A soft moan tumbled from her lips. Her hands skimmed over his shoulders and
down his chest. Around to this back.
She’d told herself the previous evening that she needed to commit to memory every detail of this man’s body. His warm skin, his solid muscles. Not to mention his commanding presence and his ocean-deep eyes and his sexy smile. Because it was going to be the last time she touched him, the last time she gazed so intently at him.
And here she was… Once again, doing all of the aforementioned. He was that much of a temptation, that much of a burning desire she had to cave to in this instance, for better or for worse.
She very easily convinced herself that one more time with him wasn’t going to change anything between them. It wasn’t going to make her love him anymore or any less. It wasn’t going to make her want him anymore or any less.
She was forever branded with those emotions, those feelings, those sensations. Whether she experienced them this morning… Or never again. They were ingrained in her heart and stamped on her soul, regardless.
So enjoying him one more time… That really couldn’t hurt her, right?
Though… As he moved inside her, so deliciously slow and sensual, and their gazes locked and she stared into his beautiful blue eyes, glimmering with heat and need—and love—Nikki knew she was only deluding herself.
Because every second like this made the reality of her situation more impossible to reconcile in her mind.
Who would walk away from this?
If only that were an easy question to answer… If only there weren’t a number of variables that contributed to the overall, inevitable equation for which there was no solution.
Her hands glided down to his ass and she gripped him tight as he pumped deeper into her, with stronger, more assertive strokes that stole her breath.
He wanted her to feel him completely and remember what it was like to have him inside her. She saw that conviction in his gaze, knew precisely what he was up to—he wanted her to continually question why she’d give this up, when she could have him this way every morning. Every night.
But that wasn’t an entirely true sentiment.
He had his work as well.
And as much as hers was designed to take her all over the world, wherever there was a need for her, so, too, was his.
That alone proved they were destined to be no more than two ships passing in the night. No matter how much in love they were.
As his tempo inside her increased and her hips lifted to take him deeper and her hands on his ass helped to keep him sealed to her, so as much of their bodies as possible were melded together, Nikki blocked everything from her mind, except for the sound of their jagged breaths and the weight of him on top of her and the straining of her inner thighs as they squeezed his outer ones and the insistent massaging of that spot within her that propelled her into that perfect abyss as the sensations swelled… Then crested. Then erupted.
She cried his name as she came.
Moments later, he thrust once more and murmured, “Oh, fuck… Nik. Oh, God…”
She heard the emotion in his voice. The sheer shredding of him as his cock surged inside her. As his body convulsed. As he lost it completely… For her.
Tears seeped from the corners of her closed eyes.
Nikki clung to him. For endless moments.
Neither one of them were in a hurry to relinquish their hold on the other.
Nikki truly had no idea how long they remained wrapped around each other. She only knew that he’d inevitably claimed all of her.
Her.
The woman who didn’t believe in inevitable.
Eventually, he unraveled from her and she felt the instant void. The lonesomeness. The chill.
He went into the bathroom to shower.
She stared after him.