The car rocked through a few ruts until Darius stopped beside a chain-link fence. Nathalie tried to smooth her hair down after the wild ride, even though it had to be a lost cause by now.
“Where are we?” She heard the breathlessness in her voice, a sensual sound no one had ever brought out in her before.
“An old fountain I found while I was out exploring the area after I first moved to California.”
Despite the fact that he was a businessman at the very top of his game, she could easily imagine him screaming through the countryside in one of his fancy cars, taking roads no one else would dare try, finding places no one else would go. “How long have you lived here?”
“A little over a decade.” Once they’d climbed from the car, he extended his hand to her. “It’s locked, but I know a way in.”
Of course he did. Something told her Darius Spencer knew exactly how to get into anything he wanted, whether it was off limits or not.
Even, possibly, a heart like hers that had been shut down for far too long.
She put her hand in his, the contact doing nothing to calm the racing of her heart. He’d touched her way too much already. And she’d not only let him, she’d wanted him to touch even more of her, if she were being completely honest with herself.
She’d been worried about Jeremy getting too attached—but wasn’t she in just as much danger?
They prowled along the fence for several yards, then Darius kicked at a bottom piece until it pushed loose. He let go of her hand to slide through the opening. On the other side, he tangled his fingers in the chain link and pulled it higher, widening the gap for her. “You’ll have to bend down a bit.”
She was wearing heels. This was crazy. But the whole night was already crazy—a crazy blip away from her usual reality—so she gathered her skirt, crouched down, and shimmied through, sneaking under the chain link like a naughty teenager.
The fence fell back with a metallic clang, and Darius took her hand again. This time his grip was tighter, warmer. More possessive, as if he thought he’d already made her his. And at this very moment, she wasn’t sure he was wrong, not when she was so aware of him that she could feel her own pulse at her throat, beating faster, rushing like the wind over the car.
“Over here.” His deep voice was laced with a hint of excitement. The same excitement she couldn’t help but feel herself.
He seemed to have vision like a cat, picking his way through the grass. She could hear water ahead, the crash and babble over rocks. Something dark loomed ahead of them, then formed walls and columns, like a small Greek temple.
Darius pulled her up to the edge, a parapet overlooking a dark hole through which the water rushed. “It’s part of an old aqueduct. Pearl Autumn Reservoir is just down the road.”
Water crashed beneath them, and no grate covered the hole. If she leaned too far, she’d fall right in. But Darius hand kept her steady. Steady and safe, even though she knew that what she was beginning to feel for him was the most dangerous thing imaginable.
The scent of the water was clean and fresh, as though the river below had come straight from the mountains. Cool air blew up, pushing through her hair, caressing her like fingers. Like Darius touch.
The noise all around, the darkness, her hand in his, the closeness of his body, his thigh pressed to hers, his heat—it was too much. Too good. Too mesmerizing.
Something was burning inside her, a secret need that she’d worked so hard to push down for so many years. It had begun with dinner, when they’d taken the caviar from each other’s fingers, then sizzled in the car as they’d sped through the night. And now, as they explored a secret, off-limits place together, she was simply burning up inside.
He turned to her then, and if he’d said something, anything, she might have found some control. But when he simply looked, with something sparkling in his eyes that felt like longing and desire entwined, Nathalie was lost.
She had to taste him, had to see if his kiss would be as good as the fast ride he’d just given her in his car.
Her fingers fisted in his shirt, and she yanked him close, chest to chest. Then she was up on her tippy toes, wrapping her arms around his neck, bringing his mouth down to hers. Angling her head, she licked along his lips, savoring him just as she had the roe.
But it was the moan she couldn’t keep inside that truly set everything in motion. An instant later, Darius was holding her tighter and lifting her off the ground. His mouth came down hard against hers and she had to cling to his arms to steady herself. Seating her on the edge of the parapet, he cupped her face in his big hands and devoured her.
Just the same way she was devouring him.
She couldn’t get enough—the hard, strong length of him as he stood between her legs, the headiness of his kiss. In a matter of moments, he had taken control of the kiss she’d initiated, and she was stunned to realize that she loved the way he played with her, sweeping in, stealing her breath, then backing off to take her lips at another angle, before going deep again.
He wooed her passion out and out and out, until it was inextricably tangled up with his. The stone was cold beneath her, a delicious contrast to the burning heat inside and the warmth of his mouth on hers.
No one had ever kissed her like this—taking, demanding absolutely everything she had to give. Kissing had been a prelude with other men, but Darius made it seem like kissing her was exactly what he’d been dying for, precisely what he’d dreamed of.
And Nathalie realized she’d been dreaming about it all along, too. From the moment he’d stepped out of his car beside the hangar, she’d been hurtling toward this moment without even knowing it.