Page 46 of Lies like Rubies, Part Two (Savage Jewels)

He slapped my thigh, gently. “Did you turn into a brat while you were gone?”

The glib reference to my time with Sergio should have hurt, should have been an arrow through my heart. Instead, I was inappropriately grateful that he made light of it, like it didn’t define me here the way it did everywhere else in my life right now.

“Maybe,” I whispered.

“Guess we’ll find out,” he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice.

When he stepped away from me, I had to clench my fingers into fists to resist calling him back.

He walked around to sit on the bed, his eyes roving over my body, leaving fire in their wake. My nipples pebbled as he watched me. Nick didn’t move toward me, just let me stand there, my heart rate speeding up and my breath turning uneven as I waited for his next move.

When he came back to me, he lifted my wrist, only to plant a tender kiss on top of the bandage.

My breath caught in my throat as he worked his way up my arm, kissing each bruise and abrasion, each gentle touch washing away a layer of the agony that Sergio had left on my skin.

When I trembled, he stared at me, searching my eyes before kissing across my collarbone and working his way down my other arm. His unusual silence heightened the tension between us as I melted with each kiss, my fury and frustration replaced with aching desire for this man who promised no complications. The familiar lie reassured me, allowing us to create a sacred space in this room where we were just a man and a woman who wanted each other.

He reached my fingertips, then raised both of my hands to his lips, kissing them, then knelt before me on one knee. Carefully, his touches no more than gentle whispers on my skin, he raised my foot to his knee, then bent his head to kiss the abrasions on my ankle, the scrapes on my knees, and the bruises on my thighs, pushing aside my confused memories of my time in captivity and replacing them, however momentarily, with the burn of his caress.

When he finished with the front of my legs, he turned me around, then kissed every cut and bruise on the back ofmy legs, the curves of my ass, and up my back until he stood behind me again, nuzzling that sensitive spot where my neck met my jaw.

“Nick,” I whispered, struggling to hold back the tears his tender touches evoked. “Please.”

“You’ve been so good for me, baby,” he whispered against my burning skin. “We’re almost done.”

He led me to the bed. “Sit,” he said, keeping his tone soft and gentle.

My entire body flushed and trembling with need, I dropped onto the bed. When I would have swung my legs around, he nudged my knees apart and knelt between them, looking up at me.

“Safeword?”

“No,” I whispered, caught up in the sensual spell he’d woven.

“Good girl.” Kiss by gentle kiss, he worked his way from my collarbone down my stomach, avoiding where I most wanted his touch, my hard and aching nipples desperate for his lips.

“Please,” I whispered again as he dropped butterfly kisses on the curve of my breast, and then worked his way down my ribs and across my abdomen.

Finally, his lips pressed into the soft down at the apex of my thighs. I couldn’t hold in the moan.

“Shhhh, Sofia. No noise, no movements,” he reminded me with a gentle slap to my sensitive inner thigh. “You’ve been such a good girl, so fucking perfect.”

My body was an inferno of desire, Nick’s devoted care for me sending me spiraling with need.

When I whimpered again, he rocked back on his heels. “You okay?”

I nodded frantically. “Please, Nick, I need you.”

His lips, god, those sexy full lips, tilted up into a lopsided smile. “I’m not done worshiping you yet, Sofia.”

“Worship faster,” I whined, desperate to feel the weight of his body over mine, the strength of him driving into me, the fullness of him.

He slapped the inside of my thigh again before kissing the same spot, soothing the sting. “No.”

Instead, he kissed the bruises on the insides of my thighs, the curves of my ass, lifting my legs onto his shoulders, and then he—the sound that escaped me was primal and raw.

He immediately stopped. “If you can’t keep quiet, I’m going to stop. Safeword?”

“No,” I answered.I can keep quiet. I’ll keep quiet.I slammed my jaw shut and my lips together.

---