Sweet Seduction Serenade (12 page)

"Not sleeping in the car," he shot back, equally as quick.

"You're not sleeping inside!" I said, my voice rising and threatening to wake the hard of hearing old age pensioners next door.

"Angel, I need to sleep. I've just spent the past three nights in my car watching your place, I'm wiped out. I gotta get some sleep, but I'm not leaving you after tonight's incident. Your cousins won't give up because one of them is temporarily behind bars."

Not words I wanted to hear, or think about, so I pushed them aside and concentrated on the current problem.

"I'll be fine, you need to go home to your woman."

He blinked at me and then slowly smiled. It was stunning to watch it unfold before me. Dazzling.

"No one for me at home, angel. Quit stalling and get your gorgeous rear inside."

Whoa. What the darn hell did that mean? Had he dumped Gen? What an asshole.

"Well," I said, cowgirl ice princess in full force, "you can sleep on the couch."

I placed my foot in his laced palms and let him hoist me up onto the window ledge, his hand came to my rear and gave it a swift, sharp slap - I was thinking it wasn't in an effort to push me inside.

"Not sleeping on the couch, angel," he said from over my shoulder.

I stumbled through the opening and landed hard on the floor, my hand automatically going to my butt cheek to rub it. Nick climbed through the window nimbly behind me, as though he did it all the time and for all I knew, he did.

"It's been steam-cleaned," I said, thinking that would be his argument to sleeping on the old sofa my Dad had had since the dawn of time.

"Not the state of the couch, Eva," he said, heading towards the side of the bed that had the chair beside it acting as a side table, and starting to remove various things from his belt. I watched in disbelief as a cellphone, what looked like a taser, a pair of handcuffs and a gun got lined up side by side. Then in absolute stunned horror as a second gun got removed from a holster under his jeans leg. "Had a bad back for years," he said conversationally, "just spent three nights in my car. I am not sleeping on a fucking couch when there's a perfectly big enough bed for me here."

Oh. Well. But...

"You can't sleep in the same bed as me!"

"Did it once, not opposed to doing it again," he shot back, starting to undo his belt, quickly followed by the buttons on his jeans.

"What...what are you doing?" I asked, panicked.

"Getting comfortable."

"No." I started shaking my head back and forth. "No. You get the couch. Or...or I can take the couch." Yeah that would work. I didn't have a bad back, I could manage one night on Dad's couch.

"Can't keep you safe in a different room," he said, removing his jeans and in the process giving me an absolutely mind-numbingly good view of his butt through white boxer shorts. Oh, darn it all to hell.

I frowned down at the floor and heard him pull back my bedsheets and the rustle of his body sliding in between.

"Come on, angel. Climb into bed and get some sleep. I wasn't kidding when I said I was knackered. You're safe tonight."

I couldn't tell if he was talking about me being safe from my cousins or safe from his hands, but standing in the middle of the room frowning down at the floor was not going to get me anywhere. I wanted to insist on me sleeping in the lounge, but what if he was right and Levi used his mother's key and simply walked in the front door. He'd be on me before Nick could grab one of those guns and storm out the door.

I sighed, reached over and pulled the curtains closed, so the room was completely dark, then slipped out of my track pants - I hate sleeping in long trousers - and climbed down the far side of the bed, as far away as I could get from him. It took a bit of manoeuvring, the bed was right up against the wall, so the sheets and blanket were tucked in tight, but I managed. Finally settling myself down under the covers, with no sign of Nick near my side.

I was just beginning to release some of the tension from my frame, sinking closer and closer to sleep, when a strong muscular arm came around my stomach and hauled me halfway across the bed, tucking me into Nick's front. In a split second he'd simply jockeyed me into the optimal spooning position in the bed. I ceased breathing and went entirely still.

"What are you doing?" I asked breathlessly.

"Go to sleep, angel. We'll talk about it all in the morning."

This was so wrong. Even if he'd dumped his fiancée, he couldn't just expect to pick up where we left off -
eight years ago!

"Nick, I can't do this," I said seriously.

"Eva, angel, go the fuck to sleep. I'm wiped."

Then he tucked me further into his body, buried his face into the curve of my neck and inhaled deeply. And I swear, within a minute, maybe two, he was sound asleep.

But I didn't get a wink for the rest of the night.

Well, maybe I did get
a
wink of sleep, because I woke to someone kissing my neck, hot breath across my skin, a wet tongue licking a path up to my ear and then the pull of teeth against my lobe. Not to mention what his hand was doing, up under my Kenny Chesney T-Shirt, wrapped around my naked breast, finger and thumb tweaking an already taut nipple.

I moaned, thinking this was the best cowboy ghost dream to wake up on and then when I heard a deep chuckle in my ear, which my cowboy ghost had never actually done before, and felt a firm erection pressing into my back, which again my cowboy ghost had never done, I blinked my gritty eyes open and took in my horrifying predicament.

The sun was up, bright behind the drawn curtains, but as the curtains were old sheets I'd cut and sewn to cover the bare window panes when I arrived, the light in the room was practically blinding. And it was hot, which considering this was a council flat with semi-poor heating in the middle of winter, shouldn't have been the case. But Mr Inferno behind me was making up for the lack of central heating in New Zealand homes, with his hard, hot body pressed against mine.

Holy darn hell, what was happening?

"Are you mad?" I practically shouted over my shoulder at him and then attempted to pull away.

In a split second I was repositioned.
Underneath
Nick Anscombe's hot, hot body.

"Where are you going, angel? We've got to talk."

"We are so not talking with you on top of me, cowboy!"

"I like it when you call me that," he whispered and I kid you not, leaned in and nuzzled my neck affectionately.

"Get off me!" I shouted and gave him a good - but completely ineffectual - shove.

"Shh, you'll wake your Dad," he said, ignoring my polar-ice-cap cowgirl ice-princess glare.

"I have to check on him," I announced, grabbing the first lifeline I could see.

"Already did," Nick said softly, still nuzzling my neck. "Cup of tea and a piece of toast beside his bed, the newspaper and his radio ready to go."

Well, that was entirely too sweet, but...

"You don't understand, Nick. He needs the toilet first thing or else, well, it gets messy."

"I know, he told me," Nick surprised me by saying. "Helped him out, he's done his thing and now back in bed having a sleep in. He'll have his breakfast when he wakes, but let's not disturb the poor man, he needs a little more rest."

Where the darn hell did
this
Nick come from? And I had absolutely no way of being able to handle this... this care and generosity and
invasion
into my life. My band members didn't even know Dad was this sick, I hadn't shared it with them, how the hell did Nick figure it out after one visit glaring at my Dad across the lounge?

And then it hit me. I'd told Adam. In a fit of mental weakness, I'd spilled my guts to one of Nick's men. Of course Adam would have told Nick. Hell, Nick probably beat it out of the man. But I really didn't know how to handle
this
Nick, this man I had spent a good portion of the past eight years dreaming about, who had made every man who followed him less than perfect, who had come crashing back into my life reminding me how beautiful
that
night was, only to flaunt his new fiancée in my face.

Which wasn't entirely his fault, he didn't know I was coming back and I was the one to be playing at his woman's grand opening local talent showcase night. But I am, and he is engaged to her and why the darn hell is here, in my bed, half dressed, kissing my neck with his hand wrapped around my naked boob?

"You've got to get out of this bed," I instructed him.

"Not happening," he said against my skin and then did something with his teeth that had me writhing. Darn it all to hell! "We need to talk, you and me. Things to sort out once and for all."

"This is hardly talking," I pointed out to him, stifling a groan as his hand moved down my chest and stomach, wrapped around my hip, over the top of my panties, and pulled me hard against his obviously large erection. He even had the gall to roll his hips, as though he was proving a point or something.

"Nick, this isn't right," I explained, even as my body responded to his and pushed up into that delicious hardness.

"No, it's heaven," he mumbled bizarrely. "Thought I'd never get another taste," he went on, still rocking his erection against me, still running his hand up and down my side, still nuzzling his lips against my hot skin. "Can't let it go now." Then, as though in pain, "Angel."

I was stunned silent.

"We need to talk," I said, desperately trying to think of a way to stop this, to stop myself from responding to this man. It wasn't just his gorgeous body, the hard lines, the curves of his muscle, the heat of his smooth skin. It wasn't just the way he touched me, reverently, softly, but still commandingly, as though he knew what he wanted but was so in awe of finally having it, he handled me with care. And it wasn't just his words. Words he shouldn't have uttered, yet went right through my heart and soul.

It wasn't any of those things individually. It was all of it, together, at once, that made it so darn hard to pull away.

He didn't stop to talk, he shifted his weight, forcing my legs apart, so he could settle between my thighs and rub me in
just the right way
. He groaned as my legs wrapped around him automatically, muttered "angel" against my skin and then nibbled on my bottom lip, enticing me to open up.

I was fighting a losing battle, I knew it, but even though I've had a fair few cowboys since him, I'm a good person deep down inside. And although I knew it would kill me to do it, I had to think of Gen. His fiancée, the woman whose heart he had either broken or was about to break. She didn't deserve that, even as she'd necked with his cousin or whatever that guy-who-could-have-been-related-to-him was. I knew I couldn't be a part of this, even as my body, my mind and my heart begged me not to.

"Nick, what about Genevieve?" I said and then closed my eyes waiting for him to stop, having been shocked back into remembering the woman he was meant to be with right now.

"What about her?" he said, moving on from my lips as I hadn't given him purchase and starting to make his way down my throat instead.

"What do you mean, what about her?" I demanded, some of the fog lifting at his obviously uncaring words.

He tilted his head up to look at me, clearly hearing the tone of annoyance and disgust in my voice.

"Why the hell are you so concerned about Gen, angel?"

"Don't call me 'angel'," I shot back automatically.

"Oh, no, Eva, you are my angel. Always were, always will be. And you know it."

"Nick!" I said in frustration. "You have a fiancée, you can't be in my bed!" Not to mention I have a boyfriend who said he'd be here for breakfast this morning. I tried to look across the bed to my cellphone to get an idea of how much time I had before Nick needed to be gone. I didn't want to hurt Derek's feelings, he'd come a long way and I intended to let him down gently, not rub any potential infidelity on part in his face.

But Nick reached up and grabbed my chin in his hand, forcing my eyes to stay on his.

"What fiancée have I got, angel? Tell me, because I sure as fuck haven't proposed to a woman in my life yet."

I stared at him, he glared a little frost ice-blue back at me in return. What?

"Gen," I said slowly, as though he'd had a head injury and had forgotten his past, "your fiancée, the woman wearing your grape sized engagement ring, whose shop I am playing at tonight."

"What the fuck?" Nick said pulling back slightly but not letting go of my chin, it would seem. "Why on earth would you think I'm engaged to Gen?"

It felt as though the world stopped spinning, as though everything in the universe pulled back and then came crashing towards where I lay, streaming in from every angle, pushing hard against my brain. My hands came up and took hold of each side of my head, wrapping fingers in my hair to give it a little tug.

"Eva," Nick said, removing his fingers from my chin and beginning to pry my hands free from my hair. "Angel, what's going on in that head of yours?" I just blinked at him. "OK," he said reasonably, once my hands were contained on either side of my face on the pillow at my back. "Gen is engaged to my brother, Dominic. Not me. I don't know why you would think that, but it's a mistake, angel, nothing more. So," he said with a salacious grin, "now that's sorted, can we go back to the heaven part of this morning. Eight years I've wanted you back in my arms, I intend to make good on the fantasies I've had."