Addicted to Nick (10 page)

“What's the matter?” Nick took her hand and plaited his fingers through hers. “And don't fob me off with a ‘Nothing' answer, either. I can hear the cogs turning.”

“It's George. He said something earlier…”

“Did he threaten you?” His grip on her hand tightened almost painfully. “What did he say, Tamara?”

“I was too mad to make much of it at the time.” She frowned, recalling the bad vibes that started afterward, as she walked Pash back to the stables. “He said I didn't belong at Yarra Park, that I should have left, and for some reason I wondered about those phone calls—if he might have been trying to scare me off, although that makes no sense. It's
you
he wants gone more than me.” Spoken out loud, her concerns sounded ridiculous. She laughed self-consciously. “Forget it.”

Nick didn't laugh. “He knew I'd want to sell out. You, he needed to convince.”

“But those calls weren't threats, just silence.” She shifted uneasily with the memory. “Why would that convince me to do anything other than not answer the phone?”

“Maybe he figured you'd be uneasy living there alone. That it would help you decide to take the money and leave.” A deep frown furrowed his brow. She couldn't believe he was taking this seriously. That scared her a little. “Maybe he was building up to the threats, only then I changed the number.”

“He would have been able to get the new number. Sophie did. When you've got that much money…”

He let out a long, ragged sigh. “You're right. It doesn't make sense, but then, George doesn't always function at a rational level. He proved that this morning.”

“I'm probably dead wrong.”

“Probably, but I'd prefer to be certain.” There was a strength in the gaze holding hers, determination in the set of his jaw, and protectiveness in the hand linked with hers. He pulled her to her feet. “Come on. I'll take you home.”

 

Nick eased the bike to a standstill inside the garage and killed the engine. Its throaty rumble continued to hum through her body, a perfect counterpoint to the rhythmic drumming of rain against the iron roof.

The storm had caught them on the road, lashing them with a cruel crosswind and buffeting squalls of rain. Despite the wild ride, despite that heart-stopping moment when the back tire lost traction on the slick bitumen, she had trusted Nick to deliver her home.

At this moment home felt like the solid strength of his big, warm body, smelled like a heady combination of wet leather and wet man. This was what she had been trying to explain that day out on the track—home wasn't so much a place as a sensation that reached inside, that took hold of your soul.

A spirit of rightness.

She felt the shifting of muscles as he lifted his arms to remove his helmet; then, in one smooth motion, he swung his leg over the tank and eased to his feet beside her. Rainwater trickled down his jacket, dripping from the hem onto jeans already so wet they were plastered to his hips and thighs. His teeth flashed white as he ripped the gloves from his hands, and something primal raced through T.C.'s blood, so hot and fast it blurred her vision.

Steady, she cautioned herself. Concentrate on
not
slithering into a boneless heap at his feet.

She focused on the zip of his jacket, then on a raindrop as it threaded its delicate path south via the jungle of metal teeth. She felt the soft scrape of his fingers against her throat as he released the clasp of her headgear, and her breathing grew shallow as he slipped the helmet from her head, unzipped her jacket and peeled it off.

“I'll get your boots. They're sodden.”

“There's no need….”

“There's a need. You look like you're frozen to the seat.”

She tried to move, but he stopped her with a hand on her knee, a hand so warm she swore steam rose from her wet jeans. No. She definitely wasn't frozen.

Carefully he worked the first boot off, then her thick sock. Tamara willed her senses to concentrate on something beyond the heated touch of his fingers on her ankle. Fat chance. She closed her eyes and luxuriated in the feather-soft stroke of his thumb over her anklebone. She imagined that same slow beguiling pressure elsewhere. Circling her navel. Teasing a nipple. Sliding inside her pants.

A drip of cold rainwater splashed onto the back of her neck, breaking her sensual reverie and her leaden immobility. Finally she was capable of swinging her right leg over the seat and shimmying around to sit sidesaddle.

Nick pulled the second boot off and tossed it unceremoniously behind him. Her sock followed. She noticed his eyes in the same instant that her boot thudded against the garage wall. They watched her with an intensity that would have knocked her socks off had she been wearing any.

“You need to get out of these wet jeans.”

Yes, please.

The words formed, then seemed to stick somewhere be
tween her mind and her tongue. If only she could say them. If only she could put that hand on him.

If only she weren't such a wimp.

He straightened suddenly. “You'd better go take a shower, warm yourself up. I'll see if everything's all right down at the stables.”

A shower. Right.
She slid to the ground, and her knees buckled, but he steadied her with firm hands.

“You
are
freezing,” he murmured, and before she could reply he slipped a hand under her thighs and lifted her into his arms. The pounding rain seemed to intensify to a dull roar, although that could have been the roar of blood hammering through her veins.

The world tilted as he swung around and headed for the door, but Tamara had the distinct impression it wasn't shifting out of kilter but into perfect balance. As he struggled with the security lock, he tipped her closer to his chest, and her whole body sighed with extravagant relief. It had always known its rightful place—here, as close to Nick as the physics of matter allowed. Her slowpoke heart had taken more time to arrive at the same truth, but as he carried her inside the place she called home, it, too, caught up with the plot.

She loved him.

There was no surprise in the revelation, just a huge thickening of emotion in her chest, a complex feeling comprising as many parts pain as pleasure. She wondered if her heart was already foreseeing its broken future.

He set her down in the bathroom, on top of the vanity, and turned the shower on full steam. “Don't get out until you're properly thawed, okay?”

It was all she could do to unfurl her tongue enough to say, “Thank you.”

“For?”

“Carrying me inside. Lunch. The ride.”

“You had fun?”

She nodded.

One brow arched. “And I thought you said fun was overrated.”

 

Fun. The word reverberated in T.C.'s head, seemingly in time with the water that beat against her skin. It was a timely warning, a reminder that fun was all Nick sought. Just like Miles…

No. She rejected that thought as quickly as it formed.

He was nothing like Miles. Her heart knew that truth as well as it knew the other truth. With Nick there would be no false words of love, no false promises. There would be respect and honesty, affection and attention.

Oh, and there would be heat. Firestorms of heat, for as long as this lasted.

Five days.

She had been trying not to count, trying to forget how little time was left. Only five days until he returned to New York, only five more days for her to…what?

To hesitate? To procrastinate? To hide her feelings?

Or five days to enjoy a brief taste of heaven, to embrace it with everything she felt? Could she do it? Would it be enough?

The questions pounded through her blood as she turned off the water and toweled herself dry.

What about the afterward? Could she kiss him blithely and tell him it had been fun, even while her heart was breaking?

She exited the bathroom as Nick came into the hallway from the living area. They both stopped absolutely still, her hands gripping the towel over her breasts, his fingers unbuttoning his shirt. As that first moment of stunned stillness passed, she noticed that he had shed his coat and boots, that he continued working on his shirt as he came toward her on silent feet.

That the tension in the air felt as electrically charged as the thick storm air.

In the gathering twilight gloom, she could barely make out his face. It seemed all sharp angles and shadowed planes, and with stubble darkening his jaw and his hair wildly mussed from the helmet and the rain, he looked dark and dangerous and primitive. And in that moment she knew that despite the heartache to come, despite the lack of future, she had no choice in the matter.

Her heart had made its own decision.

Weak with that knowledge, she slumped back against the wall, needing it for support, hoping it would give her strength as his gaze roamed over her flushed face, her hands gripping the top of her towel, and the length of her exposed legs beneath.

Without a word he moved past her, shedding his shirt with an almost violent shrug of his shoulders and tossing it ahead of him through the bathroom door.

So. The first move would have to be hers, and hers alone. She swallowed again. Then, with the newness of loving him full in her heart, she took that first step.

“Tight wet jeans and wet skin are a tricky combination.”

He stopped in the doorway. One hand closed around the upright; the muscles across his shoulders tensed. His whole posture seemed expectant, waiting for her next words.

“You might want some help with them.”

He turned, eyes glittering, a slash of color etching his sharp cheekbones. “What are you saying?”

“I'm saying I've changed my mind. And I'm asking if you've changed yours.”

“Spell it out, Tamara.”

Here goes nothing…and everything.
She cleared her throat to make sure she enunciated each word very clearly. “Will you make love to me, Nick?”

F
or a long tense moment their gazes melded, his narrow, piercing, as if he needed to see into her very soul. Then he grinned, a pained lopsided quirk of the lips, but a grin all the same.

“Sure, but I'm going to need that help you offered. Feels like these jeans shrank in the rain.”

“Really?”

“Why don't you come over here and see for yourself?”

Giddy with relief, with love, with nervous anticipation, she went to him. Stood close while he cupped her face in his hands and touched his lips to her forehead. The kiss was unexpectedly, exquisitely, tender. And when he breathed, “Thank God you changed your mind,” T.C.'s heart swelled until she feared it would burst clean out of her chest.

Then his hands slid by her throat, over her shoulders, down her arms, and as they came to rest at her waist she
imagined a faint tremor in his fingertips. She must have imagined it. Those practiced hands would never quaver.

Then he was kissing her, really kissing her. He tasted of the outdoors, chill and fresh and a little sharp, until his mouth settled more fully over hers, easing it open, and then she tasted only Nick—the absolute rightness of Nick under her lips, on her tongue, in her mouth. She could have kept on kissing him for hours—no,
days
—but then his tongue slid over hers, and the surge of desire was instant, and achingly intense.

She had to touch him, to feel him against her skin. Her hands slid around his back, urging him closer. He still wore those wet jeans, but there was nothing chilling about the contact between his powerful thighs, muscles bunched as he hunched down to her level, and her naked legs.

With a low, greedy moan she wrenched her mouth from his and buried her face in his neck. Her mouth tasted the rain on his skin; her tongue measured his rapid-fire pulse in the vulnerable hollow of his throat; her eyes drifted shut to better appreciate such a sensual smorgasbord.

His hands moved lower, cupping her hips, then lower still, until the tips of his fingers touched the backs of her thighs…and trailed a slow, deliberate course inward.

Holy jiminy! How could a touch so gentle burn as deep as a firebrand?

He eased away, and she felt the gentle tug, the drag of toweling over her skin, then nothing but cool air. The sudden chill goose-bumped her flesh, and for a moment she felt exposed and self-conscious standing naked before him. Then she heard his swift intake of breath, felt the first touch of his hands gently cupping her breasts, his dark velvet voice murmuring words of encouragement.

Eyes still closed, she felt the shift of air as he ducked his head, the cool brush of wet hair against her throat, then the rasp of whiskered skin on her breast. Her lids flew open as his tongue swirled around one fiercely distended nipple.
He drew her into his hot, moist mouth, and a tremor rippled through her body. And when he suckled deeply, hungrily, an arrow of stark desire shot straight to the core of her being.

Edgy with conflicting needs, she threaded her unsteady fingers in the cool silk of his hair, first holding him to her, then urging him away. “Let me touch you,” she breathed.

“You can touch me all you like when you get me out of these cursed jeans.”

She pressed herself against those cursed jeans and felt a soft shudder rack her body. Yes, it was definitely time to lose the jeans. As she reached for the button-fly, she felt his harsh inhalation, then the evidence of his desire.

Holy toledo. There was so much of him. Such a hard, pulsing, mind-blowing lot. Her head spun with an intoxicating feminine power she'd never experienced before.

Because Nick wanted her
this
much.

He drew a ragged breath. Swore softly. And suddenly he hooked his hands under her backside and lifted her. “Let's find a bed, sweet hands.”

With rough impatience, he shouldered past a door. Six strides and she felt herself dropping; then the cushioning folds of soft bedcovers closed around her. By the time her head stopped spinning he had lost the jeans—without her help—and it crossed her mind that for such a leisurely man, he could move very quickly when he wanted to.

Naked at last, Nick came down to her, claiming her mouth in the way he ached to take her body, plunging his tongue between her kiss-swollen lips with undisguised hunger. He had wanted her—probably from the first touch of her hands on his body—but he hadn't counted on that desire grabbing him with vicious, clawing fingers.

Compelling him to forget slow, forget savoring the moment, forget everything other than driving himself into her heat.

Caveman tactics? Smooth, Niccolo. He hauled himself
back from the edge, slid his tongue more slowly against hers before easing away, wanting to look at her, then wanting to taste her. Everywhere. Her high, firm breasts, the curve of her belly, her soft thatch of curls. He slid a finger over her, felt her shudder, deep and strong.

“Please, Nick,” she pleaded softly, her hips rolling in languid invitation.

“Yeah, sweetheart, I want that, too. Trouble is, I want everything with you, all at once.” He slid a finger into her, swore urgently. “You're so wet. So tight.”

Sweat broke out down his backbone as he felt her scorching heat screaming out to him. He closed his eyes, forced himself to still. He wanted to prolong the pleasure, to touch her, taste her, but when he opened his eyes, she was biting that full bottom lip, her eyes wild and hungry.

“Please, Niccolo.”

Oh, man!

Protection.

He rolled with her, scrambled about in the bedside drawer, somehow managed to tear the package open and fit himself. Then he thrust into her in one long, fierce stroke, and as she closed around him, gripping him with sultry heat, he stilled, wanting to time-lock the exquisite pleasure of the moment. He gazed down into her eyes, was staggered to see tears, then humbled by the depth of wonder in her gaze. She placed a hand to his cheek and whispered, “Wow.”

He had no response but to kiss away her tears. To touch her cheeks and her lashes with his lips and tongue as he started to move inside her, his strokes long and deep. He felt his control teeter when she wrapped her legs around him and tilted her hips, drawing him deeper. He moved faster, harder, compelled to completion by the rhythmical caress of her body. Then he touched her, once, and she exploded in a violent, quaking storm that shredded his control.

A savage feeling of possession burst inside him. He didn't wait; he couldn't wait. He had to pour everything of himself into her, and as she continued to pulse around him, he felt a similar clasp on his heart, squeezing him tight, as if it would never let go.

 

T.C. woke slowly, her brain at least a dozen steps behind her senses. They were already brimful of Nick. The steady beat of his heart against her cheek, the solid contours of his body fitted snugly against hers, the musky scent of lovemaking.

Her brain quickly found the right page.

Lovemaking…or sex? There was no doubt in her heart. In the cold morning light, she was even more in love, if that were possible. But what about Nick? Carefully she extricated herself from his arms. Had she imagined that intensity in his gaze, that feeling of once-in-a-lifetime connection? That immense sense of special?

She chewed on her bottom lip, then puffed out a breath. She had so little objectivity, and so very little experience. With a carefully covert wriggle, she put a little space between them in his big bed. Not that she was going anywhere; she just wanted some space to…look.

He lay on his side, covered to the waist. Her heart ker-fudded against her ribs as she thought about pulling the sheet aside and taking her own leisurely time to drink in his beauty in the bright morning light. To look at him and maybe touch him some.

With her hands. With her mouth.

The wicked thought filled her with heat, sudden and breathtaking. How simple it would be to wriggle back over there and put her hand on his chest, to slide it over his flat hard abdomen, to lift the sheet and… She paused when voices infiltrated her secretive planning session—not the ones inside her head chanting “Go for it!” but others.

Her eyelids flew open. Had she really heard people talk
ing? From the other end of the house came the definite sound of a door closing, and she catapulted out of the bed.

Nick rolled onto his side and regarded her with sleepy eyes. One dark eyebrow arched as he took in her flustered nakedness. “What's up?”

“You there? T.C.? Nick?”

T.C. whirled toward the open bedroom door.

“Jase,” she breathed, dropping to the floor. She gathered and discarded random pieces of clothing with frantic hands, cursing when she hauled on a T-shirt back to front, fumbling to turn it around. Not an easy task when she was hunched down beneath mattress level, petrified of Jason appearing at any moment.

“He's come looking for us…. What time is it? I never sleep in…. Who else is out there? Do you have some shorts I can borrow?”

“Top drawer.”

She rummaged, tugged on a pair of satin boxers, anxious eyes flicking from the door to Nick, who still lay there looking sexily rumpled and perfectly at ease. He'd probably been caught in this situation a dozen times.

“Anyone home?” This time Jason sounded closer—like out in the hallway—which meant he really was coming to find them.

“Be out in a minute,” Nick called, but T.C. was already dashing around the bed and out the door.

She almost collided with Jason, whose cheerful grin froze as his eyes moved slowly from her strange attire to Nick's door, and then to some blank point on the wall behind her. His face turned a summer shade of red, which was likely a perfect match for hers. “Yesterday you said you'd be back by three, but I reckoned the storm must have held you up, so I wasn't worried. But when you weren't at the stables this morning, Mum reckoned I should come in and make sure you were all right.”

“Mum?”

“She thought she'd come and see if you wanted a hand, like with the housework or anything.”

Before she could do more than issue a silent groan, she heard movement behind her, then felt the gentle weight of Nick's hands on her shoulders, easing her back against his naked chest. At least he had pulled on jeans, although he wasn't doing anything to dispel the perception of why they had slept in.

“How about you go put some coffee on, Jase? We'll be right behind you.”

They would have needed wheels and a motor to be right behind Jason, such was his haste to get away. T.C. sympathized fully. Awkward situations always made her edgy, and this rated pretty high on her personal awkward scale. What had she been thinking, lying there seducing him in her mind? She should have been aware of the time, aware that Jase would find her absence unusual.

Why
hadn't
she been thinking?

Nick smoothed his hands over her shoulders, down her arms, measuring her tension. “You're not okay with this, are you?”

This.
Great descriptive term. Covered the undefined nature of their relationship about as all-inclusively as Nick's man-size T-shirt covered her. “No, I'm not okay, exactly.” She blew out an unsteady breath. “I'm embarrassed, I'm not comfortable, and I have no idea what to say or how to act.”

He pulled her resistant body to him, and his hands moved to her back, easing her closer still. Leaning on him felt very, very good. She felt his lips against her hair as he spoke to her, his voice low and soothing. “Jase was going to find out about us whether he came into the house this morning or not, so don't make a big deal out of it. Nothing has changed. Be yourself, okay?”

No big deal? Nothing had changed? The words felt like hammer blows to her heart.

And what were you expecting, Tamara Cole? Surely, after one night, you weren't expecting words of love and promises of undying devotion? You have been there. You've heard all the pretty words, and you know exactly how casually they can be offered by a satiated man. Better to know where you stand. Better to remember that this was about fun.

That hammer kept right on, beating a tattoo on her chest.

She felt him ease back far enough to place a finger under her chin and tilt her face to meet his reassuring gaze. “Okay?”

“Okay.” Somehow she managed to dredge up a smile as she stepped out of his arms. “I'd better go put some more clothes on. I think I've scared Jase enough for one day.”

 

A shower made her feel more human, less tragic—sort of like a wet reality check. No way would Nick Corelli fall in love with her. It was hard enough adjusting to the idea of him falling in lust with her. And when she came out of her bedroom and inhaled the aroma of sizzling bacon, she forgave Jase and Cheryl their ill-timed arrival. Her grumbling stomach reminded her how, in their greedy appetite for each other, she and Nick had neglected dinner.

Later they had been too exhausted to bother.

Lost for a moment in those memories, she walked into the kitchen and straight into Cheryl's spontaneous embrace. “It's so good to see you back in this kitchen,” T.C. spluttered, holding on tightly as she battled the onset of tears. After Pete's death, Cheryl had stopped working, stopped going out anywhere. This was such a positive sign.

“I thought it was time this old tart got on with life. Joe's kitchen felt like a good place to start.”

T.C. hugged the other woman for a moment longer before undertaking a narrow-eyed inspection. “Hmm, you're not looking too bad for an old tart.”

“And you're looking too skinny. Looks like you need a decent breakfast.” With that she turned back to the frying pan, completely at home with her self-appointed task.

Smiling through her tears, T.C. poured herself a mug of coffee and looked up to find Nick watching her from the doorway, a strange expression on his face. It was impossible to describe. Intense, but not with the usual heat of lust. Definitely softer and a little…punch-drunk.