FIANCÉ FOR HIRE

by Pamela Burford

Chapter 11

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  "Don't ask me for a coin," Nick said, both amused and intrigued by this turn of events. "I'm not tossing you for the bed."

  They stood in Amanda's bedroom, on either side of her queen-size bed, which was draped in a silky, pale yellow and ivory striped comforter.

  "It's as if the whole world is conspiring to throw us into bed together!" she snapped. "First that hotel suite, now this! It's almost as if they all know what we've been up to."

  "It might be a good idea to keep our voices down."

  "There's nowhere to sleep in here but the bed," she fretted. "Except the floor. Maybe if I put a thick comforter on the carpet. I can make a kind of sleeping pallet…"

  "You're going to make me sleep on the floor?"

  "No, I will."

  "Not this again. Amanda, neither one of us is going to sleep on the floor when there's a bed right here that's plenty big enough for two." She started to shake her head, and he added dryly, "I think I can manage to control myself."

  "Yes, I'm sure you can."

  He frowned. What was that about? "Listen, we don't seem to have much choice about sleeping arrangements." He pulled off his cream-colored fisherman's sweater and tossed it on the chair in front of her dressing table. "I'm going to bed."

  She eyed him suspiciously. "You don't have any pajamas here."

  Nick grinned. "This is where you finally get to see what I wear under my breeches." He stripped off his undershirt, shoes and socks, and unbuckled the belt holding up his khaki slacks. Amanda seemed not to know where to look. Silly of her to be embarrassed, considering all that had transpired between them on New Year's Eve. He dropped his pants and laid them on the chair over his sweater, then held his arms out from his sides, inviting her to look her fill.

  She did, at last. A small smile crept onto her face. "I was wrong."

  "You said white briefs." He snapped the elastic waistband of his plaid boxer shorts. "Your turn. I'm guessing a silk satin bra and a pair of those little bikini panties cut high on the legs. Maybe even a thong."

  Her smile was lopsided as she scooped a pair of pj's—pale pink silk this time—out of a drawer and headed for the adjoining master bathroom. "I'll let you keep guessing."

  After Amanda was finished in the bathroom, Nick washed up. When he came out, she was already in bed, lying on her back near one edge of it. The table lamp on the other side was lit, and he turned it off as he slid between the cool sheets next to her. No parts of their bodies touched, yet he sensed her tension. They lay quietly in the dark, listening to Amanda's houseguests get settled for the night. Finally all was quiet.

  Nick couldn't see her, but his other senses compensated. If he listened carefully, he could hear her soft inhalations. Her warmth crept to his side of the bed, bringing with it the intoxicating scent of her, reminding him of New Year's Eve and another bed. Too vividly he recalled the feel of her under his hands, the taste of her, the way she'd moved against him, with an artless passion that belied her self-appointed label of Ice Queen. He recalled, too, the monumental effort it had taken to stop, to get up and walk out of the room.

  And he recalled her hurt and embarrassment when he had. Nick turned his head, squinting in the dark, trying without success to make out her profile. They'd never talked about that. Each time he'd brought it up, she'd put him off.

  "Amanda." His voice was low, practically a whisper. He sensed her turning toward him. "What did you mean before, when you said you were sure I could control myself sharing a bed with you?"

  After a moment she said, "I didn't mean anything. Except that you were only stating the obvious."

  Nick shifted onto his side, leaning up on an elbow. "Do you think it's easy?"

  Her harsh sigh told him she didn't want to discuss it.

  Too bad. "Answer me, Amanda."

  "I'm tired, Nick. Good night."

  The truth struck him with the force of a wrecking ball. "You think I didn't really want to make love with you on New Year's."

  "There's no need to belabor this."

  "How can you doubt how much I wanted you? Wasn't it obvious—"

  "You restrained yourself easily enough," she snapped. The covers moved, and Nick knew she was throwing her arms over her eyes, as if to block out the unpleasant memories.

  He couldn't hold back a wry chuckle. "I know that you know how turned on I was. We were lying too close for there to be any doubt on that score."

  "That doesn't mean anything. My ex-husbands had healthy libidos, too. It didn't change how they felt about me. It didn't make them care—" Her voice broke.

  Nick didn't think, he simply enfolded her in his arms. She resisted, as he'd known she would.

  "Don't," she said. "I don't want your pity."

  "Does this feel like pity?" He took her hand and pressed it to his erection, which was straining the fabric of his boxer shorts. "And don't tell me it doesn't mean anything. What do you think, that men are like dogs or pigs, that they'll respond on cue every time, no matter how great an aversion they have to the woman they're with?"

  "I didn't say that, I just—" She tried to pull her hand away. He didn't let her. She gave a huff of annoyance. "You said it yourself. Men are always looking for another warm body, another conquest."

  "And what sets us apart from the dogs and the pigs is that sometimes we just look. I can't speak for those two clowns you married, but this—" he drew her hand up the length of his engorged penis, and down it "—is not some autonomic glandular response to the mere presence of a female. If you haven't figured out yet how outrageously attracted I am to you, then you're completely delusional."

  Amanda went still. "Don't say that. It…"

  "Complicates things. I know." Nick kissed her hard, pulling her under him, pressing her into the mattress. It was a demanding, possessive kiss, and he didn't let her up for air until she'd softened and begun to respond. And then he released her mouth only to feverishly yank at the buttons of her pajama top.

  Amanda didn't try to stop him, and it was a good thing, because Nick wasn't sure he could stop. His hunger for her had slipped its leash, driving him, propelling him toward the inevitable. Roughly he pulled the silk top down her arms and off of her, hearing something rip. Her breath came in fast, agitated rasps. He knew he should slow down and do it right, but he was beyond that.

  Nick pulled Amanda's pajama bottoms off just as swiftly, and his own boxer shorts, goaded by the perfume of her arousal, by the urgency of her soft hands on his body, by his own ungovernable need, too long denied.

  She wrapped herself around him as he mounted her, as he pushed into her, into the astonishingly tight, slick depths of her. She gasped, and clung to him, and he groaned deep in his chest, overcome by the sharp, biting pleasure that rocketed through him.

  She moaned his name, again and again, arching against him, bringing them even closer together. The bedcovers were tangled around them; automatically he kicked them away.

  Sex had never been like this for Nick. Never before had reason fled so completely, to be replaced by pure mating instinct, the visceral, primordial need to join himself with another. He suspected the same was true for Amanda. She moved like a wild thing beneath him, locked into an age-old rhythm, uttering guttural, uninhibited sounds that pushed him right to the edge.

  Amanda curled a leg around his thigh as if to lever herself over him. Nick easily rolled the two of them to position her on top. He still couldn't see her, but the impenetrable darkness only heightened the glut of sensation. Her slim thighs flexed under his fingers as she raised and lowered herself, drawing him into her slippery, welcoming heat. He slid his hands over her hips, her slender waist, up her rib cage and higher.

  Her breath caught as he stroked those beautiful, dainty breasts and plucked the stiff tips. Her feminine muscles tightened around him, and he groaned and laughed at the same time, perilously close to climax.

  He felt Amanda's fingers on his face, her touch soft and delicate as she traced his feature
s. She stroked his eyelids and brushed her fingertips over his lashes. Her fingers moved down his nose and across his cheek, where they discovered his dimple.

  "You're smiling," she said.

  "I'm happy." His hands caressed her everywhere as the two of them moved in tandem. "I don't think I've ever been happier."

  Her fingers lit on his mouth, as if to silence him. Perhaps she wanted to think of this as pure physical gratification, nothing more. A simple act of sex devoid of the threat posed by intimacy and emotional entanglements. His lips grasped her fingertip and his tongue teased it. A little sound escaped her. Her movements became faster, more frenzied. Clasping her hips, he angled them, and his own, so he'd stroke her in just the right place.

  Amanda's hair whipped Nick's face. Urgent sounds escaped her as she reached for her release. He felt it gather in her, felt her body tense, and shudder, and rock under the force of it, felt her intimate flesh contract around him, urging him to let himself go.

  Nick bucked hard under her, clamping his fingers around her hips, emptying himself in waves of pure scalding pleasure. She collapsed on top of him. After a moment they shifted to lie entwined, their lungs pumping like bellows, their hearts galloping in unison.

  When Nick could speak, he said, "I think we can officially lay the Ice Queen label to rest."

  Amanda laughed, much to Nick's relief. He'd half expected her to withdraw from him, weighed down by regret and fear of commitment. Perhaps she would, later, but for now, she was his.

  And unbeknownst to her, he was that much closer to his goal.

  She snuggled closer to him. He asked, "Are you cold?" They were both naked and damp with sweat, and the room was chilly.

  She nodded and groped with her feet for the comforter he'd discarded earlier.

  "I have a better idea," Nick said, and pulled her up with him.

  A scant minute later, Amanda found herself standing under the hot spray of the shower with Nick. In the diffuse light filtering through the steam and the smoked-glass shower doors, he looked like sin incarnate, with his strong, finely hewn features, his swarthy coloring and that incandescent smile. Not to mention his powerful, perfectly proportioned body, revealed to her at last in its entirety.

  Nick had the kind of muscle definition that resulted from hard work and a high-octane lifestyle, rather than hours a day spent lifting heavy things in a health club. His chest was wide and hard, with just the right amount of crisp dark hair, tapering over a flat, corrugated belly and thighs thick with sinew.

  Amanda pushed her wet hair off her face and watched him roll the bar of soap in his hands, looking her over as if deciding where to start. She could have told him that certain parts of her were even now clamoring for his attention, but something told her that Nick would work his way around to them eventually. He brought the clear, blue-green soap to his nose. It was a natural glycerine soap scented with a distinctive fragrance called Mist. She had it shipped to her regularly from a little shop in London. Nick's eyes held an appreciative glint as he said, "Smells like you. Turn around."

  She did, letting the spray pummel her front as Nick spread lather on her back. His big hands moved in circles down to her waist and over the flare of her hips.

  He murmured, "You're exquisite, Amanda."

  The buzz of sensual awareness had never left her, and now it grew stronger as he lazily washed her, paying close attention to the sensitive skin of her bottom. His slippery fingers caressed her, kneaded the muscles, lightly skimmed up the rear cleft, sending an electric jolt through her.

  Amanda leaned her palms on the tile wall and raised her face to the spray as Nick gave the same loving attention to her legs. Each time his fingers stroked up the insides of her thighs, they inched a little higher. She was trembling slightly when he turned her to face him.

  Her gaze moved from the soap he was rolling between his palms, to his face. The hint of a smile touched his dark eyes, along with something else, something that caused a tingle of anticipation to race along every nerve ending.

  Amanda felt almost drugged as she watched his hands, so dark and rough in contrast to her pale skin, slide up and down her arms, lathering them thoroughly, massaging each finger in turn. Slowly he rubbed the bar of soap across her shoulder and circled one breast, his intense gaze following its progress. She felt the nipple tighten, felt a voluptuous heaviness settle between her legs.

  Never, during either of her marriages, had she wanted to have sex twice in one night. Not that it had ever been an issue, as both Roger and Ben had regularly lapsed into unconsciousness within seconds of orgasm—almost always leaving her unsatisfied, a circumstance they had, naturally, blamed on her.

  Now, for the first time ever, she was eager for a repeat performance. Amanda knew it had nothing to do with her protracted period of abstinence. What she and Nick had just shared was a first for her. If she'd known it could be like that, she might never have tied the knot with those two selfish bastards in the first place.

  Dropping her gaze, she saw that she wasn't the only one ready for round number two. Nick remained rampantly, unashamedly aroused as he smoothed lather over both breasts with the painstaking care of a pastry chef icing twin cakes. He paid special attention to the erect peaks before directing his attention to her stomach, hips and thighs, leaving a frothy layer of bubbles in his wake.

  "When do I get my turn?" Amanda asked.

  "I'm not finished." Nick proved it by pressing a soapy hand between her legs, which immediately threatened to buckle. "But if you'd rather I stopped…"

  "No!" Amanda grabbed his shoulders for support as his slick fingers began a leisurely exploration. "Don't stop."

  And he didn't. He caressed her with loving skill as his other hand tipped her head back. He sipped at the water trailing over her eyelids. He licked the droplets clinging to her lips. She shivered. Her legs parted, of their own accord. So did her mouth. His tongue slipped between her lips as his fingers circled her most sensitive spot, wringing a groan of pure animal need from her.

  Shamelessly Amanda rode his hand, rocking into his caress, clawing his shoulders, feeling the exquisite tension in her belly coil tighter and tighter.

  In the next instant, Nick was lifting her and turning her, and bracing her back against the tile wall opposite the shower head as she instinctively wrapped her legs around his hips. He pressed into her in one long, smooth stroke, never taking his gaze from hers. Something passed between them then, something both frightening and exhilarating. In that instant Amanda knew that she'd been changed forever. No matter what the future held for her, Nick Stephanos had left his stamp.

  Amanda had never experienced anything like the fierce, stabbing pleasure of taking Nick inside her body. It was a sensation so intense, it was akin to being turned inside out, body and soul.

  The shower spray bounced off his back and her lower legs as he drove himself even deeper into her, holding her up with seeming effortlessness. The soapy lather between their bodies acted as an erotic lubricant between her sensitized breasts and the rough hair of his chest. Their mouths mated as enthusiastically as their bodies, his tongue thrusting and retreating in the same primal rhythm. Never in her life had Amanda felt so thoroughly, so ruthlessly, so deliciously possessed.

  Nick relinquished her mouth at last, though the pace of his loving never slowed. "You're going to come more than once this time."

  "I know."

  His dimple was the last thing she saw before he lowered his mouth once more.

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  Chapter 12

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  "Would you pass that syrup down here?" Cousin Barb called, from way down the long row of diner tables that had been pushed together to accommodate the party of fourteen.

  "Regular or blueberry?" Amanda asked.

  "Strawberry."

  "You got it."

  Amanda had enjoyed Sunday breakfast at Wafflemania hundreds of times during the past thirty years, but never with a crowd this size. She and Nick had arrived at the
diner a half hour earlier with her parents, grandparents, and Barb and her husband, Hal, only to find Sunny and Kirk, Raven and Hunter, and Charli and Grant already there, waiting for them.

  Winter sunshine poured through the large windows of the diner's busy main room, highlighting every speck of dust on the plastic ferns hanging from the ceiling. Amanda always found this pedestrian setting, as well as the familiar aromas of greasy food and strong coffee, strangely comforting.

  Nick sat next to her at the end of the long table. Eyeing her breakfast, he said, "I still can't believe you can be satisfied with a bowl of yogurt topped with granola and banana slices. And then there's…" He tapped her ever-present mug of jasmine tea.

  "It's what I always order," she said. "This or a half cantaloupe with cottage cheese. Which doesn't happen to be in season at the moment."

  He grinned. "I never knew you were such a creature of habit."

  "What can I tell you? If I regularly ate what everyone else here is having—" she nodded toward Sunny's Belgian waffle crowned with vanilla ice cream and hot fudge, and Perry's three-egg western omelet with sausage, toast and home fries "—I'd weigh two hundred pounds."

  Nick glanced at his own partially eaten breakfast: two fried eggs, a stack of pancakes and a pile of extra-crispy bacon. And plenty of black coffee. "I'll work this off walking around Manhattan taking pictures this afternoon." He met her gaze directly. "Why don't you join me."

  A real date, in other words. Just the two of them, without the "audience" that had given a purpose to all their other get-togethers these past three months.

  When she didn't respond, he added, "Come on—it'll be fun. Afterward we can check out this terrific Greek restaurant I found."

  Amanda took a deep breath. Keeping her voice low, she said, "I don't think that would be a good idea, Nick"

  His expression didn't change. It was as if he'd expected her refusal.

  She wanted nothing more than to stroll around the city with Nick today, chatting and laughing, watching him snap pictures, maybe buying a couple of New York City's famous "dirty water" hot dogs from a street vendor.