“Hey, beautiful.” His deep voice is like a warm caress as he strolls into the penthouse bathroom, where I’ve just come out of the shower. The sight of him shirtless in just a pair of well-worn faded jeans makes my stomach flip. “I’ve been in the study on the phone with Beck. Have you been home long?”
Home. I can’t contain the smile that curves my lips upon hearing him say that. Even though I don’t have plans to move out of my own house, nor has he asked me to, Nick’s place does feel like home. Being here with him is easy, the most natural thing in the world, and for a moment I simply allow myself to savor the feeling.
“I got back from Kathryn’s a few minutes ago,” I tell him, meeting his smile in the vanity mirror in front of where I sit. I’m wearing a silk robe, my hair wrapped up in a white towel. “What time will Patrick be driving us to the recreation center?”
“Four-thirty. The ribbon-cutting isn’t until six, but there will be press photos and interviews to deal with beforehand.” He walks up behind me and rests his palms on my shoulders, leaning down to kiss the side of my neck. “You smell delicious.”
So does he. I close my eyes and breathe in that unique mix of warm, clean skin and masculine spice that’s been stamped indelibly into my senses from the moment I first brushed up close to him. If we had more than an hour before we’re due to leave for the rec center that scent and the press of his mouth below my ear might tempt me right back into bed with him.
It still might.
He withdraws much too soon for my liking. His hands linger on me, though, caressing me lightly as his gaze holds mine in the glass. “How was Kathryn feeling today?”
“The same. She slept a bit more today than yesterday when I stopped by to see her.”
“Has there been any more talk about hospice?”
I press my lips together, shaking my head. “Pauline says Kathryn refuses to acknowledge the possibility. Each time I tried to bring up the subject with her, she deflected.”
Nick grunts. “It’s not like her to avoid an uncomfortable issue. She’s always preferred to tackle them head-on.” He strokes the side of my face. “Like someone else I know.”
I pivot in the velvet upholstered vanity chair and look up at him. “She didn’t seem to have the energy to talk much today. All she wanted to do is have me tell her about my art, what I’m working on now and when my next showing will be. She even made me write it on her calendar so she could make sure to be there.”
“Mind over matter,” Nick suggests gently, leaning his hip against the marble countertop. “Maybe making plans helps her feel more in control of the time she has left.”
“Maybe. Tomorrow morning she’s leaving for a couple of weeks at her house in the Hamptons. When we said goodbye today, she just held me for the longest time.”
The look he gives me is filled with solemn consideration. “If you’d rather skip the ribbon-cutting so you can spend more time with her today, I’ll understand.”
“No. I want to be with you.” I take his hand and press a kiss to his palm. “Today is a big deal, Nick. Besides, Kathryn would never allow me to miss the ceremony. She knows the rec center is also important to me.”
He nods, cupping my face. His glance strays to the vanity counter, where I’ve laid a few pieces of jewelry I plan to wear today. One of those pieces is a diamond encrusted gold-and-platinum watch. One that carries a price tag I could never afford, not even now.
A look of mild surprise—and pleasure—lights the gaze that swings back to me. “You still have the watch I gave you in Paris.”
“I still have it.”
The stunning Cartier watch was on my wrist the day I left Nick’s flat, devastated after learning how he’d orchestrated our meeting in the beginning and perpetuated the lie for the entire time we’d been together. It was the only thing I took from him when I left Paris, and only because I didn’t realize the expensive gift was still clamped around my wrist until I was standing in the security line at the airport on my way back to the States.
“I haven’t worn it since Paris. I couldn’t.”
He nods as if he already knew that. Of course, he knows. He understands me better than anyone.
“You were going to wear it for me today?”
“Yes.”
He picks it up, silent as he contemplates the jewels that glitter on the watch’s face. Then he carefully places it on my wrist the same way he did that morning on the rooftop terrace of his flat.
“I wanted Paris to be our new start,” he says as he fastens the delicate clasp. He slowly shakes his head. “I wasn’t ready then. I wanted to reset the clock, but I wasn’t prepared to be the man you need. I knew I couldn’t be the man you deserve, Avery. I’m not sure I’ll ever be what you deserve.”
“That’s not something you can decide, Nick.” I ease my arm out of his grasp and get up from the chair. “What I deserve is up to me to decide. But I know what I want. There’s only one man I need, and I’m looking at him.”
“Avery.” He utters my name on a quiet breath and draws me into his arms. His kiss is tender but deep, his tongue licking into my mouth even though I can feel the barely restrained hunger that vibrates through his powerful body.
“I love you,” he murmurs against my lips. “Fuck, Avery. Don’t ever leave me again.”
I close my eyes as the harshly whispered demand skates hotly against my cheek.
He asking for a promise I can’t fully give, not when my conscience warns that he and I still have bridges left to cross. I’ve felt it since we spoke at the lake house—a nagging in my gut that as courageously as he shared the bitter details of his past, there are doors he may never allow me to open.
Cradling his firm jaw in my hands, I look into his haunted gaze. “I never want to leave you, Nick. I love you. I need you. I always will.”
On a rough, jagged sound, he hugs me close, burying his head into my breast. For the longest time, he doesn’t move. Then, abruptly, he releases me.
Pivoting without explanation, he leaves me standing in the bathroom alone, confused.
And a little bit wary when he returns a moment later holding something behind his back.
“There’s one more thing I want you to wear for me today.” Brilliant blue eyes hold me in an uncertain stare. “Close your eyes.”
My breath catches because we’ve played this game before. Always with him in control, making the demands. Me in total submission.
I can’t go down this road with him again. Not the way we have in the past. Our talk out at the lake should have made that clear.
But I close my eyes anyway, because I have to know.
Something cool and sleek comes down around my head, settling around my neck and plunging down between my breasts.
Pearls.
I look down at the long strand that glistens in the soft light. It’s not the first time I’ve worn these. Usually when Nick placed them on me, he did it to restrain me. To make me submit to whatever dark pleasures he had in mind for me. Not that I complained. Sex with Nick was never boring, and even at his most dominant, his focus was always on me.
Until the other night.
“I’ve been keeping them for you, Avery. I’ve been waiting for the chance to see you in them again.”
He touches the pearls that dip low into my cleavage, his fingers skimming lightly over the gems before feathering across my skin. I can’t suppress my shiver of awareness, nor the coil of hot need that stirs to life inside me.
“When I gave these to you the first time, it was to show you that you could trust me. But it was a selfish gift. I gave it to you to please myself.” Lifting my chin on the edge of his fingertips, he lifts my eyes to his. “I’m giving them to you now to show you that you can still trust me.”
The vulnerability written on his handsome face is too much for me to bear. He’s trying to give me everything. Telling me he’ll surrender all that he is—all the things that I love about him.
“Nick, I do trust you.”
/> He shakes his head as if he isn’t hearing me. “I’m never going to do anything to hurt you. I’d sooner eat a fucking bullet than make you fear me—”
“No.” I frame his head in my hands, bringing his brow down to meet mine. I stare into his eyes, needing him to see me. I want him to understand I’m not afraid of the man I see in front of me now. “Nick, I know you won’t hurt me. And I’m not afraid of you.”
A miserable look washes over him. “The other night—”
“The other night is behind us. Look at me. Feel me.” I slip his hand beneath the loose silk of my robe, settling his palm on my breast before guiding him down to my sex. His fingers flex as they meet the slickness of my cleft. “Does that feel like fear? I’m not afraid of you. And I’m not glass that’s going to break if you touch me.”
I kiss him, pouring all of my desire and need for him into the fevered joining of our mouths. His arms close around me, his hands sliding down to rest on the curve of my ass. I step back, unfastening the tie at my waist.
My thin robe falls away, leaving me naked except for Nick’s watch and the long strand of pearls.
His gaze flares with arousal as he looks at me. “Ah, Christ.”
I move farther back, until the vanity counter comes up against the backs of my legs. I hop onto it and take hold of the front waistband of Nick’s jeans. His erection bulges against the zipper. I free him, lifting the thick shaft and heavy balls in my hand and then pushing his pants and boxer briefs down onto his muscled thighs.
Leaning back onto the cool marble surface, I spread myself open to him, holding his hungered gaze.
The growl that escapes him is animal and wild. It races through me like a lick of flame to the gasoline of my desire. My sex throbs, aching for the full measure of his lust.
“Fuck me,” I beg him. “I need you to fuck me now.”
He steps close, raw heat radiating off his powerful frame. One hand clamps onto my hip; the other guides the dripping head of his cock to the ready sheath of my body.
He leans into me, taking my mouth in a savage kiss as he penetrates me. The long, hard thrust stretches me, tunneling deep and wrenching a jagged cry from my lips.
“Mmm,” I moan as he fills me again. “God, yes. Fuck me, Nick. I need you to fuck me hard.”
His answer is a strangled snarl against my ear. “I thought you were never going to ask.”
Chapter 21
“Enjoy the rest of your evening, Mr. Baine,” the restaurant doorman tells me as I slide into the back of my private limousine behind Avery.
At nine o’clock it’s early to be calling it a night, but after spending several hours at the opening ceremony of the recreation center and all of the press hoopla that entailed, I craved a quiet meal with Avery somewhere far away from chattering crowds and flashing cameras. The little hole-in-the-wall, cash-only Italian place in the East Village isn’t much to look at, but the home-style cooking has been bringing people back for more than a hundred years.
“That. Was. Amazing,” she says once we settle into the car and Patrick pulls away from the curb. “Hands-down the best spaghetti and meatballs I’ve ever had. And the chocolate cannoli was insane!”
I smile and take her hand in mine. “I remember you enjoy authentic Italian food, so I thought you might like this place.”
“I loved it.” She cuddles against me on the wide leather seat. “Today has been incredible.”
“I’m glad you were with me at the ceremony,” I tell her, draping my arm around her and smoothing my fingers over the soft skin of her arm. “I wouldn’t have wanted to share the day with anyone else.”
“I wouldn’t have missed for anything, Nick. Watching you up there in front of the press and hundreds of kids and their parents, telling them about your vision for the center and what you hope it brings to the community is something I’ll never forget.”
And I’ll never forget looking into the crowd and seeing her there in the front row, her face full of encouragement and excitement . . . and pride. For me. Even after everything I put her through a year ago.
Especially after the things I’ve done more recently than that.
It’s going to take me a while to purge my shame for my behavior the night we came back from the hospital together. That she’s agreed to give me another chance is nothing short of a miracle, but then, that’s what Avery has been for me from the start.
A miracle I never expected.
The angel I’ll do anything to deserve.
She shifts beside me, scooting up and pivoting to face me. “The name you gave the arts center in the building tonight—I didn’t realize you were going to dedicate it after your mom.”
I nod. “The Elizabeth Xavier Center.”
“It’s such a fitting tribute to her, Nick. The entire recreation center is really something special. Can you believe all of the creative classes are completely booked up already?”
I blow out a sigh, running a hand over my jaw. “I wasn’t expecting that, no.”
“That just speaks to the need you’re filling in the community. Maybe you should consider expanding.”
I chuckle because her mind evidently works similarly to mine. “I texted Lily before we left for the restaurant to schedule a staff meeting to discuss using this center as a model for other areas of the city.”
“Why stop there? Every city in the country could use a gathering place like the one you’ve created. Take your concept national.”
I stare at her, struck silent by the depth of my feelings for this woman. I have the faith of corporate giants and people worth many hundreds of millions of dollars, but the belief I see in Avery’s face is the one that renders me speechless. It reaches into me, to a place only she has been able to touch.
Christ, her belief in me goes beyond humbling. It staggers me.
It also gives me a strength unlike anything else before in my life.
She makes me believe I can do anything. Be anything.
Overcome anything.
“It’s been my dream all along to make this work in a big community and then one day take it wider. I don’t mean for money or recognition. I’ve got enough of one and couldn’t care less about the other. I want to do it for the kids who need a place like that. For the ones who don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Kids like you,” she says quietly, tenderly.
“Yeah. For kids like me.”
Her fingers find my hand, the one riddled with ugly scars. Her touch is light, her fingertips following the ghosts of the jagged lacerations.
Usually when I look at my scars—when I so much as think of them—my head fills with all the memories of that night, and the horrors that preceded it. My father’s raging voice, the accusations that exploded out of me, all them finally too immense for me to carry any longer. His vicious denials.
His utter repudiation of me, his son.
“You’re a good man, Dominic Baine.”
“No. I’m not. But I want to be. For you.”
“You’re the only man I want. The only one I love.”
She draws me to her mouth and kisses me. It’s unhurried and sweet, yet I can taste the need in it too. When she draws back, her eyes are heavy-lidded and dusky in the dim glow of the limousine interior and the blur of city lights that streak by on the other side of the windows.
“So, on a proper date scale of one to ten, how am I doing?”
She laughs softly, happiness beaming in her face. “Off the charts.”
I grunt in acknowledgment. “If you’re referring to this afternoon before we left for the ribbon-cutting, I agree.”
Her grin flashes. “Well, it was definitely a good start.”
“Are you suggesting you’re not finished with me, Ms. Ross?”
“Oh, I’m more than suggesting.”
“Is that right?” My brows rise, along with another part of my anatomy that’s already gotten a good head start. I glance up at the rearview mirror where my longtime driver’s eyes remain
dutifully focused on the evening traffic. “Patrick, how fast can you get us to the Park Place building?”
He chuckles. “I’ll do my best, sir.”
Avery sits up, tilting her face to whisper in my ear. “Who said anything about waiting until we get home?”
She moves my hand onto her thigh, where her skirt rides up just enough for me to skim my fingers into the heat between her legs. Her skin is infinitely soft, burning beneath my fingertips as I slide higher, into the juncture of her thighs. She’s not wearing panties.
Holy fuck.
A shallow gasp races from between her lips when I stroke into the wetness of her bare pussy. My blood pounds, all of it rushing south to my suddenly unbearable erection.
It’s not as if I haven’t been thinking about being inside her all damn day.
She’s wearing a short-sleeved navy dress that somehow manages to look classic and sophisticated while hugging every luscious curve and plunging low enough to showcase the long rope of pearls around her neck.
She caught the eye of every man in viewing distance of her, but her attention never wavered from me. And each moment she spent beside me I felt my chest swell with pride and wonder that this extraordinary, enticing woman is mine.
Now I need to hear her say the words. I need to hear her say them in a pleasured cry of release that leaves no room for doubt.
My free hand hits the privacy screen button without a word of excuse to Patrick.
As soon as we’re sealed off from my driver, Avery attacks my mouth in a searing kiss. We should be sated after the way we came together before leaving for the ceremony this afternoon. But that hard, bone-melting fuck was only a prelude to the desire that erupts between us now.
And thank God for that.
It’s been torture trying to downshift and take things slow with her the past few nights. I never want to see fear in her face when she looks at me. I’ll never cross that line with her again—that much I can promise her. But my need for her is immense.
Today she let me know in no uncertain terms that she wants this too.
Hell, on the bathroom countertop today when she spread herself open to me like an offering laid out on the altar, she demanded no less than everything I had to give her.