Page 25 of Nightfire

He was sorry. Well, what was she supposed to do with that? He was sorry he kissed her, made her climax? It had been the happiest experience of her life and he was sorry?

Oh my God. What had she done wrong? Had she misread the situation? But—but he’d been the one to initiate the kiss. Had she responded…badly? Inappropriately? Too strongly?

How horrible, because it was one of the few times in her life where she didn’t overthink the situation. She didn’t even think at all. Her head hadn’t been involved in any way. Pure instinct had taken over, something that rarely happened to her. Never, actually.

Well, she already knew her instincts were off, didn’t she?

Even more horrible, there was nowhere she could go with her embarrassment. Her back was to the wall, literally, and Mike was plastered against the entire front of her body. She couldn’t move an inch. At least she could lower her eyes…

A strong, rough hand cupped her chin and forced her head up. Mike was looking puzzled. “You’re not sorry? I took it from zero to a hundred in a second.”

“Sorry? How could I be sorry?” she blurted. “That’s never happened to me before. It was wonderful.”

Mike blinked, astonished.

Chloe knew perfectly well that was not the kind of thing a full-grown woman should say to an adult male. She didn’t date much—actually, she didn’t date at all—but she read and she listened to her few friends and it was de riguer after the age of eighteen to be experienced.

But Chloe had never really learned how to dissemble. She had no knack for it at all. The words had simply popped out of her mouth and it was too late to retract them. Too late to pull some kind of sophisticated comeback to cover her dismay.

Well, you got me off nicely, thank you. Good orgasm, definitely an A, maybe an A+. We should do that again sometime, when we’re in the mood.

Mike said, his voice rough, eyes locked on her mouth. “Jesus. If you’re not sorry, if I don’t have to apologize, then I’m really not sorry. As a matter of fact, if we don’t go now I’m going to do that again, very soon. Only we’d both be naked.” He lifted his eyes to hers. “But we have all the time in the world for that, don’t we?”

Even more than the raw almost-sex against the wall, his expression now was the sexiest she’d ever seen. This handsome, incredibly male man was entirely focused on her and sex was most definitely on his mind.

He was utterly aroused, and she didn’t need the huge column of his penis against her belly to know that. It was imprinted in every line of his face. The cords of his neck stood out, a red flush stood out under his tanned skin, his jaw muscles were clenched. His eyes were narrowed, chips of blue fire between the lids.

He stared at her, unblinking, then lowered his head.

Oh, fabulous. More of that was on the way. You don’t miss something if you don’t know it. But now that Chloe had experienced that incredible blast of energy that somehow left her lax and warm, she wanted more of it.

Sex made the world go around. She’d known that intellectually, because sex was everywhere recognized as one of the most potent forces in human affairs. It moved mountains, apparently. Lifted up teen idols, brought down Presidents, inspired great works of art, moved hearts to murder.

Chloe had always thought of herself as immune to all that, just one more sign that she was destined to spend her life on the outside, looking in.

But Mike had blown that out of the water and yanked her forward. Zapped her straight out of her safe space. Now she’d felt even a little of its power, once wasn’t going to be enough. Not by a long shot.

Today she’d crossed some kind of invisible line. Found a brother, maybe found a lover, and joined the human race.

His lips touched hers, just barely, and already she was quivering with eagerness, nearly breathless with expectation.

A loud ring made them both jump. Mike lifted his head, frowned, bewildered.

“Your cell phone,” Chloe said gently.

“Christ,” he muttered as he pulled a very fancy cell phone out of his jacket pocket and glanced at the display. “Yeah. Yeah, Harry. Coming down right now.”

He looked down at her, a corner of his mouth turned up. “Later.”

“Later,” she agreed happily.

The entire clan lived in a gorgeous high rise that anchored the end of a stunning white sand beach. Chloe was astounded at the sheer beauty of the place.

Nicole and Sam’s apartment was on the top floor, Harry had an apartment on the fifth and Mike had a smaller one on the fourth floor.

When they walked into Harry’s apartment, a smiling Latina—the niece of Nicole and Sam’s housekeeper Manuela, she was told—came out of the bedroom carrying a small bundle in a soft pink and cream blanket.

The baby was fussing, crying and wriggling.