Mind Game (GhostWalkers, #2)(73)

“Dahlia.” He said her name sharply, waited until she focused on him. “You have to tell me what’s wrong.” He bent his head to brush kisses across her eyelids, the tip of her nose. To feather coaxing little kisses along the corners of her mouth and chin. All the while he ignored the crackling of the flames along the windowsill. Dahlia had to calm her mind or the fire would spread.

“Don’t do that. Don’t make me care about you.” She pushed at him with frantic hands, her dark eyes very black and liquid with sorrow. “I can’t care about you and survive.”

“Breathe with me. Calm down so we can just sort this out together.” He kept a tight rein on his emotions, the burst of fear that he might lose her. Dahlia. Slipping through his fingers like water once again.

She calmed beneath his touch and the soothing tone, lying there looking up at him with utter terror on her face. “I can’t need anyone, Nicolas.”

“Of course not,” he replied. “We’re the same. We don’t need anyone. We’re choosing to share our time together. There’s a difference.”

Dahlia dragged air into her lungs, heard the crackle of flames and swore softly. “I have to put that out. I’m going to end up burning this cabin down yet.”

“Let it go. It will go out if you stay calm. You had a bad dream, that’s all.”

She shook her head. “I had a good dream. It scared me more than all the bad dreams in the world ever could.”

He brushed back her hair, his fingers lingering against her skin. “Do you think this is usual for me? I’ve never spent the entire night in a woman’s bed. I never wanted to. I didn’t like sharing my space with anyone until I met you. I’m not using you, Dahlia. I’m not going to say I don’t love your body, because I do. I could spend a lifetime making love to you and I’d never get enough.” Before she could answer him he bent to take possession of her mouth. Her beautiful, perfect mouth. He’d had a few dreams himself and they all had revolved around her sultry lips. His hand buried deep in her hair anchored her head so he could explore the rich taste of her. For a moment the room spun as if she were so enticing she made him dizzy.

He lifted his head. “Better?”

Dahlia touched her lips with her fingertips. “I honestly don’t know.” She glanced at the windowsill. The tiny flames were gone, leaving behind only black scorch marks. “How do you put out fire with fire?”

“One consumes the other?”

“Maybe, but why didn’t I ever discover that? I’ve tried a hundred ways, maybe a thousand ways, to neutralize the energy, but it never occurred to me that I might mix it with another kind of energy. I thought it would just grow in strength.”

Nicolas fell back against the pillow laughing. Dahlia sat up and glared at him. “What’s so funny?”

“You. You’re so funny. We just shared hot sex, awesome sex, the kind of sex a man can only dream about, and you’re analyzing it all like a scientist. So much for my manly male ego.” He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her down onto his chest. “I think you’re good for me.”

She found herself raining kisses over his face, teasing the corners of his mouth and sliding her tongue along the seam of his lips just to watch desire flare in his eyes. There was a lot of power in being a woman, she decided as her hands caressed his chest and slid a little lower just so she could feel him catch his breath. Immediately she felt the hard, rigid length of him growing along her thigh where she wrapped her leg over his. It was happening all over again. She started out in control and then she was melting inside, wanting to please him, wanting to watch his eyes grow from icy cold to fiery inferno.

Gasping, she pulled back, sitting up, her thigh still over his. Her hair was wild, spilling around her shoulders and tumbling down her back. “I don’t want to feel this way about you.”

“What way?” He reached out and cupped the weight of her breasts in his palms, his thumbs brushing her nipples gently. “I want you to want me.”

“If it was just that . . .” she trailed off with a small gasp of pleasure as he dropped one hand to the enticing triangles of curls, his fingers burrowing into intriguing crevices and hollows. She shifted, her bare bottom rubbing over him deliberately so that he responded with a soft groan.

“You’re doing that woman thing, Dahlia. The thing you didn’t want to do.” Nicolas felt more relaxed than ever, leaning back, his head on the pillow, his body coming to life and Dahlia sitting so close to his groin he could feel the damp heat beckoning to him. She looked beautiful sitting there with her hair all over the place and her skin gleaming at him, looking soft enough to eat. He stroked her breast and ran his finger along her ribs to the indentation of her waist. “While you’re sitting there, maybe you could just reposition yourself a little to the left.”

“What woman thing?” she demanded, tossing her head, sending the curtain of silky hair swinging along with the tantalizing sway of her breasts. Her fist curled around his erection, tightened, loosened, fingers dancing and teasing, robbing him of his ability to think for a moment.

He watched her through half-closed eyes as she lifted her hips and with painstaking slowness, lowered her body over his. He didn’t move, allowing her to be in control while she mounted him, while she took him into her body. He could feel the way he pushed through her tight folds, the way her body was tight and slick and hot, welcoming his. He lay there, wondering why he had found her after all this time, why she connected to him, and how she was capable of sending such sensations of pleasure forking through his body when she began a slow, sexy ride.