I wanted him. I wanted him so badly my body was practically screaming for him. I tugged at his shoulders and then he was inside me again, and I abandoned myself to him entirely.
Our bodies became one; flesh against flesh, mouth against mouth. When he pulled away from me, I pushed him onto his back and climbed astride him, taking him inside me. Our bodies melted into one another as we moved together in a frenzy of passion.
It started as a fluttering sensation in my lower belly and quickly radiated outwards. I closed my eyes as the pleasure spread slowly through my body. And then it took me by force. My eyes flew open and I cried out as my body shuddered with ecstasy.
Nick pulled my body down to his and clasped me to him tightly, groaning as he came.
We clung to one another, breathing heavily. The room was starting to get dark, and the dull light that came through the single tiny window cast a bluish tinge over our naked bodies. Nick stared into my eyes as he pushed my hair back from my face. Gone was the derisive expression, the perpetually sardonic smile. He looked vulnerable, almost tender, and completely irresistible. I bent my head to kiss his lips, then slid down beside him and nestled into his chest. If only we could lie here like this forever.
At the edge of my mind hovered the James situation, but I dared not venture down that path. For now my head was full of Nick—his spicy scent, his delicious body, the way he looked at me, touched me.
‘That was amazing,’ he said at last.
‘Yeah.’
‘I’ve been wanting to do that ever since we got on the plane in Melbourne.’
‘Me too.’ I smiled. ‘With a few notable exceptions.’
We lay in silence for a bit longer before Nick spoke again. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s not entirely your fault. I’ve had my moments too.’
‘I’m not talking about this trip. I mean before.’
I lifted my head to look at him. ‘Before?’
‘The way I treated you… after the first time. I was a dickhead.’
I settled my head back on his chest and splayed my fingers over his belly. I’d waited so long for the apology, but I didn’t want to think about that period now we were here together like this.
‘You should know that I didn’t tell everyone at work about it,’ he went on. ‘Jane guessed what’d happened. Admittedly, I didn’t exactly deny it. But I didn’t spread it around the office either.’
‘Maybe not, but you made me feel like shit. You made me feel like just a number.’
‘I know. I’m sorry. I freaked out. I’d never felt a connection with someone like I did with you, and I didn’t know how to handle it. Clearly, I didn’t do too well.’
I propped myself up on one elbow and looked down at him. ‘You had plenty of chances to take it further, but you made it pretty clear that it was just a one-night stand. And then there was James.’
He stared straight ahead. ‘I told him about you, you know. Before you guys met. I told him I’d met someone, someone I really liked, but that I’d stuffed up and I didn’t know how to fix it. Even after you met him that day at work, I told him I was still interested in you, but he treated it like a challenge. He was determined to get involved with you.’
I bit my lip. Could it be that the scene of my first meeting with James had been a set-up? Had my long-held memory of love at first sight all been in my imagination?
‘No,’ I said. ‘Whatever he’s done to me since, it was more than that with James. He loved me.’
His eyes met mine. ‘I know. But by the time I realised that, it was too late for us. You moved in with him. You were happy.’
I lay back down without answering, snuggling into the warmth of him. Tomorrow there would be a whole new set of questions and complications, but for now I wasn’t ready for the answers to those questions.
We lay in silence as the room grew steadily dimmer. It started to get cold and Nick pulled the quilt over us as goosebumps sprang up on our skin.
Gradually the events of the day re-formed in my head. ‘We should go back to the police,’ I said. ‘We should see if they’ve spoken to Adelita. Make sure they go to the warehouse before it’s too late.’
‘There’s nothing we can do about it now,’ Nick said. ‘We just have to trust that they’re doing all they can. We’ll go back first thing in the morning.’
I thought about arguing, but he pulled me closer and the warmth of his body seeped into mine like a drug. I tried to keep my mind on Ford and everything that’d happened that day, but exhaustion took over and I drifted gradually into sleep.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
When I woke up the next morning, my first thought was not about Ford, or about Grady or Adelita, or about the warehouse full of drugs. No, the first thing that occurred to me, before I’d even opened my eyes, was that a morning romp would be nice.
I rolled over and reached out for Nick, only to feel the coldness of the sheets. I opened my eyes. The bed was empty. He was gone. I sat up. Had he ever been here in the first place? Had I just dreamt the whole thing? But no, the musky smell of our lovemaking still hung in the air. My skin still tingled from his touch.
It’d happened, all right. He’d just bailed on me. Again. The prick.
I threw off the quilt and stood up, cursing Nick for his bastardly ways and myself for my weakness. For Christ’s sake, I’d
