Nikki stirred against his side and sighed over his chest before pressing a kiss to his shoulder, stirring a good morning down south even in the middle of the night. He willed away the erection—okay, it wasn't going down any time soon, but at least he reined himself in and simply rolled toward her for a simple kiss.
Simple? Not for long.
Carson sailed his hand along her n**ed spine. "You're awake."
Her fingers skipped down his chest. Lower. Gliding one finger from tip to base. "So are you."
He clamped a hand around her wrist. "As much as I would really enjoy an encore, again, you need more time to recover."
"Women don't have a recovery time like guys."
"That's not what I meant." He pressed a kiss to the palm of her hand and resisted the urge to taste more instead of talking about what promised to be a sticky subject. "You were still a virgin."
She stilled for six clicks of the ceiling fan overhead before flipping to her back, sheet clutched to her creamy chest. "I was wondering if you noticed that little fact."
Tough to miss. Just the memory of her tight heat had him throbbing all over again.
While he couldn't have all of her just yet, he allowed himself the pleasure of teasing her tangled hair along the pillow and rubbing a dark lock between two fingers. "Twice tonight was probably already one more time than was wise for your body. Tomorrow, though, I'll be more than happy to take you up on that offer."
"So we're done for tonight?"
Her obvious disappointment stirred him as much as any touch. If she was game, he had a few ideas of how they could spend the remaining hours before sunrise and a return to the real world. "Unless I can interest you in a bath?"
"A bath?" She sat up, flowered sheet slithering down to pool around her waist while she studied him with unabashed enthusiasm.
Forget oysters, this woman was a walking, talking, living, breathing aphrodisiac.
"A steaming bath would be good for all those new muscles you used tonight." He swung his feet from the bed and held out a hand for her.
Linking their fingers, she followed him into the bathroom, leaning to twist on the water—and whoa what a view. Passion fogged his vision.
Steady.
Stepping over her seashell-shaped bath mat, he lowered himself into the tub, then settled her in front of him while the faucet sluiced steaming water over their feet, her sweet bottom pressing a soft torment against him. Way to go, genius.
His skull was going to explode before he could get around to discussing the pink elephant looming in the middle of her ocean-themed bathroom. "I thought we had sex seven months ago."
Arms draped along the sides of the tub, she tipped her head on his shoulder to look at him, surprise sparkling in her crystal-gray eyes. "You don't remember what happened that night? I think you owe me a new apology."
Ah hell. Not a pink elephant at all for her, since she didn't have a clue what he'd thought.
This really was screwed up and now he'd made it worse. He needed to unscramble his brain to get through this, tough to do when his eyes were full of Nikki's legs...and more. "What did you think I was apologizing for last week?"
"For passing out on top of me seconds before the act." Pink tinged her cheeks, but he suspected it had nothing to do with the steam rising from the water around them. "And I figured you were apologizing most of all for walking out the next morning and never calling."
"That last part, absolutely. The first part, God yes, I'm apologizing for that now, as well. I'm sorry for being in no shape to ask you to stay the night with me and for being selfish enough to do it anyway."
"I can't believe that for all these months you thought we slept together." Confusion smoked through her eyes. "At least you're off the hook for that."
"Not even close. Doesn't matter that my body shut down, the intent to make love to you remained even though I knew I should stay away." He rested his chin on her head, remembering enough of that night to know that nothing, nothing was more important to him then than being with Nikki. And that unsettled the hell out of him because he still felt the same.
"Maybe you would have had second thoughts if you hadn't passed out."
"I doubt it. I'd wanted to be with you for so damn long." Which brought them back to the present. "And here we are again."
"Except things went better this time." Her smile granted forgiveness he still wasn't sure he deserved.
"I want afterward to be better, too." He clasped her hands in his, linking them over her stomach.