Dark Side of Dawn: The Nightmare Chronicles by Kathryn Smith Page A

kicked it up a notch at his touch. Was he saying I was needy? Was he saying he liked it? God, I needed therapy. “It’s a gift.”
    His forehead came down to rest against mine. “You drive me nuts, but I can’t imagine life without you in it.”
    Now my heart was treating my rib cage like a mosh pit—thrashing all over the place in its excitement. “That’s hunger talking.” I cracked wise when faced with something I didn’t know how to respond to.
    “You’re right,” he agreed and the next thing I knew, he grabbed me by the waist, lifted me off the floor, and plunked me down on top of the table. I’m a few inches shy of six feet, and a size twelve on a good day, so I find it remarkably sexy when a man can pick me up like I was some kind of delicate flower. Noah knows this, of course. And he does it as often as he can. I think he likes knowing he can turn me on so easily.
    His lips curved on one side, making his smile mischievous and boyish. “I am hungry.”
    Was he ever! Clothes disappeared as he kissed me. He nibbled on my lips, licked the inside of my mouth where I was so very ticklish, stroked my tongue with his own until my head spun. And then his hands—those beautiful artist hands—were all over me. He could be so gentle, goose bumps raised on my skin, as thoughbrushed by a soft breeze. And then he could inflict just the right amount of pressure to bring a gasp flying from my lips. He knew exactly how to play me. I tingled from head to foot—some places more than others.
    I didn’t care that we ate on that table. We were about to do a helluva lot more than that. Naked, my body tight with need, I let Noah pull my thighs apart. I watched, my mouth dry, as he stepped between in all his golden glory. Noah has quite possibly the most beautiful body I’ve ever seen—all lean muscle and long limbs.
    He reached down between us—I could feel his knuckles brush the inside of my thigh—and guided his hard length exactly where I wanted it. The head of his erection nudged, opened me a little and I gripped the edge of the table in anticipation.
    Noah lifted one hand so that it caught the back of my neck. There was just enough pressure that I raised my gaze to his, and when I did, I couldn’t look away. He inched closer, slowly filling me as our gazes locked. And when he was as far as he could go, as deep as I could take him, he bent his neck and whispered in my ear, “Don’t ever shut me out.”
    I shivered. I couldn’t help it. I liked it when he got all macho on me. I wrapped my legs around him. “Does it feel like I’m shutting you out?”
    He growled low in his throat and thrust deep inside me. I gasped and that was the end of the conversation,until we were both panting incoherently, grunting and groaning as orgasm rocked us both.
    Afterward, we dressed, moved the table back to its original spot and decided on Indian for dinner. Both of us were starving.
    We sat on the couch, entwined like a couple who’d just had the kind of sex that made everything right with the world and ate chicken tikka masala, mattar paneer, naan, and rice while watching Say Anything on Noah’s huge flat screen TV.
    “Do you think John Cusack is sexy?” he asked, dipping naan in the masala sauce.
    I shoveled a forkful of chicken and rice into my mouth as I nodded. “Every woman I know thinks John Cusack is sexy—especially in Grosse Pointe Blank .”
    Noah glanced at the guy holding up a huge boom box on the screen and shrugged. “I don’t get it.”
    I grinned. “I don’t get Keira Knightley, so we’re even.”
    After the movie, we sat together, sharing some warm gulab juman and drinking a kind of chai tea that I’d made from ingredients I’d found in the kitchen. Noah likes to cook, so he’s got almost anything I could want in his cupboards.
    In fact, Noah had just about anything I could want in every respect. That was as scary as it was exciting.
    “When are you going to go into the Dreaming?” he asked as he