“Yes. Yes, I did.”
“And no wonder. He’s a fascinating young man. Charming, intelligent, Incredibly good-looking. And, I would think, very accustomed to getting his own way.” Marta smiled. “Actually, he reminds me of Jonas.”
Amanda turned around. “Nothing’s going on between us,” she said flatly.
“Oh, I think you’re wrong, sweetie. I think a lot is going on. You just aren’t ready to admit it.”
“Mom—”
“You don’t owe me any explanations, darling. You’re a grown woman. And I have every confidence in your ability to make your own decisions.” Marta reached for her daughter’s hands and clasped them tightly. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“Nick would never—”
“There are different ways of being hurt, Mandy. Loving a man who may not be able to love you back in quite the same way is perhaps the worst pain of all.”
“I don’t love Nick! I admit, I’m—I’m infatuated with him, but—”
Marta had smiled and put her finger over Amanda’s lips. “Go on,” she’d said gently, “make yourself beautiful for your young man.”
Beautiful? Amanda thought as she finished dressing. She wondered if Nick would think so. There’d certainly been more stunning women at the party last night, and she’d never be an eye-catching knockout like Deanna Burgess.
But she wanted Nick to like what he saw tonight. Any woman would. That didn’t mean she was in love with him…
And then she opened her door to Nick’s polite knock and knew, without any hesitancy, that she was. Everything her mother had said was true.
“Hi.”
“Hi yourself.” Her heartbeat stuttered. Amanda took a breath, dredged up a smile. “You’re right on time.”
“Always.”
He grinned, and she wondered frantically how it could have happened. She hadn’t been looking to fall in love. And if she had, it wouldn’t have been with the Lion of the Desert.
“My father drummed it into me.”
“What?”
“The importance of being on time. Sort of the eleventh commandment. You know, ‘Thou shalt never be late.’”
“Yes.” She swallowed dryly, fought to hang on to whatever remained of her composure. How? How could she have fallen in love so quickly? “Well, it worked. You’re certainly prompt.”
His smile tilted. “And you,” he said softly, “are incredibly beautiful.”
His words, the velvet softness of them, even the way he was looking at her, ignited a slow-burning heat in her bones.
“Thank you. It’s my mother’s dress. I didn’t—”
“I know. I should have anticipated that the Barons would expect us to dine with them.” A muscle danced in his jaw. He moved toward her, his eyes a burnished silver. “But I didn’t think of anything except you. Since last night I haven’t been able to think of anything but you.”
“Nick…”
Gently, he took her face in his hands, lifted it to his. He could feel her trembling with the same excitement that burned inside him.
“One kiss,” he said softly, “just one, before we go downstairs.”
“All right. Just—”
His mouth closed over hers. Amanda moaned, closed her eyes, lifted her hands and laid them against his chest. His heart was racing, but no faster than hers. She moved closer to him, closer still, and he swept his arms around her, gathered her against him so that she could feel his hunger.
“Nick,” she said in a choked whisper, “oh, Nick…”
He took her hand from his chest, brought it down his body, cupped it over his arousal. He groaned, or maybe it was she who made that soft, yearning sound. It didn’t matter. Her needs, and his, were the same.
“To hell with dinner,” he whispered. “Amanda, I want to touch you. To undress you. To bury myself inside you while you lift your arms to me and cry out my name.”
“Oh, yes! It’s what I want, too.” She took a shaky breath, lifted her hand from the heat and hardness of him and leaned back in his arms. “But Jonas and Marta expect us to join them.”
Nick bent his head, nipped gently at her throat. “I don’t give a damn what they want.”
Amanda gave a breathless laugh. “Nick, that’s my mother downstairs.”
He laughed, too, or made the attempt. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. Of course it is. Okay. Just give me a minute. Then we’ll make our entrance, pretend we’re interested in drinks and dinner and polite conversation for a couple of hours—”
“Only for a couple of hours.”
He tugged her towards him and she went willingly, thrust her hands into his hair, dragged his mouth down to hers and kissed him.
Nick felt the kiss pierce his heart like an arrow.
* * *
A couple of hours, he’d said. Since when could a couple of hours seem like an eternity?
Drinks first, out on the deck, where they were joined by Tyler and Caitlin Kincaid. They lived nearby, Jonas said. He clapped Tyler on the back, gave him a proud smile and said Tyler was his son and Caitlin his stepdaughter.
Any other time, Nick would have found that intriguing. A son who didn’t bear the old man’s name. A stepdaughter, but obviously not of Marta’s blood. Interesting, he thought—but then his curiosity faded.
His only interest was Amanda.
Still, he went through the motions. Made pleasant small talk. Murmured something about the excellence of the wine. Agreed that dinner was a masterpiece. He supposed it was. Everybody said so. The thing was, he couldn’t taste any of it.
Nothing had any flavor. How could it, when the only taste that mattered was Amanda’s? That last kiss lingered on his mouth. The memory of it. The way she’d pulled his head down to hers, the way she’d initiated that all-consuming, hungry kiss…
Ah, hell. Nick shifted uneasily in his chair.
He was too old for this. Boys worried about their hormones making them look foolish, and he was far from being a boy. But just thinking about her…the heat of her in his arms; the sweet sounds she made when he kissed her; the way she fitted herself against him…
Hell, he thought again, and cleared his throat.
“…oil strike?”
He blinked, looked around the table blindly. Everyone was looking at him.
“Sorry,” he said, and cleared his throat again. “Tyler? Did you say something?”
“I was just wondering about that oil strike in Quidar last year. Was it really the gusher our people said it was?”
“Oh. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. The field was huge, bigger than…”
Nick talked about oil. He talked about oil prices. And all the time part of his brain was doing such sensible things, another part was wondering what Amanda was thinking. She was seated beside him, and every now and then when he trusted himself to do it without pulling her into his arms, he looked at her. Her golden eyes were wide; her cheeks were flushed. And when he took her hand under the table, he could feel her tremble.
Was she aching, as he was, for these endless hours to pass so that she could come into his arms and ask him to take her? Because she had to ask. He’d told her that she had to ask, and he was a man of his word, would remain a man of his word, even if it killed him. It would, if he didn’t have her. If he didn’t make her his.
“Nick?”
And if any son of a bitch tried to take her from him, he’d—
“Nick?”
Nick frowned. They were on the deck again, just he and Tyler Kincaid, though he had only the haziest recollection of finishing dessert and agreeing it would be great to go outside for a breath of air.
“Yes.” Nick inhaled deeply, then let out his breath. “Kincaid. Tyler. I…hell, I’m sorry. You must think I’m—”
“What I think,” Tyler said with wry amusement, “is that if you and Amanda don’t get behind a closed door pretty damn soon, the rest of us are going to be in for an extremely interesting night.”
Nick swung toward him, eyes narrowed. “Wha
t’s that supposed to mean, Kincaid?”
“It means that the temperature goes up a hundred degrees each time you look at each other,” Tyler said carefully. “And that if you think you’d rather work it off by taking me on, you’re welcome to try it.”
The two men stared at each other and then Nick gave a choked laugh. “Sorry. Damn, I’m sorry. I just—”
“Yeah. I know the feeling.” Tyler leaned back against the deck rail. “Amazing, isn’t it? What falling in love with a woman can do to a perfectly normal, completely sensible male?”
“In…?” Nick shook his head. “You’ve got it wrong. I’m not—”