Leaving Annalise (Katie & Annalise Book 2) (4 page)

Nick opened the door to his hotel room and flipped on the light switch. My mouth went dry and I froze, feeling exposed in the garish light. I had waited so long for this, imagined it so many times. Hell, I’d already had more orgasms than I could count with this man, none of which had required his actual presence. What was wrong with me?

He turned to look back at me. “Are you OK?”

I nodded.

I would be so much better with a rum punch. Or a Bloody Mary. Anything with alcohol in it would work, would take the edge off, would make me less me and more sexy.

Nick smiled at me and my hot face burst into flames.

“Come on in,” he said. He reached out for my hand and pulled me to him, kicked the door shut with one foot, and slid the other hand around my waist, drawing me in and saying those last words with our lips touching, which ended up as much nibbling as speaking, and resulted in a free-falling kiss.

Oh. My. God.

Kissing had never seemed like a big deal to me. With Bart, I’d gotten to the point where I would rather we did the deed and skipped the kissing part. I thought it was invasive and animalistic. But I was so wrong—I just hadn’t been kissing the right guy.

With Nick, my insides swirled and my hands moved of their own accord. Oh, the lean, hard shape of him under my palms, the too-good-to-be-true sensation of his skin under my fingertips as my hands found their way under his shirt. His fingers floated up my arms and across my shoulders, down my chest and up my sides, sliding in and out of the edges of my dress to tease my breasts. Somehow, without me even realizing it, Nick found his way under my skirt and his fingers walked up my thighs and across the front of my panties. I gasped and he shoved his hands under the bodice and sent the dress over my head and onto the floor.

“You are so beautiful,” he said.

He held me away from him and his eyes burned as they roamed over me. He skimmed his palms down my arms and caught my hands in his. I closed my eyes.

“Katie?”

It was so much easier to feel sexy in a blue Michael Kors dress than standing naked under a hotel light. I prayed that he wouldn’t notice the dimpled parts of me. I prayed that I could keep my mouth shut about the lights.

“The lights,” I said, failing.

“I’ll close my eyes.”

“But Nick,” I said.

He kissed my nose. “No problem.”

I exhaled and opened my eyes. Nick had his back to me as he pulled his shirt off. Muscles rippled under his brown skin. He flicked off the light switch and as soon as the room darkened, I felt a wave of released tension. I heard the rustle of his shorts as he unbuttoned them and kicked them off. Then his body met mine, full contact from knee to shoulders, and his skin warmed the places where mine had cooled as soon as he moved away.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“Of course,” he said.

He started moving me slowly backwards by my shoulders. When the backs of my knees met the edge of the bed, he pressed one hand into the small of my back, then slid his other hand around to cradle my neck. He lowered me onto the bed and moved above me so smoothly that our lips never broke contact. He reached down and removed my last article of clothing, and I did the same for him.

But even as the front of me enjoyed Nick, the back of me realized I was naked on a hotel bedspread, with God knows what kind of ground-in awfulness rubbing against my skin.

“The bedspread,” I said, choking on the words and hating myself for not holding them in, for not being a wanton sex kitten who could make whoopie on a filthy unwashed hotel comforter and think nothing of it. He was going to think I was an even bigger disaster than he already did.

But he laughed.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted out.

“Damn, Katie, I’ve missed you.”

He pulled the bedspread back, then the top sheet. I rolled onto the bottom sheet and he pulled the offending linens underneath him and tossed them to the floor.

“No bedbugs now. Are we good?”

“I swear that’s it,” I said, and I could feel the blush in my cheeks. I knew I needed therapy, and a lot of it, but that was a problem for another day. Now, I was here, and I was not going to screw this moment up any further. I channeled my inner sex goddess. “Come ravage me senseless.”

He lowered his lips to mine and I could still feel the smile on his lips when he kissed me. A happy warmth caught fire somewhere above my feet and below my head, somewhere nice.

“You have to hold perfectly still now while I get to know you,” he said.

I wriggled my toes and the warmth grew. “Hi, Nick, I’m Katie,” I said, and he cut me off with a kiss so deep I felt like I was falling backwards into a cloud. And then he kept his word and explored all of me, slowly, bit by bit and part by part, finally surfing his olive-skinned body up the length of mine until I shivered and bit into his shoulder. My wriggling spread from my toes up my body, and he seemed to like it.

“OK, you can move now,” he said.

An explosion went off in my brain, and I transformed into someone I had never been before, someone carnal and sensual, someone brazen. “I can’t believe how gorgeous you—” I started to say, but I never finished my thought, as Nick’s hand found just the right spot. I managed a gasp, and then his mouth was on mine, rough and urgent this time, and mine was, too. I began to touch him again, and his entire body stiffened.

“What about, you know,” he managed to say.

“I’ve got it covered.”

“Thank God.”

And he was inside me, and it was simply everything. It was everything, and everything else was nothing, nothing but the two of us in that bed. It was tender, then barely restrained, then desperate, wild, and needful. And it was us, together, and we knew, we both knew, that this was not the way it was for the rest of the world. This was for us alone. The world stopped spinning and hung suspended in the sky while we came, together, long, and hard. How could sex be
this?

In the trembling moments afterward, joined together and holding on as tightly as we could, I spoke first.

“That was . . . different . . . better . . . remarkable. Oh God, I sound like an idiot who’s never had sex before. Not that I have sex all the time. But I have had sex, of course, and, oh, I think I’ll shut up now.” I held my breath as he pressed his nose against mine, his lips against mine, and all the rest of him against me as well.

“That was the most amazing thing ever. Ev-er,” he said. He pulled his head back and I could see the shine of his eyes even in the dark.

“You are awfully good at this,” I said.

He kissed me on the tip of the nose. “We are. We are awfully good at this together.”

“Imagine if we practiced.”

“Oh, I plan for us to practice. A lot.”

I really, really liked the sound of that.

I tingled and jangled my way out of sleep, my body reliving the night before, and opened my eyes to find Nick looking at me.

“Hello, beautiful.”

“Good morning.” My voice rasped as it tried to wake up.

“I watched you sleep half the night.”

“I hope I didn’t snore,” I said. I had gotten up once to go to the bathroom, and I remembered that he had snored, but in an unguarded way that was kind of nice.

“Un poquito.”

I groaned and put my face in his chest, then turned my head so I could speak. “I had the oddest dream right before I woke up.” My words came out slowly as I yawned and stretched without sacrificing body contact. “I dreamed you and I were on a beach, with my dogs, and an old West Indian woman walked up, and . . .”

Nick interrupted me. “Read your palm.”

“Yeeeessssssss. How did you know that?”

He shook his head and shrugged. “You aren’t going to believe this, but I was having the exact same dream when I woke up.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Yet it’s true.” He rubbed his cheek against mine.

“She said I was an empress. What do you think it means?”

“I don’t know, but I think it’s cool.” He lifted his head back up and I put my hands carefully on his familiar yet new face. I closed my eyes and let the energy fill me up. I could get so used to this.

Nick’s phone buzzed and he blew air out between his closed lips. I pulled my hands away from his cheeks. He rolled over and fumbled his hand around on the floor until he found his shorts and pulled the phone out of his pocket.

“Son of a bitch.”

My stomach tightened. “What is it?”

“Texts from my sister. Her stalker boyfriend found my condo.”

Shit. Shit shit shit. I edited myself before I spoke. “Are they OK?”

His thumbs flew as he texted. “I’m not sure.” He pulled on his underwear and stood up, then dialed the phone and began to speak intensely to the agitated female voice that answered on the other end.

I stacked pillows against the headboard, wrapped the sheet around me, and sat with my arms around my knees, watching him as he paced. When Nick gets upset, his face takes on a “harbinger of death come to claim your soul” look. In such a sexy way that it occurred to me that the interruption would probably hurt less with my clothes off. But they were already off, and it hurt plenty.

I slithered out of bed with the sheet around me and retrieved my heap of a dress from the floor. I tiptoed into the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror. The woman looking back at me had a fright wig of crunchy red hair that screamed “I stayed up all night having Animal Planet sex.” My repeated applications of Emily-inspired Aqua Net during the pageant the night before had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now it was time for a bucket of water over the head. That would take care of the wandering eyeliner and stage-mascara’d eyelashes, too.

I looked away from the horror in the mirror and shimmied into my evening gown, then turned back to my image. Holy shit. There was a transvestite hooker in Nick’s bathroom. The walk of shame through the parking lot was going to be harrowing. The Reef wasn’t the nicest hotel on St. Marcos by any stretch, but it had done its budget-conscious best imitation of Caribbean-vacation chic. The walls were an innocent yellow, the cabinetry a crisp white. Hibiscus blossoms floated in a glass bowl on the vanity, matching the hibiscus-print shower curtain. I wrinkled my nose. Too matchy-matchy. But one look back in the mirror and I knew I was no one to judge.

I could still hear Nick talking, but I needed some toiletries, pronto. I snuck a glance out the door at him as I rummaged through his shaving kit for toothpaste with one eye on his reflection in the mirror. I finger-scrubbed the last twelve hours out of my mouth, then doused my face with cold water and got to work on it with a scratchy bath rag. Then I swiped on some Right Guard, straightened my long blue dress, shut the door, and tried to tinkle.

The sound of my pee hitting the water was only slightly quieter than the sound of Niagara Falls in the middle of a thunderstorm. No, no, no. I squeezed in vain, trying to exercise some volume control. But it was no good. I stopped altogether.

What to use as a noisemaker? There was no fan in the bathroom, no radio, no telephone upon which I could fake a loud conversation with Ava. Desperate, I stretched over to the bathtub and threw back the curtain. I couldn’t reach the faucet handles, though.

I did an audio check on Nick. Still engrossed. I lifted my left foot. Just short. I scooted my butt to the edge of the toilet seat and tried again. Toe met chrome. Hallelujah! I scrunched my toes and applied clockwise pressure, and the sound of the water pouring into that tub was sweet music to my ears.

Thank you, God, I whispered.

Nick poked his head in the door. “Are you getting in the bathtub?”

“Wait! I’m using the potty,” I said, and my voice squelched like feedback between a speaker and a microphone. I dropped my dress around me and assumed what I hoped was a dignified pose.

“But you turned on the water,” he said.

“A little privacy here, please?” I hoped I sounded airy and confident.

“You’re beet red.”

“I really don’t want to pee in front of you on our first date. Our first whatever that was.”

Nick grinned, put his hands in the air, and backed out. “I could still hear you, you know.”

“Shut uuuu-up,” I yelled as he closed the door.

When I emerged from the bathroom, Nick was leaning back in bed with his eyes closed, wearing only his silver boxer briefs. Holy crap, he was sexy. I’d known he’d look good, and he’d
felt
pretty damn good the night before, but seeing his dark skin and smoothly defined body in the light of day hurtled over my expectations.

I needed to show an interest in his sister and her baby.

“So, is your sister OK?”

He pursed his lips. “Not really. She’s kind of come unglued.”

“What happened?”

“She posted a picture on Facebook of her and Taylor by the pool in front of a sign that had the name of the condos on it. Derek showed up this morning, pounding on the door and screaming at her. He’s gone now.”

“Sounds awful.”

“Yeah.” He patted the bed beside him, in the middle. I looked for a graceful way to get from where I was to where he was, but there didn’t seem to be any way to accomplish that in an evening gown. I stepped around the pile of red bedspread on the floor and crawled across the bed on all fours to him, trying not to look like a really bad eighties rock video. I plopped down near him and wiggled closer. He slipped an arm around my shoulders and kissed my awful hair. “I’m sorry, I hate ignoring you, but I’ve got to help my sister right now.”

By force of will, I kept my lower lip from extending. “I understand.” I didn’t, though. Why didn’t she just call the police? What could Nick do from here? This was our first morning together, a morning for room service and nakedness.

No, that wasn’t fair. I could understand. I just didn’t like it.

I stared past my feet over the end of the bed at the tan low-nap carpet. Practical. Sensible. Like I needed to try to be.

“I’m sorry,” Nick said again. The red light on his Blackberry started blinking. New message. New message. Read me now. READ ME NOW, it screamed. Or maybe it didn’t, but it might as well have. I hated that phone.

“That’s fine,” I said. “Really. I need to run back to Ava’s anyway. Shower. Change clothes. That kind of thing.” Immediately, I wished I hadn’t said it. What if he didn’t want me to come back? What if he got on a plane and went home and I never heard from him again?

He might tell his friends he’d always wondered what Katie would be like in bed.

“How was it?” they’d ask.

“Meh,” he’d answer.

He interrupted my nosedive. “Can’t you stay here? Hopefully this won’t take long.”

That was better.

I really did need to re-beautify, though. Nick might not be ready for too much of the real Katie. I shook my head. “Could you call me when you’re done?”

“Yes, and then will you come back? I don’t want to lose any more time with you than I have to.”

My heart danced a crazy love dance. He wanted to spend all his time with me. This was really happening. He pulled me to him and kissed my lips long and hard.

“Absolutely,” I said.

“That’s settled, then.” He held up his phone with his thumb set to press the speed dial. “She’s waiting for me to call back. So I’ll see you soon.”

“Soon.”