Dahlia wasn’t touching that. She watched the outline of an island take shape. “Is this the place?”
“If Gator drew the map correctly. What’s that noise?”
“Alligators calling to one another. They’re in love.”
They rounded a bend, and a small dock came into sight. The cabin was just back from the pier. Grass covered the ground surrounding the house. To his dismay, an alligator rested on the wooden dock and another in the yard. “Do you think they moved in while Gator was gone?”
“It’s very common on these small islands to have alligators share your yard.”
“Well get your flamethrower ready, we may need it.”
Dahlia burst out laughing. “You don’t give off enough energy to stoke the fires, Nicolas.”
He turned his head and looked fully into her eyes, causing her heart to jump wildly. “Little liar.”
Nicolas’s tone was so silky smooth, such a promise of passion and pleasure Dahlia shivered, her entire body aching in reaction. How in the world could he make her so aware of him not only as a person, but also as a male? It was silly. It was too dangerous. Someone had to think with brains instead of other portions of the anatomy. She sighed and stepped out of the boat, carefully avoiding the alligator as she tied the boat to the dock. “We’re just visiting,” she assured the creature.
“Don’t you dare pet it, Dahlia,” Nicolas warned, his heart in his throat. He wouldn’t put it past her. “You give me gray hair with the way you seem to have no fear.” He pushed a hand through his hair in agitation. “I think I’ve been more afraid since I’ve been around you than at any other time in my life. And it’s damned uncomfortable.”
She watched him shrug into his pack. “I’ve been taking care of myself for a very long time, Nicolas.”
He didn’t answer but went past her to the cabin. A member of Gator’s family checked on it weekly, keeping the bayou creatures from invading, so the cabin was neat and tidy and the propane gas tank was full, allowing them to have hot water. Nicolas lit a few of the gas lamps rather than working on the generator. They were both tired and needed a hot shower and sleep.
In spite of the slight wound to Nicolas’s shoulder, he insisted Dahlia take the first shower. She was grateful for the warmth of the water as it washed the mud and grime from her body. There were gobs of mud in her hair, something she hated, and she shampooed it several times to make certain it was clean. Her arms ached when she lifted them to rinse the heavy mass of hair, she was that tired, and yet with the water pouring over her sensitive skin, she could imagine Nicolas’s hands and mouth following the trail of the small droplets. She closed her eyes and turned her face up to the spray, hoping to wash the thought of Nicolas away.
Needing
to wash him away.
The door opened and she whirled around. The curtain was steamy but still transparent. Nicolas grinned at her, holding his hands up, a clean shirt in his fist. The smile faded from his face as he stood there looking at her. He cleared his throat. “I’m just getting the dirty clothes. I thought I’d wash everything and hang it up to dry. At least you’d have clean clothes. I brought you another shirt.” The entire time his hot gaze burned over her body, touched her in places so deep she thought she might melt.
“Go away, Nicolas. Right now.” She didn’t try to hide from his gaze. She didn’t want to. She
wanted
him looking at her, devouring her with his eyes. She was in dangerous territory, they both were, but when he looked at her like that, she couldn’t help but want him. Her voice was nearly an invitation.
“I’m going, Dahlia, but only because you’re so tired I can feel it. I’ll wash the clothes tonight. You crawl into bed, but leave room for me.” He didn’t want to turn away from her. It was hell having the ability to feel her emotions, to read how tired she was and how much her body needed to sleep.
“Do you think sharing a bed is a good idea?”
“It’s the only idea. If I can’t at least lie down beside you, I’m going to go out of my mind.”
“Have you considered that if we really made love, Nicolas, we could set the bed on fire?” Her fingers slipped over her breasts with the bar of soap. The water cascaded down to rinse the bubbles away.
Nicolas sucked in his breath. “You’re deliberately torturing me.”
“Probably,” she agreed.
He stood for a moment in silence, looking at her with far too much hunger, then he abruptly gathered up her soaked clothing and went out.
Dahlia slumped against the shower stall wall, staring after him, her body overheated and throbbing. She had no willpower when it came to Nicolas Trevane. She shouldn’t sleep in the same bed with him, dressed only in his thin shirt and nothing else, but she knew she would.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Dahlia woke to heat. To fire consuming her. The light fabric of her shirt almost hurt her ultrasensitive skin. Hands stroked her thighs, soft hair brushed along her skin. She felt the lick of heat as a tongue slid up her leg. If she were dreaming, her body thought it was real and was responding with a buildup of pressure she couldn’t begin to ignore. She turned her head and met Nicolas’s dark stare. Her heart jumped at the concentrated hunger in the depths of his gaze.
“How long have you been awake?” Her mouth had gone dry and her pulse was racing. He was turned on his side, propped up on one elbow, watching her intently.
“Hours. I don’t know.” He reached out and touched her lower lip with the pad of his finger. “I dreamt of you taking a shower with me. And then I dreamt of you swimming naked with me. And then I dreamt of waking up and finding you next to me just like this.”
She couldn’t stop the slow smile. “You were dreaming very specific details, because I felt you touching me.”
“Where was I touching you?” There was a raw ache in his voice.
“I felt your hand on my thigh.”
He shifted position, a small movement, but it brought him close to her. His head dipped lower toward her stomach as his hand slid slowly up her thigh as if savoring every moment. “Like this?” His voice was a sinful temptation, nothing less.
She closed her eyes briefly and shifted her legs until his heavy erection was pressed against her skin. Until she could feel the drop of moisture bearing witness to his urgent need. “More. It was more, and your hair brushed over my skin and felt erotic.” She touched his hair. He wore it long, and it was falling free around his face. He was a beautiful man with a darkly sensual body made to bring women long nights of passion. Her fingers slid over his face, the angles and planes, memorizing his handsome features.
His hands pushed her thighs apart, moved up to find the buttons of her shirt, slowly slipping each button free. “Do we need this?”
“We might. We might need a bucket or two of water, Nicolas.” Her breath caught in her throat when his knuckles brushed her breasts. “This is so dangerous. Are you sure you want to take the chance? We have no idea what could happen.”
“Aren’t we scientists?” He pushed aside the edges of her shirt and bent his head to press a kiss on her tantalizing midriff. “I thought we were scientists. Experiments are our life’s blood.” His silken hair caressed her skin, sent shock waves rippling through her body. His lips traveled lower, found her belly button so his tongue could take a leisurely dip.
Every cell in her body came alive, sang, burned. The air crackled around them. Dahlia stiffened and pushed at his head. “Did you hear that?” She turned her head to look around them. The heat enveloping them was fierce, the sexual energy rising to engulf them. Tiny sparks glittered in the air like sparklers.
He kissed her stomach, blazed a trail of dancing flames from her belly button to the triangle of inviting curls at the junction of her legs. “Fireworks. Naturally there will be fireworks. Stay with me, Dahlia, don’t think of anything beyond me.”
Her fingers fisted in his hair. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.” His hands whispered over her thighs, added to the heat building in the room, building in her body. Dahlia heard her own soft moan and moved restlessly, needing more. Aching in places she didn’t know she had.
Nicolas rested his forehead on her stomach for just a moment, trying to catch his breath. His hands trembled as he caressed her skin. He wanted to go slow, to make this time perfect for Dahlia, but the pressure inside of him was building in direct proportion to the heat surrounding them. It felt as if a volcano lived and breathed inside of him. He wanted to ravage her, drag her into his arms and devour her hungrily, but he forced a slow assault, using his years of discipline to savor the softness of her skin. To hear her small gasps as he kissed his way along the curve of her hip and the nip of her waist. His tongue teased each rib and found the underside of her breast.
Dahlia nearly came off the bed. “Nicolas, it’s too much.” She had two handfuls of his hair, her hips moving restlessly in invitation, but her eyes wide with fear. “I don’t know if I can stay in control.”
He nibbled his way around her small breast. “The beauty of sex is that you aren’t supposed to stay in control. You get to let go.” His breath was hot against her nipple, teasing it into a tight peak.
“What if I start a fire?”
“What if you don’t? What if we have our own fire, right here, burning between us, using up all that wonderful energy? I’m willing to try.” He closed his mouth around the tantalizing invitation of her breast. “I’m more than willing to try.”
She cried out, wrapping her arms around his head to cradle him to her as lightning forked through her body. If fires started around her, she wasn’t certain she’d know; she was burning from the inside out, a conflagration she couldn’t hope to put out. There was only Nicolas with his sinful mouth and his commanding hands and the sheer pleasure coursing through her body. The energy building heightened her senses, drove the heat through her until she felt liquid and needy.
His hands were everywhere, but never fast, moving with leisurely slowness, as if they had all the time in the world. Dahlia didn’t know if she could stand the slow assault on her body. His mouth moved over her breast, nuzzled her nipple and flicked it with his tongue. Each time he pulled at her breast a fresh trickle of warm welcoming liquid glistened invitingly between her legs.
His hand glided up her thigh, cupped her entrance. Dahlia gasped as his finger slipped into her.
“You’re so tight, honey, and so hot, and I don’t know if I can wait.”
“I don’t think you should.”
“You have to be ready for me. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable. There’s no reason for it. It just takes a little bit of patience.” He rested his head on her stomach while his finger pushed deeper into her. His tongue traced the edge of her triangle. “I can be patient.” He prayed for patience.
“I don’t think I can.” Dahlia looked up to see sparklers in the air. Her hair crackled with the building electricity. “We have to do something right now.”
Nicolas took her gasping plea as an invitation. He lowered his head between her thighs, one arm, an iron band, thrown across her to hold her down for his assault.
Dahlia’s wits scattered in all directions, a sob escaping, her body rising up off the bed, writhing against the sheets. “I can’t breathe.” She was going to shatter into a million pieces. The entire room was going to go up in flames. The sparklers were bursting into colors overhead and raining down. She heard her own cry, a raw shout of pure passion she couldn’t suppress as tremors shook her, and the lightning now seemed to sizzle through every vein, ever cell and nerve ending.
Nicolas slid over her, his wide shoulders blocking out everything in the room as he pushed her thighs wider to accommodate him. She pushed forward desperate to feel him inside her. Every single part of her body was throbbing for him.
“I’ll be careful, Dahlia. I’ll do my best to stay in control and make sure there’s little chance you’ll get pregnant.”
“You don’t have to worry about getting me pregnant,” Dahlia said, her hands bunched in his hair. She wanted him deep inside her more than she wanted anything. He just stayed there, pressing part way into her and driving her wild. “I’m on birth control.”
His head reared back, his black eyes moving over her face. Edgy. Almost angry. “Why the hell would you be on birth control if you aren’t sleeping with anyone? Who, Dahlia? Calhoun?”
She stared back at him for a long moment. “Are you insane? You’re going to get jealous because I’m on birth control when it’s obvious I’ve never been with a man?”
Nicolas groaned. His entire body was on fire, was as hard as it could be, and he was arguing with her over something utterly ridiculous. Of course she hadn’t been with anyone, and what difference would it make if she had? He hardly recognized his own primitive reactions. The sexual energy surrounding them had to be stimulating every reaction and heightening his senses and emotions. “Yes, I am insane,” he admitted. “I want you so much I don’t even know what the hell I’m saying anymore.”
“Then shut up and kiss me. And for God’s sake, Nicolas, get inside of me before this entire island goes up in flames.”
He leaned down as she strained upward to find his mouth with hers. He kissed her with every fiber of his being, a hot blend of passion and possession. Their mouths clung together until she fell back, her hips rising to meet the slow thrust of his. He was stretching her, pushing through her hot, slick folds, burying his body deep to join them together. He felt thick and hard and too big for her body. The burning increased as he thrust deeper.
“Nicolas.” She didn’t know if it was a protest or a plea. Lights were dancing behind her eyelids and flames licked at her skin like tiny tongues. Real or imaginary, was beyond her determination. She wanted to lift her hips, to drive herself onto him, yet at the same time, she wanted to run from the waves of sensations she couldn’t stop. The world as she’d always known it seemed to come crashing down around her in splashes of color and sparks and waves of intense pleasure that rocked her body.
She clung to him, digging her fingers into his arms to anchor herself in some reality. The sexual energy crackled and danced around them, through them, building the pleasure almost to the point of pain. He moved. She cried out. He caught her hands and pulled them over her head, gripping her tightly while he surged in and out of her.