Despite being exhausted from the long hours she’d spent hunched over her worktable, Nathan’s touch aroused her all over again. She’d spent so much time imagining the things she wanted to do in this bed. She had a dozen fantasies to live out.
“I’m not feeling much like talking,” she said, rolling him onto his back and straddling him. Her breath hitched as he reached up and gently weighed her breasts in his hands.
“In other words, just enjoy this?”
She bent forward, her lips hovering just above his, and smiled. “Exactly.”
Now this was more to his liking.
Nathan listened to the deep, steady breathing and inhaled the warm scent rising off the skin of the soft, naked woman sleeping in his arms. He took a long moment to savor the press of her full breasts against his chest and the tangle of their legs beneath the covers. Then, he opened his eyes and feasted on her passion-bruised mouth and long lashes. In the predawn light, with her mussed hair and naked shoulders rising out of the sheets, she appeared well-loved. His lips curved in a satisfied smirk.
When he’d first awakened, any thought of moving had been immediately rejected. The need for activity that drove him relentlessly had been tempered by the previous night’s lovemaking. He wanted nothing more than to enjoy having Emma stretched out beside him. Parts of him, however, proved to have an abundance of energy. Blood surged into his groin, signaling a lust he’d thought well-sated.
Nathan slid his hand up her thigh and across her backside. He spread his fingers over the curve, applying pressure to ease her against his hard-on. Her lashes flickered, telling him she was awake. He nuzzled her temple.
“I have to go,” she murmured, her muscles tensing as she braced to move.
He tightened his grip. If he let her escape, his contentment would go with her. What was happening to him that he could think of nothing better than spending the entire day in bed with her, just reading the paper or enjoying the feel of her body against his?
“Just stay a little longer.”
“I’ve stayed too long already,” she retorted, squirming against his grip, arousing him still more with her wriggling. “I’ve got work to do.”
“Forget about the show. You’ll never make your father’s deadline.”
“I’ll make it.” She glared at him and wedged her hands between their bodies to push him away. “I will make it.”
“Why don’t you just give up and marry me? You know I’ll take care of you the way you were meant to be taken care of.”
“I don’t want to be taken care of.”
Says the girl who wants a fairy-tale marriage, Nathan thought. If she’d give him half a chance, he could change her mind on that score, show her how thoroughly he could spoil her.
“Why are you fighting this so hard? We’re great together. Last night was amazing.”
Nathan rolled her beneath him, pinning her wrists above her head. Her muscles melted, body yielding. But her lips thinned in mutiny, and a resentful tempest darkened her eyes.
“Last night was about sex. That’s not what I’m looking for in a marriage.”
“It had better be or your husband will wander,” he teased, nuzzling her neck, enjoying her skin.
“What I mean is sex isn’t all I’m looking for in a marriage. I need love, too.”
“Love doesn’t last.”
“Sometimes it does.”
Feeling the tension in the slim body beneath his, Nathan released her wrists and shifted his weight off her. She slid out of bed.
His body ached as he watched her walk toward her discarded clothes. Was there anything sexier than a woman’s back, he wondered, linking his fingers behind his head. The sheet slid to his waist, stopped from going farther by his morning erection. A cold shower would take care of that. In the meantime, he savored the dimples at the small of her back on either side of her spine, the sexy swoop of her narrow waist, and the flare of her heart-shaped derriere. She bent to retrieve her underwear, and he sighed as the action shoved her luscious tush into the air.
Keeping her back to him, she stepped into her pale pink panties. Watching her slide the scrap of lace into place was almost as sexy as watching her remove it. Everything about her turned him on. When she was done hooking her bra, she pivoted to face him.
“The man I marry will want me because of who I am, not because of who my father is.”
Nathan leaned forward, running his eyes roaming over her half-naked form, filling the room with his desire for her. “I do want you.”
“But you don’t love me.”