Chapter Eighteen
After a quick shower, Stacy washed and moisturized her face and body, and then shrugged into her makeshift pajamas of an oversized, long-sleeved EBS T-shirt that came down almost to her knees. Just when she started brushing out her hair, a knock on the door sounded.
She opened it without first checking, expecting it to be the extra pillows she’d called down to housekeeping for.
When she discovered Nikko Stamp standing there, his hands thrust in his pants pockets, her mind went blank.
Silently, she watched his eyes take their time gliding down her face to her torso, then lower. He angled his head and then his gaze drifted back up, a slow, heart-stopping, sexy smile tugging at his mouth until he landed back on her eyes.
She couldn’t decide if the heated flush that instantly flamed up and engulfed her body from toe to scalp was due to embarrassment or desire at the way his eyes darkened and dilated as he stared at her.
Taking a quick guess, she thought it might be equal parts of both.
“I—I thought you were housekeeping,” she said, gripping the doorknob with such intensity she felt it rattle against her hand at the strain. “I’m waiting for a delivery.”
The elevator chimed and echoed in the distance.
“Sorry,” he said with an amused shake of his head. “Not housekeeping.”
When he said nothing further, she asked, “Is everything okay? Problems? Melora?”
“She’s fine. Sound asleep when I checked two minutes ago.”
“Then—”
Before she could finish, a rotund, uniformed housekeeper marched up to them, three enormous pillows in her arms.
“Miss Peters?” she addressed them both. “You called for these?”
“Yes. Thanks. Thanks, so much. That was quick.” She took the offered pillows all at once, the weight more than she’d calculated.
“Can I do anything else for you, miss?”
“No. No. I’m good.” She shuffled the pillows between her arms, awkwardly trying to not let them fall. “Thanks again.”
With a fast smile, the maid bobbed her head and said, “Good night.”
“’Night,” Stacy said.
One pillow slipped from her grasp and as she tried to catch it before it hit the floor, Nikko did the same.
He was quicker.
“Here,” he said, “give me these.”
Without waiting for her to do so, he plucked them from her hands as if they weighed nothing more than a single feather and walked into her room. He tossed them on the bed, asking, “Why do you need so many? The bed already has two.”
She stood at the threshold, the door wide open, memories of the last time they’d been alone together in her room at the ranch flooding back in a rush. She’d been unprepared, then, for the depth of her desire when he’d kissed her to distraction and caressed all her free will away. She still felt the same.
“Stacy?”
“Why are you here?” she blurted. “I thought we were done for the night. What’s wrong?”
He let out a breath, then crossed back to her, reached a hand around and securely closed the door behind them, flipping the lock.
“Nothing’s wrong,” he said.
Towering over her, his body was so close she could hear his heart pounding as he stared down at her through eyes that had deepened to the color of tempered chocolate.
“And you and I are far from done.”
The soft, sonorous timbre of his voice reverberated through her insides, settling deep in her pelvis. Instinctively, she pressed her thighs together. The motion made her gasp as her legs quivered.
Stacy had to tip her head back to maintain eye contact with him when he moved in closer. She’d thought his eyes were hot and piercing before. She wasn’t prepared for the cavernous, endless depths of them right now.
One hand circled around her waist, the other slipping under her hair to cup her neck. With the pad of his thumb, he rubbed her cheek, his gentle touch firing off nerve endings all the way to her toes.
“I don’t know what you mean.” She was barely able to speak above a whisper.
“No?” His mouth pulled back into a wicked grin. “Then let me explain.”
When he’d kissed her before, he’d started with just a gentle brush of his lips against hers, telling her without words what he wanted, patiently awaiting her response.
It seemed he had no patience for waiting this time around. From the first touch of his mouth against hers, Nikko took control.
Complete, total, and absolute control.
And Stacy was unable to fight against it. In truth, she craved the domination.
His lips were masterful as they glided over hers, stripping her of any will she still had— which wasn’t much. He took possession of her tongue without waiting for permission, captured it, and claimed it for his own.
And once again, Stacy acquiesced without a thought.
While his mouth took ownership of her lips, his hands laid claim to her body, a body that now shuddered and quaked with every brush of his touch.
He nestled her butt in the span of his hands and then with one easy lift had her wrapping her legs around his waist as he walked her to the room’s love seat, never breaking contact between their lips.
Falling back on to the cushions, he settled in with her straddling his lap, while his hands roamed under the bottom of her long sleep shirt and up her naked back.
The feel of him throbbing and pulsating underneath her, had Stacy offering up a silent thanks she’d put a new thong on after her shower. If she’d left it off, as she usually did while sleeping, she’d be naked and pressed against his pulsing length and he’d know just how much she wanted him.
Nikko kneaded the exposed skin over her butt, his strong fingers massaging and flexing against her skin. When he slipped one finger under the thin strip covering her, she startled. He removed his hands to rub up her back and along her sides, instead.
A brush of his knuckles over the sides of her breasts had her shifting back just enough for him to cup them both. Rubbing his thumbs over her swollen and hard-as-marble nipples, she heard herself groan from down deep in her chest while his fingers continued their amatory movements.
She should stop him, stop this. Right now. It couldn’t go any further; shouldn’t. Their relationship was supposed to be professional. She was here to help run the show, make sure it was produced without any problems, time or money concerns. She was supposed to be keeping Nikko’s temper in check, his demands low, and get the show finished on schedule.
She wasn’t here to be gloriously tortured by the feel of the man in whose lap she was nestled. That had never been part of the bargain with Teddy Davis.
None of those points mattered at the moment. All that did was how wonderful she felt being seduced by a man who knew what he was doing and had decided she was the one he wanted to do it with.
Stacy snaked her fingers down the front of his shirt, dexterously popping open each button on her trek until she was able to freely glide her hands over the concrete wall of his chest. With little circling and pinching motions she teased his nipples into pebbles, rewarded when she felt him flinch beneath her.
If she’d been paying full attention, she would have realized his intent before he lifted the hem of her shirt up her back and almost had it over her head. As he did, he brushed over her upper arm and the back of her shoulder and when his fingers felt the texture of the skin over her bicep, he stopped trying to get her shirt off.
As if she’d dropped into a lake of ice-covered water, Stacy froze.
Gently, Nikko pulled back from the kiss. Except for the loud drumming of both their hearts, silence surrounded them.
Stacy dropped her chin. She couldn’t look at him, was terrified to. She already knew what she’d see in his eyes.
“Look at me,” he said, his voice soft and warm.
She kept her chin down, shook her head.
Nikko swiped back the hair falling and shielding her face and tilted her chin up, forcing her to.
“Stacy.”
“You should go,” she said, darting a quick glance at him, and then settling on his shoulder. With a solid tug she yanked her shirt back down, willing herself not to come undone. “You shouldn’t be here. This isn’t…” She tried for a careless shrug, but couldn’t pull it off.
Pushing against his chest, she tried to lift off his lap.
Nikko wouldn’t let her. His hands wove themselves back around her waist, holding her in place.
“Stacy, look at me,” he said again. “Look at me, sweetheart.”
The endearment shattered through her. When she finally did, she felt the hot sting of tears drop down her cheeks.
Nikko reached out and swiped at them with the pads of his thumbs. Then, in a move so gentle it threatened to undo her even more, he pushed the sleeve of her shirt up to her shoulder to bare her entire arm. He made sure the loose sleeve didn’t fall back by bunching it between his fingers and holding it in place. With his other hand, his fingers caressed the blanched, puckered, scarified skin covering her from wrist to shoulder.
Back and forth, up and down, he traced the line of the scars, his eyes following the trek of his hand.
From under her lashes, Stacy ventured a glance at him. Past experience with men had told her disgust—or worse, pity—would be in his eyes.
He had neither.
Nikko met her gaze with his own and wrapped his entire hand around her scarred upper arm.
Most of the nerve endings had long been destroyed and her perception of touch over the area was slight at the best of times. But she could feel when his hand hugged her arm, holding her firm.
“Tell me how this happened,” he commanded. When she stayed silent, he asked again. “Tell me.”
“I need a drink of water,” she said, instead. “Let me up.”
In answer, Nikko stretched to the mini-fridge next to the love seat and pulled two unopened bottles from it with his free hand.
He handed her one, took the other for himself.
“Drink,” he said. “Then talk.”
“You’re as bossy as your reputation asserts,” she said, then winced when she heard the nasty tinge in her voice.
He chuckled while she dragged her hand across her face to dry her cheeks and then took a long pull from the bottle.
He did the same and when he was done, settled his hands casually around her waist.
Stacy had never had to explain her accident to a man before. When intimacy occurred, she’d usually give a quick excuse and then convince the guy sex was better with the lights out. Feeling her skin was very different from seeing it and the guys usually acquiesced to her request.
Instinctively, she knew that wasn’t going to work with Nikko Stamp, just as she knew he’d require—demand—a full explanation of what had happened to her.
“Talk to me,” he said.
With a nod, she gathered her thoughts.
“When I was six, I had pneumonia. Pretty badly. At one point, the pediatrician advised my parents to call our parish priest because it looked like I was going to…die soon. As you can see,” she looked up at him and shrugged, “I didn’t. But I was in the hospital for over a month and then I recouped at home for a long, long time after that before I started to feel better. Be better. The doctor said my lungs had been scarred and the chance of getting sick again was increased more than usual because of it. My parents kind of lost their minds when they heard that.”
“As a parent myself, I can understand why.”
She nodded. “Yeah, you probably can.” She sighed and repositioned herself. When his eyes crossed and a flash of pain zipped across his face, his hands bit into her waist.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she said, close to tears again. “Let me up. I’m hurting you.”
Nikko swallowed and let out a thready breath between his lips. In a tight voice, he said, “No. Hurting isn’t the word.”
Her face caught on fire from the heat rushing up from her neck.
“Just…sit still,” he said, “and I’ll be fine.”
She watched him for a few moments until his breathing eased again.
“Talk.”
She swallowed. “Overnight my parents turned insanely overprotective. I wasn’t allowed outside to play, especially in the fall and winter. I wasn’t allowed to run around, get sweaty, get dirty like all the other kids did. I never learned how to ride a bike. They kept me indoors most of the time just to ensure I wouldn’t catch so much as a cold. I grew up like some banished princess, secured from the world in a guarded castle.”
She took another sip of water.
“When I turned fourteen... well, my father describes it to this day as the time his little princess turned to the dark side. I was sick of being the protected child. I wanted to be normal like everyone else.”
“I can understand that as well.”
“Maybe. But it’s different for boys.” She shook her head. “Really different. My brother skated through his teens. Anything he did wrong, like borrow the car without asking, or coming home with beer on his breath from an underage party, was chalked up to boys-will-be-boys behavior. A little slap on the wrist and he was free to go. I wasn’t allowed the same freedom. It really sucked to be me.”
“So is this when you went to the dark side?” His lips twisted up as he asked it, and the understanding in his tone warmed through her.
“Yeah. I started sneaking out after my parents went to bed. Found some friends—older friends—who thought nothing of corrupting a little Goody Two-shoes like me. I started drinking beer, then hard liquor if it was available. I was scared to try cigarettes or pot, though. One whiff of smoke in the surrounding area was enough to start me coughing and I was terrified my lungs were gonna fail, just like my pediatrician had predicted. Anyway, one night, I got into a car with an older boy who went to the same high school as me, for a ride.”
“As the father of a teenaged girl, I can tell you those words strike abject fear in my heart and soul.”
“They should.” She sighed again and when Nikko rubbed his hands up her back to settle on her shoulders and began to knead, she leaned into him as if the move were as natural as breathing.
“I wanted to be cool, be liked by the older kids. When he asked me if I wanted to ride around with him, I knew—I knew—I shouldn’t, especially since he’d had a couple of beers before he asked me.”
“Strike that: Not just fear. Absolute terror. What happened?”
“People do stupid things when they’ve been drinking,” she said. “When the people drinking are also wild teenage boys hell-bent on making themselves look cool, those stupid things expand exponentially.” She took a sip of water again.
“He wanted to impress me by showing me how fast his car could go, so he sped up and started dragging down one of the neighborhood streets. When he tried to negotiate a tight turn, he lost control. The car swerved a few times, then hit a light pole head-on. We weren’t wearing our seat belts because we were too cool, and the car didn’t have airbags like they do now. There was nothing to restrain us or cushion us.”
She stopped, reliving the moment as she had so many times before. No amount of therapy could ever fully remove it from her mind. The cringe-causing, spine-tingling sound of metal scraping against metal; the boy’s screams when the door crushed into his side. After, when…
She felt his hands tighten as he continued to knead her neck. “Tell me the rest of it, Stacy, because I know there’s more. These are burn scars, aren’t they?”
She nodded again and took a deep breath. “From the impact, I got tossed onto the dash and knocked out for a few seconds. The engine exploded into flames and before I could be pulled to safety, my sleeve ignited. I was admitted to the hospital with deep second- and third-degree burns on my arm and upper back and I was in a coma from the head trauma for over a week. Just like when I was six, I was in the hospital again for another extended amount of time. Two necessary surgeries to set the broken bone in my upper arm; three painful, horrible skin-grafting procedures before my fifteenth birthday, and then enough excruciating physical therapy sessions to last me a lifetime, and here we are.”
“When you told me you knew something about how to deal with pain, you were speaking from experience,” he said after a few moments.
“Yeah. The surgeries were bad enough. The graftings hurt so much the docs medicated me into a zombie-state for most of the time. But it was the PT that almost did me in, pain-wise.”
His brows pulled together in the middle of his forehead. “Why?”
She took another sip of water and looked down at her knees. “Muscle contractures. They’re a by-product of severe burns and grafting. Everything stiffens as it heals. The bones knit together, the muscles, even the skin under the grafts. Moving makes it hurt more because it’s all so raw, so you tend not to move to avoid the pain. But when muscles aren’t used, they tighten up. Then it hurts even more to move them.” She snuck a glance up at his face. “You get the idea.”
“It’s a vicious circle.” He nodded. “Like you told me about my leg. Not using it, not exercising it, makes the pain worse.”
“It does. I had six hours of PT every day for four months in the hospital and then another six months as an outpatient. When I was finally discharged from the service, my physical therapist told me she’d never had another patient so determined before. She didn’t know the reason I was so determined was because I’d do anything so my arm wouldn’t look freakish. Contractures aren’t pretty and my arm already looked like it had been put through a meat grinder.”
Nikko rubbed the scars with tips of his fingers again as she spoke. Then, in a move so uncharacteristic, Stacy had to blink a few times to ensure it really happened, Nikko bent to scrape his lips over the area.
His crooked grin, when he pulled back, filled her heart. “Melora was a big fan of kissing the hurt away when she was little.”
“If only it was that easy.” She swiped at her teary eyes again.
“This is why you never show your arms?”
She nodded.
“Because you’re, what? Embarrassed by the scars?”
“Well, they’re not exactly pleasant to look at. People usually react one of three ways when they see them.” She ticked the ways off on her fingers. “One, they get all pop-eyed and want to know chapter, book, and verse about what happened.” She looked pointedly at him when she said it. He looked back at her, his face blank. “Two, they get grossed out, wince, and ask me to cover them, hide them.”
“And the third?”
“The worst one. They don’t ask any questions, just look at me with pity, like I was a leper or scheduled to die at sunrise or something. I hate that one most of all.”
Nikko brought one of her hands to his lips and kissed the knuckles. When his tongue grazed against them, she shifted her hips again. Tiny electrical pulses shot from her hand straight down to her groin.
He spun her hand and pressed his lips to her palm, his gaze never wavering from hers.
Running a hand over the scarified tissue again, he said, “You’ve seen the scars on my leg. They’re raw and fresh and not very pleasant to look at. And yet...” he chucked her under the chin, forcing her to look at him again. “And yet I never saw an ounce of pity, or disgust, or fascination in your eyes the night you tended to me. All I saw was kindness.”
“You were in pain,” she said, carelessly flipping a hand in the air. “I knew I could help.”
“Yeah. And you did.” He pulled her in for a quick kiss. “Even though I’d been acting like a prick to you. Rude, nasty. Overbearing. You still showed me compassion when it would have been so easy to just forget about everything and walk away.”
“No. No, I could never walk away from someone in pain. Especially if I could help ease it.”
It was Nikko’s turn to nod. “I realized that about you that night. You have a kind heart. You’re generally a kind person.”
“Not always,” she admitted.
“From everything I’ve seen,” he said. “And certainly if you use Melora as a yardstick.”
“I told you before: I know what it’s like being that age and being, well…”
“What? Say it.”
“Angry. Powerless. Consumed.”
He squeezed her neck and slid his fingers up to her face again, caressing her skin along the way. “Interesting word choices. Explain them.”
She swallowed. Hard.
“At one point in my recovery I was so angry about everything. Angry at my parents because I blamed them for being overprotective. Angry at myself for being so stupid to get in that car. Angry with the boy—who was dead—for being so irresponsible as to drink and drive. I was even angry at my cousins because they got to have normal, pain-free lives while I had to spend most of what should have been my sophomore year in high school confined to a hospital bed. I was so angry I just wanted to die. Dying would get rid of the pain, on the inside and the outside. I just wanted the pain to go away.”
Nikko took her chin between his hands and forced her to look back at him. “What happened?”
She debated with herself for a moment about whether or not to tell him the full story.
“Sweetheart, talk to me.” Nikko kissed her lips so tenderly she wanted to cry again. “I want to know. Please.”
She sniffed, then nodded. “I was still in the hospital after the last surgery to align the bone. The pain was beyond excruciating. Really, there needs to be a better word to describe it. Anyway. A new girl was admitted one night, my age. We... well, we hit it off. She was smart and funny in a totally snarky way, and I just adored her. We spent all the time we could together. We talked about everything. Held nothing back. She was supposed to be discharged over the weekend, but…” she stopped, tears springing up again.
Stacy dropped her chin to her chest and bit down on her bottom lip. Nikko said nothing, just kept his hands back on her waist, holding her, waiting.
“She, she…died. Before she could be discharged. Her heart gave out. When I saw what her death did to her parents, how destroyed they were, I stopped being angry. Stopped wanting to die, and started looking for ways to control the pain. To fight it. Through my physical therapist, I found a yoga teacher who helped me heal. Inside and out.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask,” he said, “but why did that girl’s heart give out? She was, what? Fifteen?”
She nodded.
“Did she have a congenital heart defect or something that weakened it?”
Instead of answering him outright, she said, “Remember when I told you I understood how Melora felt? About the stressors of being a teenager, torn between wanting to be treated like an adult and yet still being a child?”
“Yeah.”
“I know how she feels because my roommate, the one who died, was admitted in an advanced state of anorexia.”
She heard and felt the breath push from between his lips.
“She hadn’t eaten any real food in so long, her heart grew weak. So I do understand the challenges Melora has been facing.”
He didn’t say anything, just kept his hands on her waist and continued to stare at her.
She knew she’d overstepped. Stacy had no right, none at all, to call attention to so private a matter. Her only excuse was she cared for the girl, deeply, and she more than cared for the father.
“How long—” Nikko said, then stopped, pressing his lips together so tight the outer rims blanched.
“What?”
His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “How long had the girl been suffering from the eating disorder?”
“Since she was ten.”
“Five years?”
Stacy nodded. “A third of her life devoted to intentional starvation.”
“What…what triggered it? Do you know?”
“Yeah. Her mother had been a professional dancer and Kitty—that was her name—had been taking ballet lessons since she could walk. Her mom never made it big and had shoved all her plans for fame onto Kitty. When she turned ten, she started noticing the other girls in her ballet glass were a lot skinnier than she was, and were getting better and bigger dancing roles in shows and pageants. She asked her mom how she could look like they did.”
“Don’t tell me this kid’s mother was the one who told her to stop eating.”
“I wish I could, but she was.”
“Christ.”
“Her dad didn’t know about it until Kitty was well into the cycle of starving and purging. By then, too much damage had been done to her heart.”
Nikko closed his eyes and leaned his head back on the sofa back. “Melora’s eating issues started with the death of her mother.”
“So, not too long ago.”
“No. But I didn’t notice it for a while. I was so busy trying to be a single, working dad. When she told me she’d already eaten when I got home from work, I believed her. When she said she’d grab breakfast at school with friends, I let it go.”
“When did you find out?”
“When she passed out at school. The nurse called me and in the emergency room she told the resident she hadn’t eaten anything—anything—in three days. And I’d never even noticed.”
He shook his head so violently, Stacy’s body shook.
The need to comfort was so strong in her, she instinctively reached out and took his face in her hands. With the slightest of movements, he burrowed a cheek into her palm.
“You know it’s not your fault, right? You didn’t cause this to happen to Melora.”
On a sigh, he said, “Yeah. The therapist we’ve been seeing assured me of that. It’s all about control, she said.”
Stacy nodded.
Nikko slammed his eyes closed, squeezing so much the lines at the corners furrowed into deep grooves. “It’s so damn hard,” he said when he opened them again, “to know how to help her. Who to trust and believe. The therapist she saw in the hospital wanted her to be admitted for up to six months. The minute she said that and I saw how terrified Mel was of the thought, I started researching other therapists who specialize in eating disorders. The one we’ve been seeing came highly recommended. I’ve done everything she’s suggested. I’ve adjusted my schedule so I can cook for her. Not balk if she only eats a fraction of what I make. Stay with her after she eats so she doesn’t run off and get rid of it. But I’m still so damn scared something is gonna happen even after doing all that.”
“For what it’s worth, she’s as concerned about you as you are about her. She worries about your leg and your pain level a lot. And,” she added, “I’m sure she’s just as scared that something is going to happen. But to you. She’s already lost one parent. She’s probably terrified of losing you, as well.”
Nikko spit out an oath. “The two of us are some screwed-up pair.”
“As an outsider looking in, I think you’re a terrific pair,” she said, honestly. “You love one another a great deal and it shows in everything you both say and do. Please believe that.”
His hands were still around her, casually placed on her waist, holding her in position on his lap. She’d tried to ignore the tiny, unconscious circular motions he made with the pads of his fingers while they’d both been speaking, but was having a difficult time doing so. His fingers, like his hands and everything else about him, were long, strong, and thick.
As if realizing what he was doing for the first time, Nikko’s glance dropped to where she was perched on top of him, her naked knees drawn up against the outside of his thighs.
His grip tightened when his looked back up at her.
Something shifted in his eyes as he stared at her. Warmed, then heated, then—she swore—turned molten.
Her mouth went desert-dry and she became acutely aware of her sitting position. Especially when she felt him pitch, roll, and lengthen beneath her.
“You know, I didn’t come knocking on your door tonight looking for sympathy and understanding.”
“No?” She had trouble getting the simple word out.
“No.”
His lids went to half-mast, his mouth pulling up at one corner. With the merest press of his fingers against the small of her back, he moved her in closer, so close the heat of his breath warmed over her.
“If I’d had to wait another moment to do this, when it’s all I’ve been able to think about for days, I don’t know how I would have gotten through the night.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask what he meant. Before she could, he showed her.
In the time it took her to form the question in her mind, Nikko had his mouth on hers, his arms pressing her body against his again, and her pulse jumping beneath her skin.
She didn’t think. About anything but how good, how really good, it felt to be kissed by him.
The tips of her fingers scampered across his pecs and she swore they came away singed. Stacy had tasted desire before, but had never been consumed by it as she was right now. Every rake and slide of his hands on her body sent a million little fireballs exploding through her system.
She welcomed the inferno, ran headfirst into it.
The hottest, wettest part of her felt the long, long line of him throb along the heat hidden by her panties.
“Do you have any idea what I’ve been going through?” he rasped against her ear. “I’d welcome my leg pain back if it could take my mind off remembering what you taste like; feel like.” His wet lips slid along the column of her throat. She threw back her head to give him full access.
“Knowing you were sitting right behind me every day and I couldn’t touch you has been torture. Pure—” he sucked the skin at her collarbone, making her cry out—“torture.”
Gathering her hair between his hands, a quick tug had her looking him in the eye.
She almost came undone just from the unbridled want on his face. Reaching up, she smoothed her finger along the grooves on his forehead, down the corners of his eyes to his chin. A quick nip at a corner of his chiseled jaw had him sucking in a breath.
He angled her face back to his, sought her lips, and laid claim to them.
“No woman has ever distracted me from working before,” he said against her cheek.
Stacy didn’t bite back her laugh quick enough.
“You’re laughing at that?”
She stared him square in the eye and trailed a finger across his swollen mouth. Swollen from kissing her.
Good Lord.
“I distract you from your work?” she asked, her own kiss-slicked lips pressing together. “You don’t have a clue what it’s been like for me, do you? One minute you look as if you’re going to throw something at me, in the next your eyes get so hot they scorch with just a passing glance. Do you have any idea what that’s been doing to me?”
His slid his hand across her shoulder, pulling the T-shirt to the side, allowing the edges of the scarring to be seen.
He dipped his head and pressed the gentlest of kisses along the scar line. Stacy’s heart tumbled and turned over and she had no will or power to stop it.
“You’re so polished and perfect and prepared all the time,” he said, punctuating each description with a kiss along the scars. “Tapping away on that damn notebook device. You make me want to ruffle your feathers just so I can see you lose that control.”
“I’m far from perfect. Anytime.” She tilted her head back so his mouth would have better access to her jawline. “Oh!”
His evil chuckle at her response sent a shock wave up her spine. One finger dipped down her back, across the thin strap of her thong and pulled it to the side.
“I want you, Stacy. Too much for my own good, I know it. But I want you. I’ve never slept with a coworker before, that’s the truth. Too many potential problems, hurt feelings—Christ, even the threat of a sexual-harassment suit, have all been valid reasons not to.”
He cupped her butt cheeks in his hands and ground up into her. The sensation of all his hard, long length meeting her wet heat sent her heart jackhammering.
“But I don’t care about any of those reasons when I think about being with you. When I imagine what you’ll feel like coming apart in my hands. You make me forget every single one of those excuses. And probably a half-dozen more,” he added with what sounded like surprise.
Stacy laid her forehead against his and sighed. “I forget about all the rules and the reasons they’re put there in the first place too, whenever I’m around you.” She pulled back and laid her hands on his chest for support and felt his heart drumming. “But I’m afraid.”
Nikko lifted one of her hands to his lips and kissed it. “Of?”
“So many things.” With a dry laugh, she hung her head again.
“But not of me, right? You’re not afraid of me, are you, sweetheart?”
A week ago she would have told him she was. Now? There was no way she could say that and have it not be a lie.
She laid a hand across his cheek and placed a kiss on the corner of his mouth. “I feel a great many things for you, Dominick Stamp, but fear isn’t even on the list.”
She moved, pressed her lips against his and in the time it took an old-fashioned clock to tick once, he changed the kiss.
Hunger and frenzied need rose up while his mouth took possession once again. A desire she’d never known before coiled deep, deep inside her, screaming to be unwound.
Nikko wrenched his mouth from hers just long enough to rip her shirt up and over her head before his lips circled around one breast and tugged the nipple between his teeth.
Fisting his hair between her fingers, Stacy arched and rose up, balanced on her knees, from Nikko’s lap. She cried out in the next moment as his hand snaked down and cupped her.
“Good Christ. You’re drenched.” With slow, steady, and determined fingers, he stroked, front to back, over the thin wisp of material covering her skin. Stacy’s hips began to rock to the same tempo. With a sound she could only describe as feral, Nikko ripped the material from her body in one swift move, allowing his hand free access now to her bare flesh.
His fingers glided along her length, then snuck one, two inside her. While he slowly pumped in and out, his thick thumb circled around her clitoris, pressing, easing, then pressing again, zeroing all her attention to that one spot.
A slow burn of liquid heat flamed down her spine. Her breathing turned coarse and shallow as his movements quickened. Blood pounded so loud in her temples, she was amazed it didn’t deafen them both.
Nikko shifted and moved her to the sofa, flat on her back. He knelt and, with his hand never leaving her body, replaced his thumb with his mouth. Stacy’s hips shot up, the orgasm ripping through her with no warning and no way to slow it down.
Her insides clenched around his fingers, her thighs imprisoning him as the quaking peaked higher and higher until she swore her body would burst. She had no idea how long she lay, suspended, floating on the crest. All concept of time ceased and all she could do was feel.
Nikko rode the storm out with her. When she opened her eyes, she took a ragged breath and found him staring at her, his own gaze hooded, but piercing right to her very soul.
“That was…” She couldn’t find words descriptive enough.
“Just the beginning,” he said.
A gentle tug and he lifted her in his arms and moved them to the turned down bed.
“Why am I the only one naked?” she asked, pushing up on her elbows after he laid her down and tossed the extra pillows to the floor. He stood at the foot of the bed, just watching her.
“Because you’re prettier than I am.”
Her skin blushed from toes to scalp, as his words warmed her insides.
He grinned, toed off his shoes, undid his pants, and let them drop to the floor. Stacy crept to her knees and popped the buttons she hadn’t already opened on his shirt, then pushed it down his arms.
With her hands flattened on his chest, she nipped at his jaw and worked her way down his shoulders to his pecs. “You’re built like a fortress,” she said as she twined her fingers into the curly blue-black hair cloaking his torso. “Solid and hard.”
“I’m hard, all right,” he quipped. “Harder than I’ve been in a long time.” She watched his eyes cross again, his jaw slack open as he flung his head back when she wound her hand over the hardest, hottest part of him.
She hummed her approval while her hand tugged up his length. Her gaze fell to the jagged, raw, and puckered skin traversing his thigh. As he’d done to her, Stacy pressed her lips against the scar and skimmed a gentle kiss over it.
When she glanced up to see him watching her, her thoughts turned wicked. With a subtle shift in position, she brought her filled hand to her mouth, flicked her tongue once across his tip—rewarded when he hissed, his stomach muscles going concave—and then filled her mouth with him.
Just as she was delighting in the hot, salty, manly taste of him, Nikko pushed back on her shoulder and lifted her.
“Sweetheart, I wasn’t kidding when I said it’s been a long time. You keep doing that and it’s gonna be over way too fast.”
Stacy giggled and scooted back up on the bed.
Nikko crawled over her, propped himself on his elbows, and nestled himself between her thighs. He scraped his hands along her temples and cupped her neck. “Do you have any idea what that sound does to me?”
“What sound?” She reached up and nipped at his chin.
His mouth captured hers, delightfully torturing her for a few moments.
“When you laugh like that, all free and easy, it settles me, calms me when I didn’t even know I was tense. It’s odd, but the happy sound you make makes me happy.”
She filled his cheek with her palm. “That’s one of the sweetest things I think anyone has ever said to me.”
He cocked an eyebrow, his mouth pulling down at one corner. She almost giggled again, but he stopped her by saying, “I’ll show you sweet,” right before he laid claim to her lips.
After that, laughing was the last thing on her mind.
How was it possible for such a big, hard, and arrogant man to be so gentle and considerate a lover?
Stacy felt cherished with every caress of his hand along her bare skin; treasured when he trailed his lips across every inch of her body. And when he slid into her after donning a condom, slowly, gradually, filling her inch by inch, and then slipping out again in the same torpid tempo, she knew for the first time in her life what it truly meant to be made love to.
This wasn’t just sex, simply two people slaking a need, giving in to a mutual desire.
This was different. It was…more.
Better.
When he trembled above her, she knew he was fighting for control. He wasn’t joking when he’d told her he was hard and wanting. Stacy skimmed her hands down his sweat-slicked back, over the tight and corded muscles, to land on his butt. With flattened palms, she lifted up to him, and wrapped her legs around his waist to keep him secured.
“Stacy—”
“Don’t hold back from me,” she whispered. “I can feel you holding back.” She eased up and kissed his lips, tasted salt, and licked it from him. “I want you to come inside me. Now. Right now.”
Lifting her hips higher with his hands, he buried in deeper, a hot, ragged gasp pulling from his soul.
He exploded into her, his shoulders and arms shaking with the force of the effort it took not to collapse on top of her.
What would he think if he knew she craved just that?
“Come here,” she said, placing a kiss on his cheek and pushing against his back with her hands. “Rest on me.”
The pulse at his neck thrummed against her shoulder when he placed his head down next to hers.
With tiny feather strokes, she caressed his back, his shoulders, his waist; until his breathing eased.
One final, deep exhale against her neck and he rose up on his elbows again. Through eyes that were half closed and totally sated, he looked down at her.
“You’re a bossy little thing when the spirit moves you, aren’t you?”
She grinned, her pulse jumping again when he kissed her mouth.
He levered up and went into the bathroom. She heard him flush the condom, run the water in the tap. Before settling back next to her on the bed, he grabbed the two opened, forgotten water bottles, handed her one, and then took a long, full pull from his own.
“You look very thoughtful right now,” she said, gazing at him from under her lashes. “Having regrets already?”
She’d kept her voice light. She didn’t want him to worry she’d suddenly turn into some clawing, clingy coworker. She wasn’t a child or naïve.
His head shot up, his eyebrows kissing. She’d purposefully kept her face soft, her lips tugging up at the corners.
“I am thoughtful, but it’s not about regrets.”
He reached over and grabbed her free hand, brought it to his lips, and kissed it. “It’s about where we go from here.”
Stacy was astonished she could keep herself in check. His words weren’t what she’d thought to hear.
“Where would you like to go?” she asked, her heart jumping just a bit when he drew one of her knuckles into his mouth and lazily ran his tongue across it.
“If I had a say, we’d stay right here until we got kicked out,” he said, shaking his head and grinning at her.
She pulled her hand from his, leaned forward while cupping his cheek, and kissed him. “Sounds like a plan. Unfortunately, we can’t. You have a show to finish.”
He settled down on his back and cuddled her next to him. With her head now on his shoulder, her fingers drew lazy circles on his chest.
He kissed her temple. “I wasn’t lying before when I told you I’ve never been involved with someone while working on the same show together.”
Stacy shifted and tossed her top leg over his, the gesture intimate and arousing. “I can’t say the same because I did, once. When I was working on Kandy’s show.”
“Obviously, it didn’t work out,” he said, snaking a hooded glance at her, “because you’re here. With me.”
She kissed his pec and said, “Yeah, but not for any reasons you can come up with. I found out the guy was using me to get to Kandy.”
It still stung to this day to admit she’d been so blind and naïve during that time.
When Nikko asked for details, because of course he wouldn’t just let it go—no surprise there—she told him about the assistant director who’d stalked and terrified her cousin for weeks in a feeble attempt to get her show canceled so he could take advantage of a film-directing offer. Kandy’s staff contracts were ironclad and anyone who wanted to leave the hit show had to pay out half to three quarters of their salaries for the time left on the contract. For an assistant director like Mark Begman, who’d made 90,000 a year, he had to come up with almost 200,000 dollars to be set free of his work obligation. Money he didn’t have and couldn’t get.
He’d started paying attention to Stacy over a course of a few weeks, wined and dined her, and then just as quickly let the relationship drift. Only after he’d been arrested did the private investigator hired to look into Kandy’s stalker discover Begman had targeted Stacy because she was a direct link to her cousin. He wanted to get information to use in his campaign to drive the cooking-show host to a nervous breakdown, thereby canceling her show.
“Luckily, the PI I hired, Josh Keane, figured it all out before Kandy or anyone else could be seriously hurt.”
“Wait…Keane? Isn’t that Kandy’s married name?”
Stacy smiled and nuzzled his neck. “Yeah. Josh proposed the second the case wrapped up.”
He didn’t say anything. After a few moments, Stacy rose up on her elbow. “Nikko?”
He turned his gaze to her. “That’s the first time you’ve ever called me by my first name. I like the way it sounds on your lips.” He gave the spot in a question a quick buss. “As if it belongs there. Call me that from now on. No more of this Mr. Stamp crap, or waiting until I look at you for you to speak to me.”
Because that’s exactly what she’d done, she couldn’t help laughing. “Ah, there’s the arrogant Dominick Stamp the world is used to.”
One eyebrow crept up to his uncombed hairline. Mimicking her position, Nikko settled on one elbow and traced a finger from her temple to the point of her chin. “Here’s some more arrogance for you,” he said. “I don’t want this to end when I leave this bed, Stacy. We started something tonight, something… I don’t know. Special, maybe?” He shook his head. “Different? I can’t find the right word, but I don’t want it to end. I want to keep seeing you and not only when we’re on the job. Off it too. How do you feel about that? Do you want to continue this?”
Without a moment’s thought, she said, “Yes.”
“Good.” He kissed her again. “Good.”
With a nimble move that belied his bulk, he had her pinned under him, his mouth doing wild and wicked things to hers. Against her thigh she felt him grow, her own desire drenching within her again.
She widened her hips and let him nestle in the cradle she’d made for him. Just as she could feel his desire pulsing against her, she knew he could feel hers as well.
As his mouth dragged a sweet line down her throat, she mumbled, “There’s something to be said for arrogance.”
He laughed against her skin and made her tremble.