“Why not?”
“I have...responsibilities.”
“As do we all.”
“I have over a hundred employees who depend on me. Every decision I make affects them. And their families.” Nate lifted a hand to the back of his neck, but stopped it there. How had that happened? He’d walked away from being responsible for four souls only to become responsible for hundreds. No wonder he never took a day off.
“Nate, you might be their boss, but they are, each and every one, responsible for themselves. On the other hand, I wonder if you spend near as much time worrying about yourself.”
Saskia’s eyes roved over him then. Over his eyes, which he knew looked as tired as he felt. Over his shoulders, making him feel the tightness of the muscles bunched therein.
She reached out, slid her small hand back into his and led him to the bed. There she pressed him down with gentle hands at his shoulders.
He sat, bouncing on the mattress, looking up at her.
She smiled a little before lifting her hands to run them through his hair. Front to back. Her fingers sliding across his scalp with perfect pressure. The touch was such a surprise he blinked at her. Speechless.
“I’ve been wanting to do this since I first saw your picture,” she murmured.
Then, when her hands moved back through his hair, against the grain, tugging slightly against the short strands, he closed his eyes with the complete and unexpected pleasure of it.
When her thumbs moved to his temples, making small insistent circles right where he needed it most, he groaned at the sweetness. He put his hands behind him on the bed and gave himself over to the sensation. The pure relief.
There they stayed for seconds, minutes, until the constant pressure that lived inside his head ebbed away.
As her hands moved to his neck, kneading at the tight muscles bunched there, her knees bumped his. He opened them to let her closer.
When her outer thighs brushed his inner thighs all relaxation fled in a heartbeat, leaving him unquestionably aware of himself. And her.
His eyes swept open to find her watching herself work, concentrating, with those little lines above her nose. Clueless to the fact that she was trapped between his legs. That her breasts were at his eye level. That she was so close that when he breathed deep through his nose he could smell her—not just her shampoo and her soap but her skin. Her heat. Her essence.
When he lifted his hands to her waist she flinched with surprise.
She braced her hands against his shoulders. Her eyes flickered to his. Her next breath in was deep, her breath out lush. As if she’d known that touching him would lead to this.
Her thumb grazed the outside of his neck, sending shivers through him. Leaving him baffled that this lean, soft, down-to-earth woman could create such anticipation, such rich layers of desire coursing through him with no more than a brush of her thumb.
And surrender in her eyes.
One hand at the back of his neck, she leant down and pressed her lips to his.
He knew to expect sweetness, to expect warmth, to expect her clean, honest taste. What he got was a jolt of heat so thick that the blood rush to his head near wiped out all thought.
He wrapped his arms around her to drink it in. All of it. All of her.
She opened her mouth to him, sank her body against his, and all that softness and warmth pulsed through him till he wrapped his arms so tight about her there wasn’t a millimetre of daylight between them.
Yet for all that he wasn’t close enough. He wanted to be inside her. Inside that heat and ease and peace and sweetness. He wanted her with a level of need he hadn’t felt in a long time.
As if she felt it too she pressed nearer again, till he tipped back, taking her with him. Her hair tickled his cheeks. Her mouth was like a siren song, drowning him till his brain was a haze of red, and sex, and Saskia.
Nate rolled until he was on top. Looking down at her. The dark waves of her hair splayed out on the plaid bedspread, her cheeks flushed, her lips dark pink and plump, her eyes drunk with desire.
“Having flashbacks?” she asked, her voice husky, her fingers playing with the back of his hair. “I’m betting I’m not the first girl you’ve made out with in this room.”
She was right. And she had him so hot he felt seventeen all over again. Clumsy, desperate, on the verge of losing himself in her.
He shifted till his hardness was nestled against her and her eyes fluttered closed.
He ran his thumb down her cheekbone, traced her bottom lip, the dip in her chin. “Would you have played hooky with me back then?”
“Not on your life. I was a good girl. Classic only child. Pleaser. Head in a textbook. Didn’t have my first real kiss till uni. Marty Grantham. Chemistry major.”