I’m good.” He’d call Jesse tomorrow. The rest of the guys he’d see soon enough. “You?”
Her mouth pulled to the side as she shook her head and glanced away.
“Are you worried about people seeing us leave together?” He hoped like hell that wasn’t it. While his returning to the party alone would possibly minimize it, most likely the damage was already done.
“I’m twenty-six, not sixteen.” She laughed, sounding more nervous, he was sure, than she’d intended. “It’s just that I’m acting a little out of character here and I don’t want to lose my nerve.”
Damn, she was cute. He rubbed his thumb in a light circle over her knuckle and leaned in conspiratorially. “Lose your nerve for what?”
He’d asked it as a taunt, finding her all too easy to tease and loving the fast rise of red to her cheeks. Only when she turned, head tipping back as her gaze lifted to his, the wild blush he’d been hoping for wasn’t anywhere to be found. Instead a sort of uncertain determination lit her face, making him wonder just what she was struggling with.
Brushing a stray curl from her brow, he caught the quick dart of a pink tongue across the swell of her bottom lip, felt the pull of this thing between them tugging him closer, making him want to take advantage of the empty stairwell, the dim lighting and the mouth that was driving him to distraction.
He needed to get her out of there. Into his b—
No. Not yet. This one was different.
Those soulful brown eyes searched his, the lingering intimacy fraying the tether of his restraint. The soft press of her body against his, unraveling his control.
“My nerve for this,” she murmured, her breath a fluttery rush against his skin an instant before she kissed him—pressed her mouth to his and tasted his lips with the barest flick of her tongue, demolishing the man he’d wanted to be for her and giving rise to the man she’d invited in.
Hell.
Tucking the hand still holding hers at the small of her back, he drew a slow breath at that most enticing spot just below a woman’s ear. Let her quiet shudder and sweet scent flood his senses and wreak havoc on his body.
“That’s what you want?” he asked in a low growl, knowing it was but wanting to hear her say it just the same.
“I’ve been worried about avoiding complications so long I think maybe I’ve been missing a lot of the simple stuff too.” She swallowed, heat pouring off her as she finished, “I don’t want to miss this.”
She couldn’t get any better. “Then you won’t.”
Ten minutes later, amid gasps of laughter and lust, Garrett turned the key and Nichole’s front door swung open under the combined weight of their bodies. Spilling into her front hall, Garrett righted them both, kicked the door closed with a sweep of his leg and threw the lock. She backed across the open hardwood, barely a step ahead of him, eyes glittering, lips curved and parted as her breath came in shallow pants.
Her gaze swept the length of him and the now persistent flush of her cheeks deepened, driving the blood hard and fast to his already aching groin. Reaching for him, her slender fingers curved around his belt, pulling until he allowed her to tow him closer. Close enough that he could reach around her, cover the firm curves of her ass with his hands, slide lower still to the backs of her thighs and hoist her up against him.
Her breath caught as her ankles locked behind his back, the soft brown of her eyes going nearly black as her pupils pushed wide.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he groaned, fighting the urge to take her there against the wall.
Nodding distractedly, she went to work on the buttons down the front of his shirt, pushing at the panels like she was revealing Superman’s emblem beneath. And when she answered, “You too,” her eyes glazing at the sight of him, taking a building in a single bound didn’t seem so impossible.
The door to her room was open ahead, and the sight of her neat bed with its delicate lilac print spread made him harder than he could ever remember being. Hell, yes, he was hungry for the sex. For her body. For the pretty pink that tinged her skin and the sounds she’d make when he took her over the edge. He wanted all of that. But this—this anticipation burning through his veins—was for what would come after. For the part that was going to be different. The part he would wait for until he’d wrung every moan and gasp Nichole’s body had to offer out of her.
At her bed, he set her back on the mattress, supporting himself on one arm.
Legs still wrapped around his hips, she looked up at him. “I don’t even know your name.”
He’d opened his mouth to tell her when something in the depths of those deep dark eyes gave him pause. Something excited.
The corner of his mouth kicked up. Lowering his voice to a taunting growl, he asked, “So the question is, do you like it better that way?”
The half-moan, half-gasp that escaped her slender throat was answer enough to just about push him over the edge.
Had he actually thought she couldn’t get any better?
Perfect. This hot, hard, mouthwatering male specimen was her sunset. Her uncomplicated simple pleasure. This was the fantasy she could finally afford to play out. The reckless adventure she hadn’t dared to dream. And, more, it was safe.
Because she didn’t even know his name.
Women didn’t plan forevers around nameless men. They didn’t get the wrong idea. Misinterpret intentions. Or get caught up in dreams that would take them nowhere.
They got a single night sans complications.
This was the one night of wild abandon she’d been unconsciously saving up for for three years. Longer than that if she was willing to look back. But she wasn’t. Not tonight. Not when this moment, right now—as the familiar stranger above her lowered his mouth to the hollow between her breasts—was too good to miss even one second of.
Those blue eyes peered up at her as the corner of his mouth twisted into a mischievous smile. “This little bow here,” he murmured gruffly, “has been begging me to play with it all night.” Then, catching one loose string between his teeth, he tugged until the knot slipped free, taking Nichole’s next breath with it.
She hadn’t thought of the peach cami as particularly sexy, hadn’t consciously drawn attention to herself for years. But at the rough sound of appreciation scraping from his throat as he used his hand to part the tiny expanse of soft cotton between her breasts just that much further, she flushed with the pleasure of knowing it was.
His tongue swirled deep in the hollow there, wetting the skin first and then blowing a cool breath across it after, making her belly turn and twist.
There wasn’t enough contact between them. Not for the way her body was beginning to ache. To heat. To need. He was above her on the bed, his weight supported on one arm and the knees that straddled her thigh.
His tongue made another wet foray across the swell of her breast and then stopped within a warm, teasing breath of her nipple. So close.
Arching
