by Linda Conrad
“What kind of stories?”
“Ghost stories. With no electricity and all these shadows from the lanterns and candles jumping all over the room, ghost stories would be lots of fun.”
He sat down on the sofa next to her. “I don’t know any ghost stories.”
“What? What kind of education have you had?” She chuckled and her eyes danced with delight.
Then she slid a glance over his shoulder and her whole demeanor suddenly changed. Her face drew up and her eyes grew dismal. Nick turned to see what had caught her attention and ruined her mood.
As he turned, he realized that she was staring at the picture of Christina. Hell.
He stood, grabbed the photo away from its spot on the table. “There are some ghost stories better left untold.”
“Please don’t move that because of me,” she said sadly.
“Uh, I’ve been meaning to put it over behind my desk with the others of her.” He stashed it, face-down, on the credenza in the darkest corner of the room. “She never cared much for that photograph anyway.”
As he walked back to Annie’s side, Nick noticed that she had tears in her eyes. Her expression was filled with sorrow and the tears welling there were poised to spill over her face.
“Annie?” He sat down on the sofa beside her again.
“I’m sorry.” She fluttered her fingers in front of her as if to will away the tears. “It’s just such a tragic love story. A young couple with so much to look forward to.”
Nick couldn’t stand to see the pain on Annie’s face. Not when the truth of the tragedy was that there had been an absence of love. And he always felt better when Annie smiled. When she laughed, the whole world brightened.
A single drop leaked out of the corner of her eye. It tore a huge hole in him and he reached for her, rubbing a thumb under her eye to wipe her pain away with the tear.
“Annie, please…” He’d meant to say “please don’t cry.” At least, he thought that’s what he’d meant.
But somewhere there, the entire mood in the room changed with one deep breath. He lifted her chin, leaned in and traced her full, rosy lips with his tongue. It was beyond him to stop.
Annie made a small sound and threw her arms around his neck to pull him closer and deepen the kiss. She was impossible to resist.
She was everything he’d ever wanted and had refused to let himself take. Though it made him mad to admit it, he knew that all his hard-won scruples and fidelity were just about to disappear into the night right along with his honor.
She moaned again. And a red haze of desire exploded in his head as he let Annie take him completely over the edge of reason.
Four
Annie went willingly, eagerly, into Nick’s arms. Never before had she felt such power, nor such weakness.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, her mother’s voice was telling her that this was wrong. Nick was her boss and they could never have any kind of future together. But…
Nick lathed her lips with his tongue, then nudged the lips open so he could sweep into her mouth. It gave her goose bumps but she tried her best to keep up with him.
Their tongues melded together and tangled as if in some erotic slow dance. Annie held her breath as he began to thrust his tongue forcefully back and forth into her mouth—demanding, enticing, begging.
He pulled back slightly, and buried his face in her neck on a deep breath. “I…I’m sorry,” he stuttered against her skin. “I shouldn’t. But I want you so much.”
“I want you too,” she readily agreed as she clung to his shoulders. The world suddenly turned blurry, hazy and the roar of the storm faded into a velvety blue buzz in her head. “Boy, do I ever.”
On a groan, he nibbled his way up her throat as she threw back her head to give him access. He kissed her jawline, then moved to her ear. Taking the lobe in his mouth, he sucked gently then nipped with the lightest of bites. His warm breath tickled her ear.
Suddenly Annie saw stars.
“Oh my gosh. Is that the way this is supposed to feel? I know the novels say stuff about…um…” He slid his thumbs up over the tips of her breasts and she forgot the rest of her sentence—almost forgot her name.
But she did manage to remember that she didn’t want him to guess about her total lack of experience. He might not want to keep going. And he just had to be the one.
She clamped her mouth shut. But when he reached under her T-shirt and tenderly stroked her breasts, she thought she might burst wide-open with erotic pulses.
Her clothes were all of a sudden too blessed tight. The T-shirt was choking her and the shorts were binding and making her sweat, especially between the thighs.
Nick dragged her to him and pulled her up into his lap. Wow. The feel of his manhood, pressed hard and solid against her bottom, gave her a jolt of courage. She grabbed the hem of her shirt and, with one swift tug, yanked it up and over her head.
The sudden cool draft of air against her heated skin destroyed her newly found courage. Oh dear God. What had she done?
Nick’s quick intake of breath told her he thought she had acted in haste, too. Too bold for her own good.
But when she made a move to cover her breasts with her hands, he grabbed her wrists and held them to her sides.
“Don’t,” Nick said with a rasp. “Don’t cover yourself. You’re so beautiful. Please. Please just let me look at you a minute.”
Staring at her dusky, rose tips and the splash of brown freckles across her upper chest was causing a fresh blast of yearning to roll through Nick’s body. This time it was so intense it flooded his gut and then gushed to his erection with such a compelling need that he could barely breathe.
She was such a kaleidoscope of life. He dropped her hands and let his own reach for what they saw—what they had desired for so long.
His fingers lightly touched her silken face while he watched those luminous emerald eyes turn sultry with passion. Shifting one hand to the back of her head, he grabbed a handful of curls and captured her fire. It was like liquid gold, spilling through his fingers.
Tentatively, Annie unbuttoned and pushed his shirt off his shoulders before reaching out to touch his bare chest. “You’re pretty beautiful yourself. Or as they say in romance novels, ‘a fine specimen of manhood.’”
When her hand connected with his skin, they both gasped as his heart thumped wildly in his chest. Her fingers began to draw lazy circles over the planes of his flesh and muscles. She dragged a nail over a nipple, then allowed her fingers to trail down his belly toward the waistband of his shorts.
He blinked his eyes against the aroused heat and thickness in his body. Swallowing hard, he knew he had to keep his eyes open, to see clearly what he could make her body do. His fingers lingered against the smooth satin of her neck, then inched lower to the shallow indentation at the base.
Watching her face closely for any sign of distress, he saw that her lips parted slightly as he lowered his hand to cup one breast. It fit perfectly into his palm, so once more he gingerly moved his thumb over the tip. And this time he was able to watch it peak for him.
Annie closed her eyes and took a breath, as if the feel of his hands on her skin was the most exquisite thing that had ever happened to her. She arched her back, urging him ever closer.
Just one taste. Someplace in the back of his mind, he knew this must stop. But first he had to experience all that striking energy—how it would taste—how it would feel against the flat of his tongue.
She looked up at him with heavy-lidded eyes. “Nick, please…”
The sound of his name, drew him up and he swore softly. “This is a huge mistake,” he growled as he dropped his hands. He let her slide off his lap and began to inch away from her.
“No.” She took his hand, put it back to her breast and held it there with her own. “Please touch me. Kiss me. Make love with me.”
The look on her face ran a shudder of desire through his body as he struggled to be fair—to someone. But
he wasn’t exactly sure who. He just had to be sure the situation was something Annie understood.
“I have nothing to offer you but…this one night,” he told her in a rough voice. “I can’t give you…I can’t give anyone…”
“I know,” she said softly. “It’s okay. I understand.” She smiled with that devastating need, shining clear and transparent in her eyes—and he was totally lost.
He braced a hand on the sofa and touched her face with the other as he leaned in for another kiss. She tasted so good, just the way she looked. Like red cherry and chocolate candy. Like being caught up in a whirlwind of color and magic.
Dizzy, he slid off the sofa and knelt before her but never broke the kiss. She was so tiny that he could reach her better from this position. With his knees sinking into the thick oriental rug below them, he forgot all about the storm outside and concentrated instead on capturing the storm of her desire.
Annie put her arms around his shoulders and pulled him to her, pressing her naked breasts to his chest. The quiver of need was like nothing she had ever felt before. She rubbed her tender nipples back and forth against the smattering of hair and held her breath.
Intense bolts of pleasure moved downward from her breasts, landing with a surprise of tingles way deep inside her. She could have sworn she felt those zesty bubbles all the way down in that secret spot between her legs, though it didn’t seem possible.
She heard herself moan and vaguely wondered if she should be quiet. Do nothing to ruin the mood or make him change his mind.
A small and fleeting thought about the possibility of getting pregnant chased through her mind. But then she remembered that he’d said that he and his wife had tried and couldn’t.
That thought depressed her again. But when Nick began to nibble his way down her neck and chest, she totally forgot everything but the sensations he was creating across her skin and deep within her body.
He rubbed his hands up and down her spine as he tasted and sucked first one nipple then the other.
“Nick,” she groaned. “Wait. Let me touch you, too.”
He pulled his head up and gazed into her blazing green eyes, full of passion and want. Holding on to her shoulders so he wouldn’t spin right off the planet, he let her run her palms across his face, neck and chest. As she touched and explored, her expression became dazed, her eyes glazed over.
His breathing became ever more ragged. Thunder began to build in his head and split through his blood. A roar of passion to replace the noise of the storm outside. But he resolved to let this passionate leprechaun do as she wished. Just so long as she allowed him to watch as the pleasure ran across her expressive face.
He watched as her skin flushed a rosy shade of pink. The blush moved across her chest, and on up her neck to her cheeks. Flaming her. Burning him with desire.
Patience, he cautioned himself. It had been so long, and she was more wonderful than he’d thought possible.
Make it last.
It had been two years since he’d so much as touched a woman. But even back then he had not needed Christine this desperately. He wanted to experience everything with Annie, every second of the fire that was all-consuming.
She moved her hands up his neck then touched his chin, his forehead, his eyelids. As if she too wanted this to last, and was trying to memorize every inch of him.
Her eyes were aflame, blazing emerald with irises black with passion. He glanced down her body and saw the dusky nipples darken to deepest purple as the blood pulsed through her. It made him wonder what other parts of her might be darkening as they engorged with blood and fire.
He gave himself permission to touch her at will, to flick a nail over her extended tips. To run his hands up and down her rib cage and capture her breasts in his palms, weighing them and cherishing them. She fit his hands exactly.
The weird sensation of being made for each other, of somehow finding the other half of him, made him sway into her. He nipped her lips with a light touch. She moaned and dug her nails into his shoulders, dragging him to her and deepening the kiss.
The sweetness of her mouth combined with the sweet pain of her nails on his skin, drove his sex further into arousal. He pushed her backward on the sofa, gasping and groaning like an animal.
Running his hands down her sides, he ripped her shorts from her body with one swift tug. She lay naked before him, an intense and luxuriant goddess with a glazed expression.
He wanted to touch her everywhere. Taste her everywhere. The hunger was fierce inside him, driving him to do things he’d never done.
Burying his face in her abdomen, he circled her belly button with his tongue. Her skin was smooth, silky, like the glide of expensive brandy down his throat.
Moving lower, he licked a path toward the ginger colored curls at the apex of her thighs. As he stole a taste of her, he glanced back up to her face and saw the pleasure she was feeling written clearly there.
The hues of her were spectacular. Reds of desire, and hazy deep purples of need.
Nick wanted to give in to her every wish, just as she was giving him everything he had ever wanted. Everything he could ever imagine.
Touching her nub with the edge of his tongue, Nick lifted her hips then slid a finger into her warm, wet depths. Annie moaned and writhed her hips. She drove her hands into his hair in a violent rage.
He knew the feeling well. His own resolve to go slow faltered and fell by the wayside as he stood, dragging his running shorts down and off with one quick flick of his wrist. He could manage no more.
He paused a second to draw a breath and looked down at Annie, her eyes were round, her lips parted. She made a tiny mewling noise and reached out to touch his rigid sex.
Annie tentatively ran a finger up his shaft, blinking at the moisture she found at the tip. He groaned and pulled her hand away, afraid he would embarrass himself beyond redemption if he didn’t have her now. Right now.
Urging her to lay lengthwise on the sofa, he fit himself between her legs. Not breathing and not thinking, he lowered himself to his elbows and took her face in his hands as his sex nudged her waiting warmth.
Her hands moved over his back and she arched, silently pleading with him to take her higher. He was more than ready to oblige.
He caught her buttocks in one hand and prepared to fit himself within her depths as he lifted her body up to meet his. It was a slow and agonizingly pleasurable venture inside her waiting warmth. So good. So right.
He groaned and he let himself inch deeper. Wanting this to be good for her, he stopped with only his tip buried where he was dying to follow. He wanted to give her a moment to adjust to his size. She was tight, warm, wet. Ready.
Annie stilled under him and for a moment he thought that’s what she was doing, judging his fit, allowing the pleasure to wash over and through her. Then he went a millimeter deeper and felt the resistance, heard her intake of breath.
“Annie? My God. You’re not…” He was stunned and puzzled. All this passion and erotic color lying under him. She couldn’t be…
“Please don’t stop, Nick. Please.” The agonizing plea in her voice, the desperate need so clear in her words, probably wouldn’t have been enough to drive him over the edge and do something that was so wrong.
But she planted her feet on either side of his hips, gripped him and arched upward. Hard. Hard enough to drive him past all resistance and impale him deep inside her body.
She breathed a relieved sigh. “Thank heaven. Hurry, Nick. Please hurry.”
And in that instant, he was gone. All he could see, all he could hear, all he could feel was her glorious heat, surrounding him and gripping him with overwhelming desire.
She was sobbing under him, begging innocently with her body for something she couldn’t know. He bent his neck and sucked her nipple into his mouth as he fought to show her.
When her body began to shudder around him, Annie moaned with a low, keening cry that sounded like it had been ripped from her body. She dug
her nails into his back and bit his shoulder as the shock waves rolled over them both.
Once again, in the deep recesses of his mind, the feeling that everything was exactly the way it should be slid in and out of his consciousness.
Nick shoved the strange feeling aside and gave way to the rippling pull of passion. He thrust into her with a violent and mindless madness until he too felt waves of frantic release. Grasping her tightly to him, he let the power and the magic roll over them as they flew high above the storm—high above reality—and rode the lightning bolts safe in each others arms.
Reality returned to Annie in stages. Euphoria and boneless giddiness came first as Nick kissed her senseless. Their breathing was erratic. Their legs and arms still intimately entwined.
Wow. Oh wow. So this was what her sisters had raved about. No, couldn’t be. This was so much better than any description she’d ever heard or read. She was dazzled.
Finally, Nick lifted his upper body, leaned on his elbows and cradled her head between his huge hands. “Are you all right?” His eyes were glazed, his expression rather foggy, but his first thought was for her welfare.
“Wonderful. How about you?” To her ears, that shaky whisper had come out sounding more like a purr. Small wonder. She felt as contented as a well-fed kitten.
His eyes smiled while he placed tiny kisses all over her face. On her eyelids, her chin, her temple. Nick was adoring her, cherishing her with his lips. The kisses were such intimate gestures that she nearly cried from the beauty of them.
“I’m dizzy with wanting you. Again.” He shifted his hips, pulling free. But she still felt the power in his lower body as it pressed hard against hers. “And again.”
Annie reached her arms as far around his waist as they would go and squeezed him tightly to her. “Sounds good to me.” She could stay here with him like this forever.
Touching his lips lightly to hers, he groaned against them. “You are so free. God, you’re generous and…exquisite.”
She wiggled her bottom and got another groan for her trouble.
He raised his head again to gaze into her eyes. “But any more tonight would be too much for your first time. You were a virgin, Annie. Why didn’t you say something?”
