12. Melanie
Chapter 12
Melanie
I t takes Nick forever to come back to our room. The irony isn’t lost on me—this morning, all I wanted was for him to stay away, and now I’m on tenterhooks waiting for him to return. I have enough time to shower, eat every snack I packed, pace one thousand miles into the hotel carpet, and talk myself in and out of my plan no less than a dozen times before I hear the telltale beep-click of the lock disengaging.
I sit on the side of my bed, hidden by the privacy screen, and wait for Nick to come all the way into the room. His boots thud against the floor near the door when he kicks them off. Through the screen, I can see his silhouette moving tentatively toward his bed.
“Melanie?”
So far so good—if he’s looking for me, chances are low he’s going to run off again.
“I’m here,” I say.
“We should talk. About…what happened,” he says.
“About making out in the stable? Couldn’t agree more. Have a seat. Get comfortable.”
He hesitates, then perches on the end of his bed. I can see his legs from the knee down poking out beyond the barrier of the screen, the rest of him nothing but shadows. That makes it easier to be bold, but my heart is pounding in overdrive. He’s feeling it too; his right leg bounces, so fast it’s almost a tremor.
“This can’t keep happening,” he starts. “I could make a million excuses about being exhausted or stressed, not thinking clearly, but the truth is—”
“You’re right,” I interrupt. “We are exhausted. We are stressed. It got to me today, and that’s not okay. Fifth place isn’t acceptable. You know why my second run was garbage? Why I couldn’t focus? Because I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
He pushes to his feet and takes a few steps toward the door before stopping. “I don’t know what to do, Melanie. I’ve been walking around for hours, trying to figure out a solution. This isn’t…I never…what the hell are you thinking right now? You’re too calm. It’s freaking me out.”
I grin to myself behind the screen. Welcome to my world, Korbel .
“I know exactly what we should do,” I say.
“Wanna fill me in?” he asks, sounding desperate.
I stand up and check to make sure my robe is hanging just right, then step out from behind the privacy screen. Guess there was a reason to pack it after all. Nick turns, presumably to continue his agitated walking, but the sight of me stops him. His eyes go wide and color floods his cheeks.
“Melanie Archer, there better be clothing underneath that robe.”
Not a stitch, but that’s a fun surprise for later.
“We tried pretending to be friends, and it worked for all of ten seconds,” I say, stalking closer to him. “Time to try something else.”
He shuts his eyes, balls up his fists. “This is a bad idea.”
I roll my eyes, even though he can’t see. “Yeah, it’s a bad idea, we have so much going on, such a distraction. Et cetera. That’s bull, Nick.”
I slide my arms around his neck and his eyes pop open. His throat bobs and his hands hover near my waist, not quite touching me. I can feel the tide turning my way. One little push should tip him over the edge.
“We have a serious problem, but the solution is simple,” I say. “We need to finish what we started in the stable.”
The words come out steady and sure, but inside I’m a mess. It’s a bigger risk than the Naked Cabin Incident when I tried to win Paul back. But I have a feeling the reward is bigger, too. If I don’t take this chance, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.
“Melanie, please,” he whispers. “It’s really not that simple.”
“ Now you can say please? Seriously? Don’t pretend you don’t want me,” I argue, fighting a wobble in my voice.
Nick takes my face in his hands, thumbs against my cheeks. “Of course I want you. That’s the problem.”
“We have very different definitions of the word, ‘problem.’”
He lets go of me and takes half a step back, shaking his head.
“Explain it to me,” I say, fingers toying with the tie on my robe. “If it’s not simple, explain why wanting me is a problem. Pretty please. ”
The knot in the tie slips loose and I drop the ends, letting the robe hang open. Nick makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat, then catches the sides of the robe and holds them closed over my sternum. The motion drags me closer to him, so if he’s trying to put a damper on the fire between us, he’s doing a poor job. His nose is millimeters from mine, and I can feel his breath against my throat. It would be so easy to lean forward and kiss him. Our eyes lock on each other and time slows to a crawl. Nick licks his lips, then swallows. I see it in his face the moment he decides to stop holding back.
“Miss Manners, if you drop this robe, I’m going to toss you on the bed and fuck those manners clean out of you,” he says in a low, dangerous voice, each syllable precise as it lands in my ears. “By the time I’m done, the only words left in your vocabulary will be, ‘more,’ ‘harder,’ and ‘fuck.’ If that’s not what you want from me, I suggest you keep the robe on.”
The bolt of anticipatory pleasure that shoots through my body has me pressing my thighs together. The nickname is a transparent attempt for him to take back control of the conversation and avoid explaining himself, but he’s offered me exactly what I want. He may be stubborn, but he seems to have forgotten who he’s dealing with, and how I feel about unfinished business.
“Sounds good to me. But I’m not going to curse,” I tease.
He does curse, because while he’s been distracted by the task of keeping me dressed, I’ve been easing one end of his belt out of the buckle. A gentle tug on the leather is enough to pull the fabric of his jeans against the bulge straining his zipper. His eyes flick down to my hands, then to his, and I can almost see the calculations play out across his forehead. He can either hold my robe closed or hold my hands still, but not both.
“Melanie,” he warns.
“I might beg. Whimper. Plead. But I don’t think you can make me curse,” I taunt. “There’s only one way to find out.”
I finally get the belt free of the buckle. When I flick the button underneath open and pull down the zip, he lets go of the robe in favor of my wrists. He eases them away from his open jeans and the undeniable erection he’s sporting. We stare at each other a moment. I’ve already won. He’s going to kiss me again. But I want him to be the one to make the move—to un-pause this and make good on his tantalizing promise.
“Tell me to fuck you,” he challenges. “If this is what you want, you have to say it.”
It’s a last-ditch effort to call my bluff. But if he thinks I’m going to let a four-letter word stop me now, he’s about to find out what being wrong feels like. I’m not bluffing .
I slide my wrists out of his grip. He steps back to give me space. Before he can misinterpret that, I shrug the robe off my shoulders and let it pool on the floor. His pupils are so wide I can only see a sliver of his irises. He tries to keep them glued to my face, but as I drag my hand over my chest, between my breasts toward my bellybutton, he loses the battle and his gaze drops to my fingers. He’s glassy-eyed and slack-jawed as he takes in my naked body, and a groan sneaks out between his lips as I skate my fingertips past my navel. I stop just shy of the hair between my legs, clinging to my last shred of bravado.
“Fuck me, Nick, or I’ll do it myself.”
He’s fast, I’ll give him that. My wrists are caught in his hands again before I realize he was reaching for them. Then I’m flat on my back on his bed, arms over my head and my thighs spread so he can stand between them. Eyes fixed on mine, he leans over my body slowly. His t-shirt brushes against the hard points of my nipples and my lungs forget what they’re supposed to do.
Nick hovers, his lips just out of reach. “Say, ‘please,’ baby. Where are your manners?”
I’ve never been so turned on in my life. His cock pokes through his open fly to nudge at the top of my thigh, hard as steel and hot as embers. My skin is peppered with goosebumps and aching for more of him—for him to touch, taste, squeeze, obliterate. I want him to fuck me into the mattress, and then keep going until the mattress crashes through the floor of the hotel, straight to the center of the earth.
But he isn’t moving a muscle.
“That wasn’t rhetorical.”
His words land with the kind of control that betrays the storm they’re protecting.
“I mean it. I need you to say please, because I’ve spent the last two days trying not to think about this. I’ve made a Herculean effort to look at you like some kind of sexless athletic robot. I’ve tried to forget how your lips taste and how your hair feels sliding through my fingers and the way your gasps sound when I’m kissing you—and I can’t do it. There is nothing simple about the way I want you, Melanie.
“I drove for nine hours yesterday thinking about that fucking black dress and how perfect your tits looked in it. Every time I saw your mouth, I thought about how much of your lipstick was smeared on my face after that godforsaken dinner, and how much I want you to wear it again just so I can kiss it off you properly. If you could’ve seen inside my head, seen all the things I’ve imagined us doing, you would have hitchhiked home before we made it out of Colorado.”
Oh my God .
“Then, just when I thought I had a reprieve, these bozos fuck up the reservation,” he continues, every word a hoarse growl. “So, I’m stuck lying in a bed three feet away from you, hearing every goddamn rustle of your sheets, wishing you were lying under me, and I was the cause of all the sheet-rustling. I was up half the fucking night, hard as hell, taunted by your perfume and the sound of you breathing. I’ve been desperate for you since I walked you to your door on Wednesday. Hell, longer, if I’m honest. Of course I want you. But I need you to know that if we go down this road, I can’t turn back. I can’t stop myself again.”
I’m pinned by his words as much as by his body. I’m a butterfly in a shadow box. I’m going to combust if he doesn’t start showing me exactly what kind of things he’s been imagining.
“I need you to say please, baby,” he demands. “I need you begging. I need you to be as desperate as I am, which means you need to tell me right now, while I’ve still got half a chance at processing the information, exactly how you want me to touch you. Tell me how you want me to make you come. I’m done fighting this. I’m not strong enough to resist you, so tell me how to drag you down with me.”
My vocabulary shrinks to a single word: “Please.”
His hold on my wrists loosens and his palms glide over mine until our fingers are interlaced. He presses light, teasing kisses to my lips and cheeks until I’m about to cry in frustration. One more whimpered, “Please,” earns me the long, thorough kiss I’m craving. I cling to his hands as his lips part mine to give his tongue entry. My legs wrap around his waist of their own volition, and his weight sinks against me. Nick’s won. He’s already dragged me down. It doesn’t matter how he touches me; every single one of my nerve endings screams for him. I’ll say anything he wants me to, as long as he keeps touching me.
He pulls back, entirely out of reach.
“Why?” I whine.
“You haven’t answered me. How do you want me to make you come?”
While I try to remember how multi-syllable words work, he tugs his shirt off and throws it over his shoulder. The smattering of dark hair between his pecs doesn’t help untie my tongue, nor does the hungry way he looks at me while he runs his fingertips over my ribcage.
“Focus, baby,” he says. “Lips? Fingers? Cock? What do you need?”
“Yes. All,” I manage.
Nick shakes his head. “Aw, don’t tell me all that teasing and demanding was bluster! What do you really want, Melanie? Tell me.”
He rolls my nipples between his rough fingers as he talks, the sensation shooting straight down my spine to my core. The answer hits my brain and leaves my mouth at the same time.
“Mouth.”
“Mouth where?” he prompts.
“On my pussy.”
“Atta girl.”
Those words have never come out of my mouth before. Then again, I’ve never told anyone to fuck me before, either. I’ve never even thought the word “fuck” this many times in one ten-minute span. I don’t know who I am or what I’ve done with Melanie Archer, but I’ll have to puzzle it out when Nick’s face isn’t buried between my thighs. The first warm, wet swipe of his tongue against my clit sends a high, keening noise through my head. By the fourth swipe, his arm across my pelvic bone is the only reason my hips aren’t on the ceiling. I chose right. He’s committed to the task beautifully. Long, exploratory tastes turn into targeted, specific actions designed to undo me.
He sucks and nibbles at my clit, drawing all the tension and anticipation that’s been building in my body over the last two days into a knot between his lips. I’m going to cry or come—probably both. Then I realize the keening noise is me, and way too soon, it’s all over. I fall apart embarrassingly fast, my pussy trembling against his mouth as I come. Despite the burst of pleasure, I still feel restless and needy.
“I’m not usually…” I start, cheeks flushed. “One is usually enough, but…”
Nick peers up at me from where he’s kneeling at the foot of the bed and strokes his thumb lazily through my slick folds. “But not with me?”
Heat prickles under my skin. “Not with you.”
He smirks. “Don’t look so distraught, Miss Manners. This isn’t over—I’m just warming you up. Maybe keep your voice down this time, though—don’t want the rest of the hotel to think I’m killing you in here.”
“This time? Oh,” I gasp as he slips two fingers into me.
He curls them, stroking in a rhythm that makes my back arch and my head buzz. I clap a hand over my mouth to avoid a repeat of my impromptu tea-kettle impression. With the hand that isn’t fucking me, he caresses every part of me he can reach: my thighs, my stomach, my breasts, the backs of my freaking knees. His eyes take in just as much. My limbs are useless; the fingers of my free hand clutch at the bedspread, and my ankles dangle over Nick’s shoulders while my quaking thighs batter his ears. He doesn’t seem to mind.
“You’re unbelievably soft. You know that?” he says in a ragged voice. “Fuck, baby, I never felt anything so soft as your cunt. Can I call it that? I think you like it when I curse at you, because I felt the way your wet little cunt quivered when I said that word. See, there it goes again. Oh, Miss Manners, what has gotten into you? Not so prim and proper, are we?”
My hand is doing an abysmal job at muffling the noises he’s drawing out of me. It’s like my body decided to sell me out and show him just how badly I need him, how much I’ve been aching for this. Between the wet sounds his fingers make inside of and against me and the way I shudder at every filthy thing he says, I should be embarrassed. But I’m not. After his wild-eyed confession about how many days he’s been jonesing for me, it feels reciprocal to be laid so bare.
He circles my clit with his thumb and light dances behind my eyes. I dig my heels into his shoulder blades. I don’t mean to, but he’s coiling my body into an impossibly tight spiral, every muscle activated. It’s baffling. I’ve had good sex before, but it’s never been like this. It’s never made me feel so ripped open and vulnerable and eager at the same time. My body’s never been so out of control.
“That’s it, baby. You can come for me again. I know you can. Don’t hold back,” Nick encourages.
I bite down, hard, behind my hand because the whimpers and moans that are surging out of me are exactly the kind of sounds that would raise suspicions with other hotel guests. Nick keeps telling me about how much he’s enjoying my body, how soft and beautiful I am, and the closer I get to the edge, the more he curses like he’s about to lose control, too.
My second orgasm lasts longer than the first. The initial snap is just as sharp, but the waves undulate through my body for longer, and there are more of them. Nick strums my clit through it all. Just when I think I’m at my limit, his mouth replaces his fingers. I’m a snow globe full of glitter. A thousand confetti cannons. All the stars in the sky. A very loud tea kettle.
Gradually, I sink back into my body. I’m a woman again, gazing up at the man who caused all this commotion while he strokes my cheek with his thumb. Nick smiles at me—a real one, teeth out. His undone jeans have slipped a few inches below his hips. There’s a small damp spot on his boxers near the head of his still-hard cock. I’m sweaty and wrecked, but nowhere near ready for him to stop touching me. The hand caressing my face isn’t enough. I want his weight on me again, like when we were kissing. God, I want to kiss him again.
“Be more naked,” is the sophisticated, sexy way I decide to articulate these thoughts.
“Not a good idea,” he says ruefully.
I glare at him, because we already established I don’t care what kind of idea it is, as long as we’re following through. Because my brain is still shimmery mush, what I say is, “But you said I could choose cock.”
“I know, baby. That’s on me—I shouldn’t have offered,” he says, his voice pained. “When I packed, I was working very hard to be the kind of man with no intention of touching you. I don’t have a condom. I might have managed alright earlier, but I’m too far gone now to pull out.”
I twist my head to bite his thumb. He’s turned me feral. The way his breath catches tells me I’m not the only one. I don’t care if he pulls out or not. I don’t even care that it’s not an effective method of birth control. I need him. Then my last remaining brain cell fights its way to the surface of my consciousness and provides me with a solution.
I release Nick’s thumb to say, “I’m on the Pill. Recently tested. Good to go. So, if you are too…”
He nods, stroking my lip with his recently-bitten thumb, an almost-reverent expression on his face. “I am. And fuck, do I want this, but I won’t last long. At all.”
“Don’t care. Just…please?”
The corner of his mouth twitches and I have to admit I love the tiny motion as much as his real smiles. I suppose the way I want him isn’t so simple after all. But that’s something to worry about later, or maybe never. My primary concern right now is having his body as close to mine as physically possible.
Nick kicks his jeans the rest of the way off and peels down his boxers, finally as naked as I am. He gives his thick shaft a slow tug that has me biting my lip. My fantasies were woefully inadequate. I drink him in, from the broad chest I’ve flung myself against so many times to the tree-trunk thighs I’m getting my first glimpse of, to his impressive—and impressively hard—cock jutting out in front of him. Naked Nick is the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen.
I scoot back and he follows me, climbing onto the bed between my thighs. His cock drags along my leg as he leans forward to capture my mouth in messy kiss. I cling to his shoulders, expecting that any moment now he’ll surge forward into me .
But Nick takes me by surprise, moving molasses-slow. He reaches down to guide his cock into me, running the smooth head over my still-sensitive clit before entering me with a long, measured press. I’m tantalizingly full and light-headed with desire, but he holds perfectly still.
Sweat beads on his forehead and his shoulder muscles bunch under my fingers. Where he is all control, I am undone. I can’t take any more waiting. My hips won’t hold still, my breathing is too loud, and I swear to God if he doesn’t start fucking me, I’m going to turn to ash on this bedspread because the stretch of having him inside me is enough to light my body up.
“Baby, stop squirming or I’m gonna bust,” he says through gritted teeth. “You’re too fuckin’ wet to be moving around like that when I’m this close.”
“I can’t. I need you,” I whine, thrusting against him in protest.
His eyes flash with something that looks like hunger but feels a lot stronger when it’s aimed my direction, and then it’s his hips that won’t stop moving. Each hard thrust sends sparks through my vision.
“Say it again,” he demands. “Say you need me.”
I can’t, but only because he’s finally fulfilling his promise to fuck my vocabulary into nothing. The best I can do is moan a syllable that sounds almost like a word while he drives his cock into me again and again. Nick’s all over me—hands, lips, hips. Individual touches blur into an overwhelming sensation of heat and pressure. When the pressure finally bursts for both of us into pulsing, wild bliss, I think I do cry, but I can’t be sure because I’m not part of my body anymore. I’m floating somewhere in the ether for either five hours or forever or no time at all—I can’t tell.
Maybe it’s the exhaustion from going nearly three days on barely any sleep, or the adrenaline crash from today’s races, or the weeks of swirling closer and closer to Nick; maybe things are different with him because he’s so different than anyone else I’ve ever known. But whatever the reason, the results are the same: being with him like this has split me wide open. As we lie in a sweaty heap on his bed, fighting to catch our breath, I’m pretty sure there’s no putting me back together.