The words, combined with the feel of him right against the core of her body, took her arousal up another notch. "It's okay," she told him, arching her hips in an effort to encourage him. "I'm ready."
He groaned then, thrusting forward gently until he was buried halfway inside her. "Okay?" he ground out, and she felt him shaking from the effort it took to hold himself back.
Touched more than she wanted to be-certainly more than she'd expected to be from a torrid encounter with a stranger-she leaned into him. Pressed her mouth to his in a kiss as soft and gentle as his concern for her. "Please," she whispered against his lips. "I want to feel you inside me."
That whisper was all it took to snap his control like a twig-which she was exceptionally grateful for.
Nic thrust into her then, so hard that he slammed her back against the wall. But she was still wet, still turned-on, and more than ready for him. Pleasure crashed through her at the first stroke, coursing along her every nerve ending until her entire body felt lit up like the Fourth of July.
"Damn!" he growled, his fingers digging into her hips as he held her in place. "You feel good."
Again, she expected him to slam into her, even braced herself for it, but again he surprised her. He brushed kisses across her forehead, her cheeks, her lips as he waited for her to adjust to him. Only when she squirmed against him, trying to get closer, did he finally relent.
He began to move in slow, steady, powerful strokes that had her grasping at him as the need ratcheted up inside her. Soon-too soon-she was on the brink of coming again. But she didn't want to go over alone this time, didn't want to lose herself in the ecstasy without him.
Tightening her inner muscles in a long, slow caress, she did what she could to take him as high as he had taken her. She brushed her thumbs across his nipples, whispered how much she wanted him in his ear, lifted her hips to meet each of his thrusts. It must have worked, because he groaned, then began thrusting harder.
Then he was leaning forward, his mouth inches from hers. "Kiss me," he commanded, a scant moment before his lips slammed down on hers.
She did, pulling his lower lip between her teeth and nipping at him as he had done to her earlier. She wanted more of him, wanted all of him. Craved him until it was an inferno deep inside her.
She bit him again, a little harder this time, and the shock of pain must have been what he was waiting for, because he came with a growl. She tore her mouth away from his, gasped for breath, but Nic wouldn't let her go. He followed her, his mouth ravenous on her own while the heat of his body seared hers wherever it touched. In moments, the pleasure swamped her, overwhelmed her, and she followed him over the edge, her body spinning wildly, gloriously, completely out of her control.
Three
When it was over, when she could breathe again and her scattered thoughts finally came back to her, Desi didn't know what to do. What to say. How to act.
There was a part of her that was shell-shocked. A part of her that couldn't believe she had just had sex with a stranger in public. And not just in public, but on the balcony outside a gala that she was supposed to be covering for work. If someone had told her an hour ago that before the night was over she'd be pressed up against the hotel's outside wall, her legs wrapped around Nic, whose last name she didn't even know, having just had the most intense orgasms of her life … Well, she wouldn't have called that person a liar. She would have called him or her a damn liar and then laughed herself silly.
But here she was. And the kicker was, she wasn't even sorry. How could she be when her body was so blissed out that she still wasn't sure her legs would be able to hold her when Nic decided to set her down? Which-thankfully-he hadn't yet made any move to do.
"You okay?" he asked after a minute, pressing his lips to her neck.
"I don't know. That was-" Her voice broke and she swallowed in an effort to get some moisture into her too-dry throat.
"Amazing," he said, kissing his way over her collarbone. "Incredible. Earth-shattering."
She giggled. It was a totally foreign sound to her, one Desi couldn't ever remember making in her adult life. She wasn't the giggling sort. Then again, she wasn't the one-night-stand, public-sex-against-a-building sort, either. And yet here she was, with absolutely no desire to move. And absolutely no regrets.
Nic lifted his head, gave her a mock frown that in no way reached the beautiful green eyes she could just barely make out in the shadows. "Are you saying that making love to me wasn't earth-shattering?"
He slipped a hand between them, circled his thumb around her. She gasped, arched against him. She knew exactly what he was doing, knew that he was teasing her, but she couldn't help it. Normally, she never let a man get the upper hand, but with Nic she couldn't help it. Everything about him appealed to her, drew a response from her that she had almost no control over. His sense of humor, the intelligence she could see in his eyes, the careful way he held and touched and kissed her. And, of course, the fact that he was the hottest man she had ever met certainly didn't hurt, either.
"I'm saying," she said, her voice more breathless than she would have liked, "that I very much enjoyed having sex with you."
"Sex, huh?" He rubbed a little harder, a little faster, and shocks of electricity sparked through her. Just that easily, he made her ache. Made her want. Again.
"Nic," she whispered, cupping the back of his neck with her palm, even as her head fell back against the cool stucco wall.
"Desi." His voice was low, teasing, but she could hear the sudden thread of tension as clearly as she could feel him hardening once again within her.
"Don't play." Suddenly she was as needy, as desperate, as if she hadn't come at all.
He scraped his teeth along her jaw, bit lightly at the sensitive spot behind her ear. "I thought you liked it when I played." His breath was hot against her skin, the words a whisper that worked its way deep inside of her.
"You know what I mean." She clenched her core around him to underscore her words, took great delight in the sexy hiss the movement elicited from him. He closed his eyes, dropped his forehead against hers, and the hungry noise he made had her tightening her inner muscles again and again.
He cursed then, a harsh, sexy word that only ramped up her arousal more. From the moment he'd taken her out onto this balcony-hell, from the moment he'd kissed her on that dance floor-Nic had had the upper hand. She'd be lying if she said it didn't feel good to get a little of her own back. Especially when doing so was so incredibly pleasurable for both of them.
Nic's hand tightened on her behind as he lifted her nearly off him before letting her slowly sink back down. He did it a second time and then a third, all the while continuing to stroke her with his other hand. It took only a minute or two before ecstasy beckoned-brought even closer by his careless demonstration of strength-but just as she was about to go over the edge for the third time in less than an hour, he stilled.
"What's wrong?" She forced open her too-heavy lids, tried to focus on his face despite the urgent need lighting her up from the inside. "Why'd you stop?'
"Come home with me."
"What?" She was so far gone that her brain had trouble assimilating his words.
"Come home with me," he repeated, thrusting deep inside her for emphasis. She moaned despite herself, tried to arch against him and get that last bit of needed pressure. But he held her firmly, refused to let her move. Refused to let her come.
"Please," she gasped, her whole body shaking with the need for release. "I need-"
"I know what you need," he whispered, taking her mouth in a kiss that was somehow both hard and tender. "Say you'll go home with me and I'll let you come."
She bit his lip, not hard enough to draw blood but definitely hard enough to make him take notice. "Let me come," she countered breathlessly, "and maybe I'll go home with you."
He laughed then, a low, dark sound that sent shivers down her spine even as it made her entire body melt. "I want you in my bed."
She tightened around him yet again, taking great pleasure in the fact that he groaned deep in his throat. "You know what you need to do then."
"Is that a yes?" He stroked her once gently. Too gently, but she wasn't complaining as her nerve endings tingled.