Well, that…and because he suspected if she saw their operation, she’d be intrigued.
Yes, it really was selfish on his part to want to introduce her to Mads and the ops family. To seduce her with the impressive facilities so that perhaps she’d see what good she could do there with the agents…and want to stay. Not constantly jet off to disaster zones.
He couldn’t say for sure how it’d happened, given all the ups and downs and complications and the fuck yous she’d lobbed his way, but… Damen had fallen.
For the first time in his life…he was in love.
And he didn’t want to lose Nikki Balentine-Kane.
For any reason.
Which meant…he actually was fucked.
Because Nikki was unpredictable. Untamable.
All perfectly fine by him. Damen had no wish to flex his muscles with her, in the figurative manner. He loved how strong and independent and resourceful she was.
Then again…he had presented her with his desire to turn what was blossoming between them into something…permanent.
Yes, it was a crazy notion given all they’d been through—all they were still going through.
Damen knew, however, that what he felt was real and substantial. Something he’d never experienced before.
And he wasn’t inclined to give up it.
Now, to convince Nikki…
He let out a low groan.
He would concede that he was a man who went after what he wanted. Typically, in his mind, no challenge was too great. Nikki might be the exception.
As her fingers on his stomach absently drew lazy circles and her lips grazed his neck, Damen considered this certainly was one more thing he was willing to fight for. He couldn’t remember holding a woman in his arms, after having sex with her, and wanting to lay still with her for a small eternity. Rather than counting the minutes before it was polite to extract himself, be on his way and get back to his work.
With Nikki, he was locked in the moment. Sensed she was, too.
So perhaps there was hope for them, after all?
13
She wouldn’t say there were no psychological effects to having sex for the first time with a man who wasn’t her husband.
Nikki was smart enough to have anticipated that guilt would creep around the fringes, along with a sense of betrayal. Not that it was necessarily logical to feel she’d been deceptive by being intimate with another man. The manifestation was a result of the fact that Nikki still considered herself to be married—because she’d never gotten a divorce or an annulment. And death had not severed the emotional tie, clearly.
However… She didn’t regret being in Damen’s arms. She didn’t regret how sensational it felt to be pressed against all his hot, powerful sinew. To have his hand stroking her hair and his warm breaths teasing her temple.
Nor did she regret it when he started to grow hard inside her again.
“Impressive recovery time,” she murmured.
“You have yourself to thank for that,” he said in a lust-tinged voice.
He shifted both of them, repositioning them so she lay on her back on the sofa, her head propped on a pillow. His lips tangled with hers in slow, sensuous kisses as he began to move inside her. Nikki draped an arm over his shoulder and a leg over his waist. He captured her other leg with his forearm along the underside of her knee, effectively angling her hips so he could push deeper into her.
He pumped languidly, steadily. Thrilling her and stealing her breaths. He was thick and full inside her. And the tip of his cock stroked that magical spot that made her hotter, wetter.
Her free hand gripped his biceps and she clutched him tight, holding her to him. His palm was flattened alongside her head, propping him up so he didn’t crush her. She wanted him to crush her. She wanted to feel his hunky body on top of her, melded to her.
Lord, it’d been so long since she’d felt a man’s body on top of her.