CHAPTER NINE — FLIRTY AND DIRTY
Nick reversed down the green tunnel twenty minutes later. They’d checked out the rest of the house, and Sammie kept well out of his grasp.
He’d spread the plans on an ancient unraveling cane table in one of the upstairs bedrooms, and gone over them with her before they talked more with Evan. Plainly she still thought he was mad taking on such a huge restoration job, but from her comments he saw she pictured the finished house.
He needed to get back to the city for a late meeting at the bank. Nothing too formal—a drink, a chat, hit them up for another half-mil in case Sydney happened sooner than expected.
He glanced at his watch as he reached highway speed, highway speed being a flexible concept in a car like his. He wound the Ferrari up, amused at Sammie’s expression, hoping the throaty roar and rocketing speed would thrill her.
But—precious cargo, he reminded himself, easing back on the gas again.
Two hours later, he knocked on her apartment door, hoping she was home, hoping she’d answer, just plain hoping.
“You again,” she grumbled, flushed, tousled and irresistible.
“I’ve come to drink the rest of that wine.”
She stood her ground, blocking the doorway. Looked like it wasn’t going to happen...
“And I’ve bought gifts?” he tried, producing her sandals from behind his back. The sandals she’d kicked off before changing into the killer stilettos the day before. He’d driven both girls home, and she’d forgotten them under the seat.
“Oh.” Her tone became slightly more gracious as she reached for them. “Thank you Nick.”
Suddenly—a metallic bang, a noise like breaking china, a feline yowl and the thump of a furry body jumping down from somewhere it shouldn’t have been. Sammie whirled around to investigate, and Nick followed her in, secretly thanking the cat.
“Zorro!” she exclaimed. The culprit dived out through the cat door, leaving Sammie to discover the little Kentia Palm lying on its side in the sink. The terracotta pot had broken into three pieces. Potting soil garnished the scene of the crime.
“Not too bad,” Nick said, scooping the tree up while Sammie muttered under her breath and rummaged in the cupboards. She found a stainless steel basin as a temporary home for it, then set the pot shards back on the end of the counter.
“I’ll have to find a replacement pot. At least it’s nothing fancy.” She turned and glared at the cat, now licking a dainty paw on the balcony. Then her eyes came back to his. “Wine?”
So he wasn’t entirely unwelcome?
She produced two glasses. Nick reached for the bottle, poured, and pushed one across to her.
“We were having a game with that piece of string.” She indicated a length on the floor. “She must have jumped up after it when I put it down to answer the door.”
He took a deep swig of the wine. “My fault then.”
“Yes. Definitely.” She shot him half a smile.
His tense muscles started to relax. “So that’s why you’re looking all hot and bothered?”
“I’m not...”
“Yeah,” he murmured, setting his glass down, and touching her hair. “You’re looking pink and breathless and as though you’ve been having fun.”
“Pulling a bit of string around for a cat?”
She hadn’t moved away from him. Hadn’t even picked up her wine. Was still standing right there, eyes wide, as his fingers continued to play in the silky blonde strands. Nick’s breath caught in his throat as she raised her hand and touched his cheek.
“You shaved.” She moved her fingers so they rasped against the close grain of his whisker growth.
“You noticed.”
All around them, the air turned electric. Then Nick bent his head and took her mouth.
Sammie gasped as bolts of delight shot through her. All the years of waiting and wanting fell away, and the afternoon’s resistance counted for nothing.
She smoothed her hands up through his hair, kneading and tugging, pulling him closer. As his tongue stroked against hers in velvet caresses and his thumb found a nipple and teased it to full delicious tightness, she moved against him voluptuously, thrilling at the hardness rising to press against her belly.
With a fierce growl, he tugged her tight, kisses turning deep and desperate. Then he pulled her sideways a few steps, pushed her down onto the sofa cushions, and slid over her. Pinned beneath him, surrounded by his scent, she eased her thighs apart to settle him deeper into their welcoming cradle. Still he kissed her—ravenous wine-flavored bites and licks that she met with equal hunger.
Until she pushed him away. “Nick,” she gasped. “We can’t do this.”
He laid his forehead on hers, breathing heavily.
“Damn,” he said, pulling back far enough to focus on her eyes. His pupils shone huge and black with desire.
From somewhere she found the courage to add, “Not here. Not like this. But there’s a bed.”
A few seconds of absolute silence passed.
“Just like that?” His voice had edged huskier, deeper. It reached right into her center and started warm places heating to hot.
“Well, we could talk some more,” she murmured. “Or we could do that later. You feel,” she nipped his bottom lip and nudged her hips against him, “as though you’d rather talk later.”
“Sammie. Hell. Where’s the bed then?”
He scooped her up against his chest as he stood.
“Through there,” she indicated, still amazed he could lift her as though she weighed almost nothing. She’d seen those shoulders, but even so...
It was only a few paces. He set her down next to the bed and gently released her.
All she saw was him, face serious and intent. His eyes burned with fierce fire. His beautiful mouth had no carefree grin now.
He stood close and reached across to the zipper marching down the front of her red tunic.
“Have you any idea how much I’ve wanted to undo this all day?” he growled. “I’ve been itching to rip your clothes off. Before I even knew who you were, I found you damned gorgeous.” He started to draw the zipper down. “You were so annoyed at me, and such a challenge, I could barely keep my hands off.”
“Goes both ways,” Sammie whispered, hitching her thumbs under the sides of his T-shirt and pushing it up. Nick deserted her zipper, grasped his T-shirt hem, peeled it up past his face, and tossed it at the wall.
“Nicky...”All that taut flesh was too much to take in at a glance. Her eyes roamed from his face to his shoulders and down over his hard-muscled, hair-dusted chest. She leaned forward and licked the intricate tattoo on one shoulder, dragging in his scent. Her heart jolted and slammed behind her ribs.
“God you’re beautiful,” she breathed.
While his fingers continued to undo her top, hers drifted down his long tanned torso to the waistband of his bulging jeans, reached for his straining zipper, and carefully rasped it down. Fine tremors of anticipation feathered across her skin, hot one moment, icy the next. She’d never wanted a man so much. Never been brave enough to take the initiative like this before.
She wrestled the waistband button through the denim until it gave way. Nick lost interest in the front of her top; now his whole attention switched to her hands as she peeled his jeans aside. He stared down, lashes casting spiky shadows on his cheekbones. He stood exactly below one of the ceiling-recessed lights, gilded to bronze in the stark white room.
His cotton briefs sat low on his hips, so it was easy for Sammie to curl her hand around the hard rod of flesh that sprang out to meet her.
His indrawn breath pleased her very much.
She took a step backward and sat on the bed. Found the courage to grip both sides of his jeans and push them partway down his thighs. Followed with the briefs.
His big rosy cock swayed in the light, jutting up toward her like a separate being.
She made some sort of noise—lust or longing or admiration??
?and she bent to smell and taste him. Exotic. Terrifying. So desirable that saliva pooled under her tongue.
He’d showered. She smelled soap and clean cotton and again that salty fresh scent she’d noticed earlier.
Essence of Nick.
Unable to resist, she parted her lips and enclosed the whole plump end of him in wet heat. He threaded his hands into her hair, braced his legs apart a little and grunted quietly, trying to hold still but not entirely managing. The instinct to thrust was programmed so deeply he pushed forward, then drew back again.
Sammie’s hands wandered out and grabbed his hips, holding him where she wanted him. Right there. Like that.
So she could take more of him into her mouth.
So her tongue could slide across the glorious shape of him, investigating ridges and textures and mysteries.
So she could suck and lick and wrap a hand around him to squeeze and slide until she heard his breathing change and she ripped another grunt out of him.
“Sammie,” he whispered hoarsely. “The only other time you touched me there I came in a flash.” He hitched in another breath. “Not going to last forever if you keep doing that. Hell!” He jerked against her tongue.
A deep rolling shudder passed through him as he cupped her face and tried to get free. “I’d rather come inside you. Let me go.”
Slowly she drew back, watching how his cock pulsed and shone under the light, how it flexed and shuddered without apparent control. Impossible to look away.
“You don’t need to undo all of my zipper,” she said, reaching down to the hem, pulling her top upward, then bending to push off her boots. She stripped out of her jeans while Nick wrestled with his own.
“Did I really make you come?” She still remembered the handkerchief he’d stuffed down his pants so long ago, and his uncontrolled cursing. At the time she’d been mystified, but as the years passed and she’d learned more, she’d wondered.
“Like a stud bull,” he said with a wry grin, sitting on the bed where she’d been, drawing her toward him and tracing over her lacy bra with caressing fingers.
She laughed at his comment and he looked at her with hot dark eyes. “Don’t knock it—it was memorable. I just about passed out. And this time I get to play with you the way I wanted to back then.”
She reached back and unhooked her bra. Nick’s hands slid under the lace in an instant, holding her like treasure, squeezing and molding her breasts. His thumbs found her nipples, and it took only the slightest touch to harden them again. He rubbed until they were tight peaks of sensation.
His expression relaxed to one of drowsy satisfaction, eyes half closed, lips parted to show a gleam of teeth. “Please Miss, can I see?”
She shimmied the bra down her arms, so turned on that anything he wanted, he’d be getting. Had it really been less than half an hour since he’d arrived? Now he sat naked before her, fully aroused, spot-lit in all his potent male detail, and looking very comfortable about it. And she stood in only her panties, hoping they’d be disappearing sometime quite soon.
As though he’d heard her innermost thoughts, he hooked his thumbs under the elastic and started to push them off.
Moments later, he returned to her breasts, leaning forward from where he sat on the bed and smoothing his face against them, inhaling her scent, murmuring how pretty they were.
“Please,” she begged, trying to get him to suck her.
“So soft,” he whispered, avoiding her nipples yet again.
“Nick,” she moaned, turning to line herself up with his beautiful mouth.
“Little Sammie, you’re all grown up...”
“Suck,” she insisted.
One hand smoothed down over her belly and he found her clitoris with consummate ease. She jumped at the unexpected contact. How smoothly that knowing fingertip skated across her skin. God, she was so turned on and slippery, and that...felt...fantastic...
“Bite me,” she begged, and he did. But not where she wanted him to. He turned his head and nipped her arm, before giving her throbbing nipple a quick swipe with his tongue.
Not enough. Not enough.
Then he pulled away to blow a stream of cool air across it so it beaded even tighter, and ached and ached.
“Nicky...”
She heard his soft chuckle as clearly as she felt his finger sliding inside her.
“Not fair,” she moaned. “You know what I want. You used to want to do it too.”
The finger withdrew, glistening wet, and he resumed his exquisite fondling.
Sammie pressed closer between his thighs, nestling her face into his hair, smoothing her hands over his shoulders and down his arms. She needed his mouth, wanted it so much that when he finally closed his lips around her she let out an involuntary cry of bliss.
So heavenly—the heat, and the tugging, and his clever tongue.
His smooth lips, and the hard dangerous thrill of his teeth as they nipped and nibbled.
The slow line of kisses across to the other breast where he once again suckled deeply.
The musky scent of their bodies rising in the narrow space between them.
The sparkling thrill rushed all through her. Stronger and stronger as his finger circled faster and more insistently—until her internal muscles drew up and up and exploded in great clenching shudders of release.
She collapsed against the big tattoo on his shoulder and bit it to stifle her scream.
Nick pulled her closer, wrapping both arms around her in case her legs gave way; she quaked and panted as though she’d run for her life.
Some response, baby! Jesus, you’re wonderful...
He coaxed a still-trembling Sammie onto the bed, smiling at her expression of dazed satisfaction. The bedside lamp shone on the foil packets of the condoms he’d grabbed earlier from his pocket, making them sparkle and flash.
Plenty of time for them later.
He located the main light switch and snapped the overheads off so they didn’t dazzle her. Then he stretched out, leaning up on one elbow, just looking his fill.
Traffic swished by in the road below, and sudden rain spattered on the windows. Inside the bedroom, it was warm, dimly lit, and infinitely more welcoming. The real world could go to hell for a while.
“Nicky,” she murmured. “Thank you. Incredible.”
“Not finished yet.”
“No,” she agreed. “I’ve barely started on you.”
“And I’m nowhere near finished with you.”
He leaned down and kissed her shoulder, then drifted to her collarbone. She smelled sweet and fragrant—like honey and raspberries on a warm summer’s day. He closed his eyes, and operating on touch alone cupped one of her breasts in his hand and licked and teased her some more.
“It never felt like that in the packing shed,” she said in a breathy murmur.
“The implement shed. Remember all the machinery?”
“So it was. We were lucky Grandpa never caught us.”
He was profoundly thankful for that. “I guess your body wasn’t developed enough, back then.” He slid down the bed, stroked her belly, ran a finger around and around her navel, and followed with his lips.
“Not a natural blonde,” he whispered, playing in the neat little patch of curls a few inches lower.
“You know I’m not,” she protested, stretching like a contented cat.
Nick eased over her, pushing her thighs apart until he could bury his face there. God, the scent of a woman feeling sexy! He breathed her in, forcing her legs further apart with both hands when she tried to retreat into modesty.
“Surrender to the inevitable,” he teased, holding her where he wanted her and sliding his tongue over her clit.
Sammie’s hips jolted in response.
“I’m allowed to treat you like a big girl now. All the things I couldn’t do back then. All the things I’d only heard about. Anything you want,” he whispered.
He licked her again as though she was premiu
m ice-cream. “Anything you want at all.”
Another lick.
“What would you like me to do, Sammie?”
“Just...that...” she gasped in a strangled voice.
He smiled, enjoying his effect on her, tongue lapping slowly and deliberately at the juicy little peak. “Not this?” he asked a dozen soft strokes later, inserting a long finger.
Her sharp inhalation told him she liked that very much too.
“And if I pressed up here...?”
“Oh God Nick, yes!”
“Found the sweet spot, have I?” Her fractured breathing and sexy little moans were answer enough. She’d relaxed her thighs completely, open to whatever he wanted. Her aroused clit now pushed out like the sweetest candy. He pursed his lips around it and sucked with a steady rhythm, massaging it from underneath with his finger pulsing deep inside her.
Soon he felt the first of her tiny tugs and flutters. He’d imagined this almost constantly. Sammie out of control—because she was normally very much in control. His aloof and capable new secretary with her so-perfect suit and sky high heels reduced to a keening growling kitten, animal as anything, and all for him.
Now he had the extra thrill of knowing her true identity. His naughty little playmate, finally ripe and ready, so many years later.
Sammie hissed in a sharp breath and tensed. She teetered on the very brink of orgasm and he pushed her a little further. Finally she gave a wild cry and came apart in a juddering, panting storm, one hand clenched in his hair, the nails of the other scoring his neck.
He smiled, oblivious to the pain, and when she was done, reached for the first of the condoms.