Love's Rhythm (10 page)

“Look at me, babe.” His voice caressed her lips. “Look at me and tell me not to kiss you.”

She opened her eyes, gazed at him through lowered lashes. Saw the torment in his face. Saw the desire in his eyes. Desire for her. Desire she knew so well. So very well.

She parted her lips. And said, “Kiss me, Nick. Please.”

He did.

His mouth took full and utter possession of hers. His tongue travelled her lips, her teeth, teasing her until she crushed her body to his and tangled her fingers in his hair. She lashed her tongue over his, demanding he kiss her harder, deeper. He did as she begged, his hands roaming her back as he plundered her mouth.

A moan vibrated low in her throat. Her nipples turned into painful tips of flesh. They rubbed at the soft flannel of her PJs, the friction like a drug seeping into her mind. How did he make her feel like this? How did he make her want him so much?

It didn’t matter. Not now. Now, she just wanted this kiss. Just this kiss and then she’d tell him to go. To leave.

Just this kiss.

He swiped his tongue into her mouth and captured hers, driving her back a step as he did so. She went easily, her arms wrapping around his shoulders, her fingers fisted in his hair. He wouldn’t let her fall. Even though her heels stumbled on the hallway runner, he wouldn’t let her fall. He would kiss her until she went insane with want and pleasure, but Nick wouldn’t let her fall. She knew that. Her heart knew that.

And so she gave herself over completely to the kiss. This one wild, stupid, irresponsible kiss. Gave herself to it with greedy acceptance.

Nick’s mouth plundered hers, his hands leaving her back for her hips, her breasts. He yanked at her pyjama top, seeking the buttons on her shirt. A low growl tore from his throat when he couldn’t find them. Swift and almost savage, he thrust one hand under the hemline of her top and dragged his palm up over her ribcage.

His fingers found her breast, its weight unrestrained by bra or singlet. A ripple of base delight coursed through her and she let out another moan, this one louder. Nick fed from the sound, feasting on her lips and tongue. He sucked her tongue into his mouth for a split second, the action both surprising and thrilling her. It was such a possessive, dominating ownership of her mouth, of her, and her pussy flooded with damp heat.

Lord, if he plunged his hand between her thighs now his fingers would come away wet.

Because you’re letting him take what he rejected fifteen years ago.

The thought seared into her. She groaned, rolling her head from his. “This can’t be more than…”

He didn’t let her finish. His hand closed over her breast, his mouth captured hers again. His whole body was strung tight. She could feel every muscle against her like corded steel. Nick had always been lean with sinewy strength, but the energy in his body now… Oh God, she could burn in it forever and despise herself the next day.

Yet she couldn’t stop him. Didn’t want to. It was too raw. Primitive.

And God help her, too right. Why did this have to feel so right? Damn him.

A sob choked in her throat and she clung to him with desperate urgency. After this he would be gone. She couldn’t let him stay. After this it was just her and Josh again, and that was the way it had to be. But this kiss…this man…his hands…his mouth…

Nick’s fingers closed over Lauren’s breast, his palm flattening it with kneading want. He growled something against her lips, an expletive, a plea? She didn’t know. His hand massaged her breast as his mouth drank from her lips, and she didn’t know what he’d groaned.

She tore her face away again, the smoldering tension in the pit of her belly telling her she needed to.

He stared into her face, his nostrils flaring, his eyes the colour of angry storm clouds. “Why…” he began, and then groaned again, dropping his head to her throat as he yanked her to his body. He pinched at her nipple, dragged his thumb over its tip. She shuddered, a whimper slipping from her. And another when his lips sucked on the sensitive flesh beneath her ear.

“Nick,” she gasped, “Don’t…don’t leave…”

“I’m not, babe,” he rasped, his breath like turbulent wind against her neck, his thigh grinding to the junction of her thighs. “No fucking way.”

“A mark,” she panted. “Don’t leave…”

He sucked harder on her throat, his fingers sinking into her breast. She bucked to him, her pussy throbbing, her nails raking at his scalp. Damn him. Why did he have this power over her? Why did he… How could he still do this to her? After so many years? After so many nights crying into her pillow? Wishing him dead. Wishing him in her arms.

As if he felt the torment cutting through her, he lifted his head and gazed down at her. Grey pain boiled in his eyes, pain and desire and want and need. The skin around his nose stretched tight. His Adam’s apple jerked up and down in his throat.

“This doesn’t change anything, Nick.” The words were acid on her tongue. “It can’t. It’s just…”

“Why…” he began, voice like stripped smoke. He closed his eyes again, jaw bunching. “Fuck, Lauren, why didn’t…”

Whatever he was going to ask was lost on a groan. A groan that turned into a ragged pant as he kicked the door shut behind him and crushed her lips with his, once again kissing her with such fierce hunger it frightened her.

Frightened her and aroused her to a place she’d never been.

Her sex wept, contracted on Nick’s dick. Except it wasn’t there. It wasn’t buried in her core. It rubbed her belly, long and hard and imprisoned by his trousers. She fought to release it, her fingers snatching at his fly. She wanted his swollen length in her hand, in her mouth, in her cunt. She writhed against him, bare feet slapping on the floor as he spun around and propelled her backward.

Her arse hit the door first. His hips ground against her second. He fucked her mouth with his tongue, plundering, taking, possessing. And all the while his hands raked her body. Under her shirt, over her ribs, capturing her breast. She moaned, the sound turning to a cry when he pulled her pyjama top over her head and tossed it aside.

He captured one nipple, suckled hard, and then moved his mouth back to her lips, his hands raking over her body once more. Down her waist, over her hips, beneath her pyjama pants. He explored her arse cheeks through her undies, his fingers tugging at the skimpy cotton knickers until they were bunched under her backside. He squeezed and kneaded and caressed her flesh, his fingers pulling at her cheeks until they stroked over the puckered hole of her anus. She bucked, the contact like a shot of pure pleasure straight into her core.

Nick groaned into her mouth, yanked his mouth from hers and, with a sudden, violent move, stripped her of her pyjama pants and knickers. The cool hallway air kissed her bare skin, a heartbeat before his lips did the same. He plunged his tongue between her thighs, licking at her folds with seeking need. She shifted her legs, unable to do anything else but grant him greater access to her sex.

He took it. Sucked at her pussy lips. Laved them with his tongue. Stabbed it in and out of her heat. She whimpered, her breath hitching in her throat, her pussy flooding with eager wetness. “Want it, Nick,” she mumbled, rolling her head against the door, her hands in his hair. “Want it.”

He parted her folds with his fingers, flicking at her clit. She hissed. Lord, it felt so good. So damn good.

“I’ve missed your taste, babe.” He rolled a finger over her clit, fast little circles that sent wicked bolts of liquid tension into her very centre. “Missed your taste, your smell…the feel of your cream on my lips…”

He lapped at her sex again, wriggling a finger into her slit as his tongue teased her clit. She gasped, her toes curling, her knees trembling. Oh God, if he kept this up she was going to come on his face.

As if he heard her very thoughts, or knew her very want, he placed her right thigh over his shoulder, fucking her more thoroughly with his tongue. She cried out, her nails scraping at his scalp. “Nick, I-I think…”

He nipped her clit with gentle teeth and sucked it better, the action turning her words to whimpering sounds. The more he lavished her pussy with his mouth, his fingers, the more she lost herself to the pleasure. The only man who had ever tasted her was eating her out against her front door and nothing else mattered. Nothing else existed except Nick’s mouth on her sex and the pleasure swelling through her.

Nothing else existed except his tongue in her—

He stood, her leg sliding from his shoulder. He pulled his shirt over his head and threw it aside, his hands going to his fly straight after. She helped him, needing his dick. Lord, she needed his dick. More than she needed air. She needed it inside her.

And then it was in her hand, long and thick and so hard it throbbed. So hard and so warm and so hers. Hers.

“Can’t wait, babe,” he groaned, the words panted breaths against the side of her neck. “Oh, fuck, I can’t…condom…need…”

She had them. Somewhere in the house. Bought for Josh the day she found him necking with a girl at the soccer fields. Bought but never given. The girl hadn’t lasted, and she’d lost her nerve. But the condoms were still here. Somewhere.

Nick closed his hand around hers, stilling her pumping motion. “I need…” he choked, lips scalding her throat, her chin. “Jesus, Lauren, I’m going to fucking come on your hand if you don’t…”

Pre-come wet her fingers. His breath fanned her face before he was kissing her again. Kissing her face, her temple, her throat as he squeezed his cock with her hand. As he fucked her gripping fingers. And before she knew it the word was on her lips, lips being bitten and nibbled by his. “Pill,” she burst out on a breath. “I’m on the—”

He was inside her before she could finish the sentence. Inside her, stretching her. Pumping into her, one hand yanking her leg up around his hip, squeezing her arse, the other cupping and kneading her breast, pinching her nipple.

He was inside her, filling her, and she cried out. Clung to him. Squeezed him with her inner muscles, wanting more. More. So much more. And he gave it to her, a long, deep, driving thrust that pushed her faster and faster and faster to the edge. An edge she knew. The most exquisite, consuming, rapturous edge. An edge she’d balanced on so many times before with him.

“Come for me, babe,” he panted, lips on hers, “Come for me.”

She did. A shuddering convulsion claimed her core. Fire singed up her spine. The soles of her feet tingled, and she came, his name tearing from her throat, his flesh buried in hers, their bodies joined. She came and then he was coming with her, his cock pumping inside her, his rhythm wild and frantic. His hands held her, gripped her. His moans became something else, something primitive and primal. The sound of utter release and absolute pleasure. The very sounds falling from her lips in shallow, moaning cries of surrender.

They climaxed together, as they had always done, from the very first time a lifetime ago, their sweat slicking each other’s bodies, their juices wetting each other’s thighs.

Lost to everything but the elemental connection of body and soul.

Until both were spent. Until both rode the last of their climax and strength threatened to desert them.

Lauren slumped against the door, her eyes closed. Her pulse pounded, an echo of the orgasm still fading within her. Oh God, she’d just had sex with Nick Blackthorne. Unbelievable, soul-wrenching sex. She pressed a trembling hand to her lips, a sob catching in her throat. Lord, was she truly so weak? So…so…messed up?

“I’m sorry.”

His hoarse murmur against the curve of her neck opened her eyes. A chill rippled over her. “Sorry?”

“I…” He stopped, his arms holding her, his lips on her neck, his body tense. Still.

“Why are you sorry, Nick?” Her mouth went dry. The reality of the situation hit her. The cold fact. She’d just had unprotected sex with Nick Blackthorne. A man she hadn’t seen in fifteen years. A man who, according to every gossip and celebrity magazine the world over, never spent a night in his bed alone. A whirlwind of disconnected words lashed through her head, words no careful, intelligent woman should ever think about. Words connected to doctors and clinics and shame.

But you weren’t careful. You never were with Nick. And any intelligence you have is destroyed the second he kisses you.

She pushed at his chest, forcing him off her. He complied, but only a little, staring down at her with haunted eyes. His hands still cupped the back of her neck, his fingers still on her jaw. A numb pressure settled against her ears. Her lips tingled. “Did you just give me a…” She couldn’t bring herself to say it.

Pained anger etched his face. “I would
never
give you a sexually transmitted disease, Lauren. I’ve been a bastard to you, I know, but I’m not a prick. I’m clean. 100%.”

“So why are you sorry?”

“I should have stopped. I should have put on a condom. So there’s no chance of me getting you pregnant.”

Her mouth went dry.
“Why do you think I’d get pregnant, Nick? I told you I was on the pill.”

“You were on the pill before.”

The simple response made Lauren’s throat slam shut. Her stomach tried to leap up through it. Her breath choked her.

He didn’t blink. Nor did he let her go. “Why didn’t you tell me, Lauren? Why didn’t you tell me fifteen years ago you were pregnant? Why didn’t you tell me I had a son?”

Oh God.
She stared at him. No words came. None. Just a deafening roar in her ears and a cold in her soul.
Oh God. He knows. He knows and you should have told him fifteen years ago.

He studied her, brushing the fingertips on one hand over her bottom lip. “Why didn’t you tell me, babe?” he whispered. “Why?”

Someone thumped on the door. A steady rapping of knuckles. The vibrations shot through Lauren like a spray of bullets. She let out a startled cry, every muscle in her body locking.

Nick’s nostrils flared. He stepped backward, his hands sliding from her face, his jaw clenched. She watched him move away, wanting nothing more than to throw herself at him, wrap her arms around his waist and cling to him. Feel his heat seep into her body. Feel it melt away the chilled emptiness spreading through her. Hold him, be held by him. It was where she was meant to be.