Chapter 18
just a kiss
LEXI
The SUV tilted down and turned sharply, the centrifugal force jerking my lips away from Nicolai’s. We skidded to a stop in a different parking garage under Caesars Palace.
The security guys bailed and slammed their doors behind them, Ueili a little harder than usual. The SUV beeped as they strolled away, but the engine and air conditioning continued to howl.
Standing on my knees above where Nicolai sank into the soft seat, my nose was above his, and he was looking up at me.
With his lips parted, his expression was almost innocent.
He was so gorgeous, his strong cheekbones and jaw carved lean on his face, and those eyes, his bright eyes grayed by the yellow sodium tube lights on the parking garage’s ceiling, were fixed on me.
Nicolai’s fingers flexed on the silk of my dress on my thighs, and his breathing was quick, the top of his chest rising with each gasp. “You are so beautiful, Lexi. From the first time I saw you, you were so beautiful.”
I tilted my head at his silliness. “I was wearing mime makeup.”
“It was your eyes.” His body was practically humming with wild energy between my legs.
He lifted his hand to my shoulder, running his fingers up my neck.
His thumb dragged across my lower lip. “Your luminous dark eyes, and your mouth. That mouth of yours was all I could think about in the club after I saw you.”
His touch felt like the promise of a kiss, and my head grew lighter. “Are you drunk?”
“I had a few, that shot John handed me and two glasses of champagne, but we were there for four hours. I’m stone-cold sober now. You?”
“I switched to water after I accused you of being a fae High Lord.”
The corners of his mouth curved, but he didn’t look away from my eyes. “Probably for the best.”
He caressed the back of my neck, his fingers tunneling into my hair. His grip on the back of my neck weighed heavier, drawing me down again.
His eyes flipped up at the last minute, a check, but I was already bending to kiss him.
Our first kiss had been at our wedding, to seal the deal.
Our second was just a few minutes ago, petty revenge against a jerk.
But this one, this one was the first one that counted. This one was for us.
His lips were warm, soft, opening under mine. A touch of alcohol ghosted on his breath as the humid warmth of his mouth filled mine.
I tried to keep the kiss light, touching, experimenting with him, with kissing, but his hand grasping the hair on the nape of my neck angled my head to deepen the kiss.
And I was lost.
The touch of him—the press of his tongue tangling with mine, his hands skidding on my silk dress, dragging the skirt up to my knees—deluged my senses, an overload I wanted to drown in.
Nicolai flipped the hem of my skirt as his hand swept up the outside of my bare leg.
I gasped at his touch on my skin. Yeah, it was the first for that, too, and the intensity of his hands and touch jarred through my whole soul.
He broke off the kiss and searched my eyes. “Too much?”
“No.” I gulped air, frantic to kiss him again. “Not too much.”
He rested my forehead against his, his ragged breath feathering my throat. “Don’t tease me. Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear. Say red if you want me to stop. Yes, for more. Understand?”
“Yes.”
He gripped my bare thigh, his fingertips digging into my skin, and he guided my mouth back to his with his fist gripping my hair, murmuring, “You are truly unlike anyone I’ve ever met before, Lexi.”
He devoured me, holding my lips to his, sucking and nipping at my lips like he was starving for me, then tipping my chin up so he could mouth my jaw and down my neck, his fingers gripping the swells of my thigh and hip under my dress like he was afraid I’d blow away.
I sagged against Nicolai, my weight shoving us closer than just being held. His thick erection was a rod nestled up against me.
I thought that’s what it was.
I was pretty sure.
When I moved against him, his breath hitched in his throat.
His hand moved up under my skirt, caressing my thigh and then my bottom through the satin of my panties, his whole hand palming my curves.
When his thumb found the whaleboned edge of the bustier under my dress, he groaned. “Jesus, what are you wearing under here?”
“Black satin,” I choked out, my throat closing as I tried to speak.
“Fuck, I can’t believe we’re in a damned car,” Nicolai growled into the place where my neck met my shoulder.
Under my dress, he explored the hem and ridges of whaleboned satin over my hips and up my spine with one hand, his fingers kneading my body.
His other hand grabbed a deep fistful of my hair at the nape of my neck, and he kissed me, kissed me harder, kissed me deeper.
He pressed my body down to sit on his thighs and straightened, and then he was taller than I was again, kissing down on me.
His hands, his mouth, his faint natural masculine musk and the vanilla and smoky forest wafts of his cologne overwhelmed me, the heat of his body penetrating my clothes and warming my skin until I burned.
His harsh breath in my ear and against my throat dizzied me.
I had been keeping my virginity, staying innocent and naive, denying myself this intoxicating passion, but why?
Why hadn’t I chosen this whirlwind?
I wrapped my arms around Nicolai’s neck and whispered, “Yes,” in his ear.
I felt his head shake no, but my mind blanked as his hand curled over the top of my thigh and stroked the satin panties over my clit, a shiver that made me gasp and clutch his suit jacket shoulders in my fists. “Yes.”
“Not here,” he whispered.
“I want—”
“Jesus, Lexi,” he whispered, his voice rasping on my throat. “Tell me red. Tell me to stop.”
I pulled myself away from his mouth, from his body, straightening and standing on my knees again with my hands cradling his jaw. He stared up at me, his hands clutching my hips under my skirt like he was holding me from tearing myself away from him.
“Don’t stop,” I told him, my voice a breathless whimper as I searched his eyes because I was afraid he’d pull away, that he would reject me, too, that there was something so wrong with me. “Yes.”
He slipped one hand from under my skirt and reached up to the back of my head, dragging me down to kiss him again. He plundered my lips, my mouth, holding me and bending my neck to kiss me deeper and harder with his fist in my hair.
His other hand slipped around my leg and touched me between my thighs, first a quick stroke, then more.
“Tell me yes for this,” he whispered, his thumb massaging through my panties. A tremor of bliss passed through me with every stroke.
“Yes,” I whispered, tears burning in my eyes. My voice cracked. “Please, yes. Please. Anything, please.”
His body was taut, vibrating steel. “Oh, God. When you beg—”
His fingers dipped inside the leg of my panties, slipping against my skin, the first time anyone had ever touched me there at all, and now he was skin-to-skin, even that little bit.
So much, almost too much, pleasure whirled faster, and I whimpered, biting my lip. Why hadn’t I chosen this?
Because I hadn’t known.
His strangled voice whispered in my ear. “You’re wet. You’re so wet. Fuck, that’s hot.”
Then he was stroking me over my clit, through my folds, every slick massaging stroke heaven, and yet I was needing, absolutely desperate for more.
Pressure at my entrance, his hand, one fingertip curling, pressing just barely inside me.
My whole body went rigid with that tiny intrusion, so much vulnerability like he might tear me apart, and yet the tightening pleasure threatened to crush me.
My fists curled on the fine fabric of his suit jacket, wringing the dry cloth, hanging on as my forearms cramped like the fabric was a rope and I might fly away or, worse, I might push myself back and out of his arms.
Nicolai’s fist still tangled in my hair, and he angled my head back to his mouth and kissed me hard, his tongue invading my mouth, pinning me between his tongue and his fingertip touching inside me.
Frantic, I was frantic, kissing him hard and sucking on his tongue as his hand below squeezed, pressing inside me and massaging that so-secret place with the heel of his hand.
Nicolai was taking everything, my body and soul utterly occupied by him, my mind and thoughts full of him, his scent, his touch, his body.
Nicolai broke off the kiss and used his mouth and teeth on my throat, my bare shoulders.
His other hand slipped from the back of my neck down my spine, and he wrapped my waist in a band of iron muscle, pressing me down on his hand.
The pleasure coiled inside me like my whole body was being strangled, and my spine bent backward. My legs tightened, cramped, and my hips bucked forward under the coiling tension.
He growled against my skin, “Ride it. That’s right. Ride it.”
The ecstatic tension knotted inside me, grinding harder against his hand, pressing his finger deeper inside me, a stretch, a rub against a band of nerves more sensitive than my tongue, more intimate than my heart.
Nicolai leaned back, his arm still shoving me down on him. “Show me, Lexi. Show me what you look like when you come. Show me how beautiful you are when you lose control.”
His hand flexed against me and inside me, a deeper pressure and curl, and the coiling pressure inside me detonated, throwing my body as I gasped, cried out, as wild ecstasy climbed every cell and crushed me.
Blinding, manic pleasure.
Nicolai grabbed and held me against his chest while he still pulsed his hand against me, driving more waves of devastating wildness through me.
I clung to him, trembling and weak, and my body controlled by his touch.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered into my hair. “Fuck, that was amazing. You’re so beautiful.”
I tightened my arms around him, unsure if I was going to sob or sleep. “Nicolai.”
“That’s right, Lexi. Come down in my arms. That’s my girl.”
My breath was still ragged, my limbs trembling. “Nicolai.”
It was silly, but I couldn’t stop. His name was in my mouth because my mind was full of him, maybe with love, maybe with obsession.
“Yes, Lexi. Just breathe. Had you never had an orgasm before?”
“Not like that!” I whimpered.
Not like an earthquake shaking apart my soul.
His quiet chuckle rumbled under my chest. “Oh, Lexi. The things I could do to you.”
Tremors still quaked deep in my core.
Even though my arms were still quivering, I pushed myself away from his chest to search his eyes, still afraid of what I would find there. Disgust? Revulsion at me, what we’d done?
Or disinterest?
His face was set in soft lines, and he cupped my cheek. The gentleness in his eyes saddened to wistfulness. “You are an innocent, and I will ruin you.”
I bent my head and whispered against his lips, “Yes.”