Passion, hot and sweet, exploded between them, creating a delicious ache that settled in her stomach and had her craving more. She tasted the heady intoxication of his kiss. His tongue penetrated her lips to dance with hers, and she felt drunk from his touch. She couldn’t think, could scarcely breath from the force of her heart slamming against her ribs. She could do nothing but feel, aware only of his skin beneath her probing fingers, the strength of his arms. She ran her fingers through his tawny hair, the texture like silk sliding between her fingers. This was the only place where she’d been truly safe in the years. Here, in the circle of his embrace. Once gone, she would never feel safe again.
He broke the kiss first, his breathing ragged. Beneath her fingers, his pulse drummed to the same mad beat as her own. He cupped her face in his big hands and said softly, “You’re a goddamn liar.”
“What?”
He gave her a small, sad smile. “A woman doesn’t kiss a man like that unless she loves him. A woman doesn’t look at a man the way you’re looking at me unless she loves him.”
How well he understood her that he so easily read her heart. Never in her life had she been so at a loss for words, but she wouldn’t tell him that. She could never let him know the depth of her feeling for him. Taking a breath to still the heart that betrayed her, she said, “It’s just a kiss, Nicholas.”
He searched her face. She was certain he saw right through her, but she wanted him to believe the lie. He had to believe the lie. If he didn’t, they were both lost.
Instead of rage or grief or pain, his face gentled. “You’re a bad liar, Lexie.”
He bent to kiss her again.
His kiss was hard and demanding, the gentleness lost, and she responded to the need behind it. He wanted her with a passion matching her own. She felt the promise in his lips—he wouldn’t be content to stop with just this one kiss. Swept away on the tide of emotions swirling around her, she realized she had to stop him or submit completely. No compromise. There never had been with Nicholas.
He bent to kiss her neck, and she said, meaning to stop him, “Nicholas, please.”
He raised his head and kissed her again. He took her full lower lip into his mouth, sucked gently and she gasped with pleasure. His hands found the buttons of her bodice and he began undoing them. She saw the question in his eyes as he asked, “Please what?”
She meant to tell him to stop, but his hands pushed away her bodice, exposing her corset and the thin chemise beneath, found nipples straining for him. They had ached for weeks now, sore to the touch, but when he caressed them, she found the ache was something different from the one to which she had become accustomed. This was the delicious ache she had dreamt of since their parting. She had missed him so much, and his was the touch she craved. She needed this. To touch and be touched, to love and be loved, by a man she loved who loved her in return.
He stroked her shoulders leisurely, and his touch made her burn. She turned her face up to his, found his mouth with hers. She’d allow herself this one pleasure before she left him forever, this one precious moment of happiness. This would be her secret, the one thing she held dear to her heart, and what did it matter, anyway? She was already pregnant. One more time meant nothing, in the great scheme of things. Once she was married, if she had this one day, she could be a faithful with her body, if not her heart. Never her heart.
He leaned into her and nibbled on her ear. “Please what?” he asked again.
She plunged her hands into his hair, pulled his face to hers. He wouldn’t be able to resist her, not if she welcomed his embrace. She pulled his earlobe into her mouth and sucked gently in the way that had driven him mad when they had lain together before. She knew just how to torment him, how to make him hers.
“Please,” she whispered.
He groaned and found her mouth again. Cupping her face in his hands, he said softly, “Say it, Lexie. Let me hear you say it.”
She knew what he wanted. His hands were everywhere, unfastening her skirt, undoing the laces of her corset, touching the tops of her breasts through her chemise, stroking her arms. It took little doing for her skirt and her corset to meet her bodice on the floor. “Oh, God, Nick, don’t make me beg.” Her hands skimmed his chest, toying with the wiry hair, her touch feather light, and she only had to glance up at him to recognize the lust in his eyes.
She thought he intended to take her in his study, to take her quickly on the rug in front of the fire. She welcomed that idea for two reasons: first, in such a public room, they would be unable to linger, and second, she didn’t want to wait for him to take her anywhere else. She wanted his hands on her body, wanted him to plunge into her and make her his. Instead, with a groan, he picked her up and carried her up the stairs to his bedroom.
He laid her on the bed and knelt in front of her, removing her shoes and peeling away her stockings with seductive slowness, his hands running up the length of her thigh, under her drawers. “Nicholas,” she began, suddenly afraid of being here with him, afraid of what these precious moments would do to her heart. Were doing to her heart as she stood there and allowed him to continue with his sweet torment.
“Shut up.” He continued to undress her in his leisurely manner, his eyes alight with lust. “Every time you open that pretty little mouth of yours, you lie to me. So just stop talking.”
“Nicholas, I think...”
The tenderness in his smile took her breath away. Soon she was dressed simply in her chemise. Taking her hand, he helped her stand up, and, in one swift movement, pulled it over her head. She stood naked before him. “No, you think too much. Don’t think, Lexie. Just be with me. Make love to me.”
She pressed her bare breasts against his chest, his erection hard against her belly, the evidence of his desire for her thick and unashamed. He pushed her back toward the bed, and for a long moment, he just looked at her.
His breathing was ragged, his desire for her evident. She was certain it would go quickly now. But instead, he lay next to her, kissing her senseless, driving her wild with need. She rubbed her legs against him, and yet he continued to give. Her mouth was greedy as she took what he offered. Here was everything she had ever needed. She opened her eyes, and when his eyes met hers, the desire for her naked on his face, it took her breath away. She had never been so desperately wanted in her life. She wanted to memorize every detail of this moment. Whatever happened after didn’t matter, if she had this to hang onto.
He smiled, a smile that lit his entire face, as he regarded her with those glittering eyes like twin pools. He kissed her mouth, her neck, her breasts. His lips trailed down her body, lingered over her belly where their child grew inside her. He worshipped her with his body, and she worshipped him with hers.
She loved him, and he loved her, and for the moment, nothing else in the entire world mattered more.
She rubbed her legs against him as the torment grew within her, and yet still, he waited, though there was desperation in the way he touched her. “Nicholas,” she began again.
He raised his head, then propped himself up on his powerful arms to look into her face. He stroked her face with one hand, a gentle caress so tender tears stung her eyes. “Yes?”
She arched her body against his and kissed him. She understood what he wanted from her: nothing less than complete surrender. “Make love to me.”
Those words were all he needed. He plunged into her, the way they fit together so perfect, so intense, it stole every coherent thought from her mind. He surrounded her with his bulk, and she was safe and complete in his arms as he made love to her. When they found their release together, she wept for the sheer beauty of it. No one could take this moment from her.
He slid to his side and cradled her in his arms, stroking her head, showering her face with soft, gentle kisses. She nipped at his lips, and he smiled, a smile so filled with joy she began to weep again. “Shh, love,” he whispered, kissing her tears away. “We’re here together, and no one and nothing will separate us.”
She knew it wasn’t true, but she loved the pretty truth he had built for himself. She stroked his face gently. “Oh, Nicholas,” she said. She wanted to tell him she loved him, but she bit back the words before they escaped her.
“Lexie...” he began.
His expression intense, she feared what he would say next, so she leaned up and kissed him with all the passion she carried for him. She would always try to keep him safe, even if she had to sacrifice herself, because the world wasn’t a place she wanted live in if he wasn’t in it. She would never be his, but she would have their child, and she would have this moment. “Just shut up. Shut up and make love to me again.”
He needed no further encouragement.
Lexie leisurely woke, her body languid from their lovemaking. She felt relaxed and spent. She glanced at the window, saw the sun had crossed the sky and it was now late afternoon. They had spent the better part of the day in his bed, making love. A few hours before, Nicholas had woken her with food before making love to her again. He was generous and sweet, seeing to her every need, pampering her. She was treasured and loved.
She turned her head to find Nicholas regarding her. “Hello, love,” he said, stroking her back, his touch unhurried and tender, as if he couldn’t get over the feel of her skin under his fingertips.
She smiled at him, but sat up. “I should be going.”
His face darkened. “Stay, Lexie.”
She pulled the sheet around her body to cover her nakedness. She knew it had to end like this, with a fight, but she wasn’t sure if she had it in her. She wished he would let her go, but she wasn’t so foolish as to think he would. He didn’t understand. She would never be able to explain her situation to his satisfaction, and she didn’t want to try. “You know I can’t.”
He sat up and dropped a kiss on her shoulder. “I know no such thing. The only thing I know is you don’t love him.”
She turned to look at him, to see the hurt on his face. “Love isn’t the issue. I have to do this, Nicholas. Don’t ask me to explain.” She got out of bed and walked over to where her clothes had been scattered on the ground.
“If you would just tell me why, I could help you. Tell me what power he has over you. Let me fix this.” She picked up her chemise, and she was aware of his eyes on her as she put the garment on.
He offered everything she had wanted before Buchanan’s threat. Her knees shook, threatening to buckle beneath the strain of her overwrought emotions. In a trembling voice, she said, “So you can buy me, too? Because I’m a commodity to be traded among men—bought and sold like cattle? You know what that makes me, Nicholas.”
The muscles began to jump in his jaw, fury flashing in his bright eyes. “So somehow marrying a man you don’t love for money—because it’s always about money with you, and he’s just vile—is somehow nobler than allowing me to help you?”
She shrugged, pretending she didn’t care. “Maybe. You buy me from Buchanan and somehow everything will turn out all right? Then I go from being his whore to yours. It doesn’t make it better, doesn’t change anything.” Bitterness crept into her tone and she turned away from him.
Nicholas stood and she heard his footfalls behind her. She stiffened when his arms snaked around her, waiting for an attack. His kissed the back of her head, his breath in her hair, and said with unnerving gentleness, “I’ll give you the money. However much it is, I’ll give it to you. You can give it to Buchanan, you can pay off debts, you can burn every dollar for all I care. It’s yours. If you still want Buchanan after that, so be it. Take the money, then make your decision.”
“And what decision would that be? I take the money, and then what? What’s left to decide?”
“Marry me.”
His words stole her breath. Her eyes widened, and for a moment, she was certain her heart stopped. Dizzy, her knees shaking, she would have fallen had his strong arms not kept her upright. Everything she wanted, right here. It couldn’t be that easy. Things were never that easy, not for her. Tears filled her eyes, and she breathed a stunned, “What?”