The Best Man's Bride by LISA CHILDS Page A

an insistent ache. The ache intensified with each sweep of his tongue between her lips. He slid it in and out of her mouth, teasing her.
    She arched against him, pushing her breasts into the hard wall of his chest. His hands gripped her shoulders, holding her tight, but she squirmed beneath him, lifting her legs to cradle him.
    Nick groaned, then skimmed his lips down her throat. His tongue lapped at her leaping pulse and his soft hair brushed her skin. She slid her hands up his back, muscles rippling beneath her touch, and threaded her fingers through his silky hair.
    Recklessness surging through her veins, she didn’t care where they were or who might see them. Nothing mattered but her desire for him. “Nick, touch me,” she invited.
    His hands moved, smoothing over her bare arms, brushing the slight curve of her hips to caress her lifted legs. His fingers traced the wings of the butterfly tattoo on her ankle. “This is detailed,” he mused. “It must have hurt.”
    She shrugged. “I don’t remember.” It had been so long ago and so much had happened since she’d gotten it, losing her father, the strain on her family…
    She drew him closer. It had been so long since she’d held someone, since she’d been held.
    His body tensed and his erection pressed against her hip. “Colleen,” he almost groaned her name, pressing his face into her hair. “I want you so much.”
    She moved her face so that her lips closed over his earlobe, then she nipped with her teeth. He shivered, and a sense of power surged inside her. He wanted her. He really wanted her. “Nick, I’ve never felt like this.”
    Her crush on Eric, her disastrous experience with the high school quarterback…Nothing had prepared her for these feelings, for the need burning inside her.
    She shouldn’t have come to the park, shouldn’t have met Nick for this picnic. Because now her fantasies clashed with reality. What was a dream, and what was real?

Chapter Seven
    Nick pulled back and turned his head, as if scanning the park. “ What are we doing?”
    “What…”
    “We’re in a public place.” He rubbed a hand over his face and around to the back of his neck. “What are we thinking? ”
    “We’re not supposed to be thinking,” she reminded him. But she suspected she found that rule easier to obey than he did. Although she’d struggled to be careful the past several years, she’d still acted without thinking. More than once.
    He rolled to his side, shifting his weight off her. “Did I hurt you?”
    “What?” He’d barely touched her, certainly not as she’d wanted him to touch her. Maybe he couldn’t bring himself to make that great a sacrifice for his friend.
    He skimmed his hand up her side. “You’re so…”
    “Skinny?” Rory often taunted her that she was a rack of bones. It didn’t matter how much she ate, she couldn’t put on weight. She’d never have the generous curves of her friend Brenna.
    A breath shuddered out of his lips as he shook his head. “No. You’re delicate. Fine boned.” His pale eyes gleamed in the faint light that was breaking through the blanket of thick, dark clouds. “You’re beautiful.”
    Colleen’s heart raced, and this time she accepted his compliment as sincere. The way he looked at her certainly made her feel beautiful. “Then why’d you stop?” she asked.
    He lifted a hand and gestured. “We’re in a public place. Anyone could walk up on us. In fact, I thought I saw something—a light—at the edge of the woods.”
    Colleen followed his gaze to the surrounding woods where tiny lights flickered. “Fireflies. Usually you can’t see them during the day. But it’s so overcast.” She watched them flicker and sighed wistfully.
    “What? Are you worried about the storm?” Nick asked, his gaze intent on her face now, the fireflies apparently forgotten. As he would forget her when he got what he wanted. Molly’s whereabouts? Did he intend to drag her kicking and screaming to Josh? He