Intimate Strangers (18 page)

She tried to edge even closer to Nicholas. Hungry for the intimacy that would make them one, she savored his strength and derived satisfaction from the realization that he needed her as much as she needed him. She wanted him to claim her, needed him to possess her, felt an almost desperate desire to be the recipient of his love, but she cast aside that latter craving. She sensed that he would never admit to loving a woman even if he felt the emotion. It was not Nicholas Benteen’s way to chain anyone to him.

She respected him for understanding that love could never be managed or manipulated or trapped. Still, she wished for the words, even though she’d vowed to never ask anything of him that he wasn’t prepared to offer freely. She sighed, shaking herself free of her troubling thoughts.

She reached out to touch him, the sensation of stroking hot, forged steel penetrating her senses as she snaked her arms around his narrow waist and flattened her palms against his lower back. Muscles rippled beneath her fingertips, the surface of his skin scorching her breasts, belly, and thighs in a slow, tantalizing burn. She shifted her hands lower, bracketing his narrow hips with her palms, feeling the tension of flexing muscles before she ventured lower still to the backs of his powerful, hair–roughened thighs.

The pulsing strength of his hard shaft trapped against her belly promised ecstasy and more. She undulated against him like a slender reed that had been rocked by an unexpected breeze. She quivered beneath his hands when he skimmed his fingertips over her hips and down into the dark cleft that shielded her secrets. He lingered there, touching her intimately, devastating her, tantalizing her with a silent promise of pleasures yet to come.

As he caressed the silken folds of her sex, she felt her insides melt into steaming rivers of heated sensation. Hannah rocked forward, her pelvis tilting upward in a suggestive and very elemental invitation. Her nipples tightened, the ache in them so intense, she thought she might die if he didn’t take them into his mouth.

Nicholas didn’t disappoint her. He seized her by the waist, lifted her up so that her breasts were level with his mouth, and flicked his tongue over her sensitive flesh. She gripped his shoulders, her nails biting into his flesh, circled his waist with her legs, and groaned his name.

He suckled at her breasts until she lost all awareness of time and space. He alternated back and forth, relentless as he took each hard peak deep into the wet heat of his mouth, and he drove her to tension–filled heights that she’d only ever imagined.

When he abruptly lowered her to her feet, her knees buckled, but he caught her in time. Turning, he tumbled her back across the bed, coming down atop her. She welcomed his weight as he settled between her thighs.

Hannah tasted his heat and his passion as he claimed her mouth, his tongue thrusting repeatedly past her lips. She experienced the depth of his desire as he tugged at her nipples with skillful, tormenting fingers, and she trembled with a kind of desperate hunger that made her insides quicken with restless, relentless currents of liquid fire. Shaking with need, she eagerly reached out to him with encompassing arms, searching, stroking fingers, and an equally ravenous mouth.

When Nicholas dipped a finger into the hot, wet core of her body, she came up off of the bed with a soul–shattering cry. A heartbeat later, she splintered beneath his seductive touch, her delicate inner muscles violently tremoring and shudder after shudder ripping through her until she could barely draw breath. He soothed her with gentle hands, offering what she soon realized was but a brief respite before the next storm.

He aroused her yet again, but this time he began slowly. He lulled her into the sweetest ecstasy with lips and tongue that glided over the undersides of her full breasts, past her narrow midriff, and across her stomach until he reached the temptation at the juncture of her restlessly shifting thighs.

He covered her tender flesh with his mouth, drinking from her the essence of what made her a woman. He sipped gently at first, allowing her to accustom herself to the sensations spiraling hot and wild through her trembling body, but soon he began to stroke her with the tip of his tongue. As she tightened into herself, he caged her hips with his hands and suckled the swollen nub that crowned her sex.

Hannah cried out, arching into the erotic intimacy of the moment. He tortured her, but it was a glorious form of torture. She felt undone by the pleasure hammering at her senses. Her mind emptied of everything but the sensual purity of what they now shared.

Desperate to have him buried deep within the heart of her passion, she gasped, "Now, Nicholas. I need you now."

Disoriented when he suddenly brought her upright, she didn’t resist him as he drew her into his lap and positioned her atop his strong thighs. She circled his hips with her legs, cheeks flushed and lips parted as she tried to catch her breath. Placing her hands on his shoulders, she inched closer. She possessed one goal and the single–minded determination to achieve it.

He gripped her waist with both hands and stopped her, which earned him a bewildered look from Hannah. His chest rose and fell rapidly. His hands shook. Despite the inarticulate sound of frustration that escaped her, he gave himself time to regain some measure of control.

Nicholas felt the almost violent edge to his arousal. His need of Hannah was so intense, he feared he might harm her. She’d reawakened the emotional starvation he’d suffered from for most of his life. And now she’d forced him with her generosity and sensuality to confront the reality of losing his infamous self–control, something he hadn’t ever done with a woman.

But Hannah Cassidy was not just any woman. She was his woman, the same woman who now resided within his soul, the same woman who owned his heart. He struggled to control his physical hunger, not simply his longing to make her a permanent part of his life.

She searched his face for some hint of his state of mind as she lowered her hands and closed them around the silk–covered steel of his sex. Nicholas jerked beneath her touch, and then he dragged air into his burning lungs. She stroked him, measuring his length and thickness with gentle hands and something akin to amazement in her beautiful eyes.

When she could speak, she asked, "Why are we waiting?"

He closed his eyes, shuddering as his flesh surged and throbbed beneath her caressing fingers.

"I need you too much right now." Once he opened his eyes, his troubled gaze grazed her face. "I’m afraid I’ll hurt you."

Hannah pressed a tender kiss to his lips, and then traced them with the tip of her tongue. "You couldn’t hurt me, not ever. I want all of you, Nicholas, even the dark side that worries you so much." She shifted forward, and then she flashed him a sexy womanly smile as their loins touched in a uniquely sensual kiss. "I promise you, I won’t break. I was created to share this with you. Haven’t you realized that yet?"

"You’re playing with fire," he cautioned, his voice a rough rumble of barely suppressed aggression.

"I want your fire inside of me," she breathed against his lips. "Now, Nicholas. Now."

She surged forward without warning, impaling herself with a sudden sharp movement of her hips that rocked them both. She eagerly sheathed his hard length within the dark, humid depths of her body, a fiercely determined expression on her face. She immediately experienced the pulsating power of his erection, feeling as if he’d breached her heart with his penetration.

Hannah trembled as she rested her forehead against his chin. "You’re like fire inside me. I’m burning alive, and I love it."

He shuddered beneath the exotic feel of her body consuming his, trembling around him. He felt his control start to unravel. "Look at me," he ordered.

That now familiar sound of ground glass in his voice prompted her to tilt her head back and meet his gaze. The strain in his features was obvious.

"I need you, Nicholas. I think I always will."

He moved with fluid grace, keeping their bodies joined while he shifted her onto her back across the bed. Hovering over her, he drove his fingers into her dense, dark hair, cradled her head, and stilled the restless movement of her body with the press of his hips.

He pressed forward, slowly at first. His conscience demanded that he test the tolerance and resilience of her much smaller form before he allowed his control to slip.

Wrapping her arms around him, Hannah followed his lead. Each powerful stroke, each dip of his hard flesh into her body felt deeper and more intense than the one before. Waves of sensation rippled outward from the center of her body.

She trembled, her gaze locked onto his steel–colored eyes—eyes that gleamed with an emotion she couldn’t quite label in the midst of the emotions that stormed through her. His face, all hard bone and even harder angles, and his piercing eyes, made her feel as though some wildly sensual beast had claimed her for his own.

The steadily escalating pace he set quickly stripped her of the ability to think or reason. She surrendered totally to Nicholas, declaring her love for him with the answering passion of her body. Although he sensed some profound change in Hannah’s response, he failed to identify it as he succumbed to the exquisite pleasure he found within her intimate embrace.

Eyes riveted on each other, they matched each other stroke for stroke. Hannah clung to him as he increased their pace, and she met his sharp, deep thrusts with the sudden up–tilt of her pelvis each time he buried himself to the hilt.

"What do you feel?" Nicholas demanded through gritted teeth as her sleekly seductive heat quivered and quaked around him.

"Everything!" she gasped in response.

She writhed beneath him, inciting an array of emotions and sensations that blazed into his bloodstream like burning comets.

"Love me, Hannah. Love me." He swept her back into the whirling vortex of their lovemaking once more.

He became her focus, her turbulent universe. Nothing and no one existed for her as she circled his hips with her long, slim legs and gloried in the hammering force of his thrusts.

Their bodies collided again and again, recklessly unbridled passion and a thousand unvoiced emotions flowing between them as they made their way to a sensual summit that defied description.

Her release suddenly exploded across the dual landscapes of her mind and body. She felt utterly helpless, awash in a molten flow of stunning sensations. She stiffened, and then she felt as if she were tumbling through space in a seemingly endless free fall.

At the mercy of Hannah’s climax, Nicholas lost control just moments later. The milking tremors of her body and the sound of her voice as she cried out his name catapulted him into a sensory oblivion that consumed and devastated him.

Much later, he cradled her in his arms, watching over her as she slept. And in the hours that followed, Nicholas Benteen gave up his efforts to convince himself that he would be able to go on without her once she departed Nevada. He simply couldn’t lie to himself any longer.

Their sensual idyll ended forty–eight hours after their return from Sean’s empty cabin when Hannah’s cell phone rang.

She glanced at Nicholas as she put the finishing touches on their lunch. "Would you grab that for me? It’s probably Sarah."

He answered it before the third ring tone sounded. He spoke to the caller while Hannah placed a platter of sandwiches on the kitchen table, quickly rinsed her hands at the kitchen sink, and filled two mugs with coffee.

Nicholas grinned as he handed the phone to her in exchange for one of the mugs. "Your younger sister wants to speak to you."

"Hi, Sarah." Hannah laughed and then covered the receiver. "She says you have a voice to die for." Returning to the call, she scolded thirty seconds later, "You’ve got a really dirty mind even for a cop."

Nicholas arched an eyebrow as he slouched negligently against the edge of the kitchen counter and drank his coffee. Clad in faded jeans that hugged his powerful lower body like a second skin, a heavy cable knit sweater, and boots, he looked more dangerously sexy than usual to Hannah.

"From the expression on his face, that’s not exactly a news flash." She smiled at something her sister said. "No, you cannot add him to your list of prospective husbands." Hannah favored him with a thoroughly covetous look. "He’s already taken."

She listened for a few moments, her smile widening to a grin. "I’m absolutely sure he’s not available."

Despite his relaxed posture and contented expression, Nicholas sensed that Hannah’s phone conversation wouldn’t end pleasantly. Although she’d made phone calls to various family members for updates on her mother’s medical condition during her stay with him, she hadn’t received any from them until now. He watched her grin fade to a sober expression as she listened to her sister.

"When?" she asked. "I don’t know if I can get home that quickly, but I’ll try." She paused. "I’ll check my email for the airline information. Thanks for checking the schedule for me. I’ll try to get a reservation, and I’ll use the shuttle service once my flight lands."

Nicholas felt much of the inner peace he’d acquired during the previous two days depart as he watched Hannah, who now gripped the cell phone and fought back tears. Setting aside his coffee mug, he began to move toward her.

"I love you, too. Give Mom a hug for me, and tell her I’ll see you all very soon."

Nicholas relieved her of the phone, which he placed on the counter, and slipped his arm around her waist. She pressed her fingertips to her temples, a gesture he’d come to recognize as a barometer of her worry or frustration.

"Bad news?" he asked once she lowered her hands and squared her shoulders.

"Not really."

"Then what’s got you so upset?" Curving his hands over her shoulders, he felt her tension, her struggle for calm. "Talk to me. Let me help."

She finally looked up at him. "Mom’s surgery has been scheduled for tomorrow morning. Her doctor apparently believes she’s strong enough now to tolerate a lengthy surgical procedure, and Sarah says they’re fairly optimistic about the outcome."