Class Reunion (3 page)

He would have danced all night with her, but at two o’clock, she pointed out that they should hit the sack.

He accompanied her down to her room. As she opened her door he felt awkward again, but when she turned and looked up at him, her dark eyes gleaming in the light of the hall, he couldn’t help himself. He put his arms around her and bent to kiss her.

Her lips were soft, sweet. Her luscious body yielded to his own. With one hand he held her to him as the other stroked her soft-as-silk hair. He felt her hands against his back holding him as tightly as he did her.

They both jumped at the sound of raucous laughter echoing down the hallway, followed by the sound of the elevator door opening.

“Quick, let’s go in,” Dana said, and he eagerly followed her into the room.

He closed the door behind him and when he turned back, Dana was right there watching him, a half-smile on her lips, her blonde hair tumbling about her face.

Nicholas whispered her name as he stepped toward her and took her in his arms and she wrapped hers around him. As they kissed he savored her cool, soft, lips yielding against his own.

Dana is here in my arms at last
, he thought.
I’m kissing Dana!
The thought nearly blew his mind before he gave himself up to pure sensation. He ran his hands up and down the voluptuous shape of her, loving the gentle arch of her back, the swell of her hips, the curve of her small waist. He caressed her tantalizing, firm, lush bottom. He pulled her tightly against himself, reveling in the feeling of her breasts against his chest, her belly against his hard cock. And always that glorious green-grass scent of hers.

“Dana,” he said breathlessly. “Dana.”

He heard her sigh. She lifted her hands to his face, her fingers stroking and caressing. He rolled his head from side to side, intoxicated by the feel of her gentle touch.

When she raked her fingers through his hair, he brought his hands up and did the same through her blonde curls. Suddenly her touch grew urgent. She pulled his hair, dragging his mouth to her own, bringing him closer, closer. He grasped the back of her head and pulled it toward himself, crushing her lips against his own. Their kiss was savage. His need for her, the flame alight in his belly since they had touched on the way to the hotel, flared wildly. The fiery heat rose to his heart, consuming any uncertainty, any inhibition.

He groaned, overcome by his own unrestrained need for her, for Dana. All of Dana. He had waited so long, he had hoped and dreamed so much, and now she was here—a lovely woman whose curves made him crazy with want. She was beautiful, yet she was still Dana. And she was here, in his arms, warm, responsive, and overwhelmingly—almost unbearably—desirable. He ran his hands over her body, pitiless now in his raw need.

She stroked his sides, always seeming to pull him closer and closer although it was impossible that they could be closer than they were. Only their clothes kept them a fraction of a millimeter apart.

He pushed her away and she gasped, an alarmed look on her face.

“Clothes,” he muttered, “I need to feel skin on skin.” He shrugged off his jacket. Yanked at his tie, then dragged it off. He fumbled with the buttons of his shirt. She stepped toward him; he supposed she was reaching out to help, but he tore the shirt open before she could. Buttons flew everywhere.

She laid her cool hands on his chest. In spite of their coolness they made the fire within him rage wildly through sex and heart and brain. She stepped back and for an insane moment he wondered if the heat within him had scorched her hands. But she smiled at him.

He pulled off her sweater, revealing luscious, full breasts encased in a white satin bra. She bent and untied her boots and pulled them off along with her socks. He skimmed his hands over her back, shoved his fingers into the gap at the top of her jeans, reveling in the feel of her smooth flesh.

As she stood, his hands swept upward to those enticing breasts and he caressed and squeezed them, his gaze riveted on her face, gauging her response and being driven madder yet by the desire he saw there.

He stopped, desperate now to get out of his remaining clothes, desperate to get Dana onto the bed. He yanked off his boots and threw them God knows where and his socks right after them. He undid his jeans, dragged them off and his boxers after them, allowing his rock-hard cock to spring mercifully free.

He scooped her up and carried her to the bed, threw back the scarlet cover with one hand, and laid her on her back on the white sheets. Kneeling over her, he kissed the her breasts where they rose above the bra. He slipped his fingers under the sleek garment and stroked the yielding flesh, his fingertips brushing roughly against her nipples as, sighing, she arched toward him.

He dipped his head and sucked the peaks that pushed against the silky fabric—first the one and then the other—while he toyed with the opposite nipple with his fingers. The bra grew transparent where he had sucked and he groaned at the sight
. God, she’s perfect.

He kissed her lips savagely once more and licked and nipped them as she kissed him back, giving as good as she got. Then he kissed her throat, her chest. He reached beneath her and released the bra. He pulled it off and threw it to the side.

“You are so beautiful,” he murmured. “Each part of you is lovelier than the last.” Her body undulated beneath him as he kissed and sucked her erect brown nipples, then skimmed his hands around her breasts, squeezing pitilessly, ruthless in his need for her.

He undid her jeans and stood to drag them off. He grunted when he saw the white lace panties.
Clean, pure, innocent,
flashed through his mind.
Take it easy with her,
he thought for a second, but fiery desire overwhelmed all reason. His craving for her, for release with her, was almost painful.

He inched the scanty garment down and trailed kisses in its wake, groaning at the sight of the curly hair he exposed. She murmured his name as he slid his hand beneath the lacy fabric and over her hot mound. She was wet.

His control broke. The fire exploded within him and he tore the flimsy garment apart, wild with wanting her.

“Nicholas,” she said hoarsely, as he stroked her sweet cleft. She was ready for him. Their gazes locked as he knelt and straddled her hips.

He entered her. Some vestige of his mind reminded him that he could be gentle, could go slowly and carefully, but when she smiled up at him as she held his hips and pulled him deep within her, he became so hopelessly overwhelmed with passion he could not hold back.

He plunged into her again and again and yet again. And her hips rose again and again, meeting him stroke for stroke as her cries grew louder. He felt her swell and grow tight about him as she cried out, pushing him to the edge of release, but somehow he managed to pull himself back from the precipice.

He withdrew and turned her over onto her knees and entered her, drinking in the sight of her rosy bottom turned up to him as he buried himself inside her. When he felt her hot, slick walls grow tight again and heard her scream as the blush covered her shoulders, he could contain himself no longer. He cried out as, ecstatically, he exploded into her.

Chapter Five

The late afternoon sun peeked around the curtains as Nicholas propped himself up on one arm and watched Dana, who slept peacefully, her blonde hair spilling over the pillow like a golden halo. God, he loved her so much.

Had he been too aggressive? Should he have plunged them into incredibly hot sex when he didn’t even know how she felt about him? This was Dana after all, not a one-night stand, not like the kind of women he’d preferred in the past who only wanted to share a night or two of passion and then go on their way. Dana wasn’t like that. And she wasn’t like the hard-hearted gold diggers he’d always avoided.

Yeah, she’d been willing, and yeah, she liked him okay, but he didn’t think she felt more for him than that. She’d had a lot to drink. Had he taken advantage of her?

Perhaps the whole deal had been alcohol-driven. Without the drinks he might never have found the courage. Without them, Dana might never have agreed.

He feared he had been brutally aggressive, never giving her a moment to think about what they were doing, never giving her a chance to say “no” should she have wanted to. This hadn’t been at all what he had intended—not at all like what he had in mind when he dreamed about going to bed with her. He’d imagined maybe a glass or two of champagne, long hours of tender kissing, getting to know each other’s bodies, caressing, and loving words. Instead he’d been insanely swept away. Gloriously swept away was how it had felt, and Dana seemed to have been just as overwhelmed as he. When she woke up, though, she might well think it had been a drunken one-night stand. Might well be that he’d be lucky if she didn’t hate him for it.

He glanced at his watch.
Shit!
It was a little after two o’clock in the afternoon. He had a telephone interview with a reporter from
The Baltimore Sun
at two and then he was due at the local TV station at 3:30. He’d write Dana a quick note and...

He heard his phone vibrating. He snatched it from the bedside table before it could wake Dana and checked the screen—it was the reporter from
The Sun
. He dragged on his jeans and bent to kiss Dana, but decided it might wake her. Clutching his shirt and the vibrating phone, he hurried silently from the room. He turned on the phone as soon as the door closed behind him.

Chapter Six

When Dana woke up, Nicholas was gone. She stretched and yawned. She’d never had sex like that. Never had she been so totally swept away, never had she come so many times or so powerfully. She sat up, clambered out of bed, and looked around for a note from him, but there was none. She checked her cell. Nothing. Her head spun and she got back into bed.

What must he think of her? She’d jumped his bones the second they came into her room. She’d been completely crazy with desire—and love—for Nicholas. Utterly overwhelmed. And, at the time, she’d been sure he felt the same way.

Well, she could not doubt that he was passionate, that he’d been as hungry for her as she had been for him. In fact his evident lust for her had called forth an even more crazed desire in herself.

Just thinking about what they had done was making her wet again. Just thinking about it made her want to be in bed with Nicholas again—ASAP. As far as her body was concerned, it mattered not a whit what his feelings toward her were. Her body only wanted more—a whole lot more—of Nicholas.

This was ridiculous.

And why was he gone? Dana refused to think of last night as a one-night stand. Even though this was the first time they’d seen each other in years, she knew Nicholas wasn’t like that. Then again...
He could have anyone he wanted. Look at the way Sally practically drooled all over the man, pretending they’d been buddies in high school, shooting me the evil eye.

Then she remembered that Nicholas had said he’d like to escort her to the reunion, but that he’d have to meet her there because he had a couple of interviews this afternoon. She cheered up, relieved at the thought. Maybe he’d had to leave in a hurry. He’d said he’d be on at four on the local TV station. She picked up her watch—surely it was nowhere near that late, but it was. Ten after four. No wonder he had to leave. Damn blackout curtains got her every time.

She flicked on the TV and there he was, chatting it up with a visibly nervous local talk show hostess who kept saying inane things like what an honor it was to have Aurelia’s most successful citizen ever on her show, and that it was hard to believe such a handsome man was a computer nerd.

“Good grief,” Dana murmured. “She’s jonesing for him and I don’t blame her one bit.”

She grinned and spoke to Nicholas as the camera zoomed in on him as he regarded the woman intently. “If she knew what you are like in bed, Nicholas, she’d jump you right there on the set.” She frowned.
God, he’s a total chick magnet
.

She leaned forward, squinting slightly at the screen. He was wearing the same shirt he’d had on last night. She smiled, remembering how they’d both been crazed with desire for each other. Desperate to touch his skin, she’d been about to tear his shirt off when he’d ripped it off himself.

Yes, it was closed now, but there were no buttons. Had someone at the station pinned it for him? She chuckled at the thought of him trying to explain his shirt’s lack of buttons.

The hostess seemed to get a grip on herself and said, beaming at him, “You’re in the area for your high school reunion. Is it great to see all your old friends again?”

Uh oh
, Dana thought.
Not such a good question
.

“There is only one reason I came back for the reunion,” he said. “I came back to see the only student who was kind to me—friends with me, actually—during the years I went to school here. I came back because I wanted to see her, the most beautiful girl in Aurelia.”

The hostess smiled knowingly. “Ah, and what are you going to do when you see her?”

“That would depend.”

“Depend? On what?”

He laughed and Dana leaned closer to the TV, anxious to hear his answer. “That would depend on whether she’s willing to marry me or not.”

The hostess turned to the camera. “I think there are going to be quite a few disappointed ladies out there if she says yes.” And then the ads came on.

Dana shook her head in confusion. She felt as though she were on a rollercoaster. When he’d said he’d come back to see the girl who’d been kind, she’d been sure he meant her, and her heart had bounded around happily in her chest. But the most beautiful girl in town? Well, that would be Patti Malone. Granted, she’d been a total bitch in high school, but there was no doubt that Patti had also been drop-dead gorgeous.

Dana studied herself in the mirror hanging on the wall of her hotel room.
I’m not bad-looking—in fact I’ve become quite attractive,
she thought
. But no way could I ever hold a flame to Patti’s movie-star beauty.