It’s reckless.
What I’m doing here is probably worse than foolish. Hell, I know it is. I also know I’ve never wanted anything more in my life.
A low, yearning ache thrums between my thighs. If I had any reservations about allowing myself to be pulled into his orbit, this kiss is the point of no return. The air is thick and heavy around us, charged with a current I can feel vibrating in him too.
I moan with the wave of arousal that floods me. As my lips open on that involuntary cry of need, Nick’s tongue sweeps inside, claiming a deeper taste. Stoking my need.
His hands release me, but only so that one of them can begin a slow slide down the front of my body. My pulse speeds as his touch descends from my neck to my breasts, then down the side of my rib cage, leaving fire in its wake even through the layers of my clothing.
He doesn’t stop there. With the same masculine confidence he’s had from the first moment our eyes locked on each other, he reaches down to cup my sex.
He caresses me, kneads me ruthlessly. Pleasure arcs through me and I gasp with the force of it. I can’t stop myself from rocking against the delicious pressure of his palm.
I clutch him as our kiss deepens and his hand continues to drive me mad with want. Sinking my fingers into his dark hair to anchor myself against the intense assault on my senses, I can’t curb my sigh at the luxuriant softness. Especially when everything else about him is hard and powerful, from the broad curves of his shoulders to the muscled planes of his back.
As I run my hands over him, I feel the demanding jut of his cock surge even fuller against me. An erotic thrill chases through me as we grind together just steps from the crowd inside the gallery.
My blood is racing, my heartbeat throbbing in every pulse point, though none so demanding as the knot of nerve endings between my clenched thighs. He could unzip my jeans and take me right here in the alleyway and I wouldn’t stop him. God, I’m so wet for him, I’m almost hoping he does.
He groans against my mouth, a strangled sound. When he pulls back to look at me, I see pure animal hunger in his hooded gaze. I see what looks almost like bewilderment—as if this fire erupting between us has caught him off guard too.
“Damn, you taste so fucking good,” he says in little better than a growl. His breath skates across my sensitized lips on a low curse. He takes a step back from me as if he needs the space. “Let’s get out of here.”
I nod, not quite capable of speech yet. At the end of the alley is a private parking area I had no idea was back here. He pulls a key fob from his pants pocket and a sleek black BMW coupe chirps to life.
I follow him over to the M6, easily the most expensive vehicle in the lot. Nick opens the passenger side door.
“Get in,” he instructs me, his voice a deep, velvet rasp.
But as I start to move in front of him to climb inside, he catches me once more and drags me into another fevered kiss. This one is swift, but carnal. Even more so than before. The heat of it licks through my nerve endings, straight to the wet ache pulsing between my thighs. I shudder, knowing if he touches me there again right now, I’ll explode.
I pull away from his mouth on a jagged sigh. “Drive fast.”
Chapter 9
Nick operates a car with the same purpose and command I just witnessed in the alley with him. Aggressive, confident, smoothly in control. It seems like only seconds since we left the gallery before we’re turning in to the Park Avenue building entrance.
To my still-thrumming body, it feels like hours.
Nick’s hand stroking my inner thigh the whole time hasn’t made it any easier. Although we haven’t spoken since we got in the car, the electricity snapping between us hasn’t lessened in the least. If anything, the short drive has only made me more impatient to pick up where we left off.
Driving up to the building, he bypasses the brightly lit main lobby where we’d have to pass Manny. I hadn’t even considered that we might have to waltz past the sweet old door man together, and I exhale a soft sigh of relief to be avoiding that awkwardness.
Instead, Nick drives around to an underground parking garage below the tower high-rise. He parks the BMW in an empty space closest to the secured glass doors leading into the building. The only one marked Reserved.
I dimly register that fact and what it likely signifies, but there’s no room for logic or questions when Nick cuts the engine and pivots toward me. The soft gray leather rasps with his movement. He’s so gorgeous, so intensely masculine yet beautiful at the same time, I have to remind myself to breathe when he looks at me. I am far out of my depth with this man. I sensed that from the instant I saw him. He’s powerful, sophisticated. Obviously wealthy, based on the exclusiveness of his address and the price tag of his car. I have no doubt he could take his pick of any woman who lays eyes on him, and yet he’s sitting here with me now. Touching me. Staring at me as if he wants to devour me.
I lick my lips, an involuntary movement that draws his gaze to my darting tongue. As he watches me, that sinfully sculpted mouth of his compresses into grim line.
“Last chance to change
your mind.” His deep voice is thick and rough in the silence of the car. As he speaks, his hand slides higher on my thigh, trailing fire in the wake of his touch. For a long moment, he doesn’t say anything, just teases me with the sensual slide of his palm on my leg, his roving fingers coming closer and closer to my sex. “If you say the word, Avery, this goes no further. If you’re not sure, it can end here and now.”
No. I’m not having a single doubt, even if I have many reasons that I should. I don’t do casual sex. Then again, I’m not very good at relationships either. What’s happening here has no future—I recognize that. I accept it. Hell, I’m counting on the fact that it can’t possibly last past tonight.
But I can’t call this casual either. Nothing about what Nick Baine stirs inside me feels fleeting or insignificant.
His desire-drenched gaze is locked on me. His touch is possessive and bold, as if he understands exactly what my body needs and knows how to deliver.