back to Addy.
She could see him in the moonlight, his big, bronze body poised over her. With more passion than knowledge, she touched him, circling his manhood with her fingers. He throbbed beneath her touch as she moved her hand up and down caressingly.
'Red, honey, you're going to have to stop that … sometime in the next few hours.' His voice held a trace of humor.
'You like my touch?'
'Did you like mine?'
'You know I did.'
He pulled away from her. She stared at him, puzzled. 'If you don't stop, I'll lose it.'
'I want you to lose it—inside me.'
He thought he'd die. She was asking him to make love to her, completely, thoroughly. 'Tonight's for you, Red. For your pleasure. If I take you the way you're asking, then I won't have proven anything to you.'
She had to consider what he'd said for several minutes before she realized what he meant; then she smiled. 'You've already proven everything you need to prove to me.'
'I've got to prove something to myself.' He kissed her savagely, then eased his tongue over her chin, down her throat and across her breasts to her stomach.
'Nick?' She felt the tremors of excitement building again, growing stronger with each swipe of his talented tongue.
'There's so many things I want to do to you, so many ways I want to make love to you.' He lifted her hips in his big hands, bringing her body upward so that he could taste her. She tried to pull away. He held fast. 'Let me, Red. Please, let me.'
She gave in to his plea, never realizing the earth-shattering rapture that awaited her. She became lost in a fog of sensation where the world centered on Nick's mouth and her pulsating flesh. With uncontrollable convulsions Addy's body took the pleasure Nick gave her, rejoicing in each pounding quake of fulfillment.
Afterward she clung to him, weeping warm, salty tears of joy. When he pulled away from her, she reached out, grasping at air. He stood, then picked up his jeans and cane.
'Nick? What are you doing?'
'I'm going to take a shower, Red. I can't stay. If I do, I'm going to ram myself into you so hard, I'll rip you apart.'
'Don't leave me. Stay. I want—I want us to really make love. I want you to—'
Nick turned and left the room. Addy lay there feeling satisfied and yet unfulfilled. Why had she ever told Nick that he'd have to prove himself to her? And why was he being so stubborn? The only thing she could figure out was that her father had been right. Nick Romero was falling in love with her and he didn't even know it. No man would put himself through such torment to prove himself worthy of a woman he didn't love.
Addy heard the shower running. She smiled. With a confidence born of her newly awakened feminine powers, she slipped out of bed and made her way down the hall to the bathroom. The door wasn't locked. Obviously, Nick didn't think she'd follow him. But he was wrong.
Moving as quietly as she possibly could, Addy crept toward the shower, eased open the glass door and stepped inside.
'What the hell? Addy?'
Without saying a word, she bent to her knees in front of him. The tepid water poured down over them. Nick reached out, taking her by her shoulders. 'Get up, Red. You don't have to do this.'
'I want to do this,' she assured him, and proceeded to prove to him just how much.
« ^ »
The hazy, muted light of dawn spread across the eastern horizon like distant candlelight seen through gauze curtains. The hum of the Bronco's motor kept time to the dull drone of the four-wheel drive's big tires as they moved over the asphalt roadway. Nick glanced in his rearview mirror. The nondescript brown sedan was still there. He had first noticed the car when they drove through Paint Rock, a wide-place-in-the-road town not too far outside of Huntsville. It was possible that the driver was simply headed in the same direction they were; it was also possible that he was following them.
Nick heard Addy sigh. Looking down at her head resting against his shoulder, he readjusted his arm that was draped around her. She'd been asleep for the past half hour. She needed rest. Neither of them had slept much last night.
When he thought about what had happened—and he hadn't been able to think of much else—he could hardly believe it. Not only had he made love to Addy more unselfishly than he'd ever made love to any other woman, but he experienced a kind of satisfaction he'd never known. He'd never felt so much like a man, never felt so strong as when he'd brought Addy to completion. Not once, but twice. Her cries of fulfillment had given him a precious pleasure. But when she had come to him in the shower, showing him how much she trusted him, how much she cared for him, he had been humbled and weakened by her generosity and love.
The very thought of her hands circling, her tongue tasting, her lips caressing, her mouth taking, hardened his manhood to an uncomfortable rigidity. Tonight… Tonight they would make love completely. He'd bury himself so deep inside her that he'd become a part of her, and then she would truly be his—his woman, in a way no other woman had ever been.
Just past the outskirts of South Pittsburg, Tennessee, Nick turned the Bronco onto the on-ramp of Interstate 24 and headed straight into the morning sun, which had just appeared, flashing its dazzling golden light like a wealthy woman displaying her array of diamond jewelry. Addy snuggled closer to his side; Nick ran his hand up and down her arm. God, he loved the feel of her. Lean and sleek, yet utterly soft and feminine.
He glanced in the rearview mirror. The brown sedan exited the on-ramp. Only a cherry-red Pinto separated the other car from the Bronco. Still a coincidence? Nick wondered. Maybe, maybe not. He'd wait and see. Before they went through Chattanooga, he'd have to find out one way or the other.
He didn't want to bother Addy with any undue worry, but if he had to make a hasty detour to discern the motive of the sedan driver, then he'd have to forewarn her. Although he'd found out just how strong and resilient Addy McConnell was, he knew that she had a breaking point. Everyone did. He wanted to get her to Georgia, to their private sanctuary deep in the mountains, where she would feel safe and secure … where they would have two weeks of undisturbed lovemaking.
Addy opened her eyes. Sunshine streamed through the Bronco's windows. She shut her eyes tightly, blocking out the blinding light. When she squirmed against Nick, he petted her, his big hand moving up and down her arm. She sighed, breathing in the clean, masculine scent that was Nick Romero—the man she loved.
Prizing her eyes open a second time, she squinted, then lowered her lids half closed and looked up at Nick, who was totally absorbed in driving. He was a man who concentrated on the task at hand, giving it his complete attention. Last night he had given her his thorough devotion, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt how much she meant to him. Recalling what he'd done to her—for her—sent tingling, reminiscent sensations spiraling through her body. He had made her feel everything, teaching her what a sensuous woman she was, proving to her how wrong Gerald had been about her. Nick made her feel needed
If she lived to be two hundred, she would never forget going to him, slipping into the shower beside him and loving him as erotically as he had loved her. She had acted purely on instinct, driven by desire, prompted by love.
When Nick had reached fulfillment, his body had trembled with the force of his satisfaction. And she had gloried in the knowledge that she had given him pleasure. The experience had been raw, primitive, totally physical. The aftermath had been warm and tender and loving. Nick had dried them both, then walked her back to her bedroom and tucked her in, refusing to stay the few remaining hours of the night in her bed. She'd known he didn't trust himself not to make love to her again and again. It was what she'd wanted, but Nick wanted to wait. Tonight … ah, yes
Closing her eyes, Addy slipped her arm around Nick's waist, giving him a gentle hug. 'Where are we?'
Squeezing her arm, he glanced down at her, then returned his concentration to the interstate. 'Crossing through the tip of Georgia. We aren't far from Chattanooga.'
