Spice (28 page)

With his left hand, he fumbled for his zipper, freeing his erection. Backing her against the nearest surface, he pulled his hand free of her heat to cup her buttocks, lifting her just enough to shove himself home.

She hissed and he mentally cursed himself. It was a rough invasion, rougher than he'd ever entered her before. Part of him silently cursed himself for hurting her, for pushing her, for reinforcing her doubts about him. The other part of him needed her to know that she was his, that they belonged together.

He tried to slow his thrusts, ease back on his kisses, but she tugged on his hair, her inner muscles gripping him. Fucking him in a storage closet at a stuffy faculty party, one moan from being discovered—it obviously turned her on considering the way her pussy massaged his cock in rippling waves, the way her breath caught in the back of her throat, the way her hands gripped his shoulders.

“Nadia.” He groaned, still hard inside her. “You drive me crazy and you shred every ounce of control I possess. You're under my skin, in my blood and I can't get enough.”

“Kane . . .”

“No.” He rolled his hips as he thrust into her, drawing a moan from her. “Say my name.”

“Kaname,” she breathed.

“Do you want this?” He drew all the way out, then drove back home again. And again. And again.

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, Kaname.”

“Do you want what I can give you?” he demanded. “Do you want to come?”

“Y-yes, Kaname,” she gasped.

He drove into her again, his palms cupping her buttocks, fingers digging into the crease of her ass as he sped into her warm channel. If he could just give her pleasure, if he could just make her come, make her understand where she belonged, he could erase every doubt, every bad memory of the night.

“Do you want me, Nadia?” he asked, his voice scraped raw. “Do you want all this, knowing that it's coming from me?”

Tears spilled down her cheeks. “Yes, Kaname. Yes.”

There was no holding back then. Burying his face into the side of her throat, he rammed into her wildly, desperate to give her pleasure on top of pleasure. He slipped his left hand between their heaving bodies, unerringly finding her distended clit, framed perfectly by the clamp. He stroked over her sensitive flesh as he stroked into her, urging her to come. Biting his throat to keep from screaming, she came, her body clenching down on his as if it would never let go.

“Fuck yeah, baby. Mark me as yours.” His hips slammed into her once, twice, a third rough time. He groaned, burying his face in the curve of her neck as he came.

After a minute or ten he managed to command his muscles enough to loosen his grip on her, allowing her feet to slide to the floor. He stepped back. Nadia looked as if she'd been thoroughly used, her hair and makeup mussed, lips swollen, tears in her eyes.

“Fuck,” he said again, a cold knot forming in the pit of his stomach. “Nadia, I . . .” His voice faded. He didn't know what he could have said, he didn't know if there was anything he could say. He'd lost control of the evening and himself.

She didn't look at him as she straightened her skirt. She bent down, picked up the ruined thong. Her breath shook as she breathed deep, and for a blistering moment he thought she was going to break down.

It would have been better if she had. Instead, she reached beneath her skirt, pulled off the clip, then folded the jewelry in the fabric before tucking it into her miniscule purse. “I'd like to go home now.”

“Nadia—”

“I can't do this now,” she whispered. “I just want to get out of here, please.”

Guilt choked him as his heart sank. He'd wanted to prove to Nadia that he wasn't using her, and instead he'd dragged her into a supply closet for a quick, dirty fuck. He'd failed to convince Nadia that he was with her for no other reason than that he wanted to be with her. In fact, he had a sinking feeling that he'd made everything worse.

T
hings had changed between them, and she didn't know what to do about it.

Nadia sat in the passenger seat of Kane's car, fighting a rising panic. He'd withdrawn as they'd straightened their clothing and made a surreptitious exit out of the hotel. In fact, he hadn't said a word since she'd asked him to take her home. It was much the same way he'd been when he'd come home from his trip to Los Angeles—angry, depressed, heartsick. Defeated.

Had he finally faced the truth of what she'd been trying to tell him all along? Being with her in any sort of long-term way was a liability. He never would have lost control if not for her. He never would have experienced that level of censure from his colleagues if he hadn't chosen her as his date. He certainly wouldn't have had an argument and then angry sex in a storage closet if it weren't for her.

Misery swamped her as she watched the streetlights pass by her window. The censure would happen again, she knew. People looked at her differently, treated her differently when they found out about her past drug abuse. Drug abusers didn't have the marginal social acceptance that those who abused alcohol did. You could be falling down drunk at a party as long as you weren't mean or didn't attempt to drive yourself home, but only God would help you if you popped Oxy or Percocet to numb the pain.

She still hadn't told him everything. The rest of her story hung between them as thick as the heavy air of distance he'd erected. Perhaps it didn't matter now whether she told him or not. She had the feeling there was nothing she'd be able to do or say that would change the night's outcome.

The thought gave her heart palpitations. She didn't want to be without Kane. Despite everything that had happened, she still wanted to surrender to him sexually, still wanted to care for him and be cared for by him. The idea that she would no longer be with Kane, no longer be able to experience the keen edge of passion at his hands, left her twitchy. Sweat dampened her palms and her stomach cramped with stress and fear. She wasn't sure she could be without him, even if it was the best thing for them.

He slowed in front of the café, and for a moment she thought he intended to drop her off at the curb. Instead he went around to resident parking, parked, then made the journey with her to her front door. He didn't try to touch her, didn't try to kiss her good night, simply stood in the center of the hallway with his hands shoved into his pockets, wearing an expression that suggested he wanted to be anywhere else, any place other than with her. He might as well have been a stranger standing there, so cold and remote.

She unlocked her door then disabled the alarm. Kane made no move to follow her inside. Dread stretched cold fingers around her heart. Even though she knew things had to end, she didn't want them to end like this. “You're not going to come in?”

He flicked a glance at her. “Do you think that's a good idea after everything that's happened tonight?”

Her heart sank. “Don't we need to talk this out at the very least?” she asked with more courage than she felt. “Since we had angry sex in a supply closet, don't we owe it to ourselves to have apology sex in a bed?”

She didn't want their last time together to be the supply closet in a hotel surrounded by people who didn't like them. No, their last time together should be a safe and sensual exploration full of the apology she needed to give and receive.

“I need you to answer one question for me,” he said, his voice careful, so very careful. He spoke that way around his colleagues, around strangers. He'd never spoken in the controlled, distant tone with her before, even when they'd first met. That he did so now chilled her to her core.

“What question is that?” Somehow she'd managed to sound almost calm when she was actually screaming inside.

“Do you think I'm using you? Do you actually believe that ballroom full of strangers who would step over my burning carcass if it meant they could climb up the tenure ladder more than you believe the man you've been sleeping with for the last couple of months?”

“No,” she said, holding his gaze. “I don't think you're using me.”

“God.” Kane's mask slipped, the agony and relief stark on his face. “Nadia.”

“It's going to be all right.” Taking his hand, she led him inside and then upstairs. He needed the make-up sex as much as she did, even if they both knew it would be breakup sex. Even if he didn't know it then, he would realize it soon enough. Because maybe his colleagues were wrong about him using her, but they were right that she was a detriment to him. If enough of his fellow academics thought that, then the powers that be probably thought the same thing. Kane loved his job at the university and as he vowed he wouldn't make her choose between him and her friends, she wouldn't make him choose between her and his career.

Once in her bedroom they undressed in silence, their gazes locked together, heating, stirring the passion that always simmered between them. She drank her fill of the sight of him, this beautiful, handsome man who had so much power over her, power she'd given to him. Power she now had to take back.

“The fifteenth manner,” she murmured as she climbed onto the bed. “From the second set of sundry positions.”

More of the remoteness left his eyes. “Called the
pounding on the spot
,
or more accurately,
sitting sex
.”

“That's right,” she said, giving him a true smile. She held out her hand to him. “Will you walk through
The Perfumed
Garden
with me, Kaname?”

He only hesitated a moment before taking her hand. “Walking through the
Garden
with you is always a pleasure, Nadia.”

He sat on the bed, shifting to the center with his legs stretched out in front of him. She straddled him, looping her arms around his neck and crossing her legs behind his back. Slowly, softly, she covered him with kisses, starting at his forehead, then his nose, to his cheeks, and finally brushing his lips. Sweet kisses, apologetic kisses, good-bye kisses.

His hands splayed across her back as he returned her kisses, just as soft, just as sweet. Taking his time, just as she took hers. Hot licking kisses along her jaw, her throat, her collarbone as he bent her backward so that he could kiss-lick his way down to the rise of her breasts. She sighed when his mouth closed over one nipple, sucking it deep into the warm recess of his mouth while he teased the other to a hard, sensitive peak.

Her hands slid down his shoulders, over the muscles of his arms to the hard planes of his abdomen. She wrapped her fingers around his erection, standing hot and proud between them. He groaned around her nipple as she stroked him with firm pressure, fingers sliding down then up to the head to gather the moisture already there, slicking it onto her fingers before she glided them back down then repeated the action.

He took her other nipple into his mouth, lightly biting down with a delicious amount of pressure that flooded her core and made her restless with want. She wanted to take her time, wanted to savor these sensations, the way that Kane had become an expert on her body so quickly and thoroughly. Need rose within her like a leviathan breaching the waves, making her powerless to everything but the desire.

At his silent urging, she gripped his shoulders, lifting up enough for him to fit the tip of his erection against her entrance. She sank down on him, taking her time, wanting to savor every moment of the heated possession. With every inch of him inside her she sat still, breathing through the fullness, breathing him in, accepting his invasion into every part of her, body, mind, and heart.

He claimed her mouth again as he began to flex against her, short, shallow strokes that sent bright punches of pleasure arcing along her nerves. She undulated against him in return, her nipples brushing against his chest hair, sensitizing them both.

Emotion slammed into her, shattering the fragile dam of her control. Tears welled in her eyes, spilled over as she rocked against him, the sensation sweet-sharp like the thinnest blade slicing into her.

“Kaname,” she whispered against his mouth, not wanting to break the spell that draped them but needing more, needing him. Needing to surrender to him, needing him to claim her one more time. One last time. “More, Kaname.”

He immediately folded his legs then pitched forward, sending her to her back on the bed. Still deep inside her, he threaded his fingers with hers, lifting them over her head. She wrapped her legs high around his waist, settling him even deeper than before.

The first rolling thrust in this new position scraped against her inner walls, sending waves of sensation crashing through her body. She wanted to close her eyes, but she couldn't. His gaze held hers, demanding she not turn away. It enabled her to clearly see the pleasure in his eyes, but she could also see his pain, his anger, his bewilderment. Lying atop it all was another emotion, something that outshone everything else, something that humbled her and scared her.

That emotion remained uppermost in his eyes as he moved in her, a slow glide out and even slower glide back in, then a rapid motion that left her breathless one moment and wanting to scream the next when he withdrew completely.

She knew what he was doing, staking claim to her body, to her, branding every part of her with every part of him. She surrendered to it, to him, because she couldn't do anything else. Didn't want anything else. Kaname was it for her. She knew it to the depths of her bruised and battered soul.

So she threw her whole self into this moment, into being with him, into pleasing him. Offering up everything she could, everything she had, allowing him to take what he wanted because she knew she wasn't going to offer it to anyone else.

She knew he saw the moment she surrendered. A shudder swept through him, and he had to close his eyes for a brief moment. When he opened them again, that emotion she didn't dare name burned brighter than before, obliterating everything else. He kissed her tears away, kissed her doubts away, kissed her fears away. Showed her the perfection of them together, moving in pleasure together.

It swept her up, higher than she'd gone before, higher than she thought it was possible to reach. Higher than she could contain. He launched her right into the stratosphere and she went, eyes wide and mouth open in a scream of pleasure she couldn't vocalize, her body seizing with the overwhelming ecstasy that ripped through her.

His fingers tightened on hers a second before he threw his head back and thrust deep one final time. A deep guttural groan shook him as he spilled inside her deep, so very deep that it felt like a permanent brand.

“Kaname.” She buried her face in the crook of his neck as he released her hands, then curled arms and legs around him as if holding him close would keep her from falling apart again.

“I'm here.” He braced himself on his elbows, his hips still circling against her as if he couldn't help the movement. He didn't seem to be in any hurry to move away, and she appreciated it. Doing anything other than holding him was beyond her. All she could do was feel. She tried to push away the fear, push away the uncertainty, to enjoy the moment while she could even though she knew every problem would still be there, naked and exposed in the morning light.

Nadia awakened a handful of hours later, sitting up out of a dead sleep, her heart pounding frantically. Kane sat in the window seat on the far side of the room, a dark shadow against the ambient light filtering through the curtains.

She turned on her bedside lamp to its lowest setting. Soft golden light spread through the room. “Kane. What are you doing, just sitting there in the dark?”

“Watching you sleep and questioning my sanity.”

“Why?”

“Seemed like the appropriate thing to do at three in the morning.”

The bleak anger had returned, wiping out the sensual bliss they'd reached before. She could see it in the stillness with which he sat, the precision of his words. Her heart thumped like an old engine trying to turn over. Looking at her alarm clock, she noted it was nearly five. He'd sat watching her for nearly two hours. Watching and wondering.

She licked her lips. “Did you find any answers?”

“Just more questions.”

His tone made her stomach clench. “I was hoping that we could talk. I could make some coffee, and I have some of those buns you like.”

“Talk.” He huffed out a laugh. “Talk about what? How my girlfriend believed, despite everything I have said and done that proves it to the contrary, that I'm using her for some sexual experiment? Talk about how my colleagues brought out their verbal pitchforks last night as if they'd been invited to go on a monster hunt? Or maybe we should talk about how, as far as you're concerned, the sex we just had was good-bye sex.”

She hung her head. It was ending. “It doesn't have to be good-bye, Kane,” she said. “Can't we go back to what we started out with? A no-pressure reenactment of
The Perfumed Garden
? Wasn't it better before we tried to make this into a relationship?”