The After Dark Collection: Books 1-3 in The Gift Series Read online

  Only I didn’t have to. I didn’t have to beg, because she gave. She gave all of herself. And that made me the luckiest man in the world.

  “Have me, Adam. Please have me,” she whispered.

  And damn, that sent my heart into overdrive. That organ slammed against my rib cage, even as I caressed her slickness with my lips, devouring the evidence of her first climax.

  I tried to ignore the beating inside my chest as she rocked against me, letting go, giving in once more.

  No one could give in quite like this woman.

  No one seemed to know her own desires like Nina.

  No one had ever been this free in bed, and I loved every single second of being with her.

  In and out of the sheets.

  That thought kept appearing insistently, inconveniently. I tried to dismiss it again and again, losing myself in the paradise between her legs as I kissed her till she came again, wildly, loudly, bucking against my face.

  Once she was done, I climbed over her, at full mast again. I cupped her warm, flushed cheek, staring deep into her eyes, feeling myself fall once more.

  Time to focus on the list. On the reason she created it in the first place.

  I had to do what I’d planned to do.

  But before I could speak, she asked a question I wasn’t expecting.

  18

  Adam

  She propped herself on her elbow, her head in her hand. “Why do you call me different things? At different times?”

  Her gaze locked with mine as she leveled me with a question I didn’t want to answer.

  I knew the answer. I was vaguely aware in the moment why I did it. But I also knew it wasn’t purposeful. Sometimes the sweet names slipped out.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, hoping to buy some time to figure out what the hell to say.

  “Well, sometimes I’m ‘dirty girl.’ Every now and then, I’m ‘sweet girl.’ And then there are these times when you call me ‘baby.’”

  It didn’t take long for her to home in on me. The woman had laser vision. Except she didn’t have to know what I meant by all of those terms of endearment.

  “Is that so?” I asked, going for a flirty tone that didn’t fit the moment. But I had to try.

  She nodded and smiled, then she did something we hadn’t had much occasion to do. She touched me. She ran her fingers down my chest, playing with my chest hair. “When you’re all dirty, dominant alpha, you call me ‘dirty girl.’ You say that most of the time,” she said with a knowing grin as her fingers trailed farther south, feeling so damn good. “Twice you’ve called me ‘sweet girl,’ and it’s when we’re doing something really dirty. Like when you came on my face, and when you put your finger in my ass. And I think you do it to remind me that you like it really dirty too. That you don’t see me any differently when we’re doing that.”

  Damn. She was undressing me, and I was already naked.

  I said nothing, just waited. I schooled my expression, even as her nails brushed across my abs, her touch electric.

  “And then sometimes you call me ‘baby,’” she continued. “I haven’t quite figured that out, but I think you say it in the heat of the moment.”

  There. She’d done it. She’d seen through me. All the way.

  But she’d also given me an out, and I grabbed it, clutching on for dear life, flashing her an easy grin. “You figured me out, Nina. It’s just the heat of the moment.”

  Her brow creased. “It is?”

  I dipped my face to hers, pressed a kiss to her forehead. She closed her eyes as I whispered, “It’s all so damn good with you that sometimes I’m not thinking. I’m just living in the moment of your list.”

  The list.

  That was it. That was all this could be.

  She nodded. “That makes sense. I’m living in the moment too. And every moment has been incredible.” Her fingers roamed up my chest, then she looped her hands around my neck, playing with the ends of my hair. So simple, yet so intimate.

  Hitting me once more in a way I hadn’t expected.

  My skin tingled. Just from her fingers along my neck.

  “Adam,” she said, and my name sounded like honey on her lips. Like all the sweetness in the world. Because that was who my friend was in bed. She was my sweet, dirty girl. My sexy virgin.

  And she was mine.

  “Yes?” I asked, fighting off the desire to use her name.

  Her lips curved into a grin. “You know how you said you’d ask me again tonight? To give you my virginity?”

  I swallowed roughly. Of course I remembered that. “I do.” For a split second, the terrible thought flashed through my mind that she was backing out, that she no longer wanted this.

  But then she threaded her fingers more tightly through my hair, brought me closer, and whispered, “You don’t have to ask. I’m giving it to you. It’s yours.”

  And that was when I knew how screwed I was going to be.

  19

  Nina

  And so I was there. I’d reached number nine.

  Goodbye, V card, hello other side.

  I was walking down the Jetway to a plane that would whisk me to another hemisphere. One foot in front of the other.

  I sat up in bed, lifted my arms over my head. “Will you take my shirt off?”

  “Yes.” He rose too, reaching for the thin fabric and whisking it off me in a flurry. He groaned when he stared at my breasts.

  He brushed his fingers between them, running them along the curves. “I didn’t spend nearly enough time worshipping these beauties last night,” he said, shaking his head like that was a damn shame.

  As he cupped them, it seemed like a shame to me too. My nipples hardened under his touch, and I arched into his palms. “Maybe my list needs addendums,” I said softly, playing with that idea. I hated the thought of completing the to-do list.

  “Maybe it does,” he said, then he drew me in for another kiss.

  His tongue skated inside my mouth, and his lips felt hot and desperate. Like he was taking this kiss for the road.

  Like it would be our last kiss.

  My shoulders sank at that prospect, and already my chest panged with missing this.

  This connection.

  This kind of touch.

  Now that I’d had it, how was I to go without it?

  I didn’t want to return to the land of nothing. I wanted to stay here, tangled up in hot, sweaty, mind-altering bliss.

  But the list wasn’t about my future. It was about my present, and that was where I needed to live, and to live fully.

  I shoved all thoughts of tomorrow out of my head and surrendered to the power of his kiss. To his passion. To his need. My back bowed as he kissed the breath out of me, just the way I wanted.

  When he broke the kiss, his hazel eyes were rimmed with longing.

  But it didn’t feel sexual, strangely enough.

  And he didn’t gaze at me like the dirty after-dark man I’d discovered he was over these last two nights.

  He looked at me as my friend, as the man I trusted, the man who cooked for me and needled me over fun facts. The man who had a key to my home.

  But in a flash, the familiarity of the last few years vanished.

  His irises shone darker now, with a look that was becoming familiar too, in its own way.

  His bedroom eyes.

  He shifted behind me, sliding a hand from the small of my back up my spine, sending shivers through me. When he reached my neck, he scooped my hair away, brushing kisses along my skin, then nipping. “As much as I want to spread you out on your back and have you wrap your legs around me, that’s not what I’m going to do. Know why?”

  “Why?” I asked, knowing the answer, but loving the game, savoring the questions.

  “Because that’s not what your list is about. You’re not a missionary girl, and I am going to take you the way you want. Fuck me hard, fuck me good, fuck me for the first time,” he gritted out, reciting the words from my list.

/>   “Oh God, yes,” I said, sinking deeper into the moment.

  “And you know how you want it. You scripted it. You wrote it down.” His hand curled around my neck, gripping me tighter.

  I gasped, knowing what was coming. “I want it that way. I want number nine.”

  His mouth found my ear, and his voice was rougher than I’d ever heard it before. More demanding. “Then say it. Say it out loud. Tell me how you want me to take you for the first time.”

  I shuddered, drawing a deep breath, needing fuel to say the words. But when you’ve spent all your sex life in your head, detailing your fantasies, building them, crafting them, and creating worlds around them, it turns out it’s not that hard to give voice to them at last. “Push me down on the bed. Pin me in place so I can’t move. Do it hard. And do it now. Please, Adam, do it now.”

  The sound that rumbled up his chest was animalistic. It was obscene, and it thrilled me. His desire rocketed mine to another level.

  The pulse beating between my legs turned into a needy throb, an insistent ache to be filled.

  “Say it again. Beg me,” he ordered, pushing my face into the pillows.

  My knees were tucked beneath me, my stomach arched, my breasts flat against the bed, my cheek against the pillow. I was under his control, and I was outrageously wet.

  I wanted him to know how much. To see my desire. “Please, Adam. I’m begging you. I want you so much. I’m so turned on. I’m so wet I can’t take it.” I craned my neck to look at him, no easy feat since his hand was curled around me, pinning me in place. “Please.”

  His eyes turned feral. “One more time, dirty girl. Give it to me one more time.”

  My body shook with desire. I ached everywhere, desperate for him to slide inside me.

  “Please, Adam. Please!” I cried out.

  And that was enough for him.

  With his hand still wrapped around my neck, he moved between my legs, pushing my knees wider so they were tucked alongside my body. I was his. His to enter, his to have.

  I was giving him myself, and he was going to take me to the other side of desire.

  He rubbed the head against my wetness, and I ignited. A moan fell from my lips.

  “You’re so wet, dirty girl. So soft,” he said, praising me.

  I’d miss that too when it was gone—his praise. Because his bedroom compliments sent me to another world, and I was already living on an erotic cloud nine.

  Maybe this was cloud nine thousand.

  He pushed farther, breaching me, the head inside me. I tensed. This was it. My God, this was happening. I wasn’t working a vibrator; I wasn’t sliding the rabbit inside me. The real thing was different, so damn different.

  And wonderful.

  “You okay, baby?” he asked.

  “I’m good,” I said, then willed myself to relax again. I wanted this more than anything. “Don’t stop, Adam. Please don’t stop.”

  “Never.”

  He pulled back, and I was empty for a second, but that second ended when he thrusted deeper, filling me a few more inches.

  I felt my body stretching, adjusting.

  Welcoming him.

  Because that was what I wanted. To welcome him inside my body. All the way.

  “More,” I whispered, so eager, even if it hurt the slightest bit.

  “You want it all, dirty girl? You ready for all of me now?”

  “Yes,” I said, breathless, trembling, my whole body brimming with need.

  He lowered his body, covering me, then brought his lips to my cheek. “Then take it, baby. Take all of me.”

  And he thrust all the way in.

  I cried out. From the momentary slice of pain. From the sensation of being stretched to the limit. But before he could even ask if I was okay, and I knew deep in my bones that he would, I cut in. “I’m good. So good.”

  And I could feel him smile against my skin, his voice soft as he whispered, “That’s what I wanted to hear.”

  Then he moved in me, pulling back, pushing in, finding a pace, following my cues.

  They weren’t hard to read. I was an open book, moaning and groaning and panting out yeses and just like thats and oh my Gods.

  At one point, he pulled out so far that only the tip was still in me, and I squirmed, begging for more of him. “Please,” I cried.

  And he delivered the most devastating thrust, filling me to the hilt, bottoming out inside me. He was so deep in me that it was as if we’d always been doing this, always been coming together. “Oh God, Nina,” he groaned, sending a new wave of pleasure crashing over me.

  It was the first time he’d said my name when we were naked. And I heard so much in it. Wishes and wants. Needs and desires. Or maybe I just wanted to hear that.

  That had to be it.

  I wanted to believe he felt the same things I did. That wild horses were running away with his heart too.

  Maybe I needed to feel it in this moment.

  And because I did, I needed something else entirely.

  As my body sparked, I whispered his name against the pillow then asked a question. “Can you flip me over? I want to be on my back.”

  He stilled inside me.

  He didn’t answer at first. Only breathed hard, his cheek against mine.

  He relinquished his hold on my neck, freeing me to move my face closer to his. I offered him my lips, believing in a new fantasy.

  Believing in the possibility of us.

  He drew a gasping breath, then he crushed my lips in a fierce, passionate kiss that felt so out of this world I wanted to cry. From the ecstasy of a kiss like that.

  Seconds later, he broke the kiss, sliding out of me smoothly, then shifting me to my back.

  In that position, I parted my legs for him. Wide, open, ready.

  Yes, this was my new dream. To have him like this, where I could let myself fall deeper into the make-believe. Into the fantasy that we were coming together on another level.

  I reached for him, lifting my arms to his shoulders, around his neck, bringing him closer.

  I never thought I’d want sex like this.

  This ordinary, normal, everyday position.

  But it wasn’t a want. It was an aching need.

  And he filled it as he filled me, gliding back inside seamlessly, stretching my body to the limits.

  He met my gaze, and the look in his eyes staggered me. The intensity, the passion written in them matched everything I felt inside.

  Or maybe I was imagining it. Maybe I was writing that for him. Yes, that had to be it. I was creating a new fantasy and weaving it around us. I’d do well to remember it was only in my head.

  I had to listen to my body, so I did.

  As instinct took over, I wrapped my legs around him, and he swiveled his hips, rocking deeper. Our bodies melted together; our sounds mirrored each other. As we moved like this, in perfect harmony, I ran my fingers up the taut muscles of his back, over his toned biceps, and across his neck. I was committing the feel of him under my fingertips to memory.

  I’d want to recall this moment forever, I was sure.

  My hands became my camera, snapping shot after shot of him through the lens of touch.

  And as pleasure radiated through my cells, sweeping across every molecule, the enormity of my choice flashed before me like a neon sign.

  The sheer magnitude of the real choice I’d made echoed relentlessly inside me. Not the one to give up something I’d held on to dearly for twenty-four years.

  But the choice to have sex with my friend.

  Because it wasn’t just sex anymore.

  It wasn’t a list now.

  I was no longer ticking boxes, because as he lowered his body to me, his elbows at my sides, his chest slick and hot against my breasts, his lips inches from mine, I knew.

  That to me—this was making love.

  Awareness flipped a switch in me, and my body tightened as impending bliss coiled inside me.

  “Adam, I’m . . .”
/>   I couldn’t finish.

  There were no words.

  I was there, flying over the cliff.

  “Yes. Come for me, baby. Come for me now, Nina,” he urged, and I fell apart beneath him, shattering into a million beautiful pieces as pleasure, radiant pleasure, flooded my veins.

  And he chased me there, thrusting and pounding, losing himself too. Calling my name, endlessly over and over, until he was quiet and all I heard was the pounding of our hearts, beating together wildly.

  Dangerously.

  I had fallen in love with him. I’d broken the rules of engagement, and I’d have to fix that and fix it fast.

  The list.

  Focus on the list.

  20

  Adam

  I’d like to say that was unexpected.

  The intensity. The passion. The soul-shattering intimacy.

  But that’d be a lie.

  I knew when I walked in here tonight that sex with Nina would be the most spectacular thing I’d ever experienced, and the hardest too.

  Because how was I supposed to return to the way we were?

  My chest ached for her. My mind wanted to engage with hers all the time. My arms longed to pull her into an embrace, and my mouth yearned to pepper sweet kisses over her cheeks, her eyelids, her hair.

  That was the risk.

  The risk we were supposed to avoid.

  Hell, a mere twenty-four hours ago, we’d established the rules of engagement. They were crystal clear. The list. Os. Friendship.

  Done.

  That was it. That was all. We’d mutually agreed on the endpoint, and now we’d arrived at the moment when we were supposed to walk away.

  In two nights, we’d worked through her whole list. My God, we were voracious, and the thought made me laugh unexpectedly.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked, and it occurred to me this was the first thing either one of us had said post-sex.

  And I was still inside her.