Page 49 of The Truth Serum
“Fletcher will still be asleep at nine. I hope.”
Nate sighed and dropped his forehead onto her knees. “Only for you, my dear. Only for you.”
“For me what?” she asked, her voice tart.
“Meet me there at ten. That’s when it opens.” He should be done with Frid by then. “I’ll show you what I’ve been doing.”
“What?”
“I’ll show you,” he repeated. At least some of what he’d done. The light stuff. The silly stuff. The only way his sanity had survived some of the places he’d been. He lifted his head and put on his most winning expression. “Please?”
Then he waited while she studied him. Lord, the woman could drag out a decision, looking at it from all angles before she committed. But in the end, she nodded.
“At ten.”
“Good.”
And then he kissed her. Because he never wasted time on deliberation, even when he should.
Chapter Fourteen
Good lord, howcould she have forgotten? No one but Nate kissed like this. Enthusiasm and care. She could feel the hunger in him, the desperate need, but also the way he held himself back for her sake. He touched her face softly, a barely-there caress while his lips moved over hers. Then his tongue pushed forward, only to pull back. Forward and back, penetrating a little bit more each time.
She sank into the experience. How could she not? He’d given her her first real kiss, her first sensual touch, her first in so many things. But with ten years of time between this time and the last, she wanted to know how he had changed. How she had changed. And how much was exactly the same.
Arousal. Pure, sweet, hungry need for touch. She’d suppressed it over the years, but now it hit her harder than before. It said,This.This is what she needed. This is what had been missing from her life for ten bleak years. No one touched her anymore, not even her maid who always had a layer of clothing between her fingers and Rebecca’s body.
His fingers skimmed along her jaw and down her neck. How sensitive he made her. Suddenly she was aware of not just his fingers but the weight of the blanket over her knees, the rough texture of her nightrail, and the heated press of his arm against hers.
His tongue probed against her mouth, and she stretched to meet him. Tongue to tongue, she’d never had to think aboutsuch things when she was sixteen. She’d just kissed. But now she doubted herself. She shouldn’t be doing this. She shouldn’t have let him into her bedroom.
She had such bad judgement.
And yet, those thoughts were soon buried beneath the sensations—hissensations. His scent, now mixed with Bay Rum and London coal dust. Different, and yet undeniably him. His caress, so gentle, even as he seemed to tremble with need. And his sigh as he forced himself back.
That she remembered so clearly. Every time he pulled back, it was as if he had to force himself away from her. How many times had she heard that sigh from him when they were kids? When he stopped what he was doing, only to hover on the precipice of starting again. Could he pull himself away or steal another kiss, another touch?
She answered the question for him. When he began to draw back, she lurched forward. She grabbed his arm and drew him to her. She fused her lips to his, she thrust her tongue in his mouth, and she did everything possible to keep him with her.
She didn’t say the words.Don’t stop!echoed in her mind and her body.
She didn’t need to say them because he knew what she wanted. He’d always known. And when she grabbed his hand and set it to her breast, he cupped her as he always had. Reverence and strength. He never hurt her, but the way he shaped her set her body on fire.
How had she gone ten years without feeling this?
Don’t stop!
He pulled back from their kisses. His breath was ragged. Hers was non-existent. Not with him brushing her nightrail aside. Not with his fingers on her flesh as he bared her shoulder and then her breast.
Her head dropped back, her body trembling beneath the onslaught of sensation.
His hand cupped her naked breast, his fingers pulling at her nipple. And then she felt his mouth on her chest. A kiss. A lave with his tongue.
Don’t stop!
She arched into his hold. And when his tongue coiled about her taut nipple, a sob of relief rasped through her constricted throat.
He paused, lifting his head to look at her. Her eyes flew open, and their gazes met.
