Nicolas couldn’t stop looking at her with her head thrown back, her thick, black hair streaming in the wind, her body perfectly balanced as she guided the boat. With her head back, he could see her neck and the outline of her body beneath the shirt, almost as if she wore nothing at all. His body stirred, hardened. Nicolas didn’t bother to fight the reaction. Whatever was between them, the chemistry was apparent and it wasn’t going to go away. He could sit in the boat and admire the flawless perfection of her skin. Imagine the way it would feel beneath his fingertips, his palm.
Dahlia’s head suddenly turned and her eyes were on him. Hot. Wild. Wary. “Stop touching my br**sts.” She lifted her chin, faint color stealing under her skin.
He held up his hands in surrender. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about.” Dahlia’s br**sts ached, felt swollen and hot, and deep inside her, a ravenous appetite began to stir. Nicolas was sitting across from her, looking the epitome of the perfect male statue, his features expressionless and his eyes cool, but she felt his hands on her body. Long caresses, his palms cupping her br**sts, thumbs stroking her ni**les until she shivered in awareness and hunger.
“Oh, that.”
“Yes, that.” She couldn’t help seeing the rigid length bulging beneath his jeans, and he made no effort to hide it. His unashamed display sent her body into overtime reaction so that she felt a curious throbbing where no throbbing needed to be. She grit her teeth together. “I can still feel you touching me.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “I consider myself an innocent victim in this situation,” Nicolas said. “I’ve always had control, in fact I pride myself on self-discipline. You seem to have destroyed it. Permanently.” He wasn’t exactly lying to her. He couldn’t take his eyes or his mind from her body. It was an unexpected pleasure, a gift.
He was devouring her with his eyes. With his mind. A part of her, the truly insane part—and Dahlia was beginning to believe there really was one—loved the way he was looking at her. She’d never experienced a man’s complete attention centered on her in a sexual way before. And he wasn’t just any man. He was . . . extraordinary.
“Well, stop all the same,” she said, caught between embarrassment and pleasure.
“I don’t see why my having a few fantasies should bother you.”
“I’m feeling your fantasies. I think you’re projecting just a little too strongly.”
His eyebrows shot up. “You mean you can actually feel what I’m thinking? My hands on your body? I thought you were reading my mind.”
“I told you I could feel you touching me.”
“That’s amazing. Has that ever happened before?”
“No, and it better not happen again. Good grief, we’re strangers.”
“You slept with me last night,” he pointed out. “Do you sleep with many strangers?” He was teasing her, but the question sent a dark shadow skittering through him. Something dark and dangerous stirred deep inside of him.
Her eyes jumped to his face. “What is it? What’s wrong?” She looked around quickly. “Should I cut the engine?”
Nicolas sat up a little straighter. She was so tuned to him, even that smoldering jolt of jealousy was noticed. “We’re fine.” But he was uncertain if it was the truth. He was beginning to be alarmed at how they seemed so aware of one another. Nicolas didn’t experience emotions such as anger and jealousy. He had fine-tuned his mind to filter out such things, yet Dahlia was shattering an entire lifetime of conditioning.
“Tell me what’s wrong. I know I’m not the average person, but I’m an adult, and despite having lived in a sanitarium and having a nurse raise me, I’m not completely insane. I don’t want you treating me as less than an equal.”
Nicolas studied her expression. Her dark eyes were spitting fire at him. Maybe that was the problem. She was melting the ice everyone said flowed in his veins. “When I figure it out, you’ll be the first to know. I don’t believe I’ve treated you as a child or as if you were insane, nor less than an equal. And it wouldn’t matter what you thought, if you care to know the truth. I do what I think is right, and I’m not going to worry about what you’re thinking.” His words surprised him more than they did her. Was he stating a hard fact or striking out at her? Nicolas rubbed his jaw with the heel of his hand. Facing death was easier than talking to women any day of the week.
“Well that’s good, because I’m exactly the same way. I guess we understand each other.” She turned her head away from him, nose in the air, looking a bit like a drowned princess.
The sun was climbing into the sky and definitely providing a backlight. His gaze once again dropped to her br**sts thrust against the thin material of his pale blue shirt. The shirt had become an instant favorite. He ran his tongue over his teeth, wishing he could do the same to her nipple.
Dahlia’s breath hissed out of her throat. Slowing the boat, she swung back toward him, glaring. “What is so damned fascinating about br**sts? If I show them to you will you stop?” Her hands went to the buttons of the shirt as if she might really rip the material open. There was color in her face and her breath came too fast. “I once heard that men thought about sex every three minutes but you must be setting some sort of record.”
“It isn’t just any br**sts, Dahlia.” He reached for the canteen of water. His hand was shaking. Actually shaking. Just the thought of her opening her shirt sent his body into a painful, hard, unrelenting ache.
“Well I have them, okay? Just like any other woman. They’re there. I can’t do much about it.”
Nicolas took a long pull of water and nearly choked as she angrily unbuttoned the shirt and allowed the edges to gape open all the way to her waist. Her br**sts were fuller than he’d first thought, jutting forward to tempt him more.
She was beautiful. Her skin was amazing. He swallowed hard. “I don’t think that was a good idea.”
Dahlia realized instantly she’d made a terrible mistake. His black eyes went from ice cold to a raging fever. His hand gripped the canteen until small dents appeared. Energy leapt between them, fierce and passionate, feeding on him, feeding on her, threatening to consume them both. At once she was hot, her clothes too heavy, too cumbersome, her skin too sensitive. She wanted to rip the shirt away, feel his hands, his mouth, sliding over her skin. She wanted things she’d never dreamed or thought of. Had no idea she even knew of.