His praise is like gasoline on the fire he’s already set inside me. I hold on to his shoulders as he drives deep, impaling me with long, breath-robbing strokes. Our tempo is fierce, frenzied. There’s no stopping the pleasure that rolls through me.
I don’t want to stop it.
I just want to feel.
For tonight, I just want to be free. From my past, and from all of the old ghosts I buried there.
I slide my hands down and sink my fingers into the firm muscle of Nick’s ass as he fucks me toward the crest of another ferocious orgasm.
I reach for it, and he gives it to me and then some.
Oh, yes. Nick Baine could very easily ruin me for anyone else.
Why that thought doesn’t terrify me, I don’t want to know.
Chapter 11
A wet, distant hiss invades my senses, drawing me out of an unusually heavy sleep. I lay curled on my side in the dark in the middle of a large, rumpled bed. Nick’s bed. I can smell him on the pillow beneath my cheek. His spicy, masculine scent lingers in my hair. On my skin.
I can feel the reminder of him in every dull, delicious ache of my spent body.
Memories of everything we did together flood in, and I can’t curb the satisfied smile that spreads over my face. I can’t deny that I’m hungry for him all over again, but when I stretch my arm out to search for his warmth, I find only cold, empty sheets. I’m alone in his bed and—
Wait. Is it . . . morning?
Startled by the thought, I lift my head, my eyelids snapping open. Yep, definitely morning. Quite early, from the look of it. Outside the windows, the muted glow of sunrise is barely a halo on the horizon behind the city skyline.
I stayed the night? I close my eyes on a groan. How the hell did I sleep so long?
Apparently, multiple orgasms and several hours of tireless sex in numerous creative positions will do that to a person. Not that I would know. Until last night, there was a lot I didn’t know. Sex with Nick has been a revelation on many levels. Each one more pleasurable than the next.
But that was last night. Now it’s the morning after, with all the discomfiture that comes with it. I never sleep over, especially with someone new. I hate the awkwardness that follows—the dread of seeing each other in broad daylight and pretending we’re not reliving the night before in a haze of embarrassment or regret. I hate feeling the need for obligatory promises to call each other or get together again soon, while one or both of us act like we’re not dying to bolt for the nearest door.
“Shit,” I mutter under my breath as I swing my legs off the side of the mattress.
The urge to run is strong. How bad would it be if I just slipped out while he was in the shower? Will he even care? Maybe he’ll be relieved. After all, neither one of us came here with any expectations beyond last night.
I glance around for my clothes, then remember in vivid detail that Nick stripped them off me in front of the windows in the other room. Just the thought of his hands on me—his mouth on every inch of my bare skin—ignites a wanton stirring inside me. I sigh with the all-too-pleasant memory. I have a feeling I’ll be reliving last night in my mind, and in other body parts, for a damn long time.
Scooting out of the bed while the shower continues to run in the bathroom adjacent to the massive bedroom suite, I pad quickly into the living room to locate my clothing. Apparently, Nick’s been up for a while or else he doesn’t sleep much at all because it’s obvious he’s been out here while I slept. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee emanates from the kitchen. And instead of finding my jeans and sweater on the floor where they fell as he undressed me, they’ve been neatly folded and placed on a sleek white leather Barcelona chair. My lacy bra and panties rest on top.
I grab both and hastily put them on. By accident, I catch my reflection in the window glass and see the bed-tossed tangle of my pale blond hair. God, I don’t even want to think about what my face looks like after sleeping in yesterday’s makeup. To say nothing of my breath.
“There’s coffee ready if you want some.”
Nick’s deep voice behind me halts me where I stand, half-dressed, my jeans pulled midway up my thighs. I wince, forcing a light tone into my voice as I look at him over my shoulder. “Oh . . . thanks. But, ah . . . I really need to go.”
Arms folded over his chest, he’s standing in the open doorway of the bedroom in nothing but a pair of black boxer briefs that cling sinfully to his narrow hips and sinewy thighs. The fitted shorts do little to disguise the outline of his cock, which is strikingly large even at rest.
His black hair is damp from the shower and inky-dark. Just looking at him, I can feel the thick, silky waves against my fingertips.
I can still feel how smooth his tan skin is, how powerful his muscles feel under my hands when he’s moving above me . . . and inside me.
I clear my throat and go back to dressing. Anything to avoid his penetrating blue eyes that watch me from across the room. While I feel twitchy and self-conscious, Nick seems anything but. No, he’s utterly in control and comfortable in his own skin, qualities he’s demonstrated from the moment I first saw him.
With long-legged strides and a tight backside I can’t help but admire, he strolls past me, unfazed, while I pull my sweater over my head and try to make some sense of my bedraggled hair.
“Cream or sugar?” he asks, heading into the spacious kitchen.
“Um, both. Thanks.” As eager as I am to get away, I have to admit coffee sounds like heaven. And it won’t be a total hardship that I can continue looking at him while I drink it.
I drift after him into the kitchen and take a seat on one of the low-backed modern barstools on the opposite side of the counter. Turns out it’s the perfect vantage point for watching his back and shoulder muscles flex and contract as he pulls a pair of black mugs from a cabinet and starts filling them with coffee. I already knew he had an athletic, beautifully formed body. This morning, I have to correct that estimation. He is mouth-watering perfection.
I lick my lips, and not for the want of coffee. “Sorry I fell asleep. I didn’t mean to stay all night.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He pauses from adding cream and sugar to my cup, shooting me a heated look that makes my stomach flip. “In case you didn’t notice, I wasn’t in a rush to kick you out of bed.”
No, he wasn’t. He’d taken his time fucking me senseless, making me come over and over again until I finally lost count. He’d been tireless, insatiable.
To be fair, I was insatiable with him too. And I still am. I try to ignore the fact that my skin feels too tight beneath my clothing, my nipples erect and straining for more of his attention. Between my legs, I feel the dull, lingering ache that his cock left behind and it’s all I can do not to squirm and shift on the barstool.
“What I mean is,” I murmur, attempting to regain my composure as well as some control over the conversation, “I don’t want this to be awkward. Not for either one of us.”
“Is it?” His sharp blue eyes pierce me and don’t let me go.
It wasn’t. Not really. And I’m not quite sure what to make of that.
When I don’t respond, he walks over with the two cups of coffee and places mine in front of me on the counter. As he sets it down, my gaze snags on his right hand and wrist. More specifically, on a web of heavy scars that slash across the back of his hand and up his forearm.
I hadn’t noticed them last night. I’d been too nervous at the gallery to focus that closely. Later, here at his penthouse, it had been too dark and I’d been too blinded by pleasure and desire. Now that I have seen them, I can hardly tear my eyes away from them.
Horror swamps me instantly . . . followed by sadness.
He must have suffered a terrible accident of some sort. A long time ago, by the look of it. The scars are so severe, I have to guess the injury had nearly severed his hand and fingers.
When I look up, he’s staring at me in unreadable silence. I’m sure my own gaze is not so hard to deciphe
r. I feel my expression sag in shock, in sympathy and anguish for whatever happened to him. He doesn’t invite my compassion, though. Certainly not my questions. His darkened, unblinking eyes seem to forbid it, in fact.
But he doesn’t pull away. He lets me take my fill, even while his grim face refuses to let me in.
I glance down, sipping the sweetened coffee to give me an excuse to break the tension. I’m also thankful to have something to do with my hands while I weather the weight of his inscrutable stare.
Finally, he speaks. “Tell me if that’s not how you like it.”
I manage a faint shake of my head. “No, it’s good. It’s perfect.”
He lifts his mug and his eyes hold me over the rim. “Creamy and sweet. My favorite combination as well.”
It’s a flirtatious statement since he’s drinking his coffee black. Although his voice is casual and calm, I know there’s something ugly behind his detached, unaffected exterior. Something much uglier than any physical scar I’ve just seen.
He’s damaged. When I recognize that in him, I feel something shift and soften inside me. I want to know what other scars he’s carrying, but I understand it’s not my place to ask. He wouldn’t tell me even if I did. I know this with the same certainty that I know I wouldn’t tell him about any of mine.
Maybe in time he might trust me enough.
An odd, pointless, thought when I know nothing lasting can come of what happened between us last night. I’m no more part of his orbit today than I was yesterday or that first night I arrived at this building. For the next four months, I’m only borrowing this life, this world. After Claire returns, I’ll go back to my own reality.
And back there, I can’t ever be part of Nick’s world—nor anyone else’s. Not so long as I hide my own scars. My secrets are too many and they can’t be shared.
Looking at him now, I wonder how many secrets he’s hiding too.
Almost in challenge I feel, he holds my gaze as he leans his hip against the counter. “I have business later today in London. My driver will be picking me up within the hour. I’ll be gone for two weeks.”
“Oh, okay.” His abrupt announcement seems to be ample cue for me to leave, so I place my mug on the counter and start to slide off the stool. “In that case, I definitely should go and let you do what you need to do.”
What I really need to do is forget about Nick Baine and the amazing one-night stand we just shared, because that’s all it’s going to be. If I wasn’t smart enough to realize before now that he would be trouble for me, seeing him in this new light this morning is more than enough to convince me. Having sex with him is one thing. Allowing myself to get close to him—to care—is a risk I can’t afford. I won’t risk that.
When I step away from the barstool to retrieve my purse from the nearby sofa, his quiet command halts me.
“Stop, Avery.” He’s frowning as he places his mug on the counter, but there’s a trace of dark humor in his voice. He cocks his head, eyes narrowed on me. “Why is it that when you’re not running into me, you’re running away from me?”
“I’m not running away.”
He grunts. “Aren’t you?”
I go still as he rounds the counter and comes up close to me. He reaches out with his left hand—his good hand—and smoothes some of my disarrayed hair off my face. His expression is grimly sober. Intense in a different way than I’ve seen him so far.
“I want to see you again.”
I swallow. “Sure, okay. That would be great.” The lie sounds almost convincing to me. “Why don’t you let me know when you get back? We can try to make plans to get together for lunch sometime, or a drink maybe . . .”
He’s shaking his head, those shrewd blue eyes far too cynical to believe a word I’m saying.
“I want to see you. I want you in my bed again.”
I struggle to maintain my resolve. “What if that’s not what I want?”
His brows rise as if he’d never considered I might refuse him. But then his fingers slide through my hair to the tender skin of my nape and I’m already melting. As much as I want to think I can walk away from this man and forget him after last night, my full body response to his touch clearly disputes that.
“I want you, Avery. I will see you again when I return.”
Before I can manage another protest, he bends his head to mine and kisses me. His tongue breaches the seam of my lips, possessive and so hot I feel his demanding licks all the way to my core. I moan as I lean into him, fighting a losing battle.
When he draws back, his sensual, wicked mouth is curved in a pirate’s smile. “Like I told you last night, when I see something I want, I reach for it.”
Then, apparently to prove that point, his hand slips between my thighs to the furnace of wet heat already burning there. His breath leaks out of him on a ragged curse. We’re standing close enough that I can feel the hard ridge of his erection. He’s just as aroused as I am.
“Fuck it,” he rasps thickly, his hands already working the zipper of my jeans loose. “My driver will have to wait.”
Chapter 12
I’m still floating when I begin my Monday night shift at Vendange. The satiated haze Nick left me in when I stepped out of his penthouse this morning has barely faded all these hours later. I’d like to blame that early morning assault on my senses for the fact that I not only agreed to see him when he gets back from London, but I even gave him my phone number—something I never do.
So much for playing it safe or sticking to my resolve that I wasn’t going to let our one-night stand progress any further. But our one night and the morning after was beyond amazing, and I’m learning pretty quickly that Nick Baine is a difficult man to resist.
Make that impossible.
When I see something I want, I reach for it.
God, did he ever.
With his hands, his mouth, his wicked tongue . . . his insatiable cock. I didn’t think I had anything left in me to give, yet he proved me wrong time and time again. I’d barely been able to walk steadily after we parted and I made my way back to the fifth floor apartment. Walk of shame? Not even close. I’d never felt so shameless. So alive.
I still do. A smile curves my lips and I don’t even try to bite it back. Nor can I curb the twinge of arousal that ignites inside me just thinking about him.
“How’s it going, Ave?” Tasha’s voice snaps me back to reality. We’ve been so busy, she and I have hardly had a chance to say hello. But now she’s standing next to me behind the bar, shaking a martini for a customer a few seats down. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. Why?”
“Why?” She arches a brow at me as she skewers two olives and dunks them in the martini. “You’re pouring chardonnay in a pilsner glass, for starters.”
I glance down at what I’m doing and wince to see she’s right. “Oh, shit.”
Tasha chuckles and leaves to serve her drink while I correct my error behind the bar. When she comes back, I brace myself for the inevitable interrogation. “So, what’s going on with you?” She tilts her head at me. “Your recent change of scenery sure agrees with you. You look . . . different somehow.”
“Do I?”
“Yeah.” She studies me closer now. “You haven’t stopped smiling since you clocked in tonight.”
“I haven’t?” I glance at her and my smile spreads over my face, derailing any attempt to play it cool. Then I laugh, and I’m totally busted before her shakedown has even begun.
“Oh. My. God.” Her brown eyes go wide. “I know that look. Granted, I’ve never seen it on you before. But, girl, that look says it all.” Her voice drops to a private level. “You did it. You got laid, didn’t you?”
Fire creeps into my face and I’m just thankful for the music and the din of conversation that lets me keep at least a little of my dignity intact.
“When?” Tasha asks. “And with who? You haven’t even told me you’re seeing someone.”
“Because I’m not seeing anyone. Or I
wasn’t. I’m not. It’s not like that.” I shake my head, unsure how I would describe what happened between Nick and me. “It was sex, that’s all.”
“Oh, that’s all,” she prompts, clearly unsatisfied with my answer. “That’s why you’ve been acting so giddy and distracted? Just some random sex, no big deal.”
“Okay,” I relent because she’s not going to let it go anyway. “It was really great sex. And . . . not that random.”
“Meaning, someone we know?” When I shrug coyly, her face compresses into a frown. “If you tell me that in a moment of weakness, you and Joel—”
“What? Hell no!”
I bark out a laugh at the ridiculousness of the idea, and, as if our thoughts have summoned the beast, I see Joel’s brunette head swivel in our direction from the other side of the restaurant. He narrows a scowl on us from where he’s standing at a four-top, playing the gregarious host alongside Kimmie, the one server who can tolerate his overbearing management style and lack of basic humanity.
Then again, Kimmie’s not much better herself. The petite blonde has had her lips permanently affixed to our manager’s ass since he hired her.
“Definitely not Joel,” I assure Tasha as we both get busy filling drink orders while we continue to talk.
“But I’ve met this guy?”
I nod. “More or less.”
She considers me for a moment, then shakes her head as if dismissing one guess for another. It only takes her a second longer before her expression lights up in disbelief. “No. No, you did not.” She drops her bar cloth in the small sink and rounds on me, both hands fisted on her hips. “That guy from the building? The one who almost ran us over at the elevator?”
“To be fair, I was the one who almost ran him over,” I offer lamely.
Tasha gapes. “We’re talking about that guy—tall, dark, totally arrogant. Acted like he owned the damn building or something. We’re talking about the superior prick?”
Oh, God. She has no idea how superior. “That’s him.”