Wild at Heart (Walk on the Wild Side #1) (2 page)

He shoved a dark lock of hair out of his eyes. He was a few seconds away from reaching out and grabbing Amber around the waist, and seeing how close reality could come to his fantasies—but whatever mood she was in, Amber was
not
going to like him making a move like that.

Exuberant and playful and unpredictable she might be, but she was loyal to the core to those she loved—including her fianc
é
.

Her loyalty was one of the things Nick liked best about her.

Nick tried to fix his attention on a line of swaying aspens twenty yards away, and racked his brain for something rational to say. “You sure those spoiled Hollywood stars are going to be willing to hike all the way up here?”

Amber came another hot inch closer, setting the whole surface of Nick’s skin ablaze. “I saw the way Miz Ruby looked at you when we met her for lunch,” she teased, her blue eyes locking with his. “She’d climb Everest if she had to, to get a shot at the ridiculously handsome and oh-so-notorious demon lover Nick Turner.” Amber leaned in and ran a fingertip across his chest.
Jesus
, she might as well drip a stream of lava across his flesh.

“Amber,” he said tentatively, though his voice had dropped an octave without him willing it, and came out like a growl.

“I’m just teasing, cowboy,” she said, darting away again. “I don’t care how many notches you’ve got on your bedpost, I know you’ve got a heart of gold.”

A muscle clenched in his jaw. Well, it was true enough about his damned bedpost, anyway. He had to do
something
with all the sexual energy Amber unleashed in him. And it couldn’t be with her.

He was damaged goods in the relationship department—his parents had been actors, with seven divorces between them, and his own coming-of-age happened in the heartless, drunken L.A. club scene. He tried to be honest with women about what he was good for, and he used protection absolutely every time, but that was the extent of his efforts to improve himself. He was a damned good fuck, and everyone knew it. But that was all. He wasn’t capable of more.

Hell, Amber’s parents were still married to each other. Thirty-two years in, and they still
loved
each other. And talked to their daughter on the phone three times a week. Amber was going to have a life like theirs and a family like theirs, even if Nick had to die to make it happen.

Of course, there was a fairly high chance he
was
going to die if she touched him again and he couldn’t have her.

Well, small price to pay to keep from hurting her.

“Let’s get some test shots, okay, kiddo?” he said. “Any sense of where exactly we should put the main action?”

Amber gazed around at the vibrant landscape, considering, and then swung around to look at Nick again. An odd spark came into her eye. “You know, it’s just you and me today,” she said, then paused and bit at her lower lip. Was she blushing? Her cheeks looked suddenly pink. Then she smiled again and murmured, “How about you and me just...try it out?”

Nick’s heart thumped. His dirty mind interpreted those words in a way Amber could not possibly mean. “Try it out?” he asked, trying to sound innocent.

“Yeah, try it out.” She was biting her lip again—and she was
definitely
blushing. “You and me, act out the love scene. See if it’ll work.”

Holy Lord
. His lungs were seizing up. “I think we’d better get those test shots,” he managed to choke out, and crouched down to get his lenses out of his main pack.

“Nick,” interrupted Amber, her voice low, vaguely hurt. “Come on.” He felt her hand on his shoulder. “Why not? Am I so much less desirable than all those other women?”

“Less
desirable
?” He stood up again abruptly, looking at her in astonishment. “Jesus, Amber, did someone slip you a mickey at lunch or something? This is...this is not like you.”

“Maybe it should be,” she said. She brushed the back of her knuckles over his cheek, and he thought he might die from the sweetness of it. His pulse was beating hard, the main pressure of it in his cock. Man, he was on the edge of losing it—and of making the biggest mistake of both their lives.

“Amber,” he said, grabbing her fingers and pulling her hand off his face. “Stop—”

“Nick!” she said, and now her eyes glazed with tears. “Don’t make me beg, Nick.”

“
Beg
?” He took a step backwards. “C’mon, kiddo—you don’t want this—”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I do.” He saw her tense, as if bracing herself for battle. With one quick move, she tugged the strap of his remaining camera bag from his shoulder, and it hit the ground with a slam.

Goddamn
—she wasn’t teasing; she really meant to do this. Nick was too astonished to move.

Amber’s hands slid up the sides of his ribs, and she pressed her lush front against the hardness of his stomach and chest, stealing away his ability to breathe. Yet somehow he could still smell her—wildflowers and coconut-scented sunscreen, and the subtle sensuous heady scent of musk that came from the very core of her. And fire burst to life inside him. He willed himself to move away, keep some distance, keep some control, but his cock was throbbing, straining at the leash, trying to get as close to Amber as possible.

“Amber,” he said warningly, “I’m trying to be good here. You’re going to be married in just a few weeks and....”

“Not anymore,” she whispered.

“What?” His head was pounding, scarcely capable of logic. “You...pushed the date back again?”

She was rising up on the tips of her toes, sliding her arms around his shoulders, burrowing her lips into his neck. “Broke it off,” she said against his skin.

“The...the engagement?”

“The relationship.” She kissed at the line of his jaw, her lips the softest, sexiest thing he’d ever felt. “Everything.”

“Amber!
Jesus
.” He managed to take her by the elbows, push her a few precious inches away from him. He wouldn’t have guessed he was capable of this much self-discipline. “What are you talking about,
broke it off
? You and Louis have been together forever.”

Her eyes looked suspiciously bright, like tears were about to fall, but all she did was shrug. “Louis is a Yankees fan,” she said, in the same tone she might use to say
Louis is a murderer
or
Louis is a child-molester.

“Yeah,” Nick answered dumbly. “He’s
always
been a Yankee’s fan. He makes you go to games whenever we’re in New York.”

“I know,” she said. “But it hit me recently what that means: the biggest, richest team in baseball. Fat and safe.”

“The Evil Empire,” Nick muttered. “I’ve always told you that.” This was probably the most ridiculous conversation he’d ever had. His pulse was still thundering, his cock still throbbing with raw need. His gut was clenched so tight a bullet would bounce right off it.

Too bad, because he halfway hoped someone would just shoot him and be done with it.

“Right,” said Amber, “Evil Empire. And I’m more a Cincinnati farm league kind of girl.” One of her hands slid back down his chest, heading straight for his crotch.

He jolted, and would have jumped away, but her hand was too fast, and once it reached its target, the sensation just felt too damn good—she cupped him through the fabric of his shorts, molding her fingers around the fierce bulge of his cock, squeezing. His balls tightened and his hard-on felt ready to rip right through the cloth.

“I want players with heart, doing it for the fun of it,” Amber said. “Not safe. Open to adventure.”

“Amber,
no
,“ he choked out. “I’m—I’m not the kind of adventure you need.” Lord knows, he was usually more than happy to serve as a woman’s rebound fuck, and he had a great record of making his lovers forget all about the guys they left behind. But he wasn’t going to do it with her, not with Amber.

“Nick,” she was murmuring against his collar bone. “Yes, Nick. You’re exactly the kind of adventure I need.”

“Amber, you’re just—you’re
upset
. You shouldn’t—you’re not thinking clearly.”

She licked his neck. “I’m thinking perfectly clearly.”

“Well, you’re acting
insane
.”

He pulled her loose again, and looked very deliberately into her face, meaning to tell her
no, no, absolutely no way in hell
. But the look he saw in her eyes was so vulnerable, so sad, so totally unlike the blazingly self-confident Amber he was used to, he was too stunned to speak.

“I’m done with Louis,” she said softly. “Back in college, he was so creative—all that theater he did, and the writing, and his radio show. But he’s different now. He hasn’t done any of that in years. All his energy goes into billing more hours and trying to make partner. And I’m...I’m....” She broke off, and he could see her rally herself, force her voice to be more cheerful. “I should have realized long ago that he and I lived on opposite coasts for a reason.”

“Okay, fine,” said Nick desperately, “he never deserved you anyway, but—”

She silenced him with a hand over his mouth, and then a quick press of her lips against his. Her lips felt like velvet, and tasted like strawberries. “Help me celebrate my new life, Nick,” she said insistently. “Remind me why it’s good to be free. That’s what you’re good at, aren’t you? Enjoying whatever comes your way?”

Her words stabbed at him. He didn’t want Amber thinking of him that way, as some loose and easy nightclub crawler. Not that he wasn’t exactly that way—with other women. But Amber was the one who saw the better side of him, the artist in him. The
soul
in him.

He needed somebody in this world who recognized he even had a soul.

But he was her friend, too. And right now, all he could see was the need in her.
Damn it
.

“I don’t want to talk,” she said, and just like that, she grabbed the hem of her shirt and yanked it up over her head. She stood before him in shorts and a pink lace bra, with pure invitation—and a heartbreaking look of insecurity—in her eyes.

Nick heaved a deep breath, and he was lost.

A sheen of sweat made Amber’s breasts seem rounder and fuller than ever, and the dusky shadows of her nipples peaked through the pink lace of her bra. Her beautiful blonde hair shimmered across her shoulders, swaying lightly in the early summer breeze, stroking over her skin the way Nick’s fingers ached to.

And then she reached around behind her and released the hooks; the bra slid to the grass, and he could see the rosy peaks of her nipples bare in the sunshine, looking like wildberries ripe for his mouth.

He couldn’t think straight anymore. He’d wanted this so damn long.

In one swift move, he peeled off his own t-shirt and dropped it in the tall grass. Then with a lunge he had Amber in his arms, pressed tight up against him—her bare breasts against his chest, her belly warm and yielding against the surging of his cock. It was what he’d fantasized about for so many years, and so much better than his fantasy: her soft mouth crushed beneath his, his tongue probing against hers, her moans filling his ears, the silky skin of her back naked under his hands.

And he could hardly decide where to touch her next, where to taste her.

Her hands went everywhere on him. She stroked his shoulders, his chest, his abdomen, making his muscles seem to swell and strain wherever she touched him.

They pulled off their hiking boots and fumbled with the buttons and zippers of one another’s shorts, hands trembling and clumsy and desperate in the need to get every barrier out of the way.

He got her fly open, then made himself take his time easing the fabric away from her hips, feeling the soft silky swell of them, the utter femininity. He relished every inch of her curves as he slipped his thumbs beneath the elastic of her pink lace panties and tugged them loose. She gave a wriggle, and the last of her clothing slipped free, and she stepped out of them, utterly bare to him, utterly beautiful.

Their mouths were still mutually devouring, tongues playing, teeth giving little nips. Her long, strong fingers were inside his boxers now, and she’d filled her palm with his balls. He was groaning loud, thrusting against her. He didn’t care—there was no one around to hear them, and he felt as free and wild as any creature in these woods.

He ran his hands down the mounds of her ass, gripping and kneading the firm, hot flesh. He had to get his mouth on her breasts now, and tore his lips from hers. He fitted his mouth to one of her perfect breasts, and suckled her; the taste of her was sweet, the heat of her seemed to blast the top of his head off. She moaned and arched her back, offering him everything. He moved to the other breast, laving it, feeling as if he were worshipping a pagan goddess.

Amber was worthy of worship, utterly worthy. Louis had never been good enough to touch her.

Nick
wasn’t good enough to touch her either, but it was too late to think about that now.

They were both panting, frantic, but then the hand she had stroking his balls moved to his cock; she seized his shaft, her fingers not able to close fully around him, even when she squeezed him tight. “Oh, God, Nick—oh, God!” she moaned.