Sweet Temptation (Sweet #4)(48)

Finally his pants came off, and he stood in front of her, his huge erection fisted in his hand. His eyes glittered with promise as he stalked toward her.

She gulped and edged backward.

He merely smiled and crawled on to the bed. His hand closed around her ankle, and he yanked her back toward him.

“I believe I promised you we’d have a talk,” he murmured when she was completely underneath him. “And I’m pretty sure I said it would take place with you naked. Underneath me.”

“Well here I am,” she said breathlessly.

He cupped her cheek in his palm and stroked over her skin, gently pushing her hair behind her ear. His intense gaze roamed over her face as if he was searching. For what?

“Do you have any idea what you do to me?”

Before she could answer—and really, what could she possibly say to that?—he lowered his mouth to hers in a surprisingly tender kiss.

Heat blistered over her skin, but the warmth went deeper, beyond her heart and straight into her soul.

“I love you,” she whispered against his lips.

He drew away, still stroking her cheek with careful fingers. “I love you,” he said seriously. “Do you know that, Julie? Do you believe that?”

He kissed her again, sweeping the words away before she could speak.

“I wonder sometimes if you aren’t waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like maybe you don’t think I’m in this for the long haul.”

She let her hands wander up his arms, to the thick column of his neck and then down to his chest. One thing she wouldn’t do is lie. Not to Nathan. He was the one man she could be herself with, and that meant letting him see straight into her heart.

“Sometimes,” she admitted. “I don’t doubt you, Nathan. I’m just scared. I know I can be difficult, and I worry that one day you’ll decide I’m not worth it.”

He parted her thighs with one insistent hand and found her heat with his fingers. She arched helplessly into him, her mouth falling open in a tortured moan.

He stroked. Petted. Slid his fingers insider her and then eased up to her clit, spreading her moisture over the straining bundle of nerves.

“For such a smart woman, sometimes you can be so dense,” he muttered.

Her eyes narrowed just as he added a third finger and stroked the walls of her pu**y.

“Ah hell. How am I supposed to argue with you when you’re doing that?”

He found her lips again, silencing her with his mouth. And then his tongue. Like rough velvet, his tongue stroked over hers, warm, spreading his taste, and God, he tasted so damn good. He smelled good. He felt good.

“I think the idea is that you’re not supposed to argue.”

“Me not argue? Like that’s ever going to happen.”

He smiled and withdrew his hands. She wiggled in protest, wanting them back.

“I have something better,” he murmured.

He shifted his body, pushing her thighs farther apart. He positioned his c**k at her entrance and pushed in the tiniest bit.

“You’re such a damn tease!”

He chuckled and inched forward, barely stretching her. She wrapped her legs around him and arched up, trying to make him slide deeper.

Finally he accommodated her and thrust all the way in with one forceful push.

She cried out. No matter how often he made love to her, she still felt the shock of that first penetration all the way to her toes. He was big and thick and she pulsed around him like warm honey. He just made her go all gooey, and she loved and hated him for that.

Still buried deep inside her, he put his arms down on either side of her head and levered himself up enough so that he wasn’t crushing her. He looked down at her, his green eyes so serious that for a moment she was worried. Until she remembered that he was as deep inside her as he could be. Who the hell broke off a relationship while they were buried to the balls?

“We need to get something straight, Julie.”

“Hell of a time for conversation,” she muttered.

“Oh, I think it’s a damn good time because you can’t escape me. You can’t run. You can’t avoid me.”

He flexed his hips, and she tightened her grip on his shoulders until her nails dug into his flesh.

“I love you, woman. And you damn well ought to know that.”

“I do,” she gasped. “Now f**k me please.”

“I’m not leaving you. I don’t want anyone else. You’re it for me, Julie. It.”

Her eyes widened and she went completely still beneath him.

“What are you saying, Nathan?”

He let out a string of curses. “Nothing I haven’t said to you a million times already. I’ve told you with words, with actions. I tell you with my body every damn time we get together, but you’re so determined only to see what you want to see. When are you going to get it into your head that unless you kick me to the curb, then this is forever?”

She honestly couldn’t formulate a response to that. Her mouth hung open as she stared into his eyes. He was serious. There was no hint of deception in his gaze. Just earnest ... love.

“I’m never kicking you to the curb, dumbass,” she said in a low voice.

He withdrew and then rolled his hips forward, eliciting another gasp from her.

“Good. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I vote we talk about making our relationship a little more permanent.”