Nick took his time as she had taken hers. He drew her off the bed, then as she stood before him, he pressed light kisses along her breastbone as he hooked his fingers inside the top of her dress, which was at her waist now. Kneeling, he continued to tug it down. The calluses on his fingers stroked her bare legs as he did so. She could still feel their imprint on her thighs from when he’d slid her stockings off. The dress pooled at her feet. He lifted first one and then the other, removing the dress completely. Then he skimmed the silk half-slip right down her legs, leaving her bare except for a pair of ecru lace bikini panties.
“Ah.” He rested back on his heels and looked up at her. She could feel his gaze as it traveled slowly up her legs, past her belly, over her breasts to her face. He smiled at her.
He traced the lace at the top of her panties with a single tantalizing finger. Then he grasped them gently and pulled them slowly down.
Mindlessly Edie stepped out of them. Then, staring down at his head as he knelt before her, she felt his fingers begin at her ankles and stroke back up the length of her legs, teasing her smooth skin, making her tremble with need. Involuntarily she reached out and gripped his shoulders, hanging on for dear life.
His breath was warm on her belly. He kissed her there. Then his fingers slid slowly up the insides of her legs, reached the juncture of her thighs, brushed his fingers over the curls that covered her womanhood. Then he touched her there.
Edie swallowed a moan.
He didn’t stop. On the contrary, he seemed to take it as invitation to go further, to part her legs and stroke between them. Her knees trembled. Her fingers tightened on his shoulders, dug into them.
“N-no f-fair.”
He glanced up, smiling at her. “No?”
“You’re not waiting for me.”
He slanted her a glance. “Feel free to jump in anytime.”
And so she did. Somehow he ended up on the bed beside her. Did she drag him there? Did he suddenly appear? She didn’t know. She only knew that she couldn’t get enough of him—even though, judging from the burgeoning of his shorts, there was a great deal of him. She hooked her fingers into the waistband of his boxers and dragged them down.
He shrugged them off, then settled beside her and began to explore her inch by inch. Edie was equally determined to take her time, to make this last, to wring every last moment of enjoyment out of the experience. But it wasn’t easy because she was too eager, too hungry, too desperate.
Worse than Rhiannon, she thought.
But even thinking it didn’t make her pull back. She wanted him. Her fingers dug into his hips as he settled between her knees. But still he took it slow, his fingers drawing light patterns of sensation as they moved up her thighs, brushed against her sex. His thumbs touched her, brushed her lightly, then slid back down her legs.
Edie swallowed a moan. She tried to lie still, not to squirm, not to lift her hips, not to seek his touch, not to betray how much she wanted him.
But he knew. He smiled, and his hands made the journey again. This time they traced small tantalizing circles on their way up, which he followed by pressing kisses first to the inside of one thigh and then the other. As he moved his head, his soft hair brushed against her sensitized skin. His lips were hot, but the moisture of his kiss was cool when he lifted his mouth and blew lightly where he’d just touched.
And every second he got closer. Closer.
Edie swallowed, tensed, waited, dug her heels into the mattress. Closer. Closer. Then his tongue touched her there—and she let out a little gasp.
“Nick!”
He lifted his head. “Yes?” Then he did it again. And again.
Edie’s knees wobbled frantically, and her hands reached blindly to grab his hair. But she didn’t pull away. She hung on. Desperate. Demented.
She twisted her head from side to side as he continued to stroke her, as his fingers followed his mouth, parting wet folds, sliding into her. His thumb found the most exquisitely sensitive spot and made slow firm circles as his fingers drove her mad with need. Her hips bucked.
“Oh!” She writhed on the bed. “Now! I—”
“Yes.” The word hissed through his teeth. He kept one hand on her while he turned to the small cabinet by the bedside and took out a foil packet.
Protection. Edie understood. She was grateful he took the time and she helped him sheath himself, but she was almost equally grateful when, sheathed at last, he came to her, slid forward and slowly eased in, fitting exactly where he belonged, giving her exactly what she needed.
Instinctively Edie rocked up to meet him, dug her fingers fiercely into his buttocks and gave Nick what he needed, too.
She didn’t know how she was so sure what he needed, but she was. Not just on a physical level—that wasn’t hard to decipher at all. But on some other deeper instinctive level, she felt the connection between them.
She might have come to him for herself—to avoid the pull Kyle had always had on her emotions. But this had nothing to do with Kyle. This was only about the two of them—she and Nick as they moved together, slick and hard, eager and hungry, giving and taking in equal measure.
There was nothing tentative. No second thoughts. No thoughts at all. Just the sense of rightness—and completion.
They shattered together, breathless, weightless. Two made one.
And as he slid to the side and cradled her in his arms, Edie slept.
A few minutes. Half an hour, perhaps. But amazingly, she did sleep—deeply, dreamlessly—and when she awoke she felt remarkably refreshed as she snuggled in the smooth sheets and turned, coming up against a hard, warm body.
Nick Savas’s body.
She felt a brief sense of shock. She waited for the feeling of impropriety. It wasn’t there. Still she waited. It didn’t come.
What came instead was a sense of satisfaction and an awareness of how good it felt to be with him. How right.
And how strange was that?
Edie didn’t know. There seemed to be no limit to what she didn’t know at the moment—like what she was supposed to do now.
Not get involved, she reminded herself.
Nick didn’t want involvement. He didn’t “do relationships.” Well, yes. She’d gone into this with her eyes open. He hadn’t led her on.
She wasn’t changing the rules.
But somehow she wasn’t prepared, either. The etiquette of the one-night stand was apparently beyond her. She’d never had one before.
She’d only slept with two men—Kyle and Ben. And with both she’d been in it for the long haul. Of course, Kyle hadn’t been. But she hadn’t known it at the time. And Ben had made her the happiest of women for their brief marriage. But he had wanted what she’d wanted: forever.
Whatever
