Page 78 of Not Part of the Plan
“You have a very pragmatic view of the world, you know that?”
She grinned at him. “It works for me. It’s better than floating around like my sister Eva expecting love’s thunderbolt at any second.”
“Is it?”
She gave him a shove. “What about you, Niko. What do you believe in?”
He stopped again and grabbed her wrist. He pulled her in half a step until their toes met and Emma felt her body reacting to his nearness.
“I believe in the kind of feeling that stops you dead in your tracks and changes everything you ever believed. I believe in a love so swift and sure that it knocks the wind right out of you and leaves you lying on your back staring up at the sky wondering what just hit you.”
Her lips parted, but no words came out.
“I believe in an ever after that isn’t even a choice because you can’t imagine your life without the woman in front of you.”
Emma’s breath left her in a rush. His words brought to the surface a need she didn’t know existed.
“I think you’re pretty new at this dating thing. You could give girls ideas if you talk like that to them.” Emma said nervously. “For future reference.”
“Future reference?”
“When you go back to New York and you finally meet the woman you’ve been waiting for.”
She slipped from his grasp and took a few steps off the path. He was bringing up too many feelings in her. For just a second, she could imagine him saying those words to her. Loving her. Wanting her. Emma pressed a hand to her belly to calm the nerves that took flight there. She wasn’t one to fall for romantic, late night walks and soft words.
Feeling the weight of his gaze, Emma faced him. He was dark and dangerous, as always, but there was something else in his expression now. Something she didn’t recognize. Maybe she’d taken Julio’s advice too far. There was probably a difference between being herself and lecturing a sex partner on her world view.
Wanting to regain some of the playfulness they’d lost, she went to him. “Tell me. When you rented the gazebo, did you also get use of the park?” she asked, gripping his leather jacket with both hands.
“What did you have in mind?”
“I’ve been missing you, too,” she confessed, leaning up and brushing her lips against his.
He held back, just a bit, at first. But she teased him until he went from neutral to willing to desperate. And she was right there with him. Nikolai could have her body revving in seconds as if under a spell. That’s what it was, she thought distantly as his lips slanted over hers again and again in rising greed. Her body was enchanted by his existence. He merely had to look at her, and she wanted him, needed him, lusted for him.
Her white knuckled grip on his jacket wasn’t necessary. He wasn’t trying to get away. He was trying to get closer. He stroked under her cardigan, squeezing her waist and molding the curves of her hips with his palms.
She felt him, hard as granite against her belly, and purred into his mouth.
“You make me feel so crazed for you,” he murmured, devouring her with teeth and tongue.
“You make me feel craved,” she sighed back.
They were the last words exchanged. Their bodies communicated on an entirely different level. Emma didn’t have to tell him where to touch her because he was already plunging his hands into the top of her wrap dress, baring her to the night air.
On a growl, he dragged her further off the sidewalk into the shadows of a copse of trees. There was a bench, secluded away in greenery.
Emma shoved him down on the wood and straddled him. She loved the feel of him. The hard steel of his erection grinding against her, separated by too many layers of clothes. She could come just like this, but she wanted it all. She wanted to take him into her and claim him as hers.
He was yanking the V of material down her breasts and—after half a second of admiring the sexy balconette bra she wore beneath the dress—he was shoving the cups down. Niko breathed reverently over her exposed breasts. Admiring them, he cupped them in his palms and Emma delighted at the feel of his thumbs brushing over her nipples.
Dark, sinful eyes met hers as he leaned into one peak and licked gently. Emma’s eyes fluttered closed. The warmth of his mouth against her sensitive nipple was almost too much to take. And when his lips closed around it to suck, a whimper escaped her throat. He took long, deep pulls that she felt echoed in the empty clenching of her core.
She grinded against him and felt the length of his cock drag across her aching nub. Without breaking contact with her breast, Niko clutched her to him, leaning to the side and yanking his wallet free.
Understanding, Emma fumbled it open and found the condom inside.
She wanted to pause, to consider the consequences of making love here in the middle of town. But for once, her pragmatism was absent, and in its place was a desperate need to take. She rose up on her knees, her breast releasing from Niko’s mouth with a pop. The cool night air teased her wet, aching nipple.
