Ultimate Warriors by Joy Nash, Jaide Fox, Michelle Pillow Page A

doing."
          Nariko
frowned, trying to decide if there was an underlying meaning in what he’d said.
"I think I could understand it a little better if I’d been your patient
for years … or if there was something … uh … personal between us, but I’m
practically a stranger."
          He slid
a glance her way. He was frowning faintly. "I seem like a stranger to
you?"
          It was
Nariko’s turn to frown. "Actually, it’s really odd--because you
should--but you don’t."
          To her
surprise, he chuckled. "Good. It would have been a real blow to my ego if
you’d said yes. Mostly, I figure once I’ve had my tongue in a woman’s mouth,
we’ve moved beyond considering ourselves strangers."
          Nariko
blushed to the roots of her hair. "But that was a … distraction, wasn’t
it?"
          "It
sure as hell distracted me."
          She
hadn’t thought it was possible to blush any harder but she managed it.
"That’s not what I meant."
          To her
surprise, he reached across the seat, grasped her hand and dragged her toward
him. She fell against his chest, looking up at him with a mixture of surprise
and burgeoning anticipation. He was aroused. She could feel it beneath her
bottom. The knowledge made a peculiar warmth spread
through her limbs.
          "What
did you mean?" he asked, a faint smile playing about his lips. There was an intensity in his gaze that Nari found both unnerving and
electrifying.
          "Uh
… I thought you were trying to keep me quiet because you thought I’d give us
away."
          "Hmmm,"
he murmured, his eyes dropping to her lips.
          "Was
I wrong?" It was a mere breath.
          "Completely." His head dipped toward her. Nari
felt her own head start to whirl. She parted her lips on a harsh breath that
stopped completely when his lips finally touched hers. Every nerve ending in
her body focused on him, on the softness of his lips, the pounding of his heart
against her chest and her own echoing heartbeat.
          The kiss
they’d shared before was nothing like this, merely an appetizer that hadn’t
done nearly enough to satisfy her appetite.
          Heat
shot through her body, so intense she seemed to liquefy. Her bones turned to
jelly. His tongue probed the seam of her lips, his hand tightened at the back
of her neck, holding her steady, allowing her no retreat. Even had she been
able, she couldn’t stop this. She craved it … had been craving a connection to
him since she’d first set eyes on him.
          Her lips
parted on a ragged breath. His tongue thrust its way inside, staking bold
possession, stroking the roof of her mouth, her teeth, her tongue.
          She
whimpered, unable to control the mewling sounds she made as he invaded her
mouth.
          He moved
an arm around her back to support her, freeing his right hand to rest at her
waist, fingering the hem of her shirt a brief moment before he was pushing
beneath and upward, striving for her breasts. The skate of his fingers over her
never-before-touched skin cause shivers to course over her.
          Just looking at him made her pulse quicken. To have him
touch her was nearly more than she could bear. And when his hand closed around
her breasts, pinching her nipple between his fingers, she cried out in his
mouth, clutching at his arm, afraid he’d pull away and stop what he was doing
to her.
          Pleasure
radiated from her nipple, converging in an arrowed line straight to her cleft.
She was melting again. Her blood turned to lava in her veins. Her clit throbbed
with the rapidity of her pulse. Frenetic heat tore at her as he broke from her
mouth and slid his tongue along her jaw and down the cord of her neck.
Everything he did to her was new, yet not. She felt comfortable with him, eager
to have him lay claim to every inch of her body. She wasn’t scared or reluctant
as she should have been.
          She
reveled to have