For 100 Reasons (100 3)

I reach up and stroke his beard-shadowed cheek. “She’s been waiting years to hear you say that,” I point out gently, well aware of how deeply it hurt Kathryn to feel she’d made an enemy out of him only because she did something motivated by her love for him. I lean into his side, drawn to his warmth, his strength. “Thank you for showing her kindness today, Nick. She needs that kind of peace now more than ever.”

His arm comes down around me, tucking me close. “What do you need?”

“You. This.” My fingers find their way to the back of his neck and into the silky edge of his black hair. “All I need is us. I see Kathryn so alone at the end of her life and it scares me sometimes.”

He frowns, brus

hing the backs of his fingers along the side of my face. “You’re afraid of being alone?”

“No. Afraid of going through my life without you.”

“Angel.” The word is a rough whisper just before his lips meet mine. His kiss is deep and possessive, flavored with need and the sweet, smoky flavor of the whisky on his tongue.

I didn’t come here tonight with the intention of making love, but when Nick is kissing me like this, there’s no room for anything else. He makes me feel safe. He makes me feel cherished and protected, as if nothing bad can ever touch me so long as I’m in his arms.

I need to feel those things now—more than I realized.

After being in that hospital around so much talk of sickness and dying, I need to feel alive.

I need to feel secure in Nick’s love.

His kiss turns hotter before I’m fully prepared. With his tongue stroking against mine, devouring my soft moans and panting breaths, he pushes me down onto the sofa beneath him. As much as I ache to feel him against me, his need seems even more urgent. He draws back on a groan, then makes quick work of my loose top and denim shorts. His mouth is hungry on me, traveling over every inch of bared skin, his teeth nipping me sharply when he reaches my hip.

“I have to taste you,” he growls, already dragging my panties down my legs.

If I craved a slow burn tonight, it’s clear that Nick has other ideas.

He spreads me wide, then descends, his dark head buried between my thighs. There is no prelude, and no mercy in the assault he wages on my sex. It’s wet and hot and fevered.

There’s no slowing him down, but then it’s easy to get caught up in the storm of his intense passions. And seeing him so consumed with lust for me is a pleasure all its own.

I cry out in protest when his mouth leaves me just when my climax was building toward its peak. Straddling me with one foot on the floor and the other knee bent on the side of me, he strips out of his shirt and tosses it aside. His eyes are turbulent with need as he unfastens his belt and draws down the zipper of his bespoke slacks. He pulls his cock out, his hand wrapped around the hard length, stroking it all the way to the plump, glistening head as he moves nearer to my face.

“Take it.” His voice is low and demanding. “I need your mouth on me now.”

I can’t obey him fast enough. Arousal spirals through me, as sharp and compelling as Nick’s command. I close my lips around him and suck him deep, moaning at the feel of him on my tongue, filling my mouth. His hands mold to the back of my head as I move up and down on him. He shows me the tempo he wants, the pressure of his fingers urging me to go deeper, faster, harder.

“Fuck,” he grinds out tersely as he powers into my mouth.

I know he’s on the verge of coming and I want to take him there. I cup his balls and meet every furious stroke, even though it’s almost too much for me to manage. On a violent curse, he pulls me off him and shoves me down onto my back. His slacks and boxer briefs bunch low on his thighs but he doesn’t seem to notice or care.

Kneeling between my legs, he yanks my hips up to meet him, his scarred hand guiding his cock roughly into the folds of my slick, swollen cleft. He thrusts inside, tunneling deep and hard, as far as my body will allow. It’s almost too much. He’s immense and tonight he’s got the sexual hunger to match. There is an air of domination in him now that unsettles me, even though it once turned me on.

Nick’s eyes are locked onto mine but they seem remote, shuttered as he moves inside me. His hips rock urgently, violently, leaving no room for the tenderness I crave. I don’t know what’s spurring this animal need in him, if it’s the alcohol or the hospital or the dark, troubled mood that seemed to ride him most of the day. Maybe it’s all of those things.

He doesn’t give me any chance to reach him.

Pulling out of me on a harsh snarl, he lifts me under the arms and turns me around, positioning me on my knees and then pressing me down atop the arm of the sofa. With my hands caught in his grasp at my back, he enters me from behind, bucking into me with even greater frenzy. I can’t deny the erotic pleasure that streaks through me to be pinned beneath him, submitted completely and wholly at his mercy.

But this isn’t what I need right now.

I need to see his face. I need to touch him, and feel his arms around me.

I crave an intimacy I don’t think he’s capable of tonight.

“Nick,” I gasp, struggling to find my breath, let alone the words. “Nick, please . . .”

I don’t know if he hears me. He seems too far gone into whatever it is that owns him right now.