For the Love of Nick Read online

  “Call me a prude,” he said. “But I’ve never actually had an audience before. It’s a bit unnerving.”

  “Yeah.” Feeling very naked, she stood and reached for the panties still hanging off Sadie’s ear and the T-shirt on the floor.

  Before she could put them on, Nick came to his feet and pressed up behind her, slipping his arms around her waist. His forearms were tanned, tough and strewn with sinew against her fair-skinned, soft stomach, and when he slipped his hands up to cup her breasts, she nearly cried.

  “Is she still watching me?” he murmured in her ear, his fingers stroking her nipples.

  She wanted to melt, but managed to crane her neck toward Sadie.

  Who had her gaze glued to a spot Danielle wanted to stare at as well.

  Nick’s butt.

  “I’m trying not to notice,” he said. His arms squeezed her close. “You feel so good against me, Danielle. So good. But—”

  “No. No buts.” Her body was so keyed up, she couldn’t walk away now. Words were beyond her so she turned and showed him what she wanted with her body, sliding against him, gliding her breasts over his chest, her hips to the spot between his where he was hard and heavy.

  “Foul,” he whispered, and with a movement that left her gasping in surprise, he scooped her into his arms and started down the hall.

  “Hurry,” she whispered, then arched her naked body in his arms.

  With a groan, he stopped in the middle of the hallway, pressing her against the wall, holding her there with his delicious body. His mouth took hers, and then, breathless, he lifted his head. “You’re sure you want this?”

  “More than air.”

  With a smile that tipped her heart on its side, he indulged them both in another long, lingering kiss. Finally, finally, he carried her into his bedroom and kicked the door closed behind them. Lifting his head, he asked, “Can she open doors?”

  Danielle couldn’t think past the sight of the bed that she hoped he intended to ravish her on. “Who?”

  “The man-eater.”

  Oh Lord, the way he was eating her up with his gaze. “No, Sadie can’t open doors.”

  “Good.” With his mouth teasing her jaw, he set her on the bed, his hands never leaving her body. A soft touch here, there…over her breasts, her nipples, her belly…between her thighs, urging her legs open so that he could watch while he stroked her to a slow burn with an erotic touch such as she’d never known before.

  She was quivering now, with each stroke, helplessly arching into him. “Nick…”

  “Yeah.” His fingers sank into her wet heat, and he let out a rough groan from deep in his throat.

  “Now,” she heard herself cry, thrusting her hips against him. “Oh, please now…” She reached for him, but he evaded, gently but thoroughly capturing her hands, then pressing her back, his body covering hers. “If you touch me now, it’ll be over before it begins.”

  “Then we’ll start again!”

  Nick liked the sound of that, starting again. Her voice sounded thready, desperate, and her long legs wrapped around his hips so that he nearly sank into her. As he was feeling thready and desperate himself, it took every ounce of control he had to hold back.

  Sliding down her body, he used his mouth everywhere he passed. Her nipples, her belly, high on her thigh, close to the one spot that would drive her over the edge, close, but not close enough.

  “Nick!” Her eyes clouded over, her hands still at her sides, held by his, flexed.

  “I know.” He released her to slide his hands over her thighs, opening them even farther, to lick her, there.

  With a screech, she arched up off the bed, right into his mouth. “Perfect,” he whispered, and slowly and thoroughly devoured her.

  She tried to hold back from him. Clearly, this was not the hot and fast she’d intended, but he refused to give that to her. This was no quick fix, this was more. And if he had to know it, recognize it, then so did she. “Come for me,” he whispered against her.

  And she did, with a wild abandon that thrilled and aroused him all the more.

  Damp flesh slid over damp flesh as he slid back up her body, every bit as hostage to this vicious need as she. He rubbed his cheek to hers as she fluttered her eyes open. “There’s still more,” he said.

  “Yes.” She tried to draw him inside her body. “For you.”

  “For both of us.” Putting on a condom was tricky, as his hands were shaking. Shaking. Danielle didn’t help matters by lending her ineffective yet over whelmingly arousing fingers to the task. Finally, he lifted her hips, stared deep into her eyes and sank into her.

  She took him, every inch, then let him in even deeper.

  “This,” he managed to say, fighting back the tide that threatened to take him over the edge with his first stroke. “This is more. For both of us.” And lowering his mouth to hers, he began to move.

  9

  NICK AWOKE IN THE DARK. From what he could gather with his few still-functioning senses, he was sprawled on his back, sideways across the bed. Given the breeze blowing across his lower parts he concluded the window was open. As for the restriction of air to his lungs, that was Danielle, who lay a deadweight on his chest.

  She was also buck naked, which happened to agree with him.

  Grinning, he slid her off, then settled himself between her legs. Murmuring something sleepily, she slipped her arms around him. “Nick?”

  God, that voice. It did things to his insides, things he wasn’t ready to face, so he concentrated on what she did to him physically.

  And physically, he wanted her again. “Yeah, it’s me. You’re so beautiful, Danielle.”

  “It’s dark.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Oh, Nick.”

  “Open for me.”

  Arching up, she wrapped her legs around his hips.

  “Yeah, like that.” Tilting her face up for his kiss, he sank into her body and took her again. Took them both to a place he’d never been with anyone ever before.

  THE NEXT TIME Nick woke up, morning light slanted in through the windows, making him squint as he reached out for…nobody.

  Given that the pillow he’d shared with Danielle all night long felt cold, he sat straight up, his heart in his throat.

  And came face to face with a monster, a huge monster with dark, red-rimmed eyes and incisors capable of gobbling him up in one bite.

  With a shocked gasp, he jerked back.

  The monster leapt back, too, and let out a sharp, surprised bark.

  “Damn it.” Flat on his back in the middle of the bed, Nick blinked at the ceiling and tried to recover his pulse. “You’re giving me gray hair.”

  The bed shifted as two heavy paws hit it.

  Nick craned his neck to the side, eyeing Sadie cautiously. “I suppose you think that’s funny.”

  Head cocked, a line of drool puddling on his sheets, the dog eyed him and licked her chops.

  Hastily, Nick scrambled for the sheet. “Don’t get any ideas. I’m not edible.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  Nick lifted his head as Danielle came back into the room. She was dressed in another pair of khaki shorts and a sleeveless blouse—red this time—looking sleek, beautiful and more than a little wary. Her backpack was on her shoulder, her laptop tucked under her arm. She was holding the developed photos he’d given her.

  Not a good sign on his chances of coaxing her back into bed.

  “I wanted to thank you again,” she said quietly, staying by the door.

  Uh-oh. Definitely, he had some fast talking to do in order to get lucky. “You’re dressed.” Oh, smooth.

  “I’ve got to go.”

  Stall. Not because he couldn’t let her go. Hell, he could let anyone go. He wasn’t the attachment sort of guy, but…

  Damn it, he couldn’t let her go. “Hold on.” Eyeing Sadie, he got out of the bed and carefully walked around the dog, feeling very naked. He grabbed a pair of jeans. “At least l