From This Moment On (13 page)

Because that was how she felt about him.

And she didn’t want to be the only one who needed, wanted, craved like that.

“I don’t want slow,” she told him. “I just want you. All of you.”

She bucked her hips up hard into his, forcing him to give her more, and she couldn’t hold in her gasp at the shocking fullness of his body entering hers. Or the fact that with every inch he moved deeper, she felt like he was owning not just her body, but a piece of her soul that she’d never known was available to anyone.

“There’s no going back now.”

“I don’t want to go back,” she whispered. How could she, when Marcus was her every fantasy come to life?

But that didn’t mean she wasn’t scared knowing just how thoroughly he was going to possess her. A possession that wouldn’t just be physical, despite the rules they’d set up for their one night together.

She reached for him, put her arms around his neck. “I like you, Marcus. I like you so much.”

He bent his head, kissed her softly before saying. “I like you, too.”

And then he was rearing up over her, her hands sliding from around his neck to the front of his chest as he braced his weight on his knees and gripped her hips to position himself between her thighs. She gasped as he pulled out and then filled her in one smooth stroke.

His eyes were dangerously dark. “You like that, too, don’t you, kitten?”

“Mmm.”  She couldn’t answer, couldn’t get her lips to form the words for how much she liked it, but her body was doing a fine job of answering him, rocking beneath the long, hard thrusts of his pelvis into hers.

“Just like that,” he urged her. “Squeeze me tight just like that.”

As if he held the controls to her body, she felt her sex clench at his encouragement, and both of them groaned as the sensations built, multiplied, extended out to a place of nearly impossible pleasure. She could feel another climax building, growing, taking her over cell by cell.

The oncoming orgasm hit her so hard it knocked all of the remaining breath from her lungs. “Oh God, Marcus. Come with me. Please. I need you here.”

Her frantic words, her unplanned plea, must have been magic, because in an instant, all of the control that he’d work so hard to hold onto was gone
.

He pounded into her with no regard for hurting her, without a thought to whether she could withstand the force of his lovemaking
.

And, oh, how she loved it
.

How she loved to be in the middle of the hurricane with him as he spun them both higher and tighter, his big body controlling hers so beautifully. So perfectly.

Sounds echoed through the large bedroom, his praise for how beautiful she was, how perfect, along with her moans, gasps, yes, even screams of pleasure. And even when she expected her climax to end—it couldn’t go on forever like this, could it?—Marcus continued to rock with her, his hand moving between her legs, rubbing circles of pleasure.

“Give me one more,” he urged her, and she was wondering how he knew there was a little bit left inside of her still, when she felt it wash over her, another wave of pleasure, less intense this time, but still so good, she had to reach for him and pull him down over her so that she could kiss him.

Their kiss was lazier now, slower in the aftermath of all that passion and intense need, and she loved the way his tongue stroked against hers.

A little while later, he shifted them so that he was on his back and she was lying half on the bed, half sprawled across him. Somewhere in there she felt him shift to remove the condom, but thankfully he was reaching for her and pulling her back against him a handful of seconds later, her head on his chest, with the rest of her body curled over and around his very hard muscles.

Nicola couldn’t remember the last time she felt this tired...or this good. And yet, if she slept now, knowing it was all over in the morning, her dreams would be unsettled. Upset despite how amazing her night with Marcus had been.

And the truth was, had she been more awake, more lucid, she never would have asked, “How about two nights instead of one?”

The perfect way they fit together, the way he pulled her closer and stroked his hand over her hair, was her answer. No longer needing to stay awake, Nicola let herself relax all the way into sleep.

* * *

Holy hell
.

Marcus stared at the ceiling, the bright lights of downtown San Francisco shining in through the sheer curtains on the windows.

He’d always loved sex, but what had just happened with Nicola tonight...it was way beyond good sex.

His mind wasn’t just blown, his body was, too.

And now, she wanted another night.

Of course, he did, too. How could he not want a repeat of the most spectacular sex of his life, with what had to be the most beautiful, most responsive woman he’d ever had the pleasure of making love to?

But that was just the problem.

It should have been fucking
.

It should have been mindless screwing.

It should have been nothing but pleasure, nothing but checking off one orgasm after another.

Nicola shifted against him, her soft curves arousing him when he should have been long past the point of no return, at least for a good thirty minutes or so.

Maybe if he wasn’t thirty-six years old; maybe if he hadn’t just been screwed over by a woman he’d thought he was going to marry; maybe if he hadn’t just been party to something so extraordinary it made his groin throb with renewed need...maybe then he could have told himself the lie he wanted to believe.

But he knew better than to even try.

Because the undeniable truth was that the night he’d just spent with Nicola had been more than he’d bargained for
.

He liked her. A whole hell of a lot more than he was comfortable with. Somehow all the visions of her with those kids at the elevator, his memory of the way she’d slept on his lap and then had been so sweetly nervous in his brother’s kitchen, combined with the sex goddess she’d been all night in bed, made her seem like his version of the perfect woman.

If one night could take him this far, then where on earth would he be after two?

Chapter Eleven

Nicola was having the most marvelous dream. She was in a deliciously cozy bed, cuddled into a hard, heated wall of muscle. With that warmth wrapped all around her, she felt so safe—safe enough to let loose her innate sensuality as a large male hand found its way over her breasts, down her stomach, to the vee between her legs. It was pure instinct to arch into that arousing touch, to moan her pleasure, to widen her thighs and press into sure fingers now circling her clitoris.

Her lower belly clenched once, twice, with pleasure, and then—
oh yes, right there!—
those fingers were moving lower still to slide through her slick wetness, to tease her mercilessly before pushing inside her flesh.

She felt it coming, then, an orgasm so big it felt like it was starting at the tips of her toes and would end at the pads of her fingers. Her breath was coming out in gasps and through her fluttering eyelids she could almost see the dream cloud parting
.

No! She didn’t want to wake up, didn’t want to lose the thread of one of the most amazing dreams she’d ever had before she—

RING! BUZZ! RING! BUZZ! RING!

The loud sound of a cell phone jumping on a tabletop was almost immediately joined by the harsh ringing of the hotel’s phone on the bedside table, barely three feet from Nicola’s head.

Oh shit! She jumped up in the bed, her heart pounding as the words
shit, shit, shit!
played on repeat in her head.

How could she have forgotten about her video shoot?

She was a heartbeat away from throwing the covers off and running into the bathroom to fling herself into the world’s quickest shower when she realized the large hand on her thigh wasn’t a dream.

As the final vestiges of sleep cleared and everything came flooding back to her, she found her heart beating hard for a reason that had nothing to do with being late for work.

She was still throbbing between her legs with almost-realized pleasure as she reached for the sheet and pulled it up over her naked body. She knew it didn’t really make sense for her to do that after last night. Maybe it was how flustered she felt waking up so abruptly. Maybe it was that Marcus looked impossibly gorgeous, his skin tanned and dark against the snowy white sheets.

Or maybe it was simply that she wasn’t used to waking up in bed with a man’s hand between her thighs.

“I’m really late for my video shoot. I can’t believe I forgot to set the alarm
."

She’d made it a point to be early for everything, especially since the debacle with Kenny when her reputation as a wild party girl had blown up around her.

At her blurted words, Marcus’s hand slid from her thigh and she immediately missed the warmth of his touch. He shifted on the bed to sit up as well, only he wasn’t at all concerned about his nudity.

He was big and hard and for a moment her brain forgot all about business. All she could think was how good it would feel to climb up over him, to sink down onto him and take him inside her body. A body that was more than ready to make love again.

And she probably would have done just that, had he not said, “It’s my fault. I kept you up too late last night, even though I knew you needed to work today.”

God, why did their mornings always have to be so awkward? It didn’t help that her phones wouldn’t stop ringing.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I need to get that real quick just to let them know I’m on my way.”

She grabbed the phone closest to her and said, “Hi. Sorry.” She had her face in her hands as she said, “I overslept. I’ll be there really soon
."

She hung up. “That was Lori. She sounds really worried about—”

Her words fell away as she noticed that Marcus wasn’t in the bed anymore, that he was standing on the opposite side of the room and had already put on his pants. She was the one who should have been dressed already and heading out the door, but from the look on his face, he was clearly planning to beat her to it. She could also clearly see from his stiff body language to the regret on his face that he wanted nothing more than to walk away from her, from the incredible night they’d spent together
.

Of course, right then, she had to remember what she’d asked him before falling asleep in his arms:
“How about two nights instead of one?”

Nicola’s first reaction was to cringe, to feel like a pathetic idiot for having asked for more time with him. She pulled the sheet off the bed to cover herself as she stood to face the man who had brought her more pleasure than she’d even known was possible
.

Only, instead of letting him leave before she embarrassed herself any further, something hit her: Everything she’d ever wanted, she’d gone for
.

Despite how hard it was, how potentially mortifying, despite the huge potential hit to her pride, she knew deep inside that she and Marcus had shared something special. Not just the sex, but those sweet moments of connection, too.

She wasn’t willing just to let it all end. She wasn’t willing to let herself be pleasured and left like this
.

Which was why she refused to let the nervous pace of her heartbeat keep her from moving across the room to him. His eyes darkened as she came closer, the muscles in his rigid jaw jumping as the sheet slipped further down on her chest.

She knew she could drop the sheet and get what she wanted, that his reaction to her naked curves was almost guaranteed. And it was tempting, so tempting, to be consumed by his flames of desire all over again that she almost did just that.

Only, something held her back—that voice in her head that said she wanted his decision to spend another night with her to be more than just the fact that he wanted her body beneath his again.

Not, of course, that she could see any possible future beyond the next few days with Marcus. He was all wrong for her—a businessman who was surely in the market for a wife and kids in the very near future. And she was all wrong for him—a pop star who was on a plane more days than she wasn’t.

And yet, there was emotion there between them. Even in the club that first night, something special had pulsed between them amidst the loud music and strangers. Good or bad, the artist in her simply couldn’t help but want to uncover more of it, just as she dove into the emotions of every song she’d ever written
.

When she was standing barely a foot from him, she said, “I loved last night.” She made herself hold his dark, incredibly intense gaze. “I loved everything about being with you.” Nicola moved closer before he could respond and reached up to feather her fingertips over the very sexy stubble that covered his jaw. Just that small touch had her feeling as if electricity was coursing through her veins
.

“I’m going to be in town for a couple more nights for the video shoot today and a concert on Saturday night
."