The oil shimmered on Nicki’s thighs as she tensed again, but he whispered reassurance while his fingers dragged along the outside of her lean hips and strong legs before curving in again. “Have I done anything you haven’t enjoyed so far?” he asked.
“No…oh, God no,” she said, her heavy lidded eyes watching him as she struggled up onto her elbows. “But you’re going above and beyond the call of duty here—seriously.”
“And you’re not following directions,” he smiled. “You’re supposed to be relaxing.” His hands shifted, his fingers dipping down into the vee between her legs, running along the outermost edge of her most sensitive skin.
Nicki’s gasp was tight. “You seriously expect me to relax while you’re doing that?”
“I expect you to try.” Stefan held her gaze, drinking in the sheer vitality of the woman who lay open before him, his to cherish and hold…and to thoroughly, completely enjoy. “I don’t think you’re trying hard enough.”
Chapter Fifteen
Nicki flopped back down on the bed as Stefan pulled her legs wider, her mind lost in a riot of sensation. The midday sun streamed through the windows leaving nothing to shadows or gloom, but she didn’t feel self-conscious about her body fully revealed to him. If anything, her body was something she could count on, at least the outside of it. She knew she was fit, knew she looked as good as her genetics would allow. She wasn’t embarrassed, despite Stefan’s intimate gaze.
But she was close to toppling over the edge, before the man had even laid a finger on her where it mattered most.
Stefan solved that problem as she thought it, dragging a soft finger against the tiny nub of nerves that made up the pinnacle point of sensation for her, the exact nexus of need and want that had her clenching the sheets with her fists as he zeroed in. Then he moved off it as quickly, and it was all she could do not to reach up and guide him back, give him a map, read off GPS coordinates if it would get him back to where he needed to be.
“Patience,” Stefan breathed and Nicki’s eyes shot open, only to see him watching her face as he brushed his fingers against her once again. “I want to explore your body, to touch and taste you. That will take time.”
“Not too much time, I hope,” she gritted out. He swirled his fingers closer to where she most wanted him. He grazed her clit and she sucked in a breath, her legs locking down to stay still, and he rumbled a soft laugh.
“So sensitive,” he murmured. And he spread his fingers over the skin of her inner thighs, kneading the oil in more deeply. He lowered his mouth to her hipbone and touched his teeth against the skin that rested above the bony knob, the shock and pleasure of the nip startling her. She jumped beneath his touch and his laughter sounded again, but his mouth trailed a scorching trail over her leg and down the curve of her inner thigh, not stopping until his tongue had replaced his fingers over the sensitive folds of skin. He suckled her clit, and Nicki felt the pull of need more strongly than ever, the urge to burst getting inexorably closer.
“Yes, yes,” she muttered as if it were some kind of incantation to bring what she most wanted into reality.
Stefan was happy to comply. His right hand shifted to grip her outer hip, and he flicked his tongue over her in a rapid staccato of movement that made her breath catch in her throat, her heat beginning to stutter step but only for the best of reasons as he twisted her higher and higher, seeming to know instinctively when she would crest, when she would break, and easing back from that brink in time—only to start the progression all over again, each rushing tide faster and faster as she built toward her release.
“I think, perhaps, this—”
Nicki’s brain melted as the unmistakable pressure of Stefan’s fingers slipped fully inside her channel, pausing momentarily at the brink before dipping deep inside her. As he filled her, he pressed more insistently against her clit, this time with his mouth, his tongue, the slight scrape of his teeth. The rushing tide became a waterfall and a strangled cry escaped Nicki’s mouth before she clamped her teeth shut, half lifting out of the bed as the orgasm shook her entire body. She bucked, hard, but Stefan only let up a little, allowing her to settle back into the sheets only a half breath before his tongue skated again over the over-sensitized skin, his pressure both within and without driving her toward another impossible release before the first one was complete.
“Stefan—I can’t—” was all that Nicki could manage before she tumbled over the edge a second time, and then he did withdraw, but only briefly until he returned to her body, holding her against him, her back to his chest as she half-curled into a quivering mass of convulsions.
“Shhh,” he said, again and again as she trembled in his arms. Surprisingly, she felt the sudden need to cry, and she blinked her eyes hard against the sensation. Stefan merely tightened his hold around her, his murmurs sliding between English to what had to be Garronois and back to English again. He let her mind race without interruption, through its twisting, turning thoughts—and if he knew she was enduring a cacophony of reactions he gave no indication. He merely held her, as if they had all the time in the world.
Nicki blinked out toward the windows of the hotel room, where light poured in past the sheer curtains. From this angle, she couldn’t see the ocean or the city, or the boats clogging the bay. She could only see the crystal blue sky, staggering in its beauty, with only a few clouds chasing across. How many times had she laughed up into that sky, whether she was clinging to a mountain or toeing the edge of a cliff or standing at the top of a summit? That same exultation swamped her, the sense of it dizzying her almost—but not the dizzy of danger, of her heart beating too fast and her blood coursing too slow. It was the dizzy of magic, the dizzy of possibility.
She blinked. It was the dizzy of falling in love.
Oh, no you don’t, she willed herself as Stefan leaned forward to nuzzle her shoulder. No, no, no. This wasn’t real, what she had with Stefan. This wasn’t long term. It couldn’t be. Stefan wasn’t lovestruck. She’d caught his fancy and she was certain he was earnest in all of his compliments, but she was a moment’s fascination with him. The same way he was a moment’s fascination for her.
Yeah. Exactly like that.
She schooled her breath to slow, her legs to unkink, and reaching her point of relaxation was easier than she thought it would be.
When she unbent enough for his satisfaction Stefan spoke again.
“Had enough? Or would you—” His thick shaft nudged against her back, and she turned more fully to him, pulling him over onto her as she lay back on the bed again.
“Please,” she said, surprised at the brokenness of her voice as she realized he was already sheathed. “I want—yes.”
Fortunately, Stefan had added “satisfied garble” to his list of foreign languages, and understood what she wanted perfectly. Slowly, with infinite gentleness, he leaned forward and nudged against her center, waiting until the next paroxysm of tremors subsided to ease himself into her. She sucked in a breath as he stretched her, but his gaze was locked on her face and when she met his stare, her body relaxed all at once, allowing him to slide into her with greater ease. He pressed forward, filling her, and her legs flopped loosely to the side, her back arching. She savored the pure sensual pleasure of the two of them so intimately connected.
“Good?” Stefan asked, and she sensed the intensity of his stare—she’d closed her eyes again, and now she fluttered her lids open to meet his beautiful blue-gray eyes. He watched her with such infinite tenderness and unmistakable desire that her heart swelled with joy—it was so much—too much—yet she wouldn’t trade this moment for the world.
“Good,” she managed, her mouth wobbling into a smile. “So, so good.”
A surge of triumph surged through Stefan’s blood, quick and hot, thickening his shaft further and causing the muscles in his back to knot up, if only to keep his position steady over Nicki’s sweat and oil-slicked body. She surrounded him with heat and need, and he pulsed inside her, glorying
in the wonder of her strength, her intensity, her passion.
Her lids drifted shut again, but he knew she was struggling to focus, to store up every touch, every twitch, every pressure of his body against his. She was no stranger to sex—no stranger to him anymore—but with her headlong race through life he suspected she didn’t often take the time to truly indulge herself. He would give her that time, though he could almost hear the crash and clank of her thoughts banging around in her head. She couldn’t rest but that her mind started up with all the fervor usually reserved for her body.
He wasn’t unfamiliar with the condition.
Now he rocked into her with gradually increasing speed. He could afford to let the pressure build up within him, secure that Nicki was beneath him, surrounding him, willing to ride this tide of pleasure for as long as it might last. He watched as her body relaxed further, the reaction allowing him to bury himself further with each thrust. At some point the tide of his urgency woke an echoing response within her, and her lids fluttered open again, her sex-glazed stare meeting his, flickering with renewed desire. Her mouth curved into a grin as her hands came up, curling around his forearms.
“You’re the one who’s perfect,” she said, her words a purely feminine purr. “God—you are built exactly—right. You are.”
The words seemed oddly truncated to him, like half of what she’d meant to say, but at that moment Nicki tightened around him, and Stefan’s brain short-circuited briefly before coming back online. She continued to roll her muscles along the straining length of his cock, and she smiled up with him with clear knowledge of what she was doing.
“Showing off?” he murmured, dipping down to kiss her.
“It’s important to exercise your muscles whenever you can,” she said. “Especially your core.”
“My compliments to your physical trainer. On second thought, he’s a dead man.”
Stefan lifted himself to his knees, bracing her hips on his thighs as her legs stretched to accommodate the movement. He went further still, though, bringing her ankles up until her legs were veed in front of his face, her ankles bracketing his jaw.
“What are you doing—” Nicki laughed as bent into her, and her thighs tensed even as they accepted the gentle pressure he was applying.
“Every good workout demands stretching as well,” he said, sinking into her as her body accepted the different pose.
“You’re so good to me,” Nicki said wryly, but her head tilted back and she sighed, her legs lengthening into the stretch. “That feels…unreasonably good.”
It was the expression on her face that did him in. She watched him with pure, unfiltered pleasure lighting her features, her eyes half-lidded, her face creased with a slight smile, and that was all it really took. The need built up within him, quick and hot, and his grip firmed on her ankles, urging her knees to bend and allow her legs to relax as he rocked into her.
“Ohhh—” Nicki’s gaze was fixed on his face, her eyes alert, searching, and once again he sensed she was tracking his movements, his reactions, cataloging his every shift to play it back later. He didn’t plan on letting the experience fade into memory, and the thought of that ratcheted him up further, until he hissed her name through his teeth and she grabbed his forearms, moving with him, rocking with him, experiencing the explosion that jolted through him as he felt it shatter him completely, everything he wanted, yearned for, needed suddenly releasing in a swift and fiery rush.
He collapsed to the side, rolling away from Nicki briefly as she moved as well—then froze. “I’m covered in oil,” she said, staring down at herself. “I think if I move I’m going to destroy these sheets.”
“You worry too much.”
She snorted. “You’re the absolute first person to ever accuse me of that.” But she remained on the bed as he fetched towels, and the cleanup of her body required another shower, and then an extensive drying off period that filled the room with laughter and teasing and the kind of kisses that alternated between long and slow and fast and hard. And Stefan watched the hours slip by too quickly, until suddenly it was three p.m.—which he knew only by Nicki’s reaction.
“Is that right?” she squeaked. “That can’t be right—is that really right?”
“What?” He glanced up from where he was pulling on his boxers—and Nicki pointed to the clock.
“I have to be at the beach in an hour—an hour! Ready to give a demonstration. That means I need to be there in all truth in a half hour, which means we should already be on our way!”
She flew to the dresser, pulling out clothes and throwing things on the floor until she found what she needed. Then, as if suddenly realizing what she’d done, she picked up the discards and shoved them back in the drawer—all more quickly than Stefan could draw breath to protest.
She was wriggling into a sport suit when he finally got words out. “We’re only a few minutes away from the beach by speedboat—we’ll go that way.”
“Great!” she said, diving for another drawer. He had a feeling he’d see a second avalanche of clothing. “Go get ready—and hurry! I don’t want to give Omir a reason to cancel the tour again tomorrow. Go!”
Stefan went, not trying to stay his laughter. Nicki had transformed from languorous to hyper alert in the blink of an eye, all over a demo that she was doing not for love, not for money—but simply because it was the one thing required of her to get the mission to the next step. As ridiculous as that sounded, it was enough motivation for her.
He was still laughing as he emerged from his own room a few minutes later, to find Nicki already at his door, wearing a sundress over her bathing suit. “The concierge said you’re right, said you’d called for a boat—it’s only a few minutes,” she blurted. “But we’ve got to go!”
They made it to the marina in less than ten minutes, Nicki chattering the whole way, mapping out her planned moves for the demonstration.
“It’ll be quick, I’m thinking, maybe only twenty minutes though could be up to an hour,” she said, shouting over at him as they streaked across the bay toward the open beach. “I have no idea if I’ll like their equipment, but I’m sure they’ve got top of the line stuff. It depends on how its rigged.”
The wind was whipping around them, forcing her to stand close to him in order to be heard. He didn’t mind. While he refrained from wrapping an arm around her, he leaned in close ostensibly to hear her chatter about the demo. In truth, however, he simply wanted to be nearer to her, as near as he could manage in the public eye. She was a live wire once more, all the fogginess of her mood directly after the short fall at the cliff gone, and her breathless excitement was intoxicating.
She pounded his arm. “Are you listening to me?”
“Every word,” he shouted back, transferring his gaze to the beach as they neared it. “Who’ll be out there with you?”
She turned and squinted, then nodded briskly, up on her toes, as if she was going to hop overboard and swim if that would get her there to shore more quickly. The boat banked and cut speed, heading through the no wake zone.
“Josef—that’s half his staff right there, on the beach talking to the crowd. Oh good, they have kids. They’re the best with wind surfing, it’s so much like play they pick it up quickly, not as intimidating as surfboarding or as boring as bodyboarding. That’ll be—” she flashed a glance at him, coloring visibly despite the glare. “Sorry,” she said. “I chatter when I get nervous.”
He lifted his brows. “This demonstration makes you nervous?”
“Any performance does. It’s part of what makes it good, I guess, but I’m always keyed up, even for something simple, at least until I get rolling on it.” She blew out a breath. “Once I get rolling I’m fine, usually. I simply have to get started.”
The boat swung in close to shore, and the gathering of men and women on the beach turned, one of the men raising a hand. Josef.
“Go ahead,” Stefan said. “It’s quicker from here if you swim. I’ll be along before you get st
arted.”
“Good. Right.” Without further word Nicki stepped up on the ridge of the boat and jumped into the water, dry-tech dress and all. Her beach shoes were meant for exactly that, and she stroked briefly through the water before hitting a section of the beach where she could stand, then she moved swiftly out of the water, her arms pumping, her skin shining bright in the full sun.
Stefan couldn’t stop watching her as the boat whirled around, putting distance between them once again. Nicki had everything she needed—but he didn’t. He wanted to capture her demonstration on video.
He wanted to hold all that sunshine in his grasp, before it slipped away.
Chapter Sixteen
Nicki blew out a long breath as she reached the knot of people gathered at the shoreline. Her usual pre-performance nerves were fully in evidence, despite the very thorough, very relaxing time she’d spent with Stefan. She’d hoped that languor would endure for a little while longer.
“Miss Clark! Excellent, you are here.” Omir came forward first, her performance from last night clearly paying dividends. She didn’t mind flirting with the Turkish official as a concept, but the reality was proving a little more tedious. She only had one more day, though. Twenty-four hours or so, and then they’d have the tour of the excavation site and the information they needed—she hoped. Either way, she would be done with Omir and his musky cologne for good. She doubted she’d participate in another windsurfing competition in Alaçati until he left his position. There were hundreds of other places to windsurf in the world.
Of course, none of them were as close to Stefan as Alaçati was. He was here, and he wouldn’t be anywhere else in the world but here. If she ever wanted to see him again, she would need to drum up some reason to come to this side of Europe…and the most obvious would be windsurfing. Otherwise, she’d look pathetic.
That thought struck her with an unexpected blow as she and Omir were joined by Josef and his crew, all of them buzzing happily about the moves they were going to show the beginners—and the ones they had saved to impress the intermediates as well. Unlike the international competition in August, not too many world-class windsurfers were in town for the exposition, given the focus on the newer adherents to the sport, but there were a few, and Josef fully planned to strut his stuff.
Claimed: Gowns & Crowns, Book 3 Page 14
