“Just get me to some place where the data will be safe until I can give it to the admiral,” she whispered.

He brushed a kiss across her forehead. “I’m on it.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

“When I asked you to bring me somewhere safe,” Dahlia said, “this wasn’t what I had in mind.” She swam to the edge of the pool and shaded her eyes to look up at him. “And I can’t believe you made the director fly out here himself to collect the data. Research, which, by the way, is probably not even going to yield a weapon for them.”

“I didn’t force him,” Nicolas pointed out. “And he could have sent someone else. He wanted to see you.”

Dahlia scowled, or pretended to. She was feeling too relaxed and happy to conjure up much of a protest. “He just wanted to meet you and talk about the GhostWalkers. His poor men are struggling through so many problems. Do you really think Lily can help them?”

“She helped us. I told the admiral all they had to do was call her, identify themselves, and she’d bring them into the program. It isn’t like it’s a deep dark secret that they exist. Lily suspected some time ago that her father had performed the experiment on the girls first, on us, and then on another set of men privately in his laboratories. We haven’t uncovered the research on them, but it was only a matter of time. Dr. Whitney was thorough in his research data. He recorded everything. It’s in the lab, and Lily will find it. They may as well come in and let her help them.”

“I still say you forced the admiral to come here on purpose.” She studied his face for a long moment, her gaze moving lovingly over him. “You wanted him to see the contrast in how I was living before, and what I’m doing now, with you,” she guessed shrewdly. “You wanted to throw it in his face.”

He shrugged easily and shook his head. “I’m going to maintain I didn’t force him.” He gave her his most expressionless stone face, but it didn’t last, turning almost immediately into a smirk. He had made the point in a quiet way, but he knew the admiral had gotten it.

Nicolas stood near his fascinating waterfall, almost hidden among the lush greenery, looking primitive without a stitch on his hard, muscular body. Dahlia sent up a plume of water and pushed off, floating backward away from the edge. She knew he liked watching her, his black gaze drifting over her body, dwelling on every curve and secret hollow. There was always hunger in his gaze, an intense desire he never hid from her. It shook her up inside and she was certain it always would. “Yes you did,” she replied. “You told him I couldn’t travel and he needed to get the data to a safe place. Basically, you left him no choice.”

Nicolas shrugged, in no way perturbed. “We had a good visit.” He crouched down beside the edge of the pool and offered her a glass of strawberry lemonade. It was an enticement, pure and simple. Dahlia loved the drink, and he knew she’d eventually swim to the side of the pool and he would be able to devour the sight of her body gliding through the water, her br**sts floating free and the occasional inviting temptation of her feminine channel flashing at him as she swam around first. She loved the water and spent a great deal of time swimming na**d in the pool.

Sometimes he enjoyed just sitting in a chair watching her swim, his body reacting with a hard, painful ache he knew he could assuage at any time.

“Is this a trap?” she asked warily, eyeing the frosted glass.

“Could be.” He didn’t bother to hide his body’s reaction to her. He was hard and thick and throbbing with an urgent desire. But he enjoyed wanting her. He loved what she did to his body, bringing him such complete pleasure. It never mattered where they were or what they were doing, she could move a certain way and the air between them crackled with sexual tension instantly.

Her fascinating mouth curved into a small, enticing smile. “Really? I do so love your little traps. I’ve been here nearly two weeks.”

“Yes, my prisoner. I’ve got you where I want you.” He took a sip of the strawberry lemonade and ran his tongue over his bottom lip to catch every drop. “And I don’t intend to let you go.”

“That’s so not fair! You know I’m addicted to that lemonade.”

“It’s ice-cold, just the way you like it too,” he tempted her. He took another slow swallow, allowed icy droplets that beaded on the glass to run down his skin. Her gaze followed the small drops, her black eyes suddenly blazing with heat.

“You know what I think?” she asked. “I think you’re trying to make me forget I’ve been living in your house for nearly two weeks and doing nothing but playing.” She ran to her heart’s content, all along the small narrow paths winding through the mountainous property. She spent hours swimming in the pool, feeling incredibly decadent. They worked out together in his gym and sparred in his dojo. And they made love everywhere. Wherever he wanted, or she wanted. Or when emotions were so intense they had to be indulged. Sometimes it was a dark and ravenous hunger and sometimes it was unbearably tender and gentle.

“I think you’re right,” he acknowledged without the least bit of remorse. “You’ve been so worried you couldn’t have a life with me, but here you are and we’ve done fine.”

She laughed. The sound pleased him, turning him inside out, the way it always did. The air crackled. He could hear the sound mingle with her laugh, and the urge in him to have her under him, crying out his name, grew stronger. They found they fed each other sexual energy and they learned to allow it to flow over them and through them without fighting it. Utilizing it. Enjoying it.

“I think you’re leading me somewhere, Nicolas.”

“Are you accusing me of having ulterior motives?”

Dahlia swam closer. The tips of her br**sts swayed enticingly. She looked like an exotic water nymph to him, a siren calling continually. Nicolas loved to answer the call. She was calling to him now, with every movement of her body. Dahlia wasn’t shy, and she wasn’t in the least inhibited about lovemaking. She enjoyed his body every bit as much as he enjoyed hers and she let him know.

He set the glass on the edge of the pool, just out of her reach. She took the bait, holding out a hand to him so he could pull her out of the water. It poured off her body, leaving behind little beads. She lay on her stomach on the thick mat he always left out for her to sun on, reaching for her drink. The action stretched her body, gave him a pleasant view of the round side of her breast and a perfect view of the inviting curve of her bottom. He leaned down lazily and lapped at the water pooling in the small of her back. His hand wandered over the feminine slope of her bottom.

Dahlia smiled. “I love this lemonade.” She shivered under his touch. His tongue dipped into the dimples on her back, his mouth wandered lower. “Hey!” It was a half-hearted protest as his teeth nipped, but she lay still, absorbing the feel of his mouth and hands as he leisurely explored her body, his teeth giving little love bites and his tongue licking along her skin. She closed her eyes and laid her head on her arm, fingers curled around the glass of lemonade.

Nicolas massaged her legs, his fingers kneading her muscles. The sun beat down on her body and the wind touched her gently, adding to the bliss of the moment.

“Turn over, kiciciyapi mitawa.” Nicolas’s voice had the husky note in it, the one she was so familiar with when he called her his heart. That single note could turn her entire body to instant liquid heat.

She kept her eyes closed. “If I turn over, you’re going to have your wicked way with me. I rather like lying here, knowing how much you want me.”

He leaned over her, kissed the nape of her neck, blazed a trail of kisses along her spine. “I’m going to have my wicked way with you no matter what.”

“Are you now?” She shifted, a slow, lazy roll over with his body over hers so that her skin rubbed against his skin. The ache in her br**sts grew. The throbbing between her legs became more insistent. His shoulders were wide, blocking out the sun, his eyes black with hunger. She traced his strong jaw with loving fingers. “I have no say in this at all?”

“None,” he declared. “This is all mine.” His face was close to hers, his warm breath teasing her skin. He kissed her, a long, hard kiss that told her his slow, leisurely manner was a façade. He was boiling inside, a volcanic eruption imminent. Deliberately, Dahlia trailed her fingertips over his belly. She smiled as she felt the reaction, his muscles tightening, the long thick length of him hardening even more against her thigh.

He pushed her hands away from him, took her glass of lemonade from her, tilting the glass so that the ice-cold contents splashed on her stomach and raced to her belly button. Immediately he followed the path of the liquid, his tongue swirling over her bare skin, lapping at the underside of her breast, along her ribs, teasing her stomach and navel until her h*ps writhed beneath him.

His arm clamped over her thighs. “Don’t move. I just want to indulge myself.”

Dahlia lay back, her arms stretched over her head, her body open to his exploration. She loved him in this mood. “Go ahead, who am I to stop your fun.”

He pulled her thighs apart and pushed his hand into her heat. He was a little rough, his hands hard as they massaged her thighs and his fingers pushed through her wet folds, but her body and her heart always wanted more.

She could taste her own sexual excitement, lying there open to him in the sun, an offering to him as his tongue made a foray lower, teasing her, taunting her, claiming her body for his own. He always made her feel as if she belonged to him. As if he belonged to her. She shivered as his tongue plunged deep and he held her helpless under his larger, stronger body. He always made her feel safe and excited rather than vulnerable.

He lapped at her, licking her as if she were filled with honey and he needed every drop just to live. A sound escaped her throat. She tried to push into his hungry mouth, but his arm was clamped hard around her thighs, making it impossible. His teeth scraped at the tender flesh just inside her thigh. He lifted her hips, dragged her to him, allowing his sexual appetite to increase. The energy flowed around them, massed between them.

Dahlia recognized it, embraced it, allowing it to take her over, swamp her with the same driving obsession of hunger. Her br**sts ached until she cupped them, wanting to relieve the ache. Instantly he pulled her hands away from her body and took possession of her br**sts, claiming her for his own. He suckled strongly, the rhythm in time with his fingers as they drove in and out of her, going deep, pushing her needs higher and higher.

Excitement flushed her body, made her so wet and welcoming she could barely keep from screaming. Her fingers tangled in his hair and she tried to tug, to bring him over her, to make him enter her. “I want you so much, Nicolas, hurry up.”

Her breathless gasps only fueled the fire raging in him. Elusive Dahlia. She refused to commit to him. It made him crazy sometimes. He wanted to bind her to him, even if all he had was the sexual firestorm neither could ever sufficiently put out. She moved under him like so much heated silk. She tasted of honey and strawberry. She matched his every sexual hunger, never denied him anything. Yet he always felt her slipping away from him.

He lifted his head to look at her face. The sexual need was etched there, just as he knew it was on his face. “Marry me, Dahlia. Stay with me forever.”

She stilled beneath his hands, his mouth. He couldn’t believe the plea had slipped out when he knew she wasn’t ready. He lowered his mouth to her breast, lapping at her nipple, suckling there, while his fingers pushed deeper into her body.

Dahlia’s gaze was on the flames dancing around the pool. They tried to save their hottest lovemaking for outdoors, near the water where they knew it was safer. “Are you certain, Nicolas?”

He went just as still, lifting his head to look down at her. Shocked. Hope was a terrible thing, pushing its way into his heart and soul. “You know I love you, Dahlia. I never want to be without you.”