CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
He meant to just kiss her. He’d thought of nothing else since last night when Emma launched herself at him. He was hard before she even answered the door. That’s what she did to him. Her mouth on his had almost leveled him, nearly stripping him of his control, and he wanted the experience again.
He’d kissed and been kissed but not like that. Never like that.
Emma had taken something from him last night, and Niko wanted it back.
There was nothing gentle about the way he crushed his lips to hers. He was the aggressor this time. He was in charge. Fisting his hand into her hair, he dragged Emma’s head back, changing the angle of attack. When her lips parted for her to draw in a breath, he sealed his mouth over hers and swept inside using frantic strokes of his tongue designed to overwhelm her.
She responded to him as if he were the sun and she a flower blossom. Opening and blooming under him, she came to life and stole his breath with the beauty of her need for him. Emma’s fingers knotted in his shirt holding him to her. His hands busied themselves worshipping the perfection of her curves.
There was light here, color and heat, too. Her flavor sang through his veins and ignited a desire more akin to addiction than anticipation. The sexy little moans coming from the back of her throat had his body begging to be left off the leash.
It was supposed to be just a kiss. And it was anything but that.
He spun them, accidentally rapping her head off of the cabinet door. She swallowed his muffled apology with those precious, perfect lips, urging him on. He dragged his hands up over her hips, coasting around her waist to rest under the full curve of her breast.
Emma reached fast fingers under his belt and worked the buckle free. Niko palmed her breasts through the soft fabric of her dress and was rewarded with a sigh of pleasure from her.
“If you like this dress, you need to get out of it in the next two seconds, or it’s going to be destroyed,” he warned her.
Emma pushed him back a half step and slid the thick straps off her shoulders. She was wriggling it down her hips when he lost patience, shoving the garment to the floor. Her breasts overflowed from the lavender lace that lifted them like an offering to him. Dainty briefs in the same delicate lace had his fingers itching to shred them from her body. But the artist in him wanted to savor the moment… the flawless ivory of her skin, the glorious fullness of her curves, the single-minded quest for fulfillment that sparked behind those meadow green eyes.
He wanted to capture her like this, wearing power and need like an aura, a halo. She was a goddess made with the sole purpose of rendering him speechless.
“You’re perfection,” he murmured, holding her hand as she stepped out of the dress.
“Don’t stop now,” she said on a breathless whisper.
“I’ve got to catch up.” And calm down. If he let himself loose now, he’d take her here on the floor.
She worked the buttons on his shirt open, slipping her palms under his shirt to slide them over his chest. Her touch ignited an awareness so intense, Niko wasn’t sure if anything beyond this room existed anymore.
When she reached for his zipper, Niko stilled her hands with his. “Bedroom, Emma. I want you in a bed this first time.”
Her heavy-lidded eyes opened wider, and she rose on tiptoe to reclaim his mouth. “Hurry,” she murmured against him.
It was all the encouragement he needed, boosting her up and wrapping her legs around his hips. He growled when she cuddled against his raging hard cock. He gripped her ass and made the mad dash up the stairs. They smacked into the wall at the top and a framed picture tumbled to the floor.
“Keep going,” she demanded, feeding on his lips.
Niko kicked the bedroom door open, and then they were tumbling to the mattress. He should be going slow. He wanted to savor her body. But then she was wrestling his pants free, nudging them down with her heels hooked around his hips, and there was nothing he wanted more than speed and need.
“Hurry!” Emma ordered.
He kicked off one pant leg and then the other before pressing his face to her breasts, loving the thump of her erratic heartbeat against his cheek
“So beautiful,” he murmured, plying those voluptuous curves with kisses.
She arched up, sliding the straps off her shoulders. Niko reached under her and released the clasp with one hand.
“Show off,” she teased.
“Baby, just you wait.”
The lace slipped, and he took a moment to slide it off her breasts like the unveiling of a masterpiece.
“Worth the wait,” he breathed. Her nipples, perfect pink nubs, hardened in anticipation before his eyes. God, she was perfection. She had the magic. Women like her had been the temptation of men for centuries. And tonight, she belonged to him. He nuzzled softly, reverently, before bringing the soft pink bud into his mouth.
“Nikolai!” On a shout and a sigh, Emma fisted her hands in the comforter. His name from her mouth was a spell. He licked and tasted before sealing his mouth over her nipple and sucking. She arched harder against him, and he took more, feeding their desire.
She writhed against him when he switched breasts, teasing the ignored bud until it strained for more.
“My Emmaline,” he whispered reverently, slipping down her body, blazing a trail with his lips over her flat stomach to the curve of her hip. He hooked his fingers in the front of her gossamer thin underwear, dragging it down. His mouth followed, and he felt her quake against him when his tongue dipped between her legs to sample her.
She was wet and ready for him, and he’d barely touched her. Niko drew the tip of his tongue through that wet slit and reveled in her gasp. She was so much more than he’d anticipated. So much more than he deserved. The hurry, the desire to claim, returned in force, and Niko slid one finger into her.
“Niko. I’m going to—”
He dipped his tongue to the sensitive, swollen nub, stroking gently. She fell apart on his finger and mouth, muscles closing around him as she came and came and came. He was so hard, so ready, he thought he might go with her just from the sound of her voice breaking on a sob.
He should have felt a dose of pride for bringing her here, for making her sob his name. But all he felt was need. He needed to be inside her, to claim her, to feel her come around him.
But before he could move, she was wriggling free of his grip and pushing him onto his back.
“You tasted me. It’s only fair.” Those sea goddess eyes teased him, promising him pleasure, as she coasted down his body, dipping her tongue over his chest and abs to the sensitive skin just inside his hip bone.
There was nothing playful about the way she took his cock in her mouth. When she slicked down over his shaft, his hips levered up off the mattress, his entire body tensed at the sensation. Her mouth was hot as it licked up to his tip that leaked copiously from the seam.
She tasted him there, and her tongue traced a path over every vein, every inch, until he was panting with desire. One hand in the comforter, he shoved the other into her hair and gripped. Hard. She bobbed up and down, fisting him from root to tip. Sliding over him like a fucking popsicle. Over and over again, harder and faster.
She was going to kill him. He was going to die right here with his cock in her mouth without ever having fully had her.
The thought was enough to have him dragging her up his body by the hair and rolling. He settled between her legs just outside her weeping entrance.
“God, condom!” she gasped.
He was glad one of them still had the power of thought. Niko reared up, looking for his pants.
“Nightstand,” Emma pointed with a shaking hand.
He dove for the drawer and, finding the box, shredded the cardboard open.
The purr from her throat when he tore the wrapper with his teeth had his hands shaking as he rolled the rubber on. He fisted his shaft, and Emma, eyes at half mast, licked her lips.
He wanted to remember this moment forever, commit it to memory, capture it on screen so he could relive it again and again. The moment Emmaline became his. They were both breathless and wide-eyed as he guided the broad head of his erection to her entrance. He didn’t have to tell her to look at him. She was staring into him as he eased into her inch by inch until he was buried inside her.
Emma’s eyelashes fluttered, and her jaw clenched as she fought the fullness.
“Just relax, baby,” he breathed. “Relax for me.”
Her breaths were short, sexy little gasps, but little by little, he felt her muscles give until his last inch slid into her. Those green eyes, the knowing and the wonder in them, convinced Niko that he’d never forget this exact moment for as long as he walked the earth.
With a patience he didn’t know he had inside him, Niko slowly pulled out, gritting his teeth at the sensation. He took his time, sliding back into her until they were one. It was her throaty little moan that pushed him over the edge. That and the fingers she stabbed into his shoulders. Emma’s legs opened wider, welcoming him, and he snapped.
He took and took until sweat slicked their skin, driving into her as if powered by a primitive force deep in his DNA. His feet dug into the mattress as he drove himself home. Emma’s hips pumped in sync as they climbed together.
She fit him, clamped around him, and every stroke, every thrust, was an unimaginable pleasure.
He worried he was being too rough, but when he murmured that concern into the curve of her neck, she only begged for more. Emma hitched her legs around him, pulling him as deep as he could go.
There was nothing beyond this bed, this room, that mattered anymore. Niko knew his reason for being writhed under him in a quest for release, and he would take her there.
Their mouths met and tangled again as his body fed on hers. She gave him everything he asked for, met every thrust with an eager arch. He was hanging on by a fine silver thread when he felt her begin to quicken around him.
“Yes, baby. My Emma,” he breathed into her. He shifted just slightly, changing the angle of his thrusts and let them both go. He came with her, that first shuddering contraction around his dick forced him over the edge. He held on long enough to match her wave for wave, loosing himself into her until he was empty and she was quivering and blind beneath him.