Now that she was standing in front of him, waiting for him to touch her, she was aware of her body, broken and rebuilt like Frankenstein’s monster, a map of wounds and surgery scars, to say nothing of what the accident had done to her insides.
She was thirty years old — she’d been to bed with plenty of men — but she’d never cared what those men thought of her body. They were tools, instruments she used for a release when she’d gone too long without being touched, without having an orgasm.
She had no doubt that she was the same to them, had never had qualms about that either. They would never see each other again, and if her hookup felt the need to tell his friends about the woman he’d taken to bed who’d been marked with scars, what was it to her?
But this was different. Nick was looking down at her with something complex and infinite in his eyes, something that said he wouldn’t let her off the hook by not looking too closely at her body. Something that said he’d want to know all of her, not just her battered body, but her heart, her soul.
He leaned down and she felt the brush of his cheek against hers, the scratch of his five o’clock shadow. His hands remained at his sides as he turned his face toward her neck. A shiver ran down her spine, hardening her nipples and sending a rush of moisture to her core, as his breath whispered against the skin just below her ear.
She closed her eyes, stifling a sigh as she let her head fall to the side.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked, his voice gruff.
“About which part?” she murmured.
His laugh was deep and wicked, a vibration that was felt low in her belly even though he still wasn’t touching her. He nuzzled closer to her neck, his nose brushing against the sensitive skin behind her ear.
“Is this what it’s like taking a lawyer to bed?”
“Yes,” she breathed.
He touched his lips to her jawline and kissed his way toward her mouth. “Say it.”
He wanted her to tell him she was sure, but the words were surprisingly hard to say. Not because she wasn’t sure but because she’d never really wanted anyone.
Not like this. Not enough to ask.
“Please,” she said instead.
His proximity was killing her — close enough to touch but not touching, his breath on her neck, the brush of his lips so light she might have been imagining it.
So light it only made her want more.
“That’s not going to cut it, Alexa.” He kissed the corners of her mouth, barely touching her lips.
She couldn’t hold back her sigh. Couldn’t hold back the words. “I’m sure.”
He closed his mouth over hers and then there was no reason, no fear. There was only his mouth, fevered and frenzied on hers, his tongue probing and sweeping, his hands finally on her face, cradling her head in his hands.
A hunger so insistent it took her breath away opened up inside her and she slid her hands up his chest and around his neck, pressing her body against his, his cock hard against her stomach.
He lifted her off the ground, cradling her ass, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. His shaft nestled between her thighs as he carried her down the hall, his tongue still exploring hers.
She was hurtling through space, held aloft in Nick’s strong hands, her head spinning as everything else fell away in the wake of his kiss, skillful and urgent.
“This the one?” he said against her mouth.
She opened her eyes long enough to see they were standing outside her office door. “Next one.”
He captured her mouth again, as if he couldn’t bear to be without it, as if he needed the contact as much as she did.
When she opened her eyes he was setting her down next to her bed.
He held his hand against her face, running the pad of his thumb across her cheek, his eyes piercing hers. “I’m not going to regret this.”
“Me either,” she said.
He lowered his mouth to kiss her again. This time it was languid, his tongue making slow sweeps of her mouth as his hands moved down her neck, across her shoulders, down her arms.