by Nalini Singh
Chapter 7
“I have a place here, remember?” David said, breaking into her thoughts.
“I forgot.” Probably because her brains were scrambled with a mix of nerves, lust, anticipation, and breathless hope. “How are your parents?”
“I was thinking of going to see them tomorrow.” A glance from those golden-brown eyes that kept tangling her up. “Want to come? We don’t have to say anything about us—you know my folks like you.”
Thea had met Mr. and Mrs. Rivera enough times to realize they were good people who loved their son. “I don’t know.” She ran a hand through her hair before folding her arms and slumping in her seat. “I don’t want to lie to your parents.”
“My mother has maternal ESP.” It was said with open affection. “I’m sure she’ll figure out every tiny detail even if we don’t say a word.”
“My mother calls you my ‘young man,’” Thea said morosely. “Next thing you know, she’ll be inviting you to Bali for dinner and asking you if you intend to get a real job.”
David’s chuckle was a warm caress over her skin. “Have passport, will travel.”
“Don’t joke.” She scowled at him. “This is serious.”
David didn’t respond until he’d brought the car to a halt in the underground parking garage of the building in the Bronx where he owned an apartment. Turning in his seat after undoing his seat belt, he placed his arm along the back of her seat. “Your parents were hurt by the breakup with Eric?”
Thea wanted to say yes, wanted to make this simple. But David deserved the truth. “They were hurt for me.” Eric hadn’t made much of an effort to get to know her family, had insisted on staying in a hotel rather than with them the one time he and Thea had flown to Bali together.
Back then, he’d still been a decent man in every other way and she’d excused his demand as discomfort with a busy familial environment when he’d grown up an only child. She’d figured she’d ease him into it, but the visit had never been repeated. “I don’t want either my parents or yours being put into that position. Especially since we’ll all inevitably come into contact again because of my work with Schoolboy Choir.”
“I don’t intend to mess this up.” David tucked a wing of her hair behind her ear. “Do you?”
“Intentions don’t always matter.”
“And starting out believing we’re going to fail doesn’t give us a fair shot.”
He was right; she knew he was right. That didn’t make it any easier to jump off the precipice and trust he’d catch her. That he wouldn’t watch her fall and bleed.
When you suffer such a big hurt, the longer you permit it to live in you, the bigger it grows, until it seeks to devour your soul.
Her mother’s words rang in Thea’s mind, wise and smart and a reminder that if she didn’t step forward, she’d be stuck forever in the past. “I’ll go with you to your folks,” she said, her chest painful with a raw surge of emotion. “If your mom or your dad figure it out, then they figure it out. But this time, I’ll go as your friend.”
Holding his gaze, she said, “Next time… next time I’ll walk in as your lover. Okay?” Unspoken was her hope that there would be a next time.
“Okay,” David said, his expression tender and his presence so stable that it made the entire world stop spinning so she could catch a breath.
David’s heart was thumping like a racehorse’s by the time he showed Thea into his apartment on the seventh floor. It occupied a quarter of the floor, the other three apartments on this level owned by business types he rarely saw. That had been part of the attraction—the building was in the borough he loved, but nowhere near the “hot” areas of it, the majority of its residents suits who were more focused on work than on their neighbors.
Putting Thea’s bag in the spare bedroom—he wasn’t about to screw up the most important thing in his life by making assumptions that could blow up in his face—he returned to the living area to find she’d taken off her jacket, kicked off her heels, and was stretching out the kinks.
As he watched her raise up her arms, arch her back with feminine ease, he tried to see this place through her eyes. The exterior of the building was clad in warm sienna-colored stone, the windows huge curved arches that spilled light onto the polished wood of the floors during the day. Right now, they showcased a sparkling cityscape, New York a lady dressed in her diamonds and ready for a night out.
The kitchen area was raised up a step and to the right of the windows, while the sunken living area was dominated by a large flat screen and a U-shaped, three-piece sofa set in deep cream.
The jewel-toned cushions on it were courtesy of his mother.
His drum kit—the one he used while in the city—was situated to the left of the sofa, the apartment’s cutting-edge soundproofing another big part of the reason he’d bought the place. An acoustic guitar lay on the sofa itself, and Noah had left behind his jacket when he’d dropped by earlier today. It was thrown over one of the sofa arms.
Overall, the room was pretty bare.
“The light from the windows must be amazing in the daytime,” Thea said at that instant, running her fingers along the back of the sofa.
“You’ll look beautiful in it.” He was so fucking happy to have her in his space, to finally have the right to show her how he would love her, cherish her. All he’d needed was a chance—and this was it. He wouldn’t fuck it up. “Like you do now.”
Shooting him a startled look, Thea smiled slowly. “That’s smoother than I’m used to from you.”
Damn it, he could feel heat crawling up his neck. “Yeah, my moves are legendary.”
“I like your moves.” Thea shifted on her heel to walk toward him.
Lean and toned, her every move graceful, she truly was the most stunning woman he’d ever seen. And that was before you got to her brain. Thea’s smarts catapulted her into a whole other category.
Halting in front of him, she met his eyes with the burnished brown of her own.
He should’ve been civilized, should’ve offered her food, drink, but despite his admonitions to himself to not screw this up, what he did was wrap his hands around her waist and haul her against him, his brain short-circuited by a need that had been growing and growing and growing. When Thea’s breath escaped her in a gasp, her breasts crushed against his chest, he took the opportunity to close his mouth over hers, the taste of her a red-hot shock to his system.
She didn’t protest. No, she kissed him back, and fuck, he was losing his mind.
Spreading the fingers of one hand across her lower back, he thrust his other one into the liquid silk of her hair and laved his tongue along hers. Her faint shiver made his cock throb. Sucking on her tongue, he rubbed up against her while a faint voice yelled at him to back the hell off. Then Thea’s own hands clenched tight in his hair, her body moving sinuously against his in a way that was lusciously female, and the voice died to staggered silence.
She wanted him.
He broke the kiss only long enough to suck in a breath, then slanted his mouth over hers again, thrusting his tongue into the wet heat of her in a deep and hard and fast rhythm. It was exactly how he wanted to thrust inside her pussy. He couldn’t go slow, not when he’d been hungry for her for so long—and not when she was responding as if she felt the same wild hunger.
For him.
The woman of his dreams was kissing him back like she wanted to ride him to oblivion and back.
His mind a storm of lust and need and passion, he moved his hand from her back to close it over the taut flesh of her right breast.
She jerked.
“Shit, sorry.” He dropped his hand, broke the kiss to press his forehead to hers, his chest heaving. “I didn’t mean to maul you. I—”
Thea grabbed his hand, put it back where it had been. “I didn’t say stop,” she said and kissed him again, hot and demanding.
What little control he’d managed to regain snapped like an overstretched rubber band. Groaning into
the kiss, he rubbed his thumb over the stiff point of her nipple, able to feel it through her top and the bra she wore underneath. It wasn’t enough. Dropping both hands to the bottom of her top, he tugged it up.
“Windows,” she gasped. “Reflective film?”
At least one of them was thinking. “I don’t know.” Walking backward and taking her with him, he managed to get them into the bedroom. “Close blinds,” he said, and the slats slid smoothly shut, enclosing them in dark privacy. “Lights,” he ordered, having no intention of missing out on even an instant of his first time with Thea.
“Fancy.” Thea tore off her top, and then they were kissing again, his hands on the supple warmth of her back. He wanted to taste her honeyed skin, wanted to suck on her nipples, wanted to slide his fingers inside her, wanted to lick her to orgasm. He was a greedy bastard and he wanted everything.
Shoving up her bra, he closed his hand over one pert breast.
Thea moaned. “Sorry, not much there.”
He had no idea what she was talking about. Bending his head, he sucked her nipple and part of her breast into his mouth. She cried out, her spine arching under his hands. Sensitive, he thought, so sweetly sensitive. Scraping his teeth over her to her shiver, he replaced his mouth with his hand only so he could taste her other breast.
She tasted so good, felt so good.
His cock was about to break in half.
“David.” Clawing at his back, she tugged up his shirt.
Naked, he thought, yes, naked was good. Ripping his shirt when he tore it over his head instead of unbuttoning it, he hauled her back against him and realized she’d taken off her bra. The wet tips of her breasts met his chest, and if it had been good before… “You are so fucking hot.” He took her mouth again before she could answer. Her butt was firm under his grip, their kisses ravenous.
They fell onto the bed, locked together.
Half on, half off the bed, with Thea’s slender body pinned under him, he found a scrap of brainpower. “Too heavy?”
She pulled him back down in a silent answer that was fine with him. His cock pushing into the juncture of her thighs, he ground into her.
“David!” Thea’s back came off the sheets, her pupils so dilated he could barely see her irises.
David kissed her neck, one hand on the sensitive flesh of her right breast. Squeezing the exquisitely shaped mound, he almost came when she gave a little scream and rose up against him. Barely able to keep it together, he reached for the button on her jeans, managed to get it open between increasingly frantic kisses, lowered her zipper.
It took considerable willpower to force himself off her, but the idea of having her nude beneath him was a no-fail incentive. Kissing the concave plane of her stomach, he gripped the waistband of her jeans and pulled. She lifted up her hips to help him, and the denim was on the floor seconds later.
“Oh, fuck.” She was wearing pink panties—two bits of lace with string on the sides.
“David?”
Dropping to his knees between her thighs, he pulled her to him with a grip under her thighs and licked her through her panties. She was so wet the lace was already sticking to her. His tongue turned the material transparent, made a strangled cry escape her throat, her thighs quivering in his hold.
“Oh, fuck,” he said again when he realized she was totally bare down there.
Hooking his fingers in the sides of her panties, he tugged them down, got halfway, and had to lean forward to kiss the plump folds between her thighs, his hands keeping her spread for his greedy licks. Thea screamed his name again and something exploded in his brain. Ripping off the panties with one hand as he continued to kiss and suck at her, the taste of her an addiction, he tore at the fly of his jeans.
It was the crackle of the gum wrapper he’d thrust in his pocket earlier that day that reminded him he couldn’t just shove into her. He didn’t have that right. Sucking hard on her clit, he slid a finger into her. She came against his mouth, thighs rigid.
“Yes, Thea, just like that,” he said, voice hoarse, and licked her through it, the taste of her tart and erotic.
Only getting to his feet when she went limp, he somehow got himself to the bedside drawer and grabbed protection. His cock pounding hot and thick with his heartbeat, he kicked off his boots and socks as he got between her legs again, shoved down his jeans and underwear, then kicked them aside.
Thea watched him with heavy-lidded eyes, her lips swollen from their kisses, her nipples a luscious brown and tightly furled. She sank her teeth into her lower lip when he began to put on the condom, moving her pelvis in a rolling motion that had him a second from coming. It was all the invitation he needed. Grabbing her under her thighs, he pulled her up toward him and thrust into her in a single powerful stroke.
Thea had just had the hardest orgasm of her life, didn’t think anything could top it. Then David slammed into her and her nerve endings sizzled to electric life. His cock felt even thicker than it looked, until she wasn’t certain her body could handle it. When he drew back, scraping against her sensitized tissues, a shuddering scream rippled out of her.
It had nothing to do with pain, everything to do with pure pleasure.
Unable to grab him with her hands in this position, she wrapped her legs around him and, hands fisted in the sheets, lifted her lower body up toward him. His hands squeezed her thighs where he held her, his shoulders rigid with muscle, his biceps defined and his jaw clenched as he thrust back in—oh, but it felt good—then pulled out again.
Thea tried to follow him, cried out in frustration when he pulled out all the way. He pounded back in a heartbeat later, and this time, there was no rhythm. It was hard, deep, on the edge of brutal, and it was perfect. “Yes, yes, yes,” she said, the single word a mantra that cut off only when he braced his hands on the bed on either side of her and bent down to kiss her without ever stopping the way he was fucking her.
“Thea.” A harsh groan, his body going stiff over her.
He thrust one last time and that was it; the orgasm blindsided her, spots dancing in front of her eyes.
Chapter 8
David wasn’t sure he was still alive. Pulling out of Thea, her moan husky, he staggered to the bathroom and got rid of the condom. When he came back into the bedroom, it was to see Thea hadn’t moved from the position in which he’d left her, her thighs spread and her legs hanging over the edge of the bed.
His recently satisfied cock twitched.
Lifting her body against his chest with arms that trembled, he placed her fully on the bed, then came down on top of her. He claimed a kiss that she reciprocated lazily, then he nuzzled her throat, went to pet her breast. She closed her hand over his wrist when he squeezed.
Easing his hold at the silent indication that it was too much after her orgasm, he ran his mouth back up to hers and nibbled on her lower lip before shifting to lie on his side beside her, one leg thrown over hers. Yeah, it was possessive. He didn’t care. “You’re noisy in bed.” He pressed his lips to her shoulder. “I like it.” There was no guessing; she told him exactly what she liked and he found that erotic enough to scramble his brain.
Weaving her fingers into his hair, she said, “I’ve never been that loud.” Her tone held a tinge of shock. “David, I think you blew my circuits.”
He grinned. “Good, because I don’t have any circuits left.” Sliding his hand lightly over her breast and down her stomach to cup her gently between the thighs, he braced himself on one elbow and bent down to sip at her lips in teasing little kisses.
She closed her thighs around his hand.
Feeling the aftershocks that rippled through her, he stroked her core with a finger while continuing to cup her. Her arms came around him, her body undulating against him. “This is ludicrous,” she said breathlessly. “I can’t come again.”
David chuckled and continued to kiss her, hold her, pet her. She did come again. It was quieter this time, softer, and just as stunning. Watching her as the pleasure t
ook her under, he felt his heart ache. She was so lovely, and she’d given him the right to put his hands on her. Kissing her as the final tremors faded from her skin, he removed his hand to curve it over her hip.
Breath short and shallow, she turned toward him and slid her own thigh between his. “I think I’m done.” Fingers stroking down his chest. “For now.”
David ran one hand over her body, his other arm acting as his pillow, and just looked at her. Her skin was flushed and marked by his kisses and caresses, her hair tumbled and her breasts reddened. She looked deliciously used and sated, and best of all, she looked like that in his bed.
“I really,” he said ten minutes of lazy quiet later, “want to do that again.”
Thea drew a circle around one of his nipples, leaned in to lick over the flat disk. He groaned and turned onto his back. She came with him, her breasts rubbing over his chest as she kissed his throat, then his jaw, his mouth. “I could be persuaded.” A wicked smile. “You know I like the Gentleman of Rock’s dirty side.”
He loved her smile, loved that she was teasing him. Utterly gone for her, he palmed one of her bottom cheeks, squeezed the firm curve of it… and his stomach growled. “Shit.”
Her hair creating a soft, silky curtain around them, Thea laughed. “Time for some fuel?”
“Fuck fuel. I want you.”
And he had her—or she had him, a slender goddess rising and falling on his cock in a slow rhythm that made his balls draw up tight and fresh perspiration break out over his skin. He gave in, allowed himself to be taken. He was hers after all.
Thea sat on the kitchen counter dressed in one of David’s Armani shirts. It was white with fine blue pinstripes and he’d put her in it, leaving most of the buttons undone. He was throwing together some pasta for them while she nibbled on trail mix and enjoyed looking at him in his low-slung jeans.
