by Cat Schield
With his hand warm on the small of her back, Emma let him guide her between the tables and out the door. “I’m not sure if a rain check is such a good idea.”
As they waited for the valet to bring the car around, Nathan turned her toward him and cupped her upper arms in his hands. “Shh. Don’t say something you’ll regret.”
Amusement fought with annoyance at his arrogance. She was trying not to do something she would regret.
Suddenly, Emma wondered why she was resisting the pull between them. Maybe she should just get him out of her system, and let him get her out of his. Then this business of her father’s could dry up like a creek bed during a drought.
Once they were in Nathan’s car, he turned left out of the parking lot instead of making the right that would take them back toward her loft. Emma got that funny feeling in her stomach again.
“Where are we going?”
“I thought we’d swing by my condo so I can return your earrings,” he said as if this hadn’t been his plan all along. “You said you wanted them back.”
To claim otherwise would make him wonder why she was so skittish about the detour. Maybe he had no ulterior motives. Emma glanced at Nathan’s profile. His lips had softened into a sensual curve. Excitement raced along her nerves as she recognized his expression. Oh, he definitely had ulterior motives.
Her breath shortened as anticipation seized her. Struggling to quell her body’s thrumming need, she tore her attention from Nathan and watched the city slide by her window. By the time he drew up in front of his house, she was a tangled mess of sizzling hormones.
“Can’t I just wait here while you get them?” she asked as he opened her car door. “I really have work to do.”
He shook his head and held out his hand. With a gusty sigh, Emma let him pull her from the car. He slid his palm into the small of her back as they crossed the elegant lobby and ascended in the elevator. Her heart thumped hard enough to hurt as she recalled the last time she’d gone to his condo with him.
If his thoughts ran along the same lines, Emma couldn’t tell from his bland expression. She half expected him to close his front door and pin her against it the way he had a month ago. Of course, last time, they’d both known why they’d come to his condo. The chemistry between them had been hot and inescapable. This time, Emma stepped into his foyer with a cooler head.
She didn’t realize that she was holding her breath until they reached the condo’s main living space. Letting the air flow out of her lungs, she stepped away from Nathan’s tempting presence and scanned the room. A leather sectional occupied one end of the large open-concept floor plan; beyond that, a dining table was surrounded by ten chairs.
“What do you think?”
“About what?”
“My home.” He smirked at her. “The last time you were here, we never made it out of the foyer.”
Her cheeks burned as she recalled how he had taken her by storm. His urgency had thrilled her. Never in her life had a man wanted her with such intensity. Half closing her eyes, she relived the sensation of him sliding into her. The memory flushed her skin hot, arousing her.
She took in the view of downtown Houston visible through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
“It’s very nice. But I’m not staying. I just came up to get my earrings.”
He circled her like a tomcat on the prowl, his shoulder brushing across her back, his chest grazing her breasts as he stopped in front of her. Leaning forward, he whispered in her ear, “Are you sure that’s the only reason?”
“Of course,” she retorted, all the desire he aroused reducing her voice to a husky rasp. She had to get out of here. But her knees wobbled too much to let her escape.
“Because I was hoping I could get you to stay for a drink,” he said, his hands sliding around her waist.
He nuzzled her neck, zeroing in on the spot that made her gasp. Her nipples tightened into hard beads of sensation. Her breasts felt heavy, ready for his possession. She swayed into his body, sighing as he flattened his palms against her butt, lifting her onto her toes, aligning her curves against his hard planes.
“I really shouldn’t,” she told him, her body liquefying as wave after wave of longing washed over her. “I’ve got work to do.” She was beginning to sound like a broken record.
“Later,” he growled against her lips before flicking his tongue against hers, stealing her breath and her sanity.
Sliding her hands up his chest, she buried her fingers in his hair and held on as he deepened the kiss, plundering her mouth, demanding that she respond without reluctance or hesitation. She surrendered to the hands that molded her body, the fierce seduction of his mouth stripping away her reservations about the lovemaking to come.
Lust ravaged her, destroying her last qualm. Her body belonged to him. He’d proved that the last time. And she trusted that he would be the perfect guide on this excursion into carnal delights.
“Tonight, we’re going to do this slowly.” He slipped his lips over her chin, her cheek, her eyes, her nose. “Last time you rushed me. That will not happen again.”
Her head fell back as his teeth nibbled her earlobe. His ministrations ripped an airy giggle from her throat. “Not too slowly, or I might change my mind.”
“I have no worries about that,” he murmured, sounding smug, the way a man with an armful of wanton woman would.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she sighed, rubbing her pelvis against him in restless frustration as his palms kneaded her hips. Only with Nathan did she experience such riotous sensations. “I have so much pressure inside me, I’m going to burst.”
She demonstrated the serious nature of her distress by moving against him in a manner that aroused her more than it eased her suffering. Nathan’s mouth collided with hers as their hips began to rock together in a pantomime of what was to come.
“You have no idea what you do to me, Emma.”
His words stoked the flames higher. Emma increased the abandoned gyrations of her body, too caught up in the heady turbulence to want a slow seduction. She knew he wanted their next time together to be in bed, but she was ready to throw him to the couch and straddle him.
Eager to see every gorgeous inch of him, she tugged his shirt free of his trousers, frantic to feel the warm silk of his skin. Nathan eased the pressure on her mouth long enough to aid her.
Together they dispensed with his buttons. With his shirt gone and her fingers against his skin, Emma purred with satisfaction. Urgency became awe as she skimmed the smoothness of his shoulders and the lean brawn beneath.
“You are beautiful.” Hard muscles shifted beneath her exploring caress.
“I’ve never been called beautiful before.”
“You are,” Emma assured him, trailing her fingers across his chest and boldly tracing the path of rough hair to the place where it disappeared beneath his pants. “Now take everything off.”
Nathan groaned as her provocative words and saucy tone impacted on the one area of his body he couldn’t control. If he had been hard from the moment they’d stepped into the condo, he was ready to burst his seams after that comment.
She leaned forward and stroked her tongue against his collarbone, grazing his shoulder with her teeth.
“You first,” he said. He couldn’t trust his voice any more than he could count on controlling the rest of his body.
His desire for her ran fierce and resolute through his veins, but he bound it with relentless control. She deserved a slow, sensual ride. He wanted to bring her the same wild, unbridled pleasure her touch promised him.
“So, let’s start with this.” Emma stripped off her jacket and reached for the hem of her lace top, lifting it over her head, disturbing her careless topknot as she did so. She emerged from the cream material and gave her head a vigorous shake.
Nathan’s breath caught. Long brown hair tumbled about her shoulders, framing a face of vulnerable beauty. He considered the wide-eyed darkness of her chocolate-hued eyes and the
thoroughly plundered redness of her mouth.
Had he only kissed her? She looked positively drugged by passion.
“Now, that’s more like it,” he said an instant before her hands snaked out and caught his belt to tug him closer. He bent his head and answered her urgent call for a kiss.
Her lips clung to his when he lifted his head. She breathed in a rapid, unsteady manner that made him smile as he surveyed the wholly sensual look on her face, put there by his caresses.
Groaning low in her throat, the animalistic sound fanning his desire, she slid her palm downward. Before she could touch him, Nathan caught her wrist and pulled her hand away. “None of that right now. I promised you a night to remember,” he growled, sweeping her off her feet and into his arms. “Not a quickie on the floor in my living room.”
When he set her on her feet once more, his king-size mattress bumped the back of her knees.
“A quickie,” she murmured, fumbling to unfasten the belt and the top button of his trousers. “Yes, make love to me now.”
He tumbled her onto the bed. “If you insist.”
“I insist.” She arched, catlike, as he rolled her beneath him.
Nathan dipped his tongue in her ear and elicited a disturbed shudder, and then he leaned back to consider her smooth, pale skin and the provocative charm of her rose-tipped breasts, glimpsed through the lace of her bra.
“You are so soft,” he sighed against her throat, trailing his tongue down her chest and across the delicate fabric of her bra.
She arched and offered her breasts. He felt her nipple harden after he raked his teeth across it. Her breath rasped in and out of her lungs, keeping time with the disturbed movements of her hands in his hair and across his shoulders.
“I’ve never felt anything like this before.”
Her muted, feminine voice entered his system like the resonance of pure crystal, brightening his mood. “Good.”
He rolled onto his back, taking her with him. With a hand on each thigh, he positioned her on top of him. He held her head and devoured her mouth, plunging his tongue deep to tangle with hers. As she gave him back all the passion he demanded, Nathan found his control slipping a little further from his grasp.
He’d intended to seduce her slowly, to ply her body with all the expertise at his disposal, but she moved against him frantically, her thighs tightening on his hips. Desire raked long talons across his senses. He was dangerously close to letting the urge to take her hard, deep and fast dictate his actions.
Without warning she broke off the kiss and sat up. She rubbed her thumb across his lower lip. He nipped at the pad. Her lips curved in a satisfied smile as she stroked lower, sampling the shape of his chin, the sensitivity of his ears and the pulse throbbing in his throat.
“You have a very nice chest,” she told him, drawing provocative circles in ever-tightening swirls around his pectoral muscles.
“I was thinking the same thing about you.”
He lifted one hand to skim across her breasts just above the lace edging of the bra. Their pale roundness moved enticingly with each shuddering breath.
When he grazed her nipple through the satin fabric, she mimicked him. The sensation startled him. His erection prodded her through their clothes, insistent, relentless.
She shook her head, sending her long hair cascading around her face. Leaning down, she brushed the brown silkiness against his chest, tickling him, tantalizing him and hiding her expression.
“How does it feel when I touch you like this?” she asked, raking her nails over his nipples and down his abdomen.
“Incredible. How about when I touch you like this?” He swallowed her breasts in his hands and gently kneaded.
She threw back her head and arched her spine, putting her hands behind her and pushing into his caress. “Amazing.”
Inspired by her husky, awed comment, he slowly rid them both of the rest of their clothes, taking the time to slide his hands and mouth over each new inch of her flesh he bared, until they were both naked and shaking uncontrollably. Emma’s lashes veiled the expression in her eyes as Nathan drew the tip of one finger along the curve of her breast to her nipple. He watched her shiver as he slowly bent his head to capture the hard bud in his mouth.
“Oh, Nathan,” she whispered his name as his mouth tugged at her breast.
“Are you cold?” he questioned, kissing his way down her stomach to dip his tongue into her navel. Emma’s gaze remained riveted on him as he lifted her thigh so that he could kiss the inside of her knee.
“No.” Her voice broke as he opened his mouth and sucked on the sensitive flesh a little higher up. She rocked her hips, enticing him to touch where she ached. “You’re trembling.”
“That’s your fault.”
“Let’s see what I can do about it then.”
His tone might have been affectionate and teasing, but his chest tightened with driving need. He eased his fingers along her thigh, aiming for the source of her pleasure. He caught and held her gaze while he brushed the brown curls at the juncture of her thighs. Her lashes fluttered, but she bravely watched. This open, visual lovemaking would drive him mad. Ah, but what a way to go.
The swirling pressure in his groin built into a knot of searing demand as Nathan slid his finger against her warmth, focusing her pleasure where he wanted it. Her eager reactions filled him with fierce satisfaction. He intended for her to feel the same wildness that was clawing him.
Her head moved restlessly against the pillow as he stroked her, pushing her toward the beckoning promise of fulfillment. She gripped the sheets, tension riding her curvaceous frame. The sounds of pleasure she made told him exactly how to increase the sensations roiling her.
“That’s it, love,” he crooned as she fragmented, her body rocked by a powerful orgasm. He held her while she gasped for breath, soothing her with long, sweeping caresses.
She tugged on his arm, urging him up beside her, and threaded her fingers through his hair. He kissed her nose and traced the line of her lower lip with his tongue, his body tight with need.
“Nathan?”
“Yes, Emma?”
“That was incredible.” She parted her legs and rotated her hips until he was trapped in the sexy cradle between her thighs. “But I need more.”
Her heat called to him, drove him mad with wanting. He kissed his way down her neck. “What’s the rush? We have all night.”
“You want to make me yours,” she reminded him, nipping at his chin. Her breath hitched as he eased his lips over her skin. “Please do that.”
He closed his eyes as her pleading eroded his willpower. “I want you fully satisfied before I do so. I don’t think I’ve fulfilled my end of the bargain.”
His voice shook with harsh urgency, but he couldn’t control that any more than he could stop the trembling in his muscles as her fingers caressed his chest and moved lower. He wanted her so much he thought he might die from the ache.
“I won’t be fully satisfied until you’re inside me.”
Nathan sucked in his breath as her fingers found his shaft and measured him in a series of provocative, fluid strokes.
No more words were needed. He eased forward. Her hips lifted to find the hardness of him and her hands cupped his buttocks to urge him into her. Trapped between her heat and the soft determination of her hands, he had no choice but to give her what she wanted.
Bracing his weight on his arms, he slipped inside her a little at a time. She groaned in pleasure as her body absorbed all of him. The sound almost pushed him over the edge, but he sucked in a deep, steadying breath and focused on her face.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he said, taking a long moment to savor the passion-drugged sleepiness in her heavy-lidded expression.
“I’m thinking…” she answered in a soft, cautious voice, digging her nails into his butt. Nathan’s body jumped in response to her provocative caress. “That I’ve never been so turned on before.”
“That’s good.�
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He eased out of her as slowly as he had entered and watched her eyes round and darken until they were all pupil. She bit her lip. He clenched his teeth together to keep himself from slamming into her repeatedly and gaining the exquisite release his body craved. When he came, he wanted her with him.
The satisfying friction as he moved in and out of her blew huge, gaping holes in his willpower, but he started replaying multiplication tables in his head and held on.
She increased his tempo much sooner than he wanted. Her soft cries and the frantic movement of her hips destroyed the control he had fought so hard to maintain. The shattering of his heart began the moment he felt her release. Nathan gathered her into his arms and pounded his way to his own climax, enthralled by the way she kept pace with him. Together, they stormed into the brilliance of pleasure so acute he couldn’t breathe.
As his name left her lips, as her fingers dug into his shoulders, as his chest tightened with the intensity of his emotions, he banded her to his body and shook in reaction, dazzled by their turbulent lovemaking.
In the aftermath of the fire, Nathan stroked a strand of hair away from her cheek and placed a gentle kiss on her lips, sensing that, at last, he’d found the woman who could curb his restless nature.
Seven
According to the digital clock on the nightstand, it was a quarter after five. Emma yawned. Falling asleep had been a mistake. Already she could feel herself falling under Nathan’s spell. Spending the night and following that up with morning lovemaking would set a precedent Nathan would exploit to the fullest.
Although he hadn’t mentioned marriage or even referred to an unofficial engagement between them last night, Emma knew his mind-set. He needed the deal with her father and would do whatever it took to persuade her to marry him, including seduce her limp and senseless over and over until she could refuse him nothing. But she had more immediate concerns.
Easing from beneath Nathan’s arm proved difficult for several reasons.
Huge muscles were heavy.
