Sexy Beast VI. Lydia Parks

jeans on but unsnapped, Beth leaned over and opened the drawer on the bedside table. It was filled with packages of prophylactics in all sizes and styles. “Tala said we should find everything we needed.”

      Nicky reached for one of the condoms, but Beth grabbed his wrist. “No. This is my job.”

      She heard him swallow, saw the tent in the front of the towel twitch as his cock surged in expectation, and her own nervousness fled. Slipping out of her jeans, Beth walked slowly across the room in her bra and panties and turned the lock on the bedroom door. When she turned around, Nicky was pulling back the bedcovers.

      Beth shook her head. “I slept in the shelter last night, but I didn’t get to use the showers. You might have been a wolf, but you still killed a guy with your teeth. We’re taking a shower before we do anything else.”

      He laughed and held out his hand. When she tugged him to his feet, he let the towel fall away from his hips. She stood dead still and just stared at him. Damn but she wanted to touch him. Wanted to run her fingers along the swollen length of his cock and rub the tip of her thumb over the smooth glans where a tiny drop of white fluid clung to the narrow slit. He’d feel like silk beneath her fingers. Silk and steel.

      She held herself back, though. If she started anything at all with Nicky, she’d have to finish.

      She really wanted that shower.

      Tugging on his hand, she dragged him into the bathroom. It was bright and clean and the shower was huge, with two showerheads and seats built in at both ends. Nicky turned the water on while Beth slipped out of her bra and panties. She wasn’t at all nervous, which was absolutely weird. She should be scared to death, getting into a shower with a guy who was as aroused as Nicky. As aroused as she felt.

      She stepped beneath the warm spray, and it was pure heaven the way the water pounded over her head and shoulders. She hadn’t had a good shower in a nice bathroom since she’d run away from home, and that had been at least four—no, five—years ago.

      As if she could forget the night she’d lost her virginity. She shuddered as memories flowed unbidden into her mind, how just three days after her mother’s death from breast cancer, the night before the funeral, her stepfather had shown up in her bedroom and demanded that she service him.

      The word still made her stomach lurch. No matter how hard she’d tried to fight him off, he’d been stronger, and he’d taken her. Violently. Brutally, without any concern for her age or inexperience. Without a care for her grief over her mother’s death. Beth always felt as if her soul died that night. Now she existed merely as a wraith among the living, a soulless being without an anchor, without form or substance.

      “Beth? Are you okay?”

      Blinking, Beth dragged herself out of the old and oft-repeated nightmare. She nodded. “I’m fine. Just got hit with an old memory. You didn’t see what I was thinking, did you?”

      “No. Too busy looking at your gorgeous body.” Nicky smiled and rubbed soap into a thick washcloth. “Why? Old boyfriend?”

      She shook her head violently. “No. No, nothing like that. I was thinking of my mother. Of when she died.” But she wasn’t, not really, and she tried to shove the image of her stepfather’s leering gaze as he’d ripped her cotton nightgown off her body and pushed her down on the bed. The pressure of his callused hand between her breasts, holding her prisoner while she fought him. The scrape of steel teeth after he fumbled with his zipper with his free hand and finally ripped it open.

      And the pain. The searing, ripping pain of his huge penis forcing entry through tight, dry, virginal tissues until she’d screamed and thrashed and tried to…

      “Beth!” Nicky’s palms held her cheeks and she wasn’t sure if he kissed away tears or the water from the shower, but his lips were on her face and his soft words were in her ears. “Why didn’t you tell me? I wouldn’t have asked you for sex if I’d known.”

      She raised her head, mortified he’d seen her memories.

      “Don’t.” He shook his head and looked away for a moment. Then he used the washcloth to scrub gently at her arms and shoulders. “It wasn’t your fault. You were a kid and he was an adult and an abuser. Don’t ever feel guilty, not about something so awful and so totally not your fault. He was dead wrong.”

      He kissed her again, aiming for her cheek, only this time she turned her head. Her lips met his and suddenly things were so much better. The old memories faded and new ones took root. Her hips swayed gently toward Nicky’s and she felt the hot sweep of the silky tip of his penis against her belly. She clung to him then, cried a little, kissed him again. They washed themselves, turned off the water, and dried with big, fluffy towels.

      And then they stood there, staring at one another. Beth was glad, then, that Nicky could see her thoughts. Glad she didn’t have to explain how she wanted him but was afraid, how her body needed his touch but didn’t know how to ask.

      She watched the slow spread of his smile as he reached out and took her hand. His long fingers wrapped around her smaller ones and he tugged lightly. She followed where he led, out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. He had her sit on the edge of the bed, and then he knelt at her feet and gazed up at her.

      Suddenly Beth understood the saying, the one about how his heart was in his eyes. That described Nicky at this moment. She saw real love in his amber eyes, felt it in her heart and suddenly, surprisingly, heard it in her mind. Nicky’s words, in his voice, but in her head, not her ears.

      I love you, Beth. I’ve loved you since the first time I saw you. I wish I wasn’t such a wuss. I wish I had the courage to say how I feel.

      You just did. You’re not a wuss. I love you, too.

      “You do?” Nicky wrapped his big hands around her thighs and stared at her with frightening intensity.

      Beth nodded and then she lost it. The tears flowed down her cheeks, dripped onto her breasts, onto the backs of Nicky’s hands. She couldn’t stop crying, and she couldn’t have spoken a word if she’d wanted to.

      He moved slowly, sliding up her body until he stood between her legs and towered over her. He was so tall. His young man’s body was lean and strong with the promise of more muscle in a few years, but right now he was perfect for her. The perfect lover to bring her back into the world of the living.

      Nick wondered how well she read his thoughts. All of this was so new, so unexpected. This morning he’d wondered what he’d be doing all day, wondered if Beth would be at the garden, if the other guys would hang there, too, where he’d sleep tonight.

      Everything had changed. Was changing. Beth’s skin felt like silk beneath his hands, still warm and damp from her shower. Her body trembled. He absorbed her desire, her need for him, and turned it back to her, touching her breasts, her shoulders, the firm line of her jaw.

      He settled back at her breasts. They were small and firm and so beautiful he wanted to kiss them. Instead, he rolled one of her nipples between his thumb and forefinger, tugging lightly, pinching with just a bit more pressure. Beth groaned. The sound of her need, of her desire for him, sent shivers up his spine and made his dick swell even bigger.

      It was so good, this sense of connection. Today when he shifted, his entire world had blown apart. When he killed, it was as if another creature had taken over. The scary thing about it was…another creature had taken over.

      Only it wasn’t separate. It was still a part of him. He’d never in his wildest nightmares imagined himself a killer.

      Nick gave in to his strongest desire, lowered his mouth to her left breast and sucked her nipple between his lips. Deeper, until he caught it between his tongue and the roof of his mouth and all his confusion melted away. Her nipple peaked immediately, drawing up into a tight bud against his tongue, holding him in the here and now. He kept rolling her right nipple between his fingers and suckling the left, increasing the pressure, sucking harder, concentrating on Beth’s taste and texture, thinking only of Beth. Her heart thundered