Chapter 35 #2
He blinked once, then again. “How the fuck would I do that? You want me to ask you to wait for me?”
She mashed her lips together. She did. Of course she did.
“Because two years is a long time, Aubs. What if you get lonely? What if you meet someone? What if you decide you hate me?”
A pitiless laugh escaped her lips. “I don’t hate you. I love you. Still. Always. And if you actually loved me, you’d ask.”
His eyes flared like she’d harpooned him in the chest. He hovered there, assailing her with the smell of smoke and steel.
“Aubs,” he begged. His hand came up to cup her cheek, warm and rough and electric.
A dozen different emotions punched her in the solar plexus, reducing her to such a bright, explosive mess that the need to
vent the pressure nearly blinded her. “What?”
His gaze dropped to her mouth. “You think I don’t love you? Because I do. I’ve been killing myself for seventeen years with
how much I love you. I even have that letter you gave me, the night you left. I’ve just been reading it over and over and
over, like some kind of fucked-up therapy that never actually works. Of course I fucking love you. I can’t seem to do anything else.”
She froze. He’d saved her letter?
Those endless eyes snapped up to hers again. “But I can’t ask you to throw away two years for me. You deserve someone who—”
“Shut up,” she said.
He blinked. “What?”
“Shut up. Just shut the fuck up. I don’t want to hear it.”
He made an anguished sound. “Then what do you want?”
“Just . . .” She tried to swallow but couldn’t, tried to breathe but couldn’t, tried to do anything except want and want and
want and couldn’t do that, either. “Kiss me. I don’t care about the rest of it right now. Just be mine for one more night. We
can figure the rest out later.”
A spark of disbelief lit those dark eyes. “What?”
Her control snapped. She anchored her palms to his face and kissed him.
He froze, his mouth unmoving against hers, as if his mind couldn’t process what was happening. Or maybe he hadn’t done this
in a very long time.
Which, she reminded herself, he hadn’t. So she’d go gentle. She probed at the seam of his lips with her tongue, coaxing. Hoping.
He made a thick sound deep in his throat, and all at once, whatever force bound him to hesitation shattered apart. He gathered
her and pinned her to the wall.
Then he kissed her, hard and ravenous, like he had no other purpose.
Oh, thank god. Heat crashed over her in dizzying waves. She clung to him, so full of his scent and the curl of his tongue
that her mind emptied. His mouth drew blossoms of warmth across her lips, then along one side of her face and down the column
of her throat. She tipped her head back and offered a drunken moan to the sky. He sucked at her neck, greedily, lavishing
it with delirious, toe-curling suction. She ground against him, and he ground back.
Nick found her mouth again, his hunger making her dizzy.
Snow was everywhere—pinpricks of cold that scorched her skin—and so were his hands, tangling in her hair, kneading her waist. Every nip of his teeth and slide of his lips asked the same question, over and over again, and her body answered with a low, liquid pulse.
He wrested his mouth away and tilted his forehead against hers. “Where?” No more hesitation. Just desire and need and enough
carnal energy to make her combust.
“I don’t care.” She rocked her hips against his. “Right here, if you want.”
“What, up against a wall? In the street?” His breath skimmed across her lips.
“Why not?”
He claimed her mouth in another deep, needful kiss. “Because I don’t want to fuck you, I want to savor you. And I still owe
you one, from last time. I intend to pay up. With interest.”
She tightened her hold around his neck. All the hurt had gone out of her, or maybe it had never existed in the first place,
because when he kissed her like that, she understood that she belonged to him in a way she could never revoke. “Are you talking
about . . . simple interest? Or compounding?”
He puffed a graveled chuckle against her mouth. “What kind of question is that?”
“Well, don’t talk numbers to a mathematician unless you’re trying to turn her on.”
“I’m definitely trying to turn her on.”
“Better go with compounding, then,” she breathed. “It’s much more complicated and therefore infinitely sexier.”
His mouth dropped to her neck, his tongue darting out to lick melted snowflakes from her skin. “Okay, what does compounding
bring my debt to, then? Three? Four?”
She whimpered. A dazzle of sparks followed wherever his lips went. “Better call it four.”
He made a purely male sound against her throat. “All right. And lucky for you, I took a shower after work. Otherwise, I’d
never make it that far.”
She meant to ask what a shower had to do with anything, but the words burned to ash in the fire licking through her.
Nick pulled her away from the wall and guided her to the truck, where he slid her in through the driver’s side and climbed
up beside her. He slammed the door and jammed the gearshift into Drive, then looked down with half-lidded eyes. “Your house?”
“No. In this weather, that’d take longer than I can wait.”
He nodded and wheeled the truck around, opening the throttle, roaring through the curtains of snow.
Aubrey held on to the seat, her awareness zeroing in on the place where her thigh pressed against his.
Less than a minute later, he pulled off into an empty, secluded lot, then killed the headlights and wipers. Hot air streamed
from the vents, yet the snow came down so densely it blotted out the glass in moments.
He hit the locks. “Here? No one else is out tonight. We might as well be on our own planet.”
She nodded, then pulled at him, and his lips crashed into hers again. He guided her down, stretching her out against the long
seat, maneuvering both their coats off. He pulled back long enough to whisk his shirt over his head, then dove for her mouth
again, stealing her composure with the drug of his kiss.
Her fingers curled against his bare back. She existed in slices of sensation—the tingle of his lips against hers, the glimmer
of blue dash light reflected off his sculpted cheek, the ribbed truck seat pressing into her back. The way Nick pinned his
hard length against her core when she widened her knees.
He took hold of the hem of her sweater, then got it up and over her head, followed by her shirt. He turned his attention to her boots and leggings, shucking them off and chucking them into the footwell. He straightened and gazed down, his lashes brushing his cheeks.
“Did you know?” he said, husky. He dragged a roughened palm over the flimsy crimson satin of her bra, then the matching thong.
“Is that why you’re wearing this?”
“Probably,” she admitted.
His mouth curled, wry and almost sad. He trailed his fingers across her stomach, making her writhe. When he reached the border
of her thong, he slid a finger over the silky fabric, pulling a whimper from her throat.
His thumb grazed the heated spot that cried out for his touch. A gasp raced up her throat. His finger settled there and teased
her, back and forth, so slowly that she slammed her fist against the glove box.
“Faster,” she commanded.
Nick laughed, dark and sultry. “This is different. Last time, you were shy.”
She gritted out a pleading moan. “Please?”
He didn’t go faster. “I told you I wanted to savor you. Especially if this is the last—”
She growled, and he wisely dispensed with the rest of that sentence. “Just be with me,” she said.
“Okay,” he murmured. “Okay.”
He redoubled his efforts, and she bucked her hips, forcing more friction from the mind-altering back-and-forth of his thumb.
He rewarded her by upping his pace, just enough to heat her muscles and start her body on a slow spiral inward. She anchored
both hands to the door handle overhead, needing something to hang on to while her sides trembled.
Without warning, Nick slid down her underwear and replanted his finger against her bare flesh.
She swallowed a thick cry, drinking up the heat he poured into her through that one spot.
Her eyelids tried to find her cheeks, but she fought to hang on to the sight of him through a slit of fringed lashes.
His breath came hard and fast, the muscles of his stomach contracting as his touch sped up.
God, this was torture. The sweetest, most exquisite torture she’d ever endured. Even if he made her come this way, which would
happen very soon, she wouldn’t stop yearning until she had him inside her.
“Please,” she whimpered.
His teeth flashed in the snow-laden darkness—a smile or a threat, who knew. His thumb continued its mission while his other
hand roved up and slid her bra aside. He rolled her nipple through his fingers, doubling the electricity coursing into her.
She bit down on a cry and pulled on the door handle so hard her back arched. Black heat piled at the corners of her vision,
a gathering wave.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he murmured, throaty.
His hands withdrew. She almost shrieked her frustration, but he whisked her thong off, unhooked her bra and tossed that aside,
too, then grabbed the backs of her knees and splayed her wide.
One of her feet ended up draped over the seatback, the other over the dash. The windshield was an icy scorch against her toes,
but she forgot it the instant Nick bent and replaced his finger with his tongue.
Her back bowed as her eyes slammed closed. Holy shit. He lapped at her, insistent.
She had no control. She was a pliant, trembling ache. He worked her, relentless, until she coiled so tight that she had nowhere
left to go but inward, crashing into a million tormented, glittering pieces that all reflected him.
His tongue slowed as the tremors ran their course. When Aubrey pried her eyes open, Nick had straightened. He gazed down,
his black fire half-hidden by heavy lids.
“That’s number one.” He unbuttoned his pants and slid the zipper down.