“Everything?” he asked, and she saw something shift in his gaze; noticed the change from stubborn refusal to something far more treacherous. The air between them seemed to sizzle as his gaze dropped from her eyes, to her mouth and then lower to the hollow of her throat where she felt her pulse pounding wildly. Erratically.
“Yes. Everything. I want it all.”
“Christ, Marla. You always have.”
“I figured that’s what you’d say.”
“Don’t you remember what happened last night?”
Her fingers clenched around his sleeve. “Help me, Nick.”
His jaw slid to one side as he studied her. His lips flattened in self-deprecation. “For the record, I think this is a big mistake, but what the hell, as you said, you want it.” In an instant he stepped into the doorway of a closed shop and in that tiny alcove, he wrapped his arms around her, gathering her close to his body, squeezing her tight. Lowering his head, he slanted his hungry lips over hers in a kiss as brutal as it was desperate. Hard. Unyielding. Breathtaking. Firm and demanding, his mouth rubbed insistently against hers and she felt a second’s pain where the wires in her teeth had been removed. She caught her breath and in that precise moment, his tongue slipped between her teeth, the tip intimately, forcefully probing. He tasted of coffee, his skin was warm, the stubble of his beard rough against her cheek.
Pain diffused into pleasure.
Deep inside she quivered. Her blood ran hot. The night disintegrated around them. She closed her eyes and ignored the warnings screaming through her mind. Her blood tingled, her heartbeat thundered and she was lost to him. Her arms wrapped around his neck and she held tight as his tongue touched and mated with hers.
She couldn’t get enough of him, clung to him, to this moment on the crowded street.
Heat, wild and hot and anxious, began to run through her veins. Her skin flushed in the cool air. Images of lying naked with him flashed through her brain and she saw in her mind’s eye his bare muscular body straining over hers, his tongue running deliciously down her throat, to her breasts and lower still, along the flat slope of her abdomen, to taste the most intimate regions of her, to plunder her body and soul. She moaned softly, imagining the feel of his body joining with hers, of him thrusting deep . . . so hot, so hard, so . . . He lifted his head from hers and she blinked back the erotic images to face the cold reality of the San Francisco night, the fog, the other pedestrians, the sounds of traffic zinging past on the wet streets.
“I knew it,” he muttered, his eyes mirroring the guilt of her own despair. “I knew it would be like this with you.” He dropped his arms and she was suddenly standing alone. Bereft. Her heated skin cooling with the breeze that tossed dried leaves into the gutter and brought the scent of rain. “Damn it all to hell, Marla, we just can’t do this.”
“Don’t you think I know it?”
“Then don’t push it.” Angrily he grabbed her hand and started for the truck. She yanked her fingers from his and shoved her fists deep into her pockets as she half ran to keep up with his longer, swifter strides.
“Don’t blame me, Nick,” she said as they crossed the street and she had to duck past a woman with a huge umbrella.
He cast her a hot, unguarded look. “I don’t.”
“You sure as hell act like it.”
“I just don’t want things to get any more complicated than they are.” He took her hand to help her sidestep a man in a wheelchair. Then Nick let go.
“You were as curious as I was,” she insisted. “You wanted to know if the spark was still there. Admit it.”
“No way. I already knew. Last night proved a lot.”
She didn’t believe him and was about to tell him so, when he looked over his shoulder and stopped short. “Hell!” She nearly ran into him.
“What?” Whirling, she searched through the mist to see what it was that had caught his attention. Nothing but the lamppost and the crowd on the sidewalk.
“Come on.” He grabbed her wrist and this time there wasn’t any warm familiarity in his touch. Now he was running fast, dragging her with him, dashing through pedestrians and bicyclists, nearly tripping over a young mother pushing a stroller in the opposite direction.
“What is it?” she yelled, nearly breathless.
“I think we were being followed.”
Her blood was suddenly frigid, her heart a tattoo. “By whom?”
“I don’t know, but I intend to find out. Come on. Let’s see if we can catch him.” He darted through the side streets and around corners of buildings, cutting across traffic and causing more than one driver to slam on his brakes or honk his horn.
“Hey, watch out,” one man in a cap and overcoat reprimanded from the open window of a van.
“Where’s the fire?” another one joked.
Marla raced to keep up with Nick, her lungs burning, her legs beginning to cramp. All the while Nick’s eyes were trained ahead, focused on the back of a tall man in a black parka who cut in and out of the crowd. The stranger darted unevenly as if he favored one leg. “You’re crazy,” Marla wheezed as they sprinted past the Cannery to Jefferson Street and finally, just when she was certain her lungs would burst, around a final corner, across a street against the light, and into the throng milling along the piers of Fisherman’s Wharf.