Vistaria Has Fallen (The Vistaria Affair/Vistaria Has Fallen #1)(47)

He shot a look at her, an indecipherable glance with the sunglasses obscuring his eyes. He reached inside the jacket and pulled out the same automatic pistol she had seen in the palace last night. After checking the safety he slid it onto the shelf below the windscreen. Then he pulled off the hat and threw it into the back of the Jeep. His dark red hair, which looked almost black in dim light, ruffled in the wind, the deep red highlights gleaming.

“Sunglasses, too,” she insisted.

“Of course.” He took them off, folded them up with one hand and tucked them into his jacket pocket. “Better?” The indigo eyes narrowed against the sun.

“Much better,” she assured him. “The jacket.”

“You’ll have to help me.”

“With pleasure.”

He grinned and held out his right arm so she could tug the jacket down over his hand and let him slide his arm out. Then the left arm. He leaned forward and she pulled the jacket away from him and dropped it into the back of the Jeep, over his hat.

His shirt, what looked like a normal short-sleeved business shirt, billowed around his shoulders and chest, moving in the small breeze created by the passage of the Jeep. She studied his thick, tanned forearms and the wide wrists, as he held the steering wheel.

“The shirt, now,” she said, her heart beat picking up speed.

“You do it.”

Oh my...

Calli sat on her knees, anchoring herself with her hand over the back of her seat and reached to slip the first button undone. Nick stayed silent, his eyes on the road, as she undid the second, the third, the fourth, fifth. She reached the waistband of his jeans. She pulled the shirt out of the jeans and undid the final button. The shirt flew open like a parachute blossoming in the wind stream, revealing the broad expanse of his chest. Tanned skin over well-defined muscles and below the two dark, erect nipples his abdomen rippled, the six-pack clear and hard.

“Oh...” she breathed and rested her hand on his shoulder, feeling the heat and soft yield of his flesh.

“You like what you see?”

“Oh, yes.” She pulled at the sleeves of his shirt, removing it altogether, leaving him topless. His shoulders had powerful round caps of muscles; his biceps and triceps flexed under the skin with each movement of his hands on the wheel. A scar, pale and faded from age, marked his right shoulder. She touched it.

“Bullet,” he said softly.

“A long time ago,” she guessed.

“I was fifteen. Later, I will tell you the story.” His voice was hoarse.

With a daring that seemed shocking, yet terribly exciting, she leaned against him and ran her hand over his chest and stomach. Her touch made him groan.

“Ahhh, Calli, I can’t...” Nick said desperately. “No, I can’t wait.” He pulled her hand away from him and braked. With one hand he steered the Jeep off to the side of the road as much as he could. As soon as the Jeep came to a halt he killed the engine, reached over and picked her up by the waist and brought her across his lap, straddling his hips. Her back was against the steering wheel, pushing her towards him.

With hands that trembled, he took her, right there on the seat, making her cry out her fierce satisfaction.

*

When their heartbeats slowed, Nick stirred. He opened his eyes. “I thought I would have more finesse than this.”

“I like it that you couldn’t wait.”

His eyes were sleepy, half-lidded. “I wanted it the other way. I wanted you screaming my name, as you writhed beneath me.” He stroked his thumbs over her belly, through the skirt that had slid up to her waist. “I’ll have my way yet.” His lips moved to her chin, searing a moist path over her chin and down her throat, to the well-defined dip between her breasts, just above the St. Christopher medallion. He licked the skin with a murmur of appreciation, then slid his lips up to hers once more.

In the silence she heard a bird coo, somewhere in the trees above them. Her cheek rested against the back of the seat, right next to his head. Her arm was a deadweight. She lifted it enough to cup his cheek and moved her head to kiss the other one.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

“I believe I should be saying that,” he returned. His voice sounded raw. He moved so he could turn his head to study at her. This close, his indigo eyes mesmerized her. “We should get off the open road,” he said.

“We should,” she agreed. “Only I think all my bones just melted. You can drive even in this condition?”

“I would not have stopped at all. You pushed good sense from my mind.” He grasped her hips and helped her rise from his lap. He swiveled and placed her in the passenger seat, showing some of the strength promised by his physique.

Calli straightened her skirt and top and settled back in the seat. “This is a busy road?” she asked as he got the Jeep moving once more. She lifted her voice over the wind.

“Pretty busy.”

“How do you pass anyone here?”

“Carefully.”

“Slowly, then?”

“Very slowly. Hang on,” he warned and turned the Jeep into a rough gravel track that seemed to head straight up the side of the mountain. After the initial sharp descent the gradient decreased, although they continued to climb, rounding a dozen hairpin bends along the way.

The Jeep continued to climb, then the road evened out and arrowed straight into the trees, which grew as a shady tunnel over them. Two hundred yards further on the trees thinned out. Calli saw the jagged peak of a mountain ahead. Nick turned the car to toward the mountainside. Then she saw the house.