Laura Kaye - Hard As It Gets

Damnit, he needed her.

On a groan, he reached out, grasped her neck, and hauled her up to him.

Rixey consumed her with the kiss, pouring every bit of his gratitude and desire into the movement of his lips, his tongue, his hands. She moaned in surprise, and he devoured that, too. God, she smelled of warm vanilla and tasted of mint. Little needful whimpers and sighs and gasps spilled out around their lips, and he reveled in every last note of her pleasure, of her desire. He pulled her closer and penetrated her more deeply with his tongue. The damn backrest separated them, but he couldn’t let her go long enough to rectify the problem.

“God, sunshine, what are you doing to me?” he rasped around the edge of a kiss.

Her fingers dug into his hair, pulling, grasping. He loved the bites of pain against his scalp, evidence of her loss of control.

If he didn’t stop soon, he was going to lift her into his arms, lay her out on his bed, and cover her with his body. And there would be no going back.

Get a friggin’ grip, Rixey. Now.

Panting, he pulled his lips away from hers, his hands cupping her cheeks so she didn’t dive back in for more. Foreheads together, he let himself bask in a moment more of her heat, her scent, her touch. He kissed the corner of her mouth, because he was the one struggling to resist, and stroked his hands over her hair. Finally, he pulled away. “It’s late,” he said, hating the words but needing them.

Her fingers played with the hair at the nape of his neck. “I know,” she whispered, peering up at him with midnight blue eyes.

“Come on.” He pushed up from the chair and gave her a hand at the same time. Miraculously, his muscle aches were more diffuse than before her massage. As if he needed another reason to want to kiss her. “You should—”

“I don’t want to be alone, Nick.” She shook her head and ducked her chin. “Can I just . . . maybe, stay out here with you?”

“Becca—”

“Please?”

The pleading slayed him. He grasped her hand and led her to his dark bedroom.

“Get in,” he said at the side of the bed. “You need sleep, and you’re not going to get it sitting up out there.”

“But—”

“I’ll sleep here, too.”

“Really?”

The obvious relief did a number on him. It felt damned good to be needed—too damned good, so he played it off. “It’s a hardship, but for you, I’ll make the sacrifice.” He swatted her butt, and his cock rose up and took notice. “Get in.”

“Nicholas Rixey, did you just . . . smack me?” The sounds of the mattress accepting her weight and the covers shifting followed her into the bed.

He lay down on the very edge, his mind still spinning on the fact that he’d just spanked her, when a new realization hit home. Shit, I’m in bed with Becca. “Why, did you like it?” he said, forcing nonchalance into his voice when he felt anything but.

Her non-answer was a real kick in the ass, because he’d bet his right nut she was laying over there debating how to answer. And now his cock wanted back in the game. Fuck.

Yes, please.

Jesus, when your brain started talking to your cock, you were on some fucking really thin ice. “And don’t call me Nicholas,” he groused.

She chuckled and shifted positions, judging by the movement of the mattress.

“Lying on your back can’t be much better than lying on your stomach.”

He grunted, but it was true. But if he rolled on his right side, he’d be that much closer to her, and right now he swore she must be throwing off solar heat, he felt her presence so intensely.

“Nick?”

He tensed, unsure what the hell she was going to come at him with next. “Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

Oh. The tension ebbed out of him. “You’re welcome.”

Gingerly, he turned onto his side, easing his back and restoring the relief she’d given to him with the gift of her touch.

“Nick?”

“Hmm?”

“I feel like I’ve known you a lot longer than a few days.”

So do I. But nothing good would come from making that admission. “Becca?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s time to stop talking now.”

She laughed, the sound warm and sunny in the darkness. The metaphor wasn’t lost on him.

Becca was the light to his dark.

Her honesty, her touch, her very presence settled a blanket of comfort around him like nothing else had this past year. And he wanted to wrap himself up in it and never let go. How the hell that worked without her getting hurt at his hands, without his bitterness and anger weighing her down, he didn’t know.

And he wasn’t sure it was good for either of them for him to figure it out.

The warm weight was the first thing Becca noticed. All along her side, on her shoulder, covering her thigh. She didn’t want to open her eyes and chase away the dream of lying so close to Nick, because there was no way it was real.

Except the more she woke up, the more she realized she wasn’t imagining it. His jeans, his skin, his heartbeat all truly pressed against her. Sometime during the night, Nick Rixey had made himself into a blanket, and she was the beneficiary of his covering heat.

Judging by the numbness of her arm, his head had been resting on her shoulder for a while. She turned her face toward him and her cheek found the soft unruliness of his hair. A smile crept over her face. Here he’d insisted on clinging to the edge of the mattress when they’d gotten in bed, but he’d sought her out in his sleep and curled up against her.

And curled up was the right way to describe it. His head on her shoulder, his leg over her thigh, his arm stretched over her stomach and his big hand tucked under her hip. Like he wanted to make sure she didn’t go anywhere.

It was actually kinda sweet. Not at all a description she’d usually apply to Nick, with all his rough edges and gruff moods and serious intensity.

Opening her eyes to the gray light of early morning skirting in around the blinds, Becca soaked in the amazing image of Nick’s body sprawled all over hers. Man, that gave her some ideas she wouldn’t mind bringing to reality. Him, over her, moving, taking, claiming.

The way she wanted him was crazy. She knew it was. After all, she’d only known him a few days. But that didn’t make it any less real. At twenty-eight, she’d never felt anything like the passionate urges he seemed to wring out of her with just a look or a touch, and who knew if she’d find another man capable of making her feel this way again. He was quintessentially masculine and quietly powerful and arrogantly commanding—sometimes to the point where she wanted to throttle him. But mostly, her body reacted to these qualities as if they were a gypsy healer’s most potent aphrodisiac, mysterious and irresistible and maybe a little dangerous, too.

Becca rubbed her hand over her face, hoping the coolness of her palm might ease the sudden heat flooding her cheeks, not to mention elsewhere. It was no use, though, because as long as this much of him was touching this much of her, desire and lust would rush through her until she was nearly mad with the aching need for him to fill her up in any and every way he could.

Maybe that should embarrass her. But it didn’t. Even if it had been a while since she’d last had it, she’d always liked sex. And there wasn’t a part of her that doubted that sex with Nick Rixey would be absolutely mind-blowing. The only question was why he kept pulling back, when it seemed clear he was interested.

If there was one thing all the losses in her life had taught her it was that life was short, fleeting, and way too precious to waste waiting around for happiness to hit you over the head and make itself known. Happiness wasn’t something you found, happiness was something you made—by living in the moment, by cherishing the people in your life right now, by finding the courage to change those things you didn’t like. She hadn’t always gotten it right the last year or two, and that had to change. Starting now.

As these thoughts raced through her mind, a familiar pang of guilt settled in her heart for Charlie. But they would find him. She absolutely refused to entertain any other outcome. And, then, maybe after . . .

Yeah. After.

Nick shifted, rolling closer, if that was possible, and her just barely restrained lust broke free. The change in his position brought his erection against her hip. And, Jesus, he was big. Imagining taking all that masculine flesh into her hands, her mouth, her core had her suddenly light-headed, despite lying down. As if that weren’t enough, when he’d moved closer, the thick cords of his thigh had pressed squarely against the junction of her legs. Summoning all her willpower, she forced herself to lie perfectly still. Because if she lifted her hips even an inch, the friction of his body pressing so intimately and deliciously against her clit would make her come.

He sniffed and murmured, and his breathing slowly changed from the slow, shallow draws of sleep to the deeper pattern of wakefulness. “What are you thinking so hard about?” he said, his voice a seductive, raw gravel.

“Nothing,” she whispered.

“Bad liar, remember?”

She smiled. Not even awake and he was already a smart-ass. “You’re laying on me.”

He lifted his head, eyes still soft with sleep and oh so bright. “Er, oh, God, Bec—”

“Don’t move, please? I wasn’t complaining.”

“Then what—”

“It’s just . . .” The way he was looking at her, half concerned, half like he might make her every dream come true, had her spilling a fast stream of honesty that was about five point two light-years beyond oversharing. “I’m horny. And you’re hot as hell. And we’re clearly trying to be good. Although, I’m not sure why, exactly. And, anyway, I don’t want you to move. Because I like the feel of you. And I—”