I Dream of Danger (5 page)

Elle had never felt anything this strongly in her life. Nick was hers, she was his.

Waiting made no sense whatsoever. Not to mention the fact that her body was on fire.

Nick looked down at her and she memorized his features all over again. His face had been so clear to her that all she had to do was close her eyes and she could conjure him up. But this new Nick was even better than the old Nick. Not just handsome but fully a man. Face filled out more, a few lines around his eyes, jaw more prominent. She studied every feature eagerly, because this was the Nick that was going to be hers. This hard man with a hard face, looking at her with tenderness in his dark eyes.

“To bed,” she whispered, just in case he hadn’t heard her.

His lips curved. He was devastating when he smiled. Her heart simply turned over.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said and bent his knees slightly to swing her up in his arms.

Oh yes. Yes-yes-yes.

She’d dreamed of this for
years
. For half her life, it seemed. Nick and her, heart to heart. Him carrying her wherever he wanted her to go. And she wanting to go wherever he took her.

Maybe this was a dream, after all, because it felt like Nick floated up the stairs with her in his arms instead of climbing them. His movements were smooth and effortless, not at all as if he were carrying an adult woman. Her arms were around his shoulders and she could feel the power in his muscles as he carried her—a deep strength, greater than that of any other man she’d ever seen. All the other men she’d ever seen in her life faded to background noise, pale simulacra of men.

Oh God
. This was
Nick
!

In a sudden burst of joy, she leaned forward and kissed him, deeply, fully. Everything she needed to know about kissing, Nick had taught her in an instant. She’d simply followed his lead, and every second of it was pure joy. She opened his mouth with hers, tightening her arms around his neck, licking into his mouth, trembling. One hand moving through his short hair to hold his head tightly against her, though he wasn’t making any signs of wanting to be pulled away.

Her back hit the wall as he swung her around and pressed into her, taking over the kiss. Possessing her, mouth eating at hers, tongue tasting her deeply.

It was overwhelming, she could hardly breathe, hardly think. Pleasure swamped her as she panted.

Suddenly Nick lifted his head and she could see the changes the kiss had made in him. His dark hair stood up and the half-smile had gone. His eyes were narrowed, serious; the skin over his cheekbones flushed. His mouth was dark red, swollen, wet. He looked dangerous.

Now
he looked as if he was having trouble carrying her, but it wasn’t that. He was aroused. His breath came in and out in short pants and she could feel him trembling.

She’d done that.
Oh yeah.
She’d smile at the thought, but it wasn’t a moment for smiling. It was too big and too serious.

“You do that again and I’m having you right on the stairs,” he said, voice low and dark.

For a second she didn’t understand what he was saying and then she did. Her thighs clenched at the image his words conveyed, both of them naked and writhing on the stairs.

“Uncomfortable,” she gasped. “Bed.”

His head jerked in a nod. “Right.”

And then he flew. In a second they were in her bedroom and he was setting her down on her feet, though her legs would barely hold her.

Elle held on to Nick as if she were holding on to a log in a raging river. He bent on one knee, as a knight does to his lady. She was immensely touched, reaching out to lay her hand on his head, fingers digging into his scalp. His hair was so dark the warmth came as a shock.

From this angle, looking down at him, he was foreshortened, like an art manual on perspective. He was all dark lashes, high cheekbones, sexy stubble. Insanely broad shoulders and huge hands, which were—
oh—
she smiled to herself, at her whimsy that he’d fallen to his knees before her. Nope. He was unlacing her boots and sliding them off, first the left then the right. She braced herself on his shoulders as he lifted her feet, fingers digging into the solid muscle. Even this was thrilling.

Boots off, Nick rose, so close to her she had to tilt her head back to look into his eyes. With the thrill of possession, she held his rib cage while he swiftly unbuttoned her thin sweater. With a swipe of his big hands, it fell off her shoulders. He reached around and unhooked her bra and she leaned into him, just to feel those heavenly muscles against her.

“Let go of me,” he muttered as he worked her pants and panties down off her backside.
Let go of him?
Never! She’d just found him again, so why—

Oh.

Elle let go of Nick and the sweater and bra simply slid to the floor, as did pants and panties. He lifted her effortlessly and she kicked her clothes off and away. He held her around the waist with one strong arm and reached down to pull her wool socks off. There was a hole in one sock, but he wasn’t looking at her feet—he was looking at her face.

And now she was naked. The first time she’d ever been naked with a man. There was no heat on; she should be cold, but there was no question of feeling cold with Nick looking at her like that.

“God.” His jaw muscles clenched as he looked her up and down, slowly. “You’re beautiful.”

She didn’t look down at herself; she knew what she looked like. “Am I, Nick?” she asked softly, watching his eyes.

“Oh, yeah.” He nodded his head in a quick jerk. “Get under the covers. It’s cold in here.”

Standing so close to him was like standing next to a man-high radiator, but under the covers meant the
bed,
and getting in bed meant they were going to make love, so she obediently pulled back the bedclothes and slid in.

And, oh, he was stripping fast and he was just so beautiful, he seemed unreal. She couldn’t even tell what clothes he had on, really. Whatever he was wearing was dark and it all drifted to the ground, and then he turned and she had a view of him, full on, so heartbreakingly beautiful she nearly closed her eyes.

He’d grown a few inches and had put on a lot of pounds, and it was all muscle. He was so finely built, exactly what she imagined a man should look like. A perfect man. Broad, thick shoulders, lean waist, long, strong legs. The vee of hard tendons running from belt level to the groin.

It looked like his penis weighed several pounds all on its own. It was fascinating, long and thick and upright, dark tan with a dark red tip shiny with his juice.

Even more fascinating, when her gaze drifted down from his face, over his chest, to fix on his penis, it swelled even larger.
Oh my God
. Just her
looking
at him aroused him!

It was huge, lying almost flat against his belly. She could see his heartbeat there.

This was pure magic, something so extraordinary she hadn’t even thought to dream it. How on earth could she have known it was like this? How could she have guessed that it would feel like this?

Two kinds of heat—one slipping through her veins like a flow of warm honey and the other, almost painful, a prickly heat flashing over her skin. And her breasts and her sex—they felt like sources of heat themselves. Hot and swollen and, in the case of her sex, wet.

Her eyes drifted back up Nick’s body and fixed on his face. He looked serious, almost grim, was narrow-eyed and unsmiling, a muscle twitching in his jaw. If a thousand books hadn’t told her that a man’s erection spelled pleasure, she would have thought he was in pain.

Well, she sure wasn’t in pain. This was, hands down, the most glorious moment of her life. It was as if pain had been banished from the world and only pleasure existed.

She pulled her hand out from the covers, astonished that it didn’t feel cold. Cold had been banished from the world too. She curled her fingers in the universal
come here
gesture.

Just in case he didn’t get it, she said the words, “Come to me, Nick.”

Her words seemed to release him from some invisible bonds. In a second, he was slipping on top of her under the covers and, oh, she nearly fainted from the sensory overload. He felt so damned
good
. It was all so new and so incredibly enticing. The heavy weight of him, the rough hairs sliding against her skin, the hard muscles. Elle didn’t know what to do, but her body did, without any help from her.

Her body just naturally opened to him, in every way possible. It offered itself to him, naturally, as if it had been born to do this with Nick. Her mouth was already open when he bent, smiling, to kiss her, a heated, deep kiss that melted her bones. Her back arched, so her breasts were crushed against the cut pectorals of his chest, the rough chest hair tickling her breasts. Her legs slid apart, lifting slightly, the inside of her thighs hugging his lean hips. The wiry black hairs around his penis felt harsh in contrast to the velvety smoothness of his penis. She was open completely to him there, feeling empty, wanting him to fill—

And then there he was, sliding into her, so hot and hard, and there was pain, yes, but life was pain and joy, she knew that, but there he was, inside her, and this was Nick. Nick inside her and it felt so wonderful, tears gathered in her eyes.

And then the wonder stopped because Nick withdrew from her, pulled out, pulled away, and instead of there being heat and strength against her entire body, there was nothing but cold and emptiness.

It was shocking. All of a sudden she was freezing, bereft. Trembling.

He was sitting up, the noise of the sheets shifting loud in the silence of the room.

“N-Nick?”

Oh God.
She’d done something wrong. Whatever she’d done it had been
wrong.
The wrong thing to do. She thought she’d been moving so naturally, but clearly she’d done something she shouldn’t. Or hadn’t done something she should.

And now he was angry. She chanced a peek at his face. Or . . . if not angry, then something. Whatever, he wasn’t happy. That was clear.

Nick swung his long legs over the side of the bed and sat, hands gripping the edge of the mattress, head slightly bowed.

This was frightening. What kind of mistake could she have made to have him so cold and remote, all of a sudden? “Nick?” she whispered.

He was turned away, so all she saw was his broad back, the dips and hollows of the muscles, the strong neck. She had no idea what he was thinking, feeling. None at all.

What to say, what to do? She had no idea. She was suffering from whiplash, going from extreme pleasure to extreme distress in a few seconds. It was hard to keep up, even to know what she was feeling.

Cold and alone, that was what she was feeling.

Nick turned to her and she couldn’t know what he was feeling either. The smile was gone and all that was left was an impersonal remoteness.

“You’re a virgin.” His voice was distant, flat. He gestured down at himself, at his erect penis that had some blood on it. Her blood. “Were a virgin.”

Well . . . yes. Of course. It had never even occurred to her that Nick might think otherwise. Of course, he couldn’t know that these past five years there’d been no question of dating anyone. She’d graduated from high school by a miracle and, frankly, by the indulgence of her teachers, who knew what was happening at home. A boyfriend had been out of the question.

But beyond that, well . . . no boy and no man had ever attracted her, in any way. She’d been waiting for him.

How pathetic was that? He wasn’t happy she’d waited for him. He was . . . what? Annoyed? Impatient? Exasperated?

She made a noise in her throat because she had no idea what to say. Words weren’t coming to her. Words had completely fled her mind.

His dark eyebrows came together. “Why the f—.” He stopped himself visibly, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed the word. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?
What he really wanted to say hung there in the air.

Oh God.
He was edging toward angry.

Elle sat up, clutching the sheets, bringing her knees up to her chest. Where before she delighted in feeling his bare skin against hers—such a mind-blowing pleasure—now she felt naked. Naked in every sense.

She opened her mouth but no words came out. Not even air. She coughed and tried again.
“
Sorry.”

She should say something else, but nothing else would come out.

And then his face changed, almost melted. “Pixie,” he said. All of a sudden that deep voice was liquid with tenderness.

Pixie.
His pet word for her. Usually accompanied by a tug of her hair. Elle’s muscles relaxed; she gasped in a big breath of air, let it out again on a sigh.

He was back. Nick was back.

The tip of his forefinger ran over her cheek. “You really should have told me. I’d have done it differently.”

Elle blinked. There was another way? She shook her head sharply, quite beyond words.

Nick sighed and lifted his head as if he’d suddenly heard something. In a second, he was in her en suite bathroom, the one he’d teasingly dubbed Fairyland when she was a kid. It
was
a little over the top. Her father had redecorated when her mother died. Her bedroom was an ode to frills, and her bathroom—candy cane pink and cream, with roses hand painted in the washbasin—was embarrassing as an adult.

Her senses expanded back out as she watched Nick walk naked into her bathroom. For a few seconds she’d imploded on herself, a black hole of negative gravity threatening to suck her through it, totally incapable of thought and observation.

But watching him walk across a room, she was getting a little more relaxed, capable of feeling a little electric thrill of delight. His buttocks were firm as apples, round and tight and absolutely delicious.

So utterly different from her father’s flaccid muscles as she tried to wash him in the last months of his life.

No. No thinking like that.

Her father was dead and wherever he was, he was truly in a better place. That was the past, this was now. A better now than she’d even dared to dream of just this morning. A magnificent now that held threads of hope for the future. A future with Nick in it, of watching Nick, listening to him, just being with him.