assault. Holding the packet one-handed, tearing it open with his teeth, he deftly rolls it onto his erection then pivots back to me.
“On your knees, beautiful.”
He withdraws from me only long enough to help me flip onto my stomach. As soon as I do, he gives my ass a playful smack. The broad head of his cock slides through my folds, then with a powerfu
l thrust, he cleaves deep. I cry out at the pleasure of him, my sex gripping him tightly, already rippling in waves of mounting release as he pistons behind me.
My orgasm roils, sweeping me up swiftly. And then, as if he understands what will push me over the steepest ledge, Nick draws his finger through our wetness and finds my anus again. He pushes inside, his finger penetrating my ass as his cock surges to an even stronger presence within the pulsating walls of my sex.
“Oh, God. Nick.”
A hard groan erupts out of him. “I know, baby. Feels so fucking good.”
“Yes.” I’m panting now, about to shatter.
“Let it go,” he urges me. “Let it go, baby. I’ve got you.”
I come on a keening cry, shameless and raw. Pleasure swamps me, drowns me. I succumb without a fight. I let the ecstasy sweep me away, trusting I can because Nick’s hold on me is firm and steady. My safe mooring, no matter where he takes me.
I’ve never felt so free, so protected. So thoroughly possessed.
I’ve never felt so intimately connected to someone.
And when his own release starts to crest and he clutches me tightly against the heat and strength of his body, I don’t know how I’m ever going to learn to live without this kind of passion and connection in my life.
I don’t know how I will ever learn to live without him.
Chapter 35
“Any more pad kee mao left over there?” I gesture with a chopstick to one of the half-dozen Thai takeout containers sitting on a large tray at the end of the bed.
Nick grins. “The lady has an appetite.”
“The lady had quite a workout.”
His dark brows arch. “Ready for another round?”
I laugh, but I have no doubt he’s serious. “You’re completely insatiable, aren’t you?”
“Yes. I thought that was one of the things you like about me.”
“Utterly shameless too,” I add, smiling as I pop my last bite of sauce-slathered noodles into my mouth. Holding up my near-empty plate, I indicate our decimated food supply with another jab of my chopstick. “More, please.”