It doesn’t matter. He’s here. I step back from the window in surprise, swamped by a selfish elation I can’t deny.
Then I’m racing down the stairs and out the front door, barefoot. Breathless.
Puddles on the pavement slosh against my feet as I round the front of the car to the driver’s side. I pound the flat of my hand against the window, a single knock that brings Nick’s head up sharply.
Our eyes meet through the water-streaked glass. He’s sitting in the darkened car, the engine turned off. He scowls, his lips parting on a silent curse as currents of rain sluice off my nose and chin.
The door pops open. I step aside as he climbs out of the car, an apology in his gaze. “I couldn’t leave. Damn it, I tried to, but—”
I don’t give him the chance to finish. With my hands holding his face, I drag him down to meet my kiss. His answering groan is animal, filled with the same yearning that’s coursing wildly through me.
We’re drenched in seconds. His white dress shirt plasters against his broad shoulders and chest. My thin kimono practically melts around me. Neither of us seems notice or care. Nothing can cool the urgency of our kiss.
Nick’s mouth moves hungrily over mine, our faces wet from the rain, our lips fused and fevered. His large hands hold me close to him, one palm splayed at my back, the other cradling my nape beneath the sodden tangle of my hair. His muscles flex, then in an instant he’s pivoted, turning me around so that I’m pinned between the closed door of the BMW and the firm heat of his body. He crowds in closer, still kissing me madly, our bodies crushed together everywhere they can, melding my soft curves to his hard planes.
I moan with the need for deeper contact. There’s no use trying to deny what he does to me. Just one kiss and I’m his for the taking already.
Again.
Always.
He says my name like a curse, muttering it harshly against my lips before he draws back to look at me. Desire blazes in his eyes and in the stark set of his jaw.
I see the question in his gaze. The warning.
I nod, the only response I’m capable of when my body is shivering under the deluge, my senses thrumming with the force of my need.
Nick kisses me again, hard and fast and heated. His fingers lace through mine and together we hurry back to the house. Dripping wet in the center of my little foyer, we barely make it to the steps leading upstairs before Nick wheels me around to face him, picking right up where we left off. He kisses me until I feel dizzy, until I am vibrating with arousal.
It’s always been like this between us from the very beginning. Spark meeting tinder. Passion perpetually smoldering and once reignited, swiftly consuming everything in its path.
But it’s not only lust that draws us together time and again.
It’s a connection that goes deeper than that. Nick and I share a mutual need
that no one else can fill. I feel it every time I look into his haunted eyes and see a piece of myself there. As strong and unbreakable as he is, I know there’s a part of Nick that recognizes himself in me too.
I feel our connection now, when his gaze locks on mine and he begins to peel away my soaked kimono. He lowers his head and his mouth finds the curve of my bare neck and shoulder. My skin is cold, but it flares hot the instant his lips touch me. I shudder with unabashed need, curling my arms around him as his lips descend to my breasts. The wet scrap of my clothing falls away, taking the rest of the world and all of my other conscious thoughts with it.
God. How I need this. I need him.
Tonight there is the added fuel of our separation, all the nights and weeks and months that I’ve longed to feel Nick’s hands on me again, his mouth on me . . . his hard, powerful body crushed against me, buried inside me.
In spite of everything we’ve been through, there is still this. There will always be this. I know it as surely as I see that same truth reflected in his stormy blue eyes. We will be drawn together like this always, even if it hurts.
Even if it destroys us.
Right now I don’t care about any of that.
Right now, all I need is him.
Nick understands. There’s no need for me to say the words. He doesn’t have to tell me how deeply he craves this either.
My fingers struggle to unbutton his wet shirt. The custom-tailored white fabric is glued to his muscled arms and torso, slowing my quest to get at his naked skin. He seems just as impatient to have my hands on him. Yanking the tails loose from his pants, he rips open the front of the shirt with a sharp flex of his wrists. Mother-of-pearl buttons clatter to the hardwood like tiny pebbles.
His sigh is ragged when I touch him. On a low sigh, he drops his head back as I run my fingers over his bare chest and abdomen. When I drift lower, palming the steely ridge of his arousal, a rough moan rumbles at the back of his throat.
Gripping my hips, he drags me against him, the rain-dampened bespoke slacks pressing coolly to my nakedness. His pelvis grinds into mine. The pressure and the friction of his hard erection rotating against me makes my core clench greedily. His mouth captures the impatient sound I make, even as his hands clamp on to my backside and haul me deeper into his embrace.