“You like it?” At my nod, Nick smiles approvingly, still leaned forward in his chair, his gaze riveted on my mouth. “I can’t wait to expand your horizons even further.”
I arch a brow at him. “Care to elaborate, Mr. Baine?”
He chuckles. “I’ll do better than that. I’ll demonstrate. Later.”
I swallow and lick my lips while my stomach flips wildly at his erotic promise. Between my legs, I am suddenly very much aware of my nakedness and of the coil of heat that blooms there as he stares at me as if the rest of the people around us don’t exist.
God help me, but I can’t wait to find out what other things he has in mind for me.
I’m so caught up in my thoughts and Nick’s scorching attention that I hardly register the fact that my phone is ringing in my handbag. Once I do hear it, the trill seems as loud as a siren in the tranquil little patio dining area.
“Sorry,” I say and reach for my purse by my sandaled feet. “It’s probably my friend, Tasha, from work calling to check in with me. I told her I’d call her later today.”
As I grab the phone to silence the ring, I see the number there and feel my face lose some of its color.
“Go ahead and take it, if you want to,” Nick says.
“No.” I shake my head as I send my mother’s call to voice mail. “It’s not Tasha.”
“Oh,” Nick replies. His level tone is unreadable, but his face darkens with suspicion. “Do I have to be concerned about another man?”
“What? No.” I frown, shaking my head. “No, nothing like that.”
“Good.” He doesn’t smile. Nor does he press me for more details.
Dammit, I should be thankful for that reprieve and go back to our conversation as if the call never happened. But for some reason—one I don’t care to examine—I feel compelled to let him peer inside my life, my real life, if only a glimpse.
I slide the phone back into my purse, then take a sip of my champagne. “That was my mom.”
His dark brows rise a bit. “You didn’t want to talk to her?”
“Not right now.”
He says nothing for a long moment. Then, when he does speak, his words seem to be chosen carefully, as if he senses that he’s treading on shaky ground. “You and your mother aren’t close?”
“We’re very close. I adore her.”
“But you haven’t told her about me.”
“No.” I set down my empty glass. Mindful of curious ears, I keep my voice quiet. “What would I tell her? That for the past several weeks, I’ve been sleeping with one of the richest men in New York—possibly the whole country? Or that I’ve just quit my job and now I’m sitting in Miami eating octopus and drinking champagne without a care in the world?”
Nick smirks. “I know a lot of enterprising mothers who would like nothing more than to hear those words.”
“Not my mother. She’ll think I’ve lost my mind—and maybe she’d be right about that.” I shake my head slowly. “If I tell her anything about us, it will only make her worry about me. I won’t do that.”
“Because you’re protective of her,” he says, directly hitting the mark.
“The same way she’s always been protective of me. She’s had a . . . difficult life. She still does. I try not to add to her burdens.” I glance down as I exhale and fidget with my hands in my lap. “My mom is all the family I have left.”
“I’m sorry.” I lift my head and find nothing but sincerity in his face. “I’m sorry if things haven’t been easy for you.”
His words touch me, cracking something open inside me that I can’t afford to let break. I shouldn’t let him see me so clearly. I shouldn’t want him to understand my pain, or the secrets I can never fully release. Not even to him.
“What about you, Nick? I don’t think your life has always been easy either.”
I can’t keep my gaze from drifting to his right hand and arm, to his scars. He’s wearing light tan slacks and a pale blue button-down, the cuffs rolled up over his muscular forearms. To anyone merely glancing at him, his imperfections are the last thing they’ll notice. But I’ve seen the evidence of his injuries. I know he suffered something awful—something brutal—at some point in his life.
When I glance back up to meet his eyes, they seem to have hardened somewhat. He lifts his shoulder, one corner of his mouth tugging into a mirthless smile.
“When I was eighteen, I had the bad sense one night to get in the way of a drunk who was spoiling for a fight. I thought I was a hardass. I thought I could handle the situation. The bastard sent me through a plate glass window. I woke up in the hospital a week later with a shredded arm and a nearly severed hand.”
I gasp, my hand flying to my mouth. “Oh, my God. Nick, that’s awful.”
He shrugs, yet there is something in his eyes that seems anything but nonchalant. “I survived. The scars are just a reminder of my stupidity and arrogance. Anyway, I doubt I could find many people to feel sorry for me now.”
I do, but I don’t say the words. I know he would reject my sympathy. He sure as hell doesn’t want pity. But my heart aches for what he must have suffered. The horror of the accident. The pain of the recovery. The permanent reminder of all of it.
I reach across the table and rest my hand over his damaged one. He doesn’t pull away, but the look he gives me is flinty and forbidding. It’s shuttered, as if he’s given me all he intends to right now and if I push, I’ll never hear anything more.
I’m spared from the temptation when our dinners arrive. They are every bit as delicious as our appetizer, and, for a while, Nick and I content ourselves with savoring our meals. Nick orders a bottle of white wine for us even though a quarter of the bottle of champagne still sits on ice in the bucket beside our table.
We chat about small things as we eat and drink our wine. To my delight, halfway through our meal, a five-piece Cuban band arrives and sets up nearby. I guess the youngest of the musicians to be in his fifties, with the rest of the group seeming at least a decade or two older than him.
The men begin playing a sultry song that sets my sandaled foot tapping beneath the table and my shoulders swaying slightly to the melody. When I catch Nick watching, a wave of self-consciousness sweeps over me.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” He considers me for a moment, then sets his napkin next to his plate and stands up. He holds his hand out, palm up. “Come with me.”
“Uh, what?”
“Dance with me.”
We’re not the only ones who’ve decided to enjoy the music on the small area of the patio cleared for dancing, but I still feel every pair of eyes on us as Nick waits for me to take his hand and join him. Reluctantly, because I can’t imagine refusing, I ease up from my seat and place my hand in his.
He leads me over and draws me against him, his hand resting lightly at my back, the other clasped loosely around mine. Neither one of us are going to win any rumba awards, but then, it’s not as if we’re trying to impress anyone. We move together, gazes locked, bodies brushing to the rhythm of the sexy song.
It feels good to be close to him, moving with him as one. His eyes hold me captive in flickering light of the tiki torches, his scent intoxicating me even more than the wine. I want him desperately, and I can sense his arousal, too, even before I feel the growing evidence of it at my hip.
His hand slides down my spine, then over the curve of my ass. I know what he’s thinking as his touch lingers there, possessive and unapologetic. My bare flesh trembles beneath my short skirt, every inch of me aching for him.
Nick lowers his head beside mine, and his lips graze the shell of my ear. His words send desire jolting through me. “Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter 27
We speed through the city on our return to the beachfront penthouse. Nick’s left hand is draped over the wheel, his right hand resting on the Aventador’s gear shift as the agile roadster prowls Miami’s brightly lit, teeming streets. I’m vaguely aware of the envious
looks we inspire along the way, but all of my attention is fixed on the sexy-as-sin man seated beside me.
I’m leaned toward Nick as best I can in the deep bucket seat, my hand splayed over his powerful thigh. Each flex of his muscles as he accelerates or downshifts makes me hotter to have him. Every brief, fevered glance he sends my way makes my stomach flutter eagerly and my sex coil with hungered anticipation of the moment I can have him inside me again.
“Are we almost there?” I ask, hearing the rasp of desire in my own voice.
“Oh, baby, we’re not even close.” Nick slants me a dark, devilish look. “The apartment, however, is only ten minutes away.”
I smile at his teasing and decide to do a little of my own.
“Ten whole minutes? I’m not sure I can last that long without touching you.”
I run my palm higher on the inside of his firm thigh until my hand grazes the bulge of his erection. I caress between his legs, cupping his balls and relishing the sudden kick of his breathing. His shaft swells even harder under my roving touch, his thigh muscles quivering as I move my fingers over him. His reaction makes me bolder, so I lift my arm out from under the shoulder strap of my seat belt and pivot closer, my caress growing shameless.
As we roll to a red light at an intersection crowded with people, my mouth is only inches from his ear. “I’m not sure I can last ten more minutes without tasting you, Mr. Baine.”
He makes a sound that seems more growl than reply. When I unfasten his zipper and pull his erect cock out of his pants, his blue eyes pierce me with carnal heat.
“You are very naughty, Ms. Ross.”
I press my lips against the squared line of his jaw. “Actually, I’m ravenous.”
He grins at my reminder of earlier tonight, but his body goes tense under my touch. As we wait for the light to change, I stroke his thick, jutting shaft. I don’t miss the fact that his molars are clamped tight, tendons straining in his neck while I run my hand along his length. His eyes flick over to mine and I give him a saucy smile, then lower myself down onto his lap. He grates out a sharp curse at the first swirl of my tongue over the tip of his penis.
“Good thing we didn’t stay for dessert,” I murmur. “I like this much better.”
I wrap my lips around the head of his cock, and he groans.
“Ah, fuck . . . baby,” he rasps, looking down at me as traffic and street noise buzzes all around us at the intersection. “You get me so fucking hard.”
I can’t deny my thrill at hearing those words, at feeling the solid evidence of his response to me as his rigid flesh slides so deliciously against my tongue. I tease the broad head of him, tracing the smooth rim and crown, then licking along the tender underside. Tasting, but not taking.
And God, does he taste good. Silky, salty, satiny smooth as I slide up and down on his rigid flesh. But beneath all of that velvet is pure, masculine power. And my small taste of him only makes me crave more. I part my lips and take him into my mouth, sucking him deep.
Nick’s hips thrust up in response, in demand. He hisses sharply, his right hand coming down onto the back of my head. His fingers sift through my long ponytail as I lick and suck on him without mercy.
“Christ,” he snarls. “I’m not going to last ten damn minutes without fucking you either.”
I know the instant the light turns green. Nick shifts into gear and stomps on the accelerator, sending the Aventador leaping away from the intersection with a thunderous roar of the engine and a scream of spinning tires.
I don’t think it takes even five minutes for us to reach the apartment building. I’m still enjoying Nick’s cock as he parks the Lambo in the underground garage and cuts the engine.
On a guttural curse, he pulls me off him and hastily zips up. “You don’t play fair, Ms. Ross.”
His grim smile sends ten kinds of shivers through my body as he coils my ponytail around his fist and drags me roughly across the seats. His eyes scorch me with barely restrained need as he holds me immobile, our faces less than an inch apart. “I can think of any number of ways I’d like to punish you for that.”
Punish. The word startles me on some basic, primal level. It’s not one I’ve ever heard from a lover before. Certainly not one I’d expect to turn me on. But it does, the way everything about this man stirs something bold and reckless in me. Things I’ve never been, or thought I could be, with anyone else.
With Nick, I have no fear. No, with him, none of my old rules apply. He’s been tempting me to bend or break them all from the very beginning. I lick my lips, which are swollen and still carrying the erotic scent and taste of him.
He takes me into a kiss that is hard and urgent and raw. I moan with the intensity of it, my sex clenching in animal response to every claiming thrust of his tongue inside my mouth. I bring my hands up to his face, my fingers rasping over the faint stubble of his jaw, then tunneling deeply into his soft black hair so I can hold him closer.
I want this bruising kiss to go on forever. What I really want to do is drop back down on him and suck him until he comes, but Nick releases me on a low growl, and it’s plain from the stormy heat of his eyes that he has other plans.
We barely make it into the penthouse apartment before he pounces on me. His kiss is carnal, his body hard against my curves, dominating me in a way that leaves me breathless.
I’m not sure how we end up moving to the terrace. Nick’s command of my mouth and my body is so consuming, I don’t register that we’re outside until I feel the first cool brush of night air on my bare arms and legs. My short, lightweight skirt dances around my thighs. The ocean breeze is cool against my naked sex, a delicious contrast to the molten heat Nick has ignited in every cell of my being.
Nick reaches between my legs and draws in a breath through clenched teeth. “I shouldn’t play fair with you, either. I should tease,” he says, his fingertips barely skimming my drenched cleft. “I should torment.”
He gives my sensitized clit only the briefest stroke of his thumb—a there-and-gone caress that wrings a broken cry from my parted lips. I gaze up at him helplessly, prepared to beg for more.
“I should punish you,” he murmurs, his voice harsh with lust.
As he says this, I realize I’m holding my breath, suspended in a dark anticipation that sends my heart galloping in my breast. I am waiting for his touch, for his kiss, for whatever he desires from me. I am his for the taking, however he wants me. I have been from the moment our eyes first met weeks ago, and he knows it.
“Yes,” I answer.
My admission is so quiet, at first, I think the breeze has carried it away. But then I watch Nick’s eyes darken under the hard slashes of his brows. I watch his achingly handsome face take on a dangerous edge now, a look that unnerves me, excites me . . . makes me tremble with need.
“You trust me,” he says, less question than confident statement of fact.
I nod, too caught up in my desire to summon words.
“Turn around.”
I obey his low command, and find that I am standing at the very edge of the open terrace. The Plexiglas railing is only inches in front of me, the hip-high barrier between my body and an eighteen-story drop practically invisible in the starlit darkness. It steals my breath to be so close to the inky, endless space below me. Farther out, the moonlit, spangled water ripples away from the dark shore as far as my eyes can see.
Nick’s strong hands come to rest on my shoulders. His warmth seeps through my skin and bones, and I can’t keep from settling back into him as he moves up close behind me. I want to feel his arms around me, to know that I am anchored to something safe and solid, but he denies me that comfort.
“Hold on to the railing,” he instructs me, his tone authoritative and calm. “Don’t take your hands off of it, Avery. Not unless I tell you to.”
I nod, swallowing on a dry throat. The arced perimeter of Plexi is topped by a broad strip of polished steel. I curl my fingers over it, holding on like I’ve been told. The sho
rt, swishy skirt of my dress flutters in the night breeze, tickling my thighs. Behind me, I feel a stirring of even cooler air as Nick backs away slightly.
“Spread your legs for me, baby.” He makes a low sound of approval when I comply. “Good girl. Now bend forward. Lower, baby . . . That’s it, all the way down. I want to see your fine ass and sweet pussy bared and ready for me. Ready for anything I want to do.”
Oh, God. My sex clenches at his erotic threat. I draw a shaky breath and try to glance over my shoulder at him. When his palm smacks my behind, I yelp at the unexpected shock of it, staggering a bit on my high-heeled sandals.
“Face forward, Ms. Ross.” His deep voice vibrates into my bones. “You earned this, remember?”
The lingering sting of his spank is a lick of flame on my ass, but his fingers are right there an instant later, skimming over me feather-light, soothing the bite. Shivers grip me in the wake of that teasing touch, and my pulse becomes a throb, one that seems rooted in my clit.
“You’re mine to torment now,” he reminds me. His caress dips lower, into the slick heat between my parted thighs. “I’ll tell you when you can move.”
Given no choice but to submit, I drop my head and wait breathlessly, eagerly, for the next morsel of pleasure—or pain—that he decides to grant me.
I moan when he dips two fingers inside me, plunging deep. He thrusts once, twice, a slow rhythm that drives me mad. I need more. To ease the ache, I need it harder and faster.
“Nick, please . . .”
“Please, what?”
He drives another finger into me, but it’s still not enough. “Fuck me.”
“Oh, baby.” He chuckles darkly, a sound so purely sexual I nearly come on the spot. “Don’t cry for mercy so soon. I’m not even close to finished with you yet.”
As if to demonstrate that this is punishment I volunteered for, he withdraws his fingers completely, ignoring my whimper of protest. My skirt is tossed up and over my back, exposing me fully from the waist down. His palms caress my ass cheeks, massaging them. Parting them in the instant before I feel the first wet flick of his tongue at my anus.