Needing Nita (6 page)

He gathered up the dishes and turned toward the dishwasher.

“Craig?”

He put the dishes down and turned back, his face scrupulously blank. “Yeah?”

“I’m sorry I made this so … weird.” She lifted a shoulder in an awkward shrug. “I called you, then I jumped on you, and we had last night, and now it’s all backwards.”

“I’m not sorry,” he said roughly. “Because if it hadn’t happened like that, it probably wouldn’t have happened at all. The only thing that could make me sorry is if I do something now to blow it. Which is why I think I should leave.”

She smiled. “You’re not blowing it.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “No?”

“No.” Her face sobered. “Did you mean it earlier? About … you know … feeling like maybe you were falling in love with me?”

“Every word of it.”

She frowned. “How can that be?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “It just
is
. From the moment I first saw your face, I knew you were potential trouble. The kind of trouble I couldn’t stay away from. And when you made it clear you were off limits….”

“You know why I did that. I just couldn’t risk getting involved with you. I was afraid it would hurt my practice, my reputation. Maybe even hurt my clients.”

“How about now?” He leaned back against the counter. “Are you still afraid that a relationship with me will harm your law practice?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I don’t believe you’d say or do anything to harm me, but—”

“What if we were married?”

***

“Married?”
Nita’s heart rate, which was already tripping along at a pretty good clip considering the subject matter of their discussion, leapt into hyper drive.

“Okay, engaged and then married,” he allowed. “We could do that, at least, in the right order.”

Engaged. Married.

The words bounced around inside her brain. And he was looking at her as though what he’d said were perfectly logical and reasonable. Had he lost his mind?

“But we’re not even
dating
.”

“Okay, we can date for a while, then get engaged and married. How’s a six month time table sound?”

She blinked. “Let me get this straight — you’re prepared to
marry me
so we can continue to have sex?”

“No.”

“But you just said—”

“I want to marry you because you’re the one, Nita. Period.” He pinned her with his gaze, fierce and outrageously blue. “I’ve never felt like this before. I want to lie beside you and just listen to you breathe. When I’ve had a shitty day, I want to come home to you and lay my head in your lap and feel your hands on my face. And when you’ve had a shitty day and it feels like one more straw is gonna break your back, I want to be there to carry the load for you. I want you to tell me your darkest fears, and be able to tell you mine.”

“My God, Craig.” He meant it. He really meant it. Yearning twisted in her gut, sharp and piercing.

“Nita, honey, I’ve never been able to see my future —
our future
— so clearly. Can’t you see it, too? Just a glimmer?”

She
could
see it. All too easily. But could she
have
it? She swallowed. “My father died of a brain tumor at the age of 49.”

His brow furrowed. “I’m sorry. That’s way too young. But how is that significant?”

“What if it’s hereditary?” Suddenly, the fear she’d felt yesterday when Dr. Woodbridge told her she had a brain tumor swelled up again, threatening to spill out in tears. “What if I have a predisposition to the same thing?”

A muscle leapt in his jaw. “Then all the more reason to get on with this courtship, don’t you think?”

Oh, Lord, he was wearing her down. Was she really on the verge of accepting his fast track dating/engagement/marriage proposal? Was she brave enough to seize what he offered?

She gnawed the inside of her lip a moment. “What about work?”

“Easy. They’ve been wanting to rotate me out of major crime and into criminal intelligence for two years now. I’ve been holding them off because I wasn’t ready to quit locking horns with you. I just have to tell the brass I’m ready for a transfer.”

She sucked in a breath. He’d given up a sexier, higher profile assignment to stay in contact with her? A
hostile
her. “You seriously did that?”

“I did. Of course, I gave them completely bogus reasons. They’d have bounced me out of there faster than you can say double chocolate donut if they’d known the truth.”

She blinked rapidly. “What about kids?”

“As in us having them?”

She nodded.

“I’d like a couple, but we’re not talking about making my body into an incubator. Your body, your call. But if you do want them, I’d happily split the parental leave with you.”

“You would not! You’d never live it down with your colleagues, or your employer for that matter.”

“My employer wouldn’t like it, no, but they’re bound by statute. They’d have no choice. And they wouldn’t dare take their frustration out on me, because my kick-ass lawyer wife would bring a harassment charge on my behalf.”

“Your wife, huh?”

“Well, I certainly hope you’re my wife by the time I need that parental leave,” he said mildly. “We might have done a few things out of order, but that’s one thing I’m old fashioned enough to want to do right.”

She sobered. “Speaking of old-fashioned, I expect fidelity in a partner.”

“Good. Because so do I. Even when I’m being a total ass, which I’m told I can be from time to time.” He cocked his head to the side. “Did I mention that I’m crazy about you? Yes, I think I did. And we’ve already demonstrated sexual compatibility….”

She laughed. “You just never let up, do you?”

“Not when I can see my opponent is weakening. You are weakening, right?”

She groaned. “God help me, yes. I’m weakening.”

His eyes caught fire. “You’ll marry me?”

“I’ll
date
you,” she clarified. “I can’t agree to marry a man when I don’t even know if he snores. Or leaves the cap off the toothpaste, or his underwear on the floor.”

“Don’t know, no and no. But fair enough.”

Omigod, she’d done it. She’d just committed to a serious relationship with Detective Craig Walker.

So, what was he doing still lounging there against her kitchen counter?

“Craig?”

“Yeah?”

“Aren’t you going to … I don’t know … kiss me or something, to seal the deal?”

“Thank you, God!” He was there in a flash, pulling her into a crushing bear hug. “I’ve been gripping the edge of that damned countertop all this while to remind myself to give you space. I think my fingernails left marks in the granite.”

She pulled back to look up at his face, touched by his consideration. “I appreciate your restraint.” She slid her arms around his neck and pressed her breasts against his chest. “But no need for it now.”

She felt the shudder that passed through him, which made his next words all the more remarkable.

“There’s every need for it.” He pulled back. “You need sleep, baby. I can’t have you go back to work tomorrow even more exhausted than you were today.”

She’d known he had a strong protective instinct when it came to women and children; she’d seen in on display on the witness stand many times. But she had no intention of being denied for her own good.

“You’re right,” she said, lowering her gaze lest he see what she planned. “But won’t you lie down with me? I have a feeling that when I wake up, I’m going to need some concrete persuasion that this really happened.”

“Now that I can do.”

He tipped her chin up and kissed her, his lips incredibly soft and sweet on hers, his big hand impossibly tender. She grasped his face in both hands and kissed him back, then squeaked as he swept her up into his arms.

“Bedtime.”

A moment later, he lay on her bed, fully clothed, on top of the covers while she peeled off her clothes. “Aren’t you going to undress?”

“Better not.”

She stifled a smile at the gruffness of those two words.

“Suit yourself.” She walked naked to her dresser and found the skimpiest piece of nightwear she owned, a spaghetti-strapped, gauzy scrap of a nightdress she kept to sleep in when the heat waves of August struck the city. She pulled it over her head, shivering as the sheer cotton batiste settled over her curves. It hit her thighs just below hip level. His gaze slid down her body, making her skin tingle just as the brush of the material had.

She let her own gaze skate over his body, fixing on the growing bulge in the front of his pants. “Oh, my.”

He laughed. “You were never planning on sleeping, were you?”

She grinned back. “Not for a while yet.”

“You win.” He opened his arms. “Come here.”

She paused a moment, drinking in his sprawling, powerful body, his open arms, his craggy, overly masculine face.
Mine
, she marveled. Not for a night. Not for a month. For keeps.

“Are you waiting for a pretty please?”

“It couldn’t hurt.”

“Then pretty please, lover. Come to me.”

Barely able to contain the bubble of joy in her chest, she pounced on him, laughing. He grunted as he caught her, but absorbed her weight easily.

She pushed herself to her knees, straddling him.

“Gee, you don’t seem at all tired,” he observed.

“Not at all.” She bent to kiss him, and he slid his hands up her back, his palms hard and urgent, yet tender. “In fact, why don’t you let me do all the work? We never did get around to that last night. It was going to be next if I hadn’t fallen asleep.”

He laughed. “Baby, it would have
had
to have been next last night. You wore me out.”

“Mmmmm.” She squirmed lower, bringing her bare sex into contact with his erection, straining beneath his clothing. “You seem to have recovered.”

“It’s a miracle.” He reached up to cup her breasts.

It was a miracle, she thought. Miraculous that he loved her. Miraclulous that she was poised on the brink of taking that tumble herself.

“Well, if you’re going to do all the work, you can start by digging a condom out of my left front pocket. Unless you’ve already made up your mind about the kids or no kids thing?”

“No way. I don’t even know if you snore yet, remember?” She rolled off him, slid her hand in his pocket and came out with a condom. “I know I said I’d do all the work, but I don’t think I can get you out of those clothes without your cooperation. You’re too big.”

“Oh, baby, I’ll cooperate.”

In ten seconds flat, he was a naked and flat on his back in the middle of her bed. She stood there a moment, holding her breath. Fully engorged, his cock nudged his flat, muscled stomach. She let out the breath she’d been holding. “At any time last night, did I mention how wet I get at the sight of that?”

His erection jerked as though she’d physically stroked him.

“Maybe a time or two,” he managed.

Smiling, she grasped his member, dragging a sharp inhalation from him as she closed her fingers loosely around him. Then she bent and laid her tongue on the base of his cock, licking it all the way to the tip in one broad, flat stroke.

“Ahhhh!”

Feeling her own internal muscles clenching with excitement, she closed her mouth over his glans and began describing figure eights with her tongue, savoring his salty-sweet taste.

“Nita!” His hands fisted in her hair, holding her head at his groin for long moments as she sucked and licked him like a lollipop. Then he pulled her away. “I think you’d better get that condom on me.”

He was right. She needed him inside her. Now. She sheathed him quickly. Straddling him again, she guided the blunt tip of his cock into her slickness. Lowering herself slowly, she savored the sense of fullness as she stretched to accommodate him.

“God, that’s good,” she said. Balancing herself with her hands on his chest, she rose up again, taking a little more of him on the downswing. As mind-blowing as orgasm was, she loved this just as much, the initial shocking thrill of full penetration. On that thought, she sank the rest of the way, taking his shaft to the root, impaling herself. She cried out with the pleasure of it, and Craig bucked beneath her, grasping her hips and surging up into her.

“No.” She flattened her palm on his chest. “Let me.”

His hands dropped from her hips to her thighs.

She proceeded to rock herself to orgasm. When she finally stopped spasming around him, she realized he had held himself motionless. Damn, he was still hard, still buried deep inside her!

“Why didn’t you come with me?”

“Because I think you can come again.”

He sat up, opening his legs and drawing hers up so she sat cradled in his lap, their bodies still joined. The position brought them chest to chest, face to face.

“You are so beautiful,” he breathed. “Watching you come like that … feeling you come like that…. Christ, Nita, I could die happy.”

She closed her eyes.

“No, don’t baby. Keep your eyes open. I want you to stay with me while we kiss and whisper and fuck.”

Something jolted in her chest. He wanted intimacy, not sex. Her throat tightened. “I don’t know how to do this.”

“Me neither. But why don’t we just kiss and whisper and fuck and see what happens.”

He slid his hands under her buttocks and rocked into her, even as his lips found hers. It went on forever, caresses and butterfly kisses and nuzzling of ears and whispering of praise. Deep kisses and tender touches and searching of faces with fingertips. And in the midst of it, she felt herself falling.

No, not falling. You couldn’t call it falling if you stepped willingly off a cliff. It was terrifying. Exhilarating. Inevitable. When she came again, it was the slowest, longest, most powerful orgasm of her life, and this time, Craig followed.

Chapter 8