Double Standards

She stepped aside and let him in, then took his jacket and hung it in the closet. When she turned, Nick was leaning against the closed front door, his arms crossed over his chest. "On second thought," he grinned, "I take part of that back. I'd love to bite you."

"Pervert!" she returned teasingly, her heart thumping so much with excitement that she hardly knew what she was saying.

"Come here and I'll show you just how perverted I can be," he invited smoothly.

Lauren took a cautious step backward. "Absolutely not. Would you like some coffee or a Coke?"

"Either would be fine."

"I'll make some coffee."

"Kiss me first."

Lauren shot him a look over her shoulder and walked into the kitchen. As she made the coffee, she was acutely conscious that he was standing in the kitchen doorway, watching her.

"Do I pay you enough to afford this apartment?" he asked casually.

"No. There's a burglary problem here, so in return for watching the place, I get to live here free." She heard him start toward her, and she hastily turned to the table and put out cups and saucers. When she straightened, she knew he was standing right behind her, but she had no choice except to turn around and face him.

"Have you missed me?" he asked.

"What do you think?" she evaded smoothly—but not smoothly enough, because he chuckled.

"Good. How much?"

"Is your ego in need of bolstering today?" she countered lightly.

"Yep."

"Really, why?"

"Because I got shot down by a beautiful twenty-three-year-old, and I can't seem to get her out of my mind."

"That's too bad," Lauren said, trying unsuccessfully to hide the joy in her voice.

"Isn't it," he mocked. "She's like a thorn in my side, a blister on my heel. She has the eyes of an angel, a body that drugs my mind, the vocabulary of an English professor and a tongue like a scalpel."

"Thanks, I think."

His hands glided up her arms, then curved around her shoulders, tightening as he drew her to within a few inches of his chest. "And," he added, "I like her."

His mouth was making a deliberately slow descent, and Lauren waited helplessly for the physical impact of his lips covering hers. Instead he bypassed her lips and began to explore the creamy skin of her neck and shoulder, his warm mouth nuzzling the sensitive area, then slowly wandering upward along her neck toward her ear. With the kitchen table behind her and Nick's body in front, Lauren was incapable of doing anything except standing there, a mass of quivering sensations. His mouth left a burning trail of kisses up to her temple, then slowly began to drift toward her lips. A fraction of an inch above hers he stopped and repeated his earlier command. "Kiss me, Lauren."

"No," she whispered shakily.

He shrugged and began leisurely kissing her other cheek, stopping to linger sensuously at her ear, his tongue tracing every curve and hollow. He nipped her earlobe, and Lauren lurched forward in a startled movement that jolted their bodies together. A current leaped between them, and they both stiffened with the delicious shock of it. "God!" Nick muttered under his breath, and his lips began to trail down her neck to her shoulder.

"Nick, please," Lauren whispered weakly.

"Please what?" he murmured against her throat. "Please put us both out of this misery?"

"No!"

"No?" he repeated silkily, raising his head. "You don't want me to kiss you, and undress you, and make love to you?" His lips were tantalizingly close, and Lauren was almost faint with the desire to feel them crushing down on hers. Instead he bent his head and lightly brushed his mouth over hers, first in one direction, then the other. "Please kiss me," he coaxed huskily. "I dream about the way you kissed me in Harbor Springs, about how sweet and warm you felt in my arms…"

With a silent moan of surrender, Lauren slid her hands up his muscular chest and kissed him. She felt the tremor that ran through his body, the gasp of his breath against her lips in the instant before his arms closed around her, and his mouth opened passionately over hers.

Desire was racing through her like a wild fury by the time he finally dragged his mouth from hers. "Where's the bedroom?" he whispered hoarsely.

Lauren pulled back in his arms and lifted her eyes to his. His face was dark with passion, and demand was blazing in his gray eyes. She remembered the last time she had looked into those insistent eyes and had yielded to his fiery passion. Memories flashed through her mind in chilling sequence: he had made love to her in Harbor Springs, had held her and caressed her as if he couldn't get enough of her, and then he had coolly sent her home. She had learned to her own shame and anguish that he was completely capable of making tender, passionate, shattering love to a woman for the sheer physical pleasure of it—without feeling the slightest emotional involvement with her.

He wanted her more now than he had in Harbor Springs—Lauren knew that. She could feel it. She was also half convinced that he felt more for her than just desire, but then she'd foolishly believed that in Harbor Springs too. This time she wanted to be certain. Her pride would not permit her to let him use her again.

"Nick," she said nervously, "I think it would be better if we got to know each other first."

"We already know each other," he reminded her. "Intimately."

"But I mean… I would like us to know each other better before we… before we start anything."

"We've already started something, Lauren," he said with a hint of impatience in his voice. "And I want to finish it. So do you."

"No, I—" She gasped as his hands cupped the thrusting roundness of her breasts and his thumbs began circling the hardened buds of her nipples.

"I can feel how badly you want me," he told her. His hands swept around her grasping her hips, holding her tightly against him and making her forcefully aware of his hardened manhood thrusting against her. "And you can feel how much I want you. Now, what else do we need to know about each other? What else matters?"

"What else matters?" Lauren hissed, pulling free of his arms. "How can you ask me that? I told you I couldn't handle a casual, unemotional affair with you. What are you trying to do to me?"

Nick's jaw tightened. "I'm trying to get you into that bedroom so that we can ease the ache that's been building inside us for weeks. I want to make love to you all day until we're both too weak to move. Or, if you prefer it more blunt than that, I want to—"

"And then what?" Lauren demanded hotly. "I want to know the rules, dammit! Today we make love, but tomorrow we're no more than casual acquaintances, is that it? Tomorrow you can make love to another woman if you want to, and I'm not supposed to care—right? And tomorrow I can let another man make love to me, and you won't care—is that right?"

"Yes," he snapped.

Lauren had her answer—he didn't care about her any more now than he had before. He merely wanted her more. Tiredly she said, "Coffee is ready."

"I'm ready," he said crudely.

"Well, I'm not!" Lauren stormed in mounting fury. "I'm not ready to be your Sunday-afternoon playmate. If you're bored, go play your games with someone who can handle a casual romp in bed with you."

"What the hell do you want from me?" he demanded coldly.

I want you to love me, she thought. "I don't want anything from you," she said. "Just go away, leave me alone."

Nick's insolent eyes raked over her. "Before I go, I want to give you a piece of advice," he said icily. "Grow up!"

Lauren felt as if he had slapped her. Infuriated past reason, she struck back at his ego. "You're absolutely right!" she blazed. "That's what I should do. Beginning today I'm going to grow up and start practicing what you preach! I'm going to sleep with any man who appeals to me. But not with you. You're much too old and too cynical for my taste. Now get out of here!"