The pressure of the kiss deepened for a sharp instant, then eased. Candace opened her eyes.
Nick gazed down at the woman enfolded in his arms, shaken by the emotions that stormed through him.
Beneath his fingertips the cotton of her sweater was fine and delicate. He undid the next pearl button, heard her breath catch, and glanced down. The scalloped edge with its border of embroidered pink roses was almost too feminine against his square-tipped fingers. Her still-damp hair had been pulled back from her face with a hair tie, and from this angle he could see that she wasn’t wearing a smudge of makeup.
Yet she was breathtakingly beautiful—like the angel he’d imagined her to be the first time he’d seen her.
Her eyelashes fell again, shielding the misty eyes from his. The dark lashes lay against the fine-grained skin, a faint flush giving her face a warm glow that caused his breathing to falter. Swallowing, Nick undid a third button. She didn’t object. The sweater fell open, revealing the curves of her breasts.
His arousal was immediate.
Pushing the cotton knit off her shoulders, he watched her face. Her eyes remained shut. When he lowered his gaze to the skin he’d bared, he saw the prickles of arousal that had broken over her rose-flushed skin.
He suppressed a moan.
Nick dropped to his knees in front of the sofa and lowered his head to carefully tongue the dainty pink tip of the breast he’d exposed.
For a split second, time froze. There wasn’t a sound in the room. After a pulse beat in which Nick thought his heart might explode, Candace let out a gasp.
He licked again. Lightly. Insistently. Her head whipped back, and her hands dug into the leather of the sofa on either side of her thighs. Immediately he closed his lips over the tight nub and felt the shock of reaction that went through her. Pulling away, he pursed his lips and blew. The nipple hardened. She made a mewing sound and her hands tangled in his hair, pulling him back to her.
Nick’s head rushed down, his mouth wide, and he sucked her in.
This time her spine arched. Her breathing grew rapid, becoming harsh pants in the quiet of the study. Nick’s fingers were clumsy with haste as he opened the remaining buttons. Rising up, he parted the edges of the sweater. His chest seized tight as he gazed at the sleek skin, the full curves of her bare breasts.
“Ah…”
He wasn’t sure who’d broken the silence—him or her. His hands came up. Slowly, reverently, he framed the full ripeness of her breasts, the peaks popping hard. He bent his head toward the breast he hadn’t yet touched and laved it with long sweeps of his tongue.
She convulsed against his mouth, her body superbly responsive, even though her eyes were still screwed shut.
His breathing was harsh and erratic, loud in the cozy intimacy of the study. Releasing her breasts, Nick sat back on his heels and tore his shirt open.
Then, taking both her hands in his, he pressed them against his naked chest under his rumpled shirt.
“Touch me,” he commanded as her eyes shot open. “Feel my heart pounding.”
As she stroked his chest, Nick was engulfed in the endless, misty depths. He felt himself sinking…drowning.
“Candace.”
She blinked. But instead of the spell breaking, she came to life. Her fingers feathered down beneath his shirt…across his stomach…until lightning forked through him. Nick swallowed, his mouth parched dry.
“I can’t think,” he muttered hoarsely. “All I can do is…feel.”
Sensation, wave on wave, broke over him as her fingertips swept lightly across his skin. His hands closed on her hips, the denim of her well-washed cotton jeans soft under his thumbs. Rising high on his knees in front of her, he yanked her off the sofa into his arms and hauled her up against him. Hard. He hugged her to him and claimed her mouth, and kissed her deeply.
When he’d finished, he loosened his arms a little until his hands rested on her shoulders. He sat back on his heels as they both gulped in air, their breathing audible in the overheated room.
“Wow.” She sounded awed.
Nick suddenly felt about thirty feet tall. He gave a husky half laugh and let his fingers caress the rounds of her shoulders where her sweater had fallen away to expose tempting creamy skin.
“Again?”
“I’m not sure I’ll survive if you keep kissing me like that,” she said honestly. “My knees are weak.”
“So what was it like with…him?”
The eyes that met him were wide and suddenly very, very wary. “Who?”
“Jennie’s father.”
She tore out of his arms with a force that caught him off guard. “Stop this, Nick. It’s not funny!”
Her reaction startled him. “Hey…”