She drew in a breath, and opened her mouth to speak, but no words came. Instead she slid her teeth over her lower lip. Nicholas’s eyes followed the movement, darkening visibly.
Without a word, he sat up and leaned forward, angling his body so close that the straining tips of her breasts brushed his chest. His sin-black hair fell around his face, skimming his shoulders, framing his features with savage beauty.
The midnight silence had yet to be broken, and she felt as though she were moving through a dream. They were alone in this world, the two of them, and all of the rules and worries and limits of the daylight were meaningless here…here, where Mira bathed in the sultry benediction of Nicholas’s gaze and was transformed by his fire.
He reached up and, with one long finger, began tracing her features. His touch was reverent, the soft skin of his fingertips just barely brushing against her, and she shuddered at the unbearable lightness of his caress.
Slowly his hand drifted down, lingering on every curve and hollow, until he was feathering across her collarbone, along the arc of her flesh, following the edge of the shirt she wore as it dipped to a vee between her breasts. Then, so gently, his finger strayed beneath the edge of the fabric, brushing the sensitive skin there, leaving a trail of fire in its wake.
Deep in her throat, she made a small sound, a sound that was alien to her, a sound of primitive animal yearning, voicing a need she could not define.
Her cry seemed to break something in Nicholas, some fragile barrier, and he suddenly wrapped his arms around her, pulled her to him, and brought his mouth down on hers with a passionate ferocity. He consumed her with his heat, his mouth moving hungrily against hers, her curves melting into his solid contours.
And she responded. Instinctively, wildly she responded. Her hands wrapped around the wide expanse of his shoulders, clasping him closer, reveling in the exotic feel of his muscles bunching and shifting beneath her touch. The raw power of his physical form was intoxicating, and she gave herself over to the delirium of the moment.
Nicholas groaned low in his chest and fell back into the mattress, pulling Mira down on top of him.
For a moment, they lay still like that. She was transfixed by his stare, unable to do any more than search the silver depths of his eyes for the answer to an age-old question, a question that defied language, defied thought. And she found her answer there, a primitive cry of “yes” that reverberated through every sinew and fiber of her being.
With another soft groan, Nicholas reached up and pulled her down to him, hands tangling in her hair as he met her mouth in a wanton kiss. She tasted the essence of him on her tongue, drew his breath into her lungs, felt his heat seeping into her bones, turning them to molten wax.
Then, with an elegant economy of movement, he rolled them both over so that his weight bore her back onto the mattress. His mouth continued to move over hers, alternately hungry and teasing, nipping and caressing, as his hands began to explore every swell and hollow of her body.
His large warm hand cupped the curve of her belly, stroking the delicate skin there before gliding down to slip between her legs. Intoxicated by the night and the unreality of it all, Mira did not even think to be startled. She gasped as his long artist’s fingers touched her in astonishing places, the delicate strokes sending shivers through her limbs, but then she relaxed into the hypnotic rhythm he created.
Possessed of a hunger all their own, her hands began to explore his body, grasping for his heat and the solidity of his flesh. She ran trembling fingers over the broad width of his shoulders, as his head slid down and he buried his lips in the curve of her neck.
Her hands drifted across the firm slope of his chest, pausing to toy with the tight flat discs of his nipples. He growled, deep in his throat, and gently grazed his teeth over the delicate skin of her neck.
Suddenly, his head slipped lower still, the raw silk of his hair spilling over her chest as he began to nuzzle her breast. Slowly he drew a nipple into the heat of his mouth. And when his firm lips closed around that sensitive flesh, the moist heat of his tongue lashing it with tender fury, a bolt of desire shot through clear to her toes. She cried out, and her hands flew to his hair, tangling there in a blind frenzy of wanting.