warmed clear through and pleased by the fact he hadn’t just missed sex with her. He seemed to have missed their connection almost as much as she had.
“I’m surprised you’re not tearing my clothes off after six weeks going without,” she whispered, the hushed quiet around them feeling almost sacred.
Then a chilling thought took her. Maybe he hadn’t gone without. Maybe that’s why he was so relaxed. They’d never made the commitment toward monogamy. He could very well have found someone else back in Seattle.
“I kept myself busy at work. With Neo cutting back his hours to spend more time with Cass, there’s a lot of reorganization of responsibilities going on.” He gave her gentle baby kisses all over face and neck between words. “Even if you had been in Seattle, I would barely have seen you over the past six weeks.”
Which implied he hadn’t been with anyone else, either.
“I didn’t realize it was that bad.” He’d mentioned something to that effect, but she’d thought he was just trying to make her feel better.
She should have known better. For all his apparent affability, Zephyr Nikos was an almost brutally honest man. He’d warned her early in their association that he didn’t do “sensitive” and he hoped she could handle candor, even when it meant criticism. He’d been referring to their work association, but she’d gotten the impression he was that way on a personal level as well.
Then, after they’d become friends, she’d gotten proof of her impression. So, why did she keep looking for evidence to the contrary now that they were involved more intimately? On a physical level anyway.
He pulled his head back and met her eyes with a sardonic expression. “Neo is a force of nature. We’ve had to restructure our head office entirely, promoting several people into positions of greater authority while hiring others and training them to take over the new vacancies.”
“With you picking up the slack.”
The signs of exhaustion were there and she couldn’t believe it had taken her this long to notice. Her delight in being in his company again was her only excuse. Dark shadows under Zephyr’s eyes, his vitality muted—she wasn’t the only one who needed a couple of days without work.
“It is worth it to see him so happy.” There was something in Zephyr’s tone. Not quite envy, not exactly sadness, but definite sincerity.
It confused her.
“I can’t imagine Neo in love,” was all she said, though.
“You’ve only met him a few times.”
“And he’s always the same. Intense. Focused. Almost dour.” There was no almost about it, but she didn’t want to offend Zephyr by calling his best friend and business partner an emotionless robot.
“Cass makes him laugh.” The strange tone was there again and no more comprehensible to Piper.
Regardless, she could not picture Neo Stamos laughing. “He really must be in love.”
“Yes.”
She might not be able to interpret that tone, but Piper did know something about it bothered her. She scooted up his lap so the silk panties covering her were directly over the hard bulge behind his zipper.
Whatever was going on in Zephyr’s head, his desire for her had not abated by even a centimeter.
He needed to relax and forget about Stamos & Nikos Enterprises for a while. She knew just how to help him do that.
She leaned forward and spoke against his lips. “No more talking, Zephyr.”
“You have something better to do with my lips?” Every word brushed his lips provocatively against hers.
“Absolutely.” She drew out the syllables, making each one a minicaress leading up to when she pressed their mouths together with serious intent.
He let her control the kiss for several tantalizing minutes she knew would not last. Allowing her tongue to tease his, he kept his hands locked onto her hips while she tunneled her fingers through his gorgeous dark hair. She rocked against him, bringing them both moan-producing pleasure.
One of the things she most adored about making love with this man was how totally into it he got. And how much he liked when she did the same. He never made her feel like a freak for enjoying sex. Art had often made cutting comments about her behavior in bed, reining in her abandon. And then he’d had the temerity to say that all men cheated because they couldn’t get what they needed from one woman. But especially their wives.
Bull. Art hadn’t been willing to take what Piper had been prepared to give. Zephyr, on the other hand, never made her feel dirty for getting lost in the physical. Her passion did not intimidate or disgust him. Not on any level.
Because his passion was just as deep and consuming. He didn’t posture or pretend. He wasn’t a man driven by appearances, like her ex-husband.
Zephyr did not worry about wrinkling or staining his clothes when their desires got in the way of a neat and tidy disrobing. Like now. It was clear from the way he touched and responded to her that he wasn’t thinking about anything but the pleasure between them, the way their bodies pressed and writhed together in primal need.
It wasn’t in the predatory nature of her tycoon to remain passive for long. And she waited with adrenaline-fueled anticipation for him to make his move.
He did not disappoint her, erupting from his sitting position to spin them around and lay her against the bed once more. He came down over her, his body heat and the strength of his bulging muscles surrounding her with his solid presence. A frisson of atavistic pleasure rolled straight down her spine directly to her feminine core.
She would never tell him, but she loved when her über-sophisticated lover went caveman on her. His big body rubbed against hers; his hands were everywhere. But then so were hers. He touched her through her clothes, then shoved her silk top up her torso with a growling wound deep in his chest. Masculine fingers caressed her stomach, circling her belly button before moving up to gently mold her unfettered breasts and pluck at her nipples.
Urgent sounds of need slipped from her mouth to his. Her body rocked upward of its own volition, sharp talons of sexual hunger piercing her and making her muscles tense and strain.
If he didn’t claim her body with his soon, she was going to lose her mind. Or take over. Somehow.
One of his hands slid between them, then the pad of his thumb was exactly where she needed it to be, caressing her swollen clitoris right through the silk of her panties.
The pleasure built at light speed and she felt her climax taking her over before she’d even gotten a chance to start really aching for it. Of course, she’d been hungry for his brand of loving since the last night they spent together six weeks ago.
His voracious kiss swallowed her scream of undeniable pleasure. It went on and on and on and on in an unending cascade of bliss that drained all coherent thought from her mind.
Then the caressing finger moved away and she floated on a haze of satiation. It was temporary, because she knew he wasn’t finished, or even close to it.
The
