“It’s too late when I say it is.” He released her wrist and cupped her small, round butt in his palm. The cotton pajama bottoms bunched as he gave a light squeeze.
She gasped, set both hands on his chest and shoved. It was like a kitten batting at a mastiff. “This isn’t fair.”
“Fair?” He growled the word. “Do you want to talk about fair? You’ve tormented me for five years. Strutting around the hangar in your barely there denim shorts. Coming to peer over my shoulder and letting your hair tickle my skin. How hard do you think it was for me to keep from pulling you into my lap and putting my hands all over you?”
“You never...” She arched back and stared up into his face. “I had no idea.”
“I made sure you didn’t. But it wasn’t easy.” He wrapped his fingers around her red curls and gave a gentle but firm tug. “And it wasn’t fun.”
* * *
Brooke was electrified by Nic’s admission; the twinge in her scalp when he pulled her hair merely enhanced her already overstimulated nerves. She welcomed the discomfort. The fleeting pain chased the last vestiges of self-pity from her mind and grounded her in the moment.
Taking her silence and stillness as surrender, Nic bent to kiss her again, but Brooke turned aside at the last minute. Even though this was what she’d wanted when she’d bought her plane ticket, she wasn’t the same woman who’d gotten on the plane in San Francisco.
Nic wasn’t deterred by her evasion. He kissed his way across her cheek and seized her earlobe between his teeth. Her knees wavered as his unsteady breath filled her ear. Meanwhile, his hands moved over her back, gliding beneath her tank top to find her hot skin and trace each bump of her spine.
“What’s wrong?” he murmured as his lips investigated the hollow made by her collarbone.
“You want me to give in.” He was doing whatever it took to make her putty in his hand. “Just like you used to want me to leave you alone. It’s always about what you want.”
She felt as much as heard his sigh. His hands left her body and bracketed his hips. He regarded her solemnly.
“I thought this was what we both wanted.”
A breeze puffed in from the terrace, chilling Brooke. Where a second earlier the room had been dark, moonlight now poured over the tiled floor and bathed Nic’s splendid torso in a white glow. Her mouth went dry as her gaze traced the rise and fall of his pecs and abs, the perfect ratio of broad shoulders to narrow hips. Although still in shadow, the planes of his face seemed more chiseled, his jaw sharper.
Her pulse began to slam harder, throbbing in her wrist, her throat and between her thighs. She found his eyes in the dimness, fell beneath the hypnotic power of his gaze. A rushing filled her ears, the incessant movement of a stream as it surges past boulders and fallen trees, unstoppable. Once upon a time, she’d been like that, full of purpose and joy. Then she’d let her doubts bottle her up.
Was she really going to stand here being annoyed with him and waste another second of the limited time she had left bemoaning the cards fate had dealt?
She held out her hand to Nic. He linked his fingers with hers and drew her toward the stairs. Without saying a word they entered his bedroom and came together in a slow, effortless dance of hands, lips and tongue. Pajamas landed on the floor and Brooke stretched out on Nic’s king-size bed, his strong body pressing her hard into the mattress as they kissed and explored.
Words were lost to Brooke as Nic’s fingertips rode her rib cage to the undersides of her breasts. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so heavy and so light at the same time. Arching her spine, she pushed her nipples against his palms. Stars burst behind her eyelids as he circled the hard buds, making them ache with pleasure before at long last drawing one, then the other, into his hot mouth.
The sensations snapping along her nerves made Brooke quiver and gasp. She was hungry for Nic to touch her more intimately, but her senses had gone fuzzy, her body languid. His hand rode upward along her inner thigh with torturous precision and she followed its progress with breaths growing ever more faint. By the time his finger dipped into her wet heat, her lungs had forgotten how to function. She lay with her eyes closed, her head spinning as he filled her first with one, then two fingers, stretching her, finding the spot that caused her hips to jerk and the first shuddering moan to escape her throat.
And then he replaced his hand with his mouth and adored her with tongue and teeth. Sliding his hands beneath her butt, he lifted her against the press and retreat of his kiss. She tried to squirm, to escape the tongue that drove her relentlessly toward pleasure so acute it hurt, but Nic dug his fingers into her skin and held her
captive. Mewling, Brooke surrendered to the slow, tantalizing rise of ecstasy.
Nic hadn’t made love to her like this the first time they were together. Five years of anticipation had made their lovemaking passionate and impatient. Nic had satisfied her three times that night, his large body surging into hers, filling her completely. She’d come with desperate cries, unable to articulate the incandescent heights to which he’d lifted her.
But the rush upward had been followed by only a brief respite to catch her breath and savor the afterglow. Nic had proved insatiable that night and when at last they’d spent the last of their passion, she’d fallen into a deep, dreamless slumber.
This was different. As if recognizing this was their last time together, he made love to her with his eyes first and then his hands. Languid sweeps of his lips across her skin soothed her soul and set her skin aflame. Words of appreciation and praise poured over her while his fingers reverently grazed the lines of her body.
By the time he slipped on a condom and settled between her thighs, Brooke wasn’t sure where she ended and he began. He moved slowly into her, easing in just the head of his erection, giving her time she didn’t need to adjust to him.
Tipping her hips as he began his second thrust, she ensured that his forward progress didn’t end until he was fully seated inside her. He groaned and buried his face in her neck. She dug her fingernails into his back, reveling in the fullness of his possession. For a long moment neither of them moved. Brooke filled her lungs with the spicy tang of his aftershave and the musk of their lovemaking. She closed her eyes to memorize the feel of his powerful body as he began moving.
Measured and deliberate, Nic rocked against her, thrusting in and out while pleasure built. He kissed her hard, his tongue plunging to tangle with hers. Their hips came together with increased urgency. Brooke let her teeth glide along Nic’s neck. He bucked hard against her when she nipped at his skin. The thrust rapped her womb where their child grew and sent her spiraling toward climax. She must have clenched around him because suddenly Nic picked up the pace. Together they climbed, hands pleasuring, bodies striving for closeness. Brooke came first, Nic’s name on her lips. He drove into her more urgently and reached orgasm moments later.
His strong body shook with the intensity of his release and a hoarse cry spilled out of him. What followed was the deepest, most emotionally charged kiss he’d ever given her. Brooke clung to him while her body pulsed with aftershocks and surrendered to the tempest raging in Nic. If she’d thought their lovemaking had forever branded her as his, the kiss, tender one moment, joyous the next, stole the heart right out of her body.
“Incredible.” He buried his face in her neck, his breath heavy and uneven, body limp and powerless.
Brooke wrapped her arms around his shoulders, marveling that this formidable man had been reduced to overcooked noodles in her arms. Grinning, she stroked the bumpy length of his spine and ran her nails through his hair in a soothing caress.