Page 51 of All Wrong
What the hell had he been thinking?
The answer, of course, was that hehadn’tbeen thinking at all, beyond the overwhelming need to know what she tasted like, what she felt like, and what she sounded like when she came. His capacity for rational thought had left the building beside Elvis, pushed out with extreme prejudice by the animalistic, primal part of him.
The worst part? Now that he’d ridden that fantasy train into madness, he wanted to do it again and again.
Yeah, he was well and truly fucked.
He exhaled and rose slowly from the bed, unwilling to wake her. If he heard one soft moan or felt a single touch from those hands, his brief return to sanity would be cast aside to have her again.
He needn’t have worried about disturbing her rest. Corinne didn’t move and likely wouldn’t for several hours. He’d wrung every drop of pleasure he could from her—and then some.
His chest swelled with a sense of pure male satisfaction.
Now, he had to hope it didn’t come back to bite them both on the ass.
He rinsed the washcloth and draped it over the towel bar, then opened the cabinet and scanned thecontents. Saline. Contact lenses—Corinne wore contacts?Tweezers. An assortment of creams and lotions. Ah, there it was. A box containing a blister pack of birth control pills. Judging by the date on the prescription and the number of empty slots, she was current and up-to-date.
A wave of relief flooded through him. He wasn’t a stupid guy. He knew the importance of protection, but with Corinne, the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind. It had been a moment of total insanity—or more accurately, four hours. Whatever. It couldn’t happen again. Ever.
When he emerged from the bathroom, Corinne was in the same spot, sleeping the sleep of the well loved.
No, not well loved, he corrected.Well fucked.
Because he was not in love with Corinne McCain. What had happened was simply the irresistible temptation of forbidden fruit and bad decisions on both of their parts.
Gathering his things, he left quietly, making sure the door locked behind him.
The cool air of the predawn brought with it some return to reason. By the time he got back to his place, he’d convinced himself it was a one-timething. Nothing more than a box ticked—for him and for her.
It wasn’t too hard. He’d always been more of a realist than a romantic. Women like Corinne might crave the excitement of rough, dirty sex, but only on occasion.
And while they might enjoy having him in their bed once in a while, he didn’t fit into the rest of their socially acceptable, respectable lives. He’d learned that lesson early on too.
“Sometimes, I like to take a walk on the wild side.”She’d said those exact words to him only hours earlier, hadn’t she?
Nicki could spout all the bullshit she wanted aboutcroiesand soul mates and whatever the fuck else because that was her reality. It wasn’t his, and it never would be. No sense in crying over it. He’d accepted it.
Nick dragged himself up the steps to his apartment, feeling wearier than he had in years. Not just physically, but mentally too. A long, hot shower was in his immediate future and then, if he was lucky, a few hours of shut-eye before he went to work and pretended like last night had never happened.
Yeah, good luck with that. He could still feel the burn of her touch. The scrape of her nails. The wayshe’d looked into his eyes when he drove deep into her body, laying claim, marking her from the inside out with a primal need to ruin her for every other man.
He groaned and grabbed the soap, intent on washing away the scents of Corinne and really good sex. As he turned around under the water, his skin stung everywhere she’d marked him. His shoulders. His back. His ass.
His private fantasies had been spot-on. Beneath that respectable exterior, Corinne was indeed a wild, passionate woman.
When he started hardening again, he yanked the water from hot to cold. The sooner he put the insanity behind him, the better. It was over. Done. Once could be chalked up to a lack of judgment on his part or burning curiosity on hers, but it couldn’t happen again.
Nick’s head had barely touched the pillow when the loud, incessant pounding on his door started.
Cursing, Nick got himself upright. Looking out the peephole, he saw his brother-in-law, Sean.
“Whatever this is, it’d better be fucking important,” he said, opening the door.
“AJ’s in the hospital,” Sean said withoutpreamble. “Nicki’s there now. Get dressed. I’ll catch you up on the way.”
Instantly wide awake, Nick threw on his jeans and a T-shirt and stuffed his feet into boots in record time. Minutes later, he was in the passenger seat of Sean’s muscle car, and they were flying through the empty streets.
“What the fuck is going on?” Nick asked, bracing himself against the door when Sean took a sharp turn.
