When he came back to her, he wasn’t wearing a stitch—and Caitlin was quite sure she had never seen anything more appealing in her entire life. Nor felt anything more delectable. She ran her hands slowly over his sinewy arms and sleek chest, down to his narrow waist and lean hips.
An athlete’s physique, she mused, strong and fit and virile. She would find it very hard to believe that a more perfect body had ever existed.
It didn’t take him long to add her undergarments to the piles of clothing on his floor. Caitlin might have been self-conscious about her nudity—she didn’t consider herself to be nearly as close to perfection as Nathan—but his obvious pleasure in her restored her confidence. Whatever imperfections there might be, he didn’t even seem to notice.
He looked at her as though he found her as beautiful, as desirable as she found him. And when he touched his mouth to her, it was with a reverence that brought a lump to her throat.
He nuzzled her neck, lingered at her breasts, kissed his way down to her navel and circled it with his tongue. Her hands fisted in the sheets beneath her when he moved even lower, her back arching instinctively. Her breath caught hard in her throat, then released in a gasp. “Nathan!”
Murmuring something soothing and unintelligible, he kissed her intimately, then made his way slowly back up her body, stopping to revisit places he had discovered before. She could hardly remember her own name by the time he returned to her lips. Yet she couldn’t seem to stop whispering his.
He donned protection swiftly, barely fumbling with the task though his hands were still shaking a bit. And then he returned to her, sliding inside her with a single, smooth thrust that seemed to join them permanently. From this moment on, he would always be a part of her, she realized, even as she drew him nearer. It was the only coherent thought that penetrated the haze of passion she floated in, and it should have terrified her. Instead, it made the experience all the more beautiful.
After all, tonight she wasn’t thinking about the future, she reminded herself dimly. Tonight was all about feelings. And this felt heavenly.
Nathan rolled, shifting her on top of him, giving his hands better access to her breasts and shoulders. Supporting herself on her hands, she leaned her head down to kiss him.
Her hairpins seemed to have disappeared; her hair fell in a soft curtain around their faces. Their mouths fused, their tongues thrusting in a leisurely imitation of their intimate joining.
When their movements became more frantic, Nathan shifted again, crushing her into the mattress as he pounded into her. Just barely remembering that they weren’t alone in his house, she bit her lower lip to hold back her cries and dug her fingers into his shoulders as her entire body shuddered with a mind-shattering release.
A moment later Nathan gave a choked gasp that might have been her name, signaling his own climax. And then he collapsed on top of her, his face buried in her throat.
Still holding him, Caitlin stared blindly at the ceiling above her and wondered how much longer she could simply enjoy this time with him. Sooner or later she was going to have to start asking herself what this night was going to cost her.
Nathan sensed the moment Caitlin’s hyperactive brain kicked into gear. He could almost hear the doubts, the questions, the worries and rationalizations begin.
While he had always admired her practicality and conscientiousness, he wished they could have drifted on sensations a bit longer this evening.
“I should leave,” she murmured.
He wasn’t ready to let her go. Shifting to relieve her of his weight, he tucked her into his shoulder. “Stay a little longer.”
“I don’t want to be here when Isabelle wakes up,” she fretted softly, even as she snuggled her cheek into the curve of his throat. “I don’t even have a change of clothes.”
Smoothing her hair, he brushed a kiss against the top of her head. “Just let me hold you for a little while longer.”
She relaxed slowly against him, one hand resting on his chest. “Just for a little while.”
He would take whatever he could get, he thought, enjoying the feel of her warm, soft body pressed against his. As far as he was concerned, whenever she left would be too soon. He would be perfectly content to keep her here in his bed forever.
Since he knew she was far from ready to hear that, he kept the words to himself. Not saying them didn’t make them any less true, of course. He didn’t know when, exactly, his feelings had progressed from affection to more, but he had no doubt that he was in love with Caitlin Briley.
He had never actually been in love before, but he had no trouble identifying the condition. He’d felt fondness, respect and desire for other women, but he’d never even come close to wanting to make a lifetime commitment with any of them.
He was fully prepared to take that step with Caitlin, just as soon as he thought she was ready to hear the words.
Which, he acknowledged reluctantly, was not going to be tonight. She had taken a huge step by making love with him, despite her concerns about getting personally involved with her
business associate. He knew she was worried about how their working relationship would change now and what would happen to the firm if their affair went south.
He also had the uncomfortable suspicion that she was concerned about being tied down, having him—or anything—interfere with her career. For whatever reason, she needed to validate herself through her success at work, and she was extremely leery of anything—or anyone—that resembled a potential stumbling block. It was entirely possible that she saw him as a giant-size block, especially now that he came as a family package.
She shifted against him with a soft sound that sounded like a cross between a sigh and a purr. His arm tightened around her, and he pressed a kiss against her hair.
Whatever he had to do, he would somehow convince Caitlin that they belonged together. And that he would never do anything to interfere with her dreams.
She lifted her head to give him a drowsy smile. “If I stay much longer, I’ll fall asleep. I don’t want to risk having Isabelle find me in your bed.”