command and came. Her wide eyes stayed on his even as the pleasure made them go blank. Her body jerked and convulsed with the power of her orgasm, mimicking the wild spasms of her internal muscles, which were determined to pull the same response from him.
It didn’t take long before they succeeded. He felt his release gather then push out of him with the force of a rocket ship, one pulse followed by another and then another and another until he finally closed his eyes in disbelief.
How much did he have to give her? How long could his pleasure go on?
And what the hell was he going to do when he was empty and their time together came to an end?
The end seemed to take a while. In her arms, clasped within her body, time ceased to exist. Eventually, however, reality began to sink in as their bodies calmed.
He had no idea what time it was. He did, however, realize that he was lying on top of Nina, making it difficult for her to breathe. Shifting to the side, he buried his face in her neck and held on as he tried to calm his racing heart and billowing breaths. Finally, when he felt capable of actually talking again, he pushed up on an elbow, pushed her hair out of her face and kissed her lightly on the lips.
Her eyes were closed, and she smiled as he kissed her, so he kept on doing it, taking the time to explore her mouth the way he hadn’t been able to when the urge to get inside her had been riding him.
When he finally pulled away, it was to cradle her close once more.
But then he must have dozed off...
The next thing he knew, the space beside him had grown cold. Blinking, he sat up, fully naked since they’d kicked the bedsheets to the floor. Nina was sitting on the side of the bed and pulling her shirt on. He reached out a hand to caress her shoulder, intending to pull her back down next to him, but before he could, she turned slightly and spoke, keeping her gaze averted.
“We should get going,” she said softly. “You need to work.”
She was right. He did. As much as he’d love to spend the night with her—hell, the next several nights with her, all of them in bed—he couldn’t put off work much longer. “Nina—”
She stood and turned to face him. She was fully dressed now. Her eyes took him in before she blushed and looked away again. Damn it, he refused to feel embarrassed by his nudity or by what they’d done. But even so, he knew her averted gaze, just like the clothes she’d donned, was meant to push him away and he felt her distance like a cold breeze.
And that was good, he thought, as he stood and began putting on his own clothes. It was exactly what he needed to remind himself that, as close as he’d felt to her, it had just been about sex. About satisfying a physical need for him. And about providing a distraction for her. Hell, if it hadn’t been her, it would have been some other woman, probably one he’d picked up at McGill’s. In this case, it had been her, but only because she’d needed to forget.
He’d been her drug of choice, and that was fine.
The sex had been good, but now all that mattered was keeping Nina safe, catching Davenport and solving the homeless murders. Then, life would go on. Their lives would go on. Separately, of course. They didn’t have a future together, not even a professional one anymore.
But even so, even though he fully believed those things, the air chilled even more when she spoke. “You went above and beyond the call of duty here, Simon. Thank you for distracting me. I appreciate it.”
* * *
A HALF HOUR LATER, NINA was still reeling from the aftereffects of her time with Simon but she refused to let him see that. She’d asked him for a distraction—sex—despite knowing that’s all it could ever be. He’d given her what she’d asked for.
Their time on the beach had been a respite, a chance for them to escape their worlds for a short while. Afterward, sex with him had blown her world away. Now reality was staring them in the face in the form of the winding Highway 1.
Now she had to stick with her side of the bargain.
Deal with the reality of the situation.