“Taylor,” he gasped, his fingers tightening on her hips.
She began to move her hips, grinding over him in slow circles. He sucked a nipple into his mouth, lapped it gently and she moaned, moving faster and faster.
It was too much too fast and too soon, but she was helpless against the onslaught. She managed a cry of warning before she tightened around him.
Nick was right there with her, hips slamming into hers as he roared his release inside her.
A few moments later his hands slid to her back, nudging her downward so she lay sprawled across his chest, sated and drowsy, but most of all…
Happy.
A sort of bone-deep happiness that was both foreign and wonderful, but scary.
Scary, because Taylor had never felt this way before. And she didn’t have the slightest clue how to hold on to it.
Chapter 23
Two weeks after he’d slept with Taylor for the first time (and most definitely not the last time), Nick barged into Lincoln Mathis’s office uninvited.
A startled Lincoln glanced up, and Nick was mildly chagrined to realize Mathis wasn’t alone; Nick had clearly interrupted a meeting.
But since the other man in the room was Alex Cassidy, whom Nick considered a friend, he entered the office anyway.
He stomped toward Lincoln’s desk and lowered himself into the free chair beside Cassidy’s. Then he looked between the two men and frowned. “Don’t these little chats usually happen in Cassidy’s office, what with Cassidy being the boss and all?”
“He was boning Emma in there again,” Lincoln said. “I refused to enter and expose myself to the sex vibes.”
Cassidy glowered. “Convinced as I am that you have fooled around with Daisy in this very office, thus making you a hypocrite, lingering on that thought would also mean accepting that you’ve seen my sister-in-law naked. So I’ll refrain.”
Nick steepled his fingers and let them work through this.
Everyone at Oxford seemed to be dating someone who knew or was related to someone else, but Lincoln and Cassidy’s situation was especially weird.
Their respective significant others were identical twins. Not that the two women looked all that much alike these days. Emma had brown hair, while Daisy had gone blond, and so on….
Still, none of this was why he’d stormed in here.
“I need help,” he announced.
“Sure,” Cassidy said, starting to stand. “I’ve got a free hour. Want to talk in my office?”
Nick waved him back down. “Not that kind of help. The story you gave me is going fine even though it’s boring as shit. I need a different kind of help.”
He didn’t know what was more annoying: the men’s initial surprise or the knowing, smug grins that followed.
“Do tell,” Lincoln said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his hands over his lean torso. “Has cocky, know-it-all Ballantine gotten himself in a love knot?”
A love knot?
Nick pointed an incredulous finger at Lincoln and looked at Cassidy. “Does he always talk like this?”
“Mostly,” Cassidy said. “But before this conversation goes any further, I have to ask. Are you about to discuss intimate relations with one of my employees?”
Nick lifted his eyebrows. “Maybe. But aren’t you used to it by now?”
Cassidy let out a startled laugh that he tried to hide.
Lincoln nodded approvingly at Nick. “He’s got you there, Cassidy. And besides, there’s no official rule against office fraternization. Cole and Penelope checked.”
“Of course they did,” Cassidy muttered, referring to Oxford’s star sportswriters, who were also very much involved. “All right, fine. What’s going on?” he asked Nick.
“That’s sort of the million-dollar question,” Nick said, dragging his hands down his face.
“So you and Taylor. Really a thing, then?” Lincoln asked.
“If I knew what the hell Taylor and I were, I wouldn’t be in here talking to you two.”
“Well, you’re living together,” Cassidy said slowly.
Nick nodded impatiently.
“And sleeping together?”
Another nod, plus a very pleasurable memory of last night. Of every night.
“Well now, I don’t know,” Cassidy said, glancing at Lincoln. “What does that sound like to you, Mathis?”
“Sounds an awful lot like what Daisy and I are doing.”
“It’s different,” Nick growled.
“How?”
“Because Daisy’s…”
He nearly said easier, but he didn’t want Lincoln misconstruing it as Nick implying that Lincoln’s woman was easy. Mathis was affable on the outside, but he had an alpha, protective side when it came to his woman.
But Nick had no idea how to explain that being involved with Taylor was like cuddling a stick of dynamite. All was calm now, but she was the most passionate woman he’d ever encountered, and he had a vague feeling that one wrong move on his part would mean he’d have a hell of a time getting her back.
“Taylor’s complicated?” Cassidy supplied for him.
“Hell yes,” Nick said, grateful for the assist.
“All women are complicated,” Lincoln said.
“True,” Nick granted. He had yet to date a woman who wasn’t. And yet…were he and Taylor dating? Perhaps that was the crux of the issue. They’d somehow gone from enemies to roommates to friends to lovers, but all of those descriptors, while accurate, didn’t feel right.
He wanted to be more to her. And that right there was the problem.
The more time he spent with Taylor Carr, the more he wanted all of her. And he couldn’t escape the feeling that she wasn’t his to keep.
“This about Bradley?” Lincoln asked.
Nick leaned forward, running his hands through his hair. He wanted to say no. Wanted to say that he didn’t give a shit about Taylor’s ex.
“She loved him,” he heard himself mutter.
Taylor might be seeing Calloway more clearly now, and he didn’t think she was pining for the idiot, but she’d never once denied that she’d cared strongly for the other man, even if he’d proved not to deserve it.
“And how does she feel about you?” Cassidy asked.
“She likes me,” he muttered, feeling like a junior high kid.
It was embarrassing how a week ago hearing her admit something as simple as liking him had made him feel as though he owned the world.
Lately, however, it wasn’t feeling like enough. Not nearly enough.
“This girl talk is getting good,” Lincoln said, rubbing his hands together. “How do you feel about her?”
Nick gave the other man a glare to let him know it wasn’t up for discussion.
Mostly because he didn’t have a good answer. Caring about Taylor Carr felt both inevitable and dangerous. The woman was generous, seductive, kind…
And yet even as he fell further under her spell, he was aware that their visions of the future didn’t align. She’d been rather adamant about not seeing herself in the mother role, and Nick had always wanted a big family.