Dateline: Kydd and Rios (5 page)

“Don’t,” he commanded huskily.

“Josh, I—”

“One kiss, Nikki.”

Even as he spoke, his mouth moved over hers, and his hand swept up her neck to cup her face. His lips brushed hers lightly, tentatively. He couldn’t force anything from her, but in his heart he knew he didn’t need force. He’d seen her eyes in unguarded moments when she looked at him with longing. Tonight he would teach her what she’d been longing to learn and, in the teaching, heal his soul.

Finding courage in her acceptance of his chaste kiss, he opened his mouth over hers. Finally, after all these many months, he put into action the dream that had haunted his nights and slid his tongue across her lips. She tasted sweeter, felt better, than anything he’d dared imagine. His body tightened; hers softened.

Nikki’s shock hit an all-time high when she realized exactly what he was doing. Josh, her Josh, was touching her as a lover, not as a friend. His mouth moved over hers and into hers repeatedly, drowning her surprise with a greater need. Of their own accord, her hands slid up his chest to grasp his shoulders. More than anything they’d shared, she wanted this kiss to remember him by, and in a hundred small ways, she told him so. She touched her tongue to his and felt his heavy sigh consume her. She pressed her hips closer, and his arms encircled her with steely strength, flexing to hold her completely. All of her thoughts, all of her senses, coalesced into one burning ambition: to touch and taste and feel Josh’s body, to understand the mystery of his mouth and the way he kissed, deep and long and fully. His teeth grazed her lower lip, and pleasure rained down her body. He sucked her tongue into his mouth, and the pleasure rose again, more powerful than before. She was dying and living, and coming apart at the seams.

Josh felt her small gasps echo in his mouth, felt the rise and fall of her breasts against his chest, and he marveled at the artless ease of her response. Nikki in love was sweet, warm, wild. The night stretched out before him with a wealth of possibilities. He would love her until she’d have no other. He’d teach her about herself in a thousand new ways, and he would teach her about him, slowly and carefully. The kiss was only a beginning, but one he never wanted to end. Her tongue tasted his lips, his mouth, and honed his arousal to a fine edge. He wanted all of her.

Groaning, he let his hand slide under her T-shirt and up around to stroke her breast. Nikki felt the heat of his palm, the gentle kneading of his fingers, and suddenly she understood what he wanted. Much more than a kiss, nothing less than everything.

A moment of panic, mixed with acute shyness, suspended her exploration of his mouth.

“Don’t stop, Nikki.” He breathed the words against her lips, feeling her hesitation. He rubbed his nose down the side of hers. “You’re so beautiful in my hand. So warm, so full, and so mine.” His husky voice strummed across her emotions, filling her with exquisite yearnings.

“I don’t want to stop,” she said quietly, the fall of her hair hiding her blush from him. “I don’t understand, Josh. One minute you want to send me away, and the next—” Her voice softened to a whisper. “I don’t know how to do this, Josh.”

Only Nikki, he thought with gentle understanding, only Nikki would make such a confession. With his free hand, he lifted her chin, then let his gaze roam over the flushed beauty of her face.

“We’re right together. We always have been.” Using every advantage he had, he brushed his thumb over the peak of her breast and watched with pleasure as her eyes darkened with the sweetness of passion. “You must know that, Nikki.”

“We’ve never been like this before,” she said breathlessly, barely managing to keep her gaze focused on him. The sensations he sent spiraling through her body were so powerful, so new.

“We should have been, a long time ago,” he said, refusing to lose her now. Physically and emotionally, he’d already started making love to her. “I can’t tell you how many nights I’ve lain awake in the room next to yours and thought of nothing but touching you here.” With his index finger, he traced the valley between her breasts.

“Oh, Josh. You don’t know what you’re doing to me.” She felt weak and dangerously out of control.

“Yes, I do,” he murmured. “You’re doing the same thing to me. What you’re feeling, I feel. What you want, I want. To touch and kiss and hold you naked against me until I can’t even think for needing to be inside you.”

The boldness of his confession singed her cheeks with embarrassment and the rest of her body with an answering need. She saw the truth of his desire in the lines of strain around his mouth. She felt it in the tense hardness of his body. She knew it in her heart.

“Why now?” she asked.

A shadow fell over his youthful face, softening the harsh angles with tender longing. “Because we’re both hurting, Nikki. Because you’re leaving me.” His gaze was languid with the heat arcing between their bodies. “Because I love you.”

She knew that, too. How could she not have known? Her love for him was so alive it colored all her days. It grew with every beat of her heart. They were so good together, how could he not love her the same way?

“Don’t make me go,” she whispered.
Don’t make me leave you behind, where everything we’ve shared will fade into memories.

“I won’t forget you, Nikki. I promise. I’ll come for you when I can.”

A part of her died with his words. He didn’t understand, and she didn’t have the courage to explain. Although she would love him tonight, in the morning she would still leave him. Another love left her no choice.

How neatly the tables turned, she thought sadly, letting her gaze roam over his face. She soaked in every clean angle and tender plane, the high arch of his cheeks and the expressive curve of his lips. With the tips of her fingers, she stroked his hair, brushing it behind his ear, memorizing the silky texture, the ebony color, and the way it fell through her hand. Long after she left him, she’d remember how it felt to hold him as a woman. As she touched him, she watched his lids grow heavy, his thick lashes lower to rest on his cheeks. She loved him.

And Josh knew no one loved her more than he, not in this life, not tonight. He lowered his mouth to hers again, without any hesitation, without holding back. He plundered and tasted and teased until she was with him on every move, anticipating with him the sweet mysteries still to be explored. He felt her breath catch as he slipped her T-shirt off her shoulders, heard her low moan as he unbuttoned his shirt and gathered her close, bringing her breasts against the warmth of his chest.

His muscles tightened. His heart beat with even greater force. Nikki was his, and he gave free rein to the sweet ache growing in his loins, letting his feelings pour out of him.

Nikki arched against him. His body was satin-sheathed steel, hard muscle and sinew covered with warm, dark skin. He felt like heaven to touch. She pushed his shirt off his shoulders and felt his hands on the buckle of her belt. Never once did he stop kissing her.

Garment by garment, their clothing fell to the floor, his shirt following her T-shirt, his jeans following her shorts. Both belt buckles clattered against the wood planks in a muted counterpoint to their soft moans and sighs. When they were both stripped to their underwear, Josh felt a mental hesitation that in no way stopped him from sliding his hand beneath her panties. This was her first time, he reminded himself even as he caressed the silky skin below her waist.
Her first time
. The implications suddenly became clear, and just short of his destination, he retreated.

But he didn’t stop kissing her. His mouth devoured hers hungrily, priming her for the boldness of his next move. Holding the nape of her neck with his palm, he lifted her deeper into the kiss and slowly urged her hand down the front of his body. It was quite possible that his soon-to-be-lover had no idea what she was getting herself into.

Her fingers trailed delicately down his chest, his abdomen, and farther, until his breath caught in a groan.

“That’s what you do to me, Nicolita, what you’ve been doing to me for months.” He buried his face in the golden veil of her hair, reveling in her tentative exploration and the fireworks she set off with her touch. At her soft whisper in his ear, he chuckled, low and throatily. “Don’t worry. We’ll be a perfect fit. I promise.” With another bold move, he pushed her panties off her hips and down her legs, then began his own sweet exploration.

The heat and humidity of the night closed around them like a sultry cocoon as they stretched out on the bed, naked in each other’s arms. He used his hands and mouth a hundred different ways on her body, turning her into fire and flame, bringing her to the brink of release and easing her back down. He didn’t want her frightened by the intense emotions and sensations of a lover’s climax, but he definitely wanted her to climax. Her arousal was paramount in his mind, for some admittedly selfish reasons. He wanted to feel her release wash over him. He wanted to love her and know she felt everything he felt. He wanted to share this night completely, to make her feel her body in all its exquisite perfection, to leave a brand upon her heart that no other could erase.

Nikki shimmered and arched under his sweet, relentless torture, loving him in return, learning how to make his pleasure last, how to draw her tongue across his mouth and her hands down his body until he had to make her stop.

“Please,” he begged, his fingers tightening around her wrists. “Give me a chance. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You had your chance a year ago, Rios,” she murmured close to his ear. She loved the feel of his body, slick and hot, over hers, and wanted him, as he’d promised, deep inside her. “You could have walked away.” The last was a bare whisper against his throat. She adjusted her hips, silently telling him of her readiness and the desperate need consuming her.

“Not then,” he said huskily. “And not now, but I’ve got to have some cooperation or I’m going to—”

“You’re not going to hurt me, Josh. Not now, not unless you stop.” She wrapped one silky leg around his hips, and instantly unraveled his last tenuous hold on control.

Clenching the sheets in his hands, he covered her mouth with his own and tried to hold himself back. Instead he found himself slipping inside her, every moment becoming more urgent.

Nikki gasped, and felt the world open up like a flower’s petals rising to meet the sun. He filled her completely and still took her higher, beyond any realm of sensation she’d imagined. Each thrust of his body weakened her hold on reality. She held him tighter and tighter, reaching for an elusive pinnacle, a pinnacle he took her to when he slipped his hand between their bodies and touched her with a rhythmic, intimate caress. Then she was tumbling down in rippling waves of eternity, hearing her name whispered over and over in her ear. The end was sweet and long, lasting forever, tying her irrevocably to one man.

Spent, sated, and filled with wonder, Josh collapsed on top of her. Never, ever, would he let her go. He rubbed his face in the creamy valley of her breasts, kissing each in turn, worshiping the woman who had exploded all his myths of love, turning them into ashes compared to the reality of loving her. No matter what he’d said or done earlier, in the morning he knew he would be down on his knees with his heart in his hands, begging her to stay.

Nikki ran her fingers through the tangled strands of his hair, holding her tears inside. One taste of such magic would never be enough, not for a lifetime. No random chance had given her Joshua Rios. They were meant to be together. 

“I love you, Josh.” The words were spoken softly to hide the catch in her throat.

He heard it anyway. He lifted his head and gently eased out of her body. “Don’t cry, Nikki, please.” He kissed her lips, her cheeks, her brow. “I love you. Don’t cry.” With consummate care, he reassured her of his love, his presence, his desire to hold her and always keep her safe.

But in the silent dark hours before dawn, after he’d loved her again and while he slept peacefully in her arms, she found the strength to slip away from his side.

Quietly she dressed and repacked her suitcase, picking her clothes up off the floor. Then, with only one longing, loving backward glance, she closed the door behind her—and locked it to keep him safe.

Summer heat lay over San Simeon like a steaming blanket, smothering the normal hustle and bustle of the city night. Nikki sat at her desk in front of the open French doors leading to her apartment balcony. Humidity and her own sweat soaked her cotton T-shirt and shorts, but she barely noticed the oppressive weather. Her life had started to unravel seven hours ago, and she’d been running at breakneck speed ever since, trying to salvage the remnants.

Three years almost to the day, she thought. Please, Josh, remember. Please remember.

She typed frantically, pounding the keys of her small manual typewriter, hating herself for every subtly worded phrase designed to bring him back to her. She didn’t even know where he was. His own editor didn’t know. Still somewhere in South America, he’d guessed. Josh’s latest stories had come out of Colombia, but with the last one he’d requested a few weeks off. She only prayed that wherever he was, he was still reading the newspapers: His life, and her mother’s life, depended on it.

A dazzling array of candles flickered around her desk, dripping wax into their platters. Her computer sat uselessly on a file cabinet, a slave to the electricity San Simeon seemed incapable of providing in reliable quantities. The whole country was plunging into chaos again, but this time Nikki was determined not to go down with it.