He pulled away abruptly, and I squeaked from the loss. “Damian.” I said his name, breathless and panting as I leaned back to look at his face.
“For fuck’s sake, don’t move.” His voice was a husky demand.
The light was dim, but I was so close that I could see his face.
His eyes were a deep, swirling green, a color way different from the light peridot they’d been earlier.
Damian was breathing just as heavily as I was, and his tormented expression made my heart ache.
“Are you okay?” I asked softly, my pulse still racing.
He pinned me with his gaze. “Give me a minute. It’s not like I can get you naked and shag you right here in this seat.”
My eyes grew wider. I knew what it meant to shag someone. Was that really what he wanted to do? Did Damian really want to fuck me right here, right now? “You want to do that?” I asked hesitantly.
“Do you really have to ask that question?” he queried in a dangerous tone.
I took a deep breath that came out in a shaky exhalation.
No. I probably didn’t need to hear him confirm that. Not after a kiss that had shaken me to my core.
“Never mind,” I said hastily.
Maybe it was just really hard for me to understand how a man like Damian could kiss me like that, like he really…wanted me.
Like he needed me, even.
What the hell?
Granted, my head was a little fuzzy from too many cocktails, but I knew no guy had ever consumed me with a single kiss. In fact, no man had ever moved me that way with any kind of touch, sexual or not, like Damian had just done.
When had anybody ever wanted me that much?
Umm…the answer to that would be…never. Ever.
I looked around the business section. All of the other pods were dark, or the occupants busy with their own distractions.
I’m sitting here, shaken and destroyed, and not one single person in the area even noticed that Damian was rocking my entire world.
“Hell, I’m sorry, Nicole,” Damian said gutturally. “I’m acting like a tosser.”
I shot him a small smile. “I take it a tosser is a bad thing?”
“An asshole in American terms,” he informed me. “A huge asshole.”
There was no way for Damian to know that I was actually kind of flattered that he wanted to rip off my clothes and fuck me.
I shrugged. “It’s okay. I guess it’s just strange. Nobody has ever really wanted me that much.”
Okay, maybe that sounded pathetic, but my mouth hadn’t really had a filter for the last few hours. I’d probably said quite a few things I wouldn’t normally say to a near stranger.
But was Damian still a stranger, though? After we’d had our tongues down each other’s throats and all?
“I’m fairly certain you can feel the proof of my attraction against your ass,” he said dryly.
I nodded. He’d been hard since the moment I’d landed in his lap, but I’d chalked that up to surprise or an involuntary reaction to any woman landing on top of a man.
He rubbed a hand over his face, and responded like he’d read my mind. “I want you, Nicole. I’m not some randy adolescent who can’t control my dick.”
I nodded again. “I think I’m starting to get that now.”
And it was kind of scary.
Men who looked like Damian generally were not attracted to a woman like me.
In my thirty-two years of existence, no one, not even an average guy, had looked at me the way Damian did.
“I was frustrated,” he admitted. “And I normally don’t get frustrated.”
His voice sounded like he’d found some leashed control, and I wasn’t certain if I was sad or relieved about that. “I really need to get up now,” I told him.
I had to be squashing the crap out of him, and I really, really needed to pee. All of those cocktails had found their way to my bladder, and it was getting very uncomfortable.
He looked resigned. “I’m not going to apologize for kissing you. Just for the way I acted afterward.”
“I really don’t want you to be sorry for something that felt that nice.”
He lifted a brow. “Nice? That’s it? It was just…nice?”
He looked so disgruntled that I had to hold back my laughter. Really, the man was arrogant. “Okay, so maybe it was a little more than nice,” I considered.
He rested his forehead against mine. “I’m totally deflated.”
I laughed because I couldn’t hold it back this time. “What do you want me to say about it?”
He kissed my forehead. “Something a little more complimentary than just…nice. That word practically made my balls shrivel up and fall off.”
I squirmed just a little. “Nope. They didn’t. They’re definitely still there.”
He cupped my face and looked at me with a fiery gaze that sent a shiver of need down my spine. “Shall we try again so you can look for a better word?”
“No!” I squeaked. “Not that it wasn’t lovely, but I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Lovely?” he said in a disgusted tone. “Is that supposed to be a step up from nice? Because I have to tell you, sweetheart, it really isn’t an improvement. I think we should try again.”
My heart skipped a beat just from hearing a term of endearment aimed at me escape from those sexy lips of his. It sounded so natural. So unpracticed. I wasn’t sure if he’d even noticed that he’d said it.
It was probably pitiful that I’d nearly melted into a puddle at his feet when he’d uttered it. “Once was more than enough,” I said firmly.
No matter how much I wanted him to kiss me, I did not want to feel like I was about to spontaneously combust again on a crowded airplane, whether most of the passengers were sleeping or not.
I’d gotten so lost in Damian, to the point where I’d wanted to straddle the gorgeous man and ride him into oblivion. And I didn’t ride anyone. It was way too awkward for a bigger woman like me.
He moved closer, his lips barely an inch from mine. “Are you certain?”
My body started to tremble as his husky baritone sent my female hormones into overdrive.
He was so close I could almost taste him, and I wanted Damian so badly that I nearly threw caution to the wind and breached the tiny distance between his mouth and mine.
“I’m sure,” I told him, my tone desperate.
He kissed me softly, an embrace so brief that I barely felt it, and then leaned back with a masculine sigh. “You’re right. This isn’t the time or the place.”
My heart sank with disappointment, even though I’d been the one to refuse. “I have to get up, Damian,” I insisted.
“You will, just as soon as you admit that our attraction goes both ways.”
“So I can feed your arrogance?” I was sort of joking, but there was a part of me that really didn’t want to be just a woman he’d kissed on a long-haul flight. A female who had been mesmerized with a single kiss, and then told him how incredible that encounter had been.
He searched my face as he answered, “No. I just want to know that I wasn’t the only one who just experienced the hottest kiss I’ve ever had in my entire life.”