His eyes turned into gleaming slits of warning. "You know what I want to know."
She took a stabilizing breath and tried to stall. "Do I?"
His nostrils flared and she knew it was taking effort to control his temper. "You're mine. Only mine. I know it, and you know it, and now I want to hear you say it."
Arrogant ass. How could she love him so much? Was she wrong to be taking this out on him? Maybe it was her fault. She could have easily ridded herself of her virginity if she'd wanted to. She was just irked that he'd waited so damn long to finally be with her. The wait had been beyond ridiculous. They could have been together every time he'd come to Florida. Every time she'd come to St. Louis for holidays. She wouldn't have turned him down and furthermore, he had to have known that. She paused only a moment more and then replied in a purposely off-handed way, "I'm yours."
Her flippant answer set off a look of danger about him. His brows creased into a pissed-off frown as his hand slid from her naked hip to the vee between her thighs where he cupped her with a forceful grip. "Now's not the time to fuck with me, baby."
Courtney gasped as heat coiled through her bloodstream. No man had ever touched her there. Another stroke of anger lit her blood at the thought. The son-of-a-bitch had kept her so innocent she'd never been touched there. Maybe it wasn't his entire fault, but in that moment, Courtney didn't care; she was blaming him. With that thought, her feelings splintered disparately. She was furious; she was also so turned-on she could hardly stand up without her knees caving underneath her.
With a surfeit of emotion, she lifted her hands and wrapped them around his jaw line. Surging to her tiptoes, she pushed her torso forward and put her lips on his. She kissed him with every ounce of emotion she was feeling, and within seconds, he was groaning and stabbing his tongue between her lips. His hand was a hot, molten grip of demanding need as he grasped her intimately; her legs trembled as she fell into their kiss and began experiencing a kind of desire that she'd only gotten a hint at when she'd touched herself while fantasizing about him.
He kissed her long, hard, deep, as if she belonged to him and to him alone. Her legs began to shake as he gripped her bare behind with strong fingers. She felt the sharp edge of the plastic he still held in his hand rasp against her buttocks; it created a tactile sensation that sent her spinning even further into the depths of desire.
His breathing became ragged as he pulled his mouth away from hers. Still gripping her with one hand at her front and the other behind, he opened his eyes and stared down at her. He inhaled sharply and said, "I need the truth."
Swallowing hard, she shook her head, remaining stubborn, denying him an answer.
His eyes blazed and his words held a sharp edge. "Courtney. There's a more immediate problem than my goddamn ego here. If you don't tell me the truth, I might make the wrong assumption and not take the kind of care I should." His eyes held hers as his control seemed to slip a notch and he rasped, "You understand me, baby? I'm half-fucking crazed already; if there's a chance I might hurt you, you better fucking tell me right now."
His meaning hit her all at once.
It was probably ridiculous, but as she realized that Nick was fueled with enough testosterone to stop a moving train and that he was impatient on top of it, her face paled and she stared back without speaking, a sudden feminine fear holding her in its grip.
His hands clenched as he prompted her for an answer. "I need something here. Give me something to go on."
She took a deep breath and held his eyes and made a decision because in essence, not only did she despise pain of any kind, she could only lose her virginity once, and even if she and Nick were standing up inside a closet, she wanted it to be special between them. "Be careful," she whispered.
He stared at her for the count of two seconds before his eyes closed and he leaned in toward her. He placed his lips gently on her forehead, and there was no other way that Courtney could describe it. He kissed her in benediction.
It was as if a switch had been flipped inside of him. Gone was the sexually aggressive man of moments ago; in his place was Nick, as he'd been on her eighteenth birthday.
With a gentle movement, taking her by the hand, he led her from the closet and into her bedroom. He started for the bed, but then with a quick turn, he swept her up into his arms and carried her out of the room, down the hall and into his suite of rooms.