CHAPTER FIVE
After a quick trip to the bathroom, Nathan returned to the bedroom to find Nicole no longer waiting for him on the bed, where he’d expected to find her. Instead, she was stepping into her panties and pulling them back on, a clear sign she getting ready to leave.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
She bent over and picked up her shoes from the floor, giving him a provocative view of her ass. “I’m picking up my things and getting dressed,” she said, stating the obvious.
He was stark naked and close enough to take full advantage of her bent-over position, and his cock responded to the randy thoughts chasing through his mind, stirring his lower body back to life with a surge of lust. “Why?” he asked, and this time his voice sounded strangled, with desire and the surprising need to stall her departure.
Straightening, she turned back around to face him, thankfully not noticing what a horny bastard he was. Her gaze met his, and a slight smile tugged at her lips. “Because I don’t want to drive home naked.”
Under normal circumstances, he would have laughed at her attempt to crack a joke, but right now he was too intent on enticing her to stay before he lost the chance. “You don’t have to go.”
“Yeah, I do,” she replied softly, though she didn’t look completely convinced by her own words. “It was fun, fantastic actually, but no need to complicate things by me hanging around.”
He witnessed the array of conflicting emotions in her blue eyes, a wealth of uncertainties clashing with a deeper longing she was trying very hard to deny. He didn’t understand the doubts, so he focused on the more sensual aspect still lingering between them. Being with her felt good, a warm and inviting contrast with the darkness of the case looming before him. A few hours of pleasure wasn’t a lot to ask for, and it wasn’t as though he’d be getting any work done tonight.
He gave her an easygoing smile. “Look, I know we both said we weren’t looking for anything long-term, but what’s the harm in you and I enjoying the rest of the night together?”
She sighed, and he could see her resistance crumbling, just a bit. “I really shouldn’t.”
Knowing she was riding that fine line between fleeing and staying, he decided to bring in a heavier arsenal of persuasion. “Yeah, you really should,” he murmured huskily as he stepped toward her. “And let me show you all the reasons why.”
Before she could move away, he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her body flush to his. There was no mistaking the stiff erection prodding her belly, and she gasped at the physical proof of how much he wanted her all over again. His free hand cupped the back of her neck to hold her in place, and then he meshed their lips together in an all-out relentless assault to convince her to stay.
His mouth moved over hers with shameless purpose, his tongue stroking hot and deep, over and over, until the tension in her body eased and he felt her melt against him. Letting her shoes drop back to the floor, she entwined her arms around his neck and kissed him back with equal heat and passion.
Triumph was very sweet, indeed.
Grinning, he lifted his mouth inches from hers, just enough to taunt and tease, and she whimpered in protest. He chuckled huskily, knowing he almost had her exactly where he wanted her. “Are you sure you still want to go?” he whispered against her parted lips.
Her answer was to hook one of her slender legs around his hip, so his shaft rubbed against the damp silk lining her panties. “You so don’t play fair.”
He’d take that as a yes. “No, I don’t play fair,” he agreed as he guided her a few steps backward, toward the bed. “Not when it comes to getting what I want, and in this case that would be you. Again. And this time, I want to be on top and in charge.”
She laughed, the sound so sexy it made him ache to get back inside her. “You can certainly try,” she said, all sass and brazen challenge.
With a playful growl, he tumbled her back onto the mattress. Before she could scramble away or switch their positions, he moved over her, holding her down with the weight of his body as he proceeded to show her who, exactly, held all the sexual power this time around. After a while she gave in and let him have his way with her, multiple times—at his leisure and in his own good time, which drove her wild in the process.
He liked that. A whole lot.
Being with a woman had never been so hot, so fun, and so satisfying. He couldn’t seem to get enough of Nicole, though he did his best to sate his hunger for her throughout the night, until he’d wrung every last bit of pleasure from their bodies and they finally collapsed into sexual exhaustion.
*
Nicole couldn’t stay. Oh, she was certainly tempted to indulge in a sleepover with Nathan. To wake up all warm and snuggled next to him and enjoy lazy morning sex with a man who knew his way around a woman’s body and had awakened all those erogenous zones that had been dormant for way too long. A part of her definitely wanted to have breakfast with him, possibly even spend the day together getting to know him better, and therein lay the problem for her.
Tonight was supposed to be all about a dark, gorgeous stranger, a few hot orgasms—a one-night stand meant to slake those carnal needs that had built over the past six months of celibacy. Nathan had done the job admirably and generously. Except between the shared laughter, the playful teasing, the intimate conversations and lustful groans, he’d become more than a sexual object for the sole purpose of giving her pleasure. He’d become real to her—a man with an honorable past as a marine, the younger brother to three older sisters, and a man who embraced his job as a surveillance supervisor.
There was nothing awkward about being with him, nothing to make walking away from him simple or easy. Because somewhere along the way he’d gone from being her temporary fantasy guy to the kind of man she knew she could fall for, given the chance.
And that knowledge scared the hell out of her.
Instinctively she knew spending more than this one night with him would be detrimental to her emotions, and quite possibly her heart. That warm fluttering in her belly when she glanced at him, combined with a deeper yearning for something more, was a complication and distraction she didn’t want or need in her life. For her, it was all about self-preservation, because Nathan had the ability to mess with her head and her goals as a journalist, and she wasn’t about to get sucked back into a situation that consumed her to the detriment of everything else that was important to her.
That’s why she was getting out while the getting was still good, while she could think straight and make the decision without her mind being fogged with the afterglow of phenomenal sex. And right now was the perfect opportunity to make her getaway, since she still had the advantage of being cloaked in anonymity. She hadn’t given Nathan any personal information for a reason. She hadn’t checked his name on the dating scorecard as a match, and that, at least, would help her make a clean break with him.
Wanting to avoid any morning-after awkwardness, she knew she had to slip out in the dark of night while he was sleeping. Quietly and carefully, she edged off the bed. She stepped into her underwear, picked up her shoes from the floor, and gave him one last look to tuck away for future dreams and fantasies.
He was snoring softly, the endearing sound making her smile. The sheet was tangled around his waist, and she memorized what she could see of his hard, muscular body, the stubble on his jaw, and the roguishly long hair that had felt like silk between her fingers. Undoubtedly, he was a gorgeous, masculine work of art she was going to miss more than she cared to admit.
Swallowing the regrets rising within her before they threatened to overwhelm her, she tiptoed out of the bedroom and made her way down the hall to the living room. She was grateful the lamp next to the couch was still on, which kept her fumbling-around to a minimum. Finding her dress in a heap on the floor, she quickly put it on, then made her way to the table in the foyer where she’d left her purse.
She absolutely hated leaving like a thief in the night, without a good-bye or an explanation, and that thought had her reaching into her handbag for a pen and the small notepad she kept with her. Tearing off a clean sheet of paper, she wrote, Nathan, thank you for an amazing night. I had a great time. Nicole. Then she placed the note beneath his car keys, where he was certain to see it at some point tomorrow.
She grabbed the strap of her purse, but just as she turned away, the bottom of the bag brushed across a file folder on the edge of the table and knocked it to the floor. The contents spilled out, and she whispered a curse beneath her breath at her clumsiness as she knelt down to retrieve the papers and photographs now strewn across the ground.
She picked up a picture of a pretty, young blond girl and what appeared to be an investigative report. At first, she gave the summary an indifferent glance, but a familiar name caught her attention and made her pause and take a second, more careful look.
Preston Sloane.
She knew she ought to stuff the items back into the folder without another glance, but as a journalist she had a curiosity streak a mile wide. What she’d discovered made her question Nathan’s connection to a man surrounded by controversy when it came to his private life.
Unable to ignore what she’d inadvertently found, her reporter instincts kicked in, overriding the twinge of guilt pricking her conscience. She didn’t have time to sit there and read through all the notes and reports at her leisure without the risk of him catching her, so she did the next best thing. Pushing aside the little voice in her head telling her she was straddling a fine ethical line, she pulled her cell phone from her purse and took close-up pictures of the contents of the file to peruse later. Within minutes she had everything back in its place and was quietly slipping out the front door.
On the drive home, she mulled over what she’d discovered, her mind spinning with her own thoughts on Preston Sloane. Once she arrived at her apartment, she headed straight for her bedroom, closed the door, and began uploading the pictures she’d taken to her laptop. She changed into her favorite pair of short PJs, crawled into bed, and began reading the information she’d copied from Nathan’s file.
In her opinion, and from what she knew and had heard as a reporter, Preston Sloane was as sleazy as they came. He reminded her way too much of her own experience in college, when her English professor, nearly twenty years her senior, had taken advantage of her youth.
She was barely eighteen, a freshman, and Mark Reeves’s flirtation and attention had made her feel special and attractive. All the girls in his class had a crush on him, and Nicole was no different—except she was the one he wanted out of all those other girls, and in a matter of weeks she was dating him, then sleeping with him.
But what began as an exciting relationship with an older, experienced man gradually turned into something much uglier—including the use of drugs (to relax her, he’d told her), then on to kinkier sexual demands. She’d been so convinced that he loved her, so caught up in pleasing him, that she hadn’t realized just how degrading and dysfunctional the relationship actually was.
Mark had been a master at seducing her body and manipulating her emotions, only to shatter her heart and self-esteem when someone younger, prettier, and more innocent came along to replace her in his affections. With Nicole well used, he’d cut her out of his life completely and without remorse, leaving her ashamed and humiliated.
At the time, she’d hadn’t been able to see the silver lining in his cruel and abrupt breakup. Devastated and unable to focus on what was most important to her—her degree in journalism—she’d nearly lost everything that mattered to her.
She’d learned her lesson well and had thankfully recovered from the ordeal, but the emotional scars and inability to trust a man completely ran much deeper.
Now, as she scanned through the investigative report and the Internet articles on Preston Sloane and the supposed darker side to his personality, her stomach roiled in response. Then came the detailed information on a teenage girl named Angela Ramsey, a runaway who’d last been seen at Sloane’s estate and had been missing for the past three weeks.
Nicole had no idea what Nathan’s involvement was with Sloane and the teenage girl, or why he had a portfolio filled with so much personal data on each. He’d told her he worked in surveillance for The Onyx, so why was he interested in something that had nothing to do with casino security?
By the time she finished reading everything, she’d connected to Angela Ramsey’s story on a personal level and felt compelled to do something to alter the course the young girl was currently on. Her journalistic side saw a breakout story. And the eighteen-year-old she’d once been wanted desperately to save other girls from enduring the humiliation and degradation of getting involved with a man like Preston Sloane.
She tried to get some sleep, but instead spent the rest of the night and early-morning hours tossing and turning fitfully. Her mind churned with her own foolish past, the choices she’d made, and how those choices had nearly destroyed her. Nicole wondered how many young girls like Angela had seen Preston Sloane as their own Prince Charming. A man reputed to use girls for his pleasure, at the cost of their own self-worth and sanity.
Oh, yeah, she’d been there, done that, and she couldn’t deny the information struck a personal chord. By morning, she was determined to do what she hadn’t done all those years ago with her professor: find a way to expose Preston Sloane for the creep he was.
Here was the substantial story she’d been looking for, just begging for her to research and write. Unable to resist such a challenge, or the chance to expose an unscrupulous man like Sloane, she saw this as an opportunity to make amends for past mistakes and hopefully save other girls from falling victim to the kind of emotional manipulation that could scar them for life.
Nicole knew her editor at The Las Vegas Commentary would never approve of her taking on Preston Sloane. Investigating the man’s life, and proving he was guilty of statutory rape, would require meticulous research. Logic dictated she find a way to get close to the man so she could discover what really went on behind the high walls of his estate. Even if that meant going undercover to get his attention.
As for Nathan, she could only hope she didn’t run into him again. But if their paths did cross during her investigation of Sloane, she’d just deal with the situation when, and if, it happened.
*
If waking up to find Nicole had snuck out on him sometime in the early-morning hours wasn’t enough to bruise Nathan’s male ego, then finding her brief message thanking him for a great time only added insult to injury.
After rocking his world last night, more than once, she was gone—and had left him the equivalent of a Dear John note. There was no explanation for her hasty departure, and while he knew every inch of her body intimately, he realized he had no information on how to contact her. No phone number, no e-mail, no home address, nothing.
Hell, he didn’t even know her last name.
The only thing he did know about Nicole was she was a writer of some sort, and she’d attended the speed-dating event to research an article about dating trends. But that information was too general to find out who she was, or to track her down. Not without a last name to help his search.
Last night, in the heat of passion, pertinent information about her hadn’t been a concern, mainly because he’d thought this morning they’d have plenty of getting-to-know-you time to exchange those personal details about each other.
Unfortunately, she hadn’t given them the opportunity.
After getting over the initial blow of finding Nicole gone, Nathan took a shower and tried to focus on work and preparing a plan to get close to Preston Sloane. He was determined to write off the entire situation with Nicole as a one-night stand, which had become his regular mode of operation over the years, ever since his downhill spiral after Katie’s death and the loss of his fiancée, Jill, due to his alcohol abuse.
Emotionally, he just wasn’t ready to give any woman what she needed out of a relationship, and he wasn’t sure he ever would be. He’d already failed too many people in his life. He found it much easier to be alone and responsible only for taking care of himself; he didn’t have the worry of disappointing someone he cared about.
Nowadays, hooking up with a female was all about physical pleasure and little else. He didn’t do long-term relationships or emotional involvement, and he was always the one to walk away when things turned too demanding.
He realized Nicole had used his own tactics on him, and he didn’t like being on the other end one bit. He couldn’t remember a woman ever getting under his skin in just one night the way she had. So much about Nicole intrigued Nathan, and he would have bet money she’d felt the same about him—even if she had ditched him before the light of day.
Despite his frustration, he turned his concentration to the Internet and digging up as much information on Sloane as he could find. When he checked his e-mail later that afternoon and discovered a note from Cindy in regards to the speed-dating event, he felt a glimmer of hope that Nicole had checked his name on the scorecard, as he’d done for her.
I’m very sorry. No matches were made.
She was the only woman he’d said yes to, but as he read the generic message blinking on his computer screen, he was forced to accept the fact that she truly didn’t want to be found.
The final rejection stung, more than he cared to admit. But he’d never chased after a woman before, and he wasn’t about to start now. In fact, she’d probably done him a huge favor by ending things so abruptly. With the Ramsey case demanding his undivided attention, and going undercover in the next week or so, the last thing he needed was a hot, sexy female distracting him.