All the Lies We Tell (Quarry Road #1)(62)

Nikolai tugged her shirt down farther, at last, yes, freeing her to his hungry mouth. Wet heat skidded over her skin. His lips closed on one of the sensitive peaks he’d already teased with his fingertips. His hands cupped her, keeping her close.

She muttered something incoherent and ground herself against him. Nikolai released her nipple to flick it with his tongue. She wanted to move, she wanted to kiss his mouth, she wanted to pull off his clothes and get him naked, but right in that moment, all she could do was give up to the serious waves of desire coursing through her from the expert efforts of Nikolai’s lips and tongue . . . and teeth . . .

“Ah!” She yelped, sitting up straight and covering herself with her hands. “No, no . . .”

He laughed, rolling them both so he was on top of her. “No? You don’t like it when I bite, huh?”

It hadn’t hurt, of course. Just surprised her. She pulled her knees up to grip his hips as he kissed her.

“I guess not,” she said into his mouth, and sucked his tongue before letting him pull away.

Nikolai braced himself on his arms to look down at her. “So much to learn about you, Ms. Harrison.”

“You know a lot about me already.” She slipped her hands beneath the bottom of his T-shirt again, warming her chilly skin against his heat and laughing at the way he hissed in a breath.

“You have cold hands—I know that,” he agreed, and shifted to cover her with his weight so she didn’t have room to get her hands on him again. “But there’s a lot I don’t know.”

“Hmm, oh, yeah? Like what?” With someone else she would’ve pushed him off her, feeling trapped or squished, but Nikolai’s body fit hers with perfect precision. And that was with their clothes on, she thought with another thrill of sensation rolling through her. What was it going to be like when they were both naked?

“Oh, for example . . . do you like this?” He traced his lips along her jawline, making her shiver.

“Yes.”

She felt his grin pressed against her. He tugged her earlobe with his teeth. “This?”

“That’s good, too,” Alicia said. “But I think you need to move a little lower.”

He laughed, and she loved that he did. For sure, there’d been lots of times over the years when Nikolai Stern had not laughed with her. To have this now, here, was more surprising to her than wanting to get naked.

“Ah. Gotcha. Here?” He nibbled lightly at her throat, and when she sighed and shifted beneath him, he chuckled again. He feathered kisses over the slopes of her breasts. “Here.”

She let her fingers wind in the thickness of the hair at the nape of his neck. “Oh, definitely there, yes, but . . .”

“Lower?” His tongue swirled over her nipples, one at a time.

She sighed out a slow, aching breath. “Yes.”

He shifted her to pull off the tank top, then knelt to pull his shirt over his head, using that sexy over-the-shoulder grab that always looked so casual but had to be deliberate by the knowing grin he gave her. Oh, yeah, she thought. Nikolai knew exactly what he was doing. And she was totally going to keep letting him, at least for as much time as they had.

He popped his button and nudged the zipper down, but only a notch or so before bending back to press a line of kisses over the curve of her ribs. The hollow dip of her belly over her navel. He mouthed a hip, then looked up at her.

“Lower?”

Alicia smiled and, by way of an answer, let her fingers rest on the top of his head. No more laughter now. Nikolai’s gaze went dark and liquid. Consuming her. He dipped his fingertips below the elastic waistband of her leggings to ease them over her hip, revealing more and more of her. Making her naked for him.

For a moment—a single, terrifying moment—she almost told him to stop. There’d be no going back after this. Everything that had happened between them in the past could never go away. But this—this was moving forward into something new and different and potentially dangerous.

She had never been the first one to jump off the rope swing, she reminded herself. She’d always had to push past the fear to leap. But that had been a long time ago, before Jennilynn died and everything changed. Alicia wasn’t that girl anymore.

Now she pushed her leggings over her hips and thighs, giving Nikolai the room to pull them off, leaving her wearing only the wispy silk panties that left nothing to the imagination. She touched herself, a small circling motion, then tapped. Once. Twice.

“Lower,” Alicia said.

“You’re killing me, girl,” Nikolai told her as he moved between her legs. He closed his eyes. His mouth hovered over her panties, which were so thin they did nothing to keep the heat of his breath from washing over her. “You. Like. This?”

He molded his mouth to her over the silk, sucking gently. She arched. The pressure was amazing—delirious, but teasing. She waited, holding her breath as Nikolai nuzzled the insides of her thighs.

When finally he pulled the fabric aside to kiss her nakedness, she tried to take another breath and found at first she could not. All she could do was sip—gasping—at the air as he slid his hands beneath her ass to lift her to his stroking tongue.

“So . . . good,” she managed to say, though she couldn’t be sure the words weren’t garbled.

Nikolai gave her another lick. “You taste amazing.”