I felt his gaze on me as I worked, and I hoped this would ink a tattoo into his mind. I wanted this to be the image that surged the next time he wrapped his own hand around himself, seeking release. As the minutes passed, my throat relaxed, and I let him sink deeper, then deeper still. He grew even stiffer in my hand, and I sensed him try to pull back, but I took more of him instead.
His breathing went ragged, and an involuntary whine of protest escaped my throat as he jerked away before he came. He cupped my jaw in one hand, forcing me to look up at him. I licked the salty taste of him from my lips.
His gaze followed my tongue. “You like that?”
I nodded. I’d wanted him to succumb to me, wanted to watch him give in solely because of what I was doing to him.
“You’ll like this next part more. Lie back.”
Nerves alight with anticipation, I did as he asked, my legs still dangling off the edge of the bed. He spread them wide, then braced his weight on one elbow and slipped the other hand between my thighs again, right to the place that throbbed hardest. He drew tight feathery circles, and I sucked in a breath at the shimmery waves of ecstasy that rocketed me to the edge within seconds. Need pounded inside—to be invaded, filled, to havehim. My legs wrapped around him, a desperate bid to pull him closer, but he waited.
He tortured me.
Circle, circle, circle.
My breath came in pants, and I reached blindly for him, my mouth reckless and messy against his.
“Please,” I begged. “Please. Now.”
Just as the waves began to crest, he pushed inside. Sunlight dawned with rays of pleasure, and I threw my head back with a thankful moan. I rode out the orgasm on his steady rhythm, my nails buried into his back, pulling him right against my chest. With just a few more thrusts, he found his own climax, spilling his pleasure onto my breasts.
While our foreheads pressed together, his rapid breathing mixed with mine, and my mouth sought his again. The kiss was softer now, lazier, and he stayed there for long minutes, savoring. I grew drowsy in his embrace, and when he finally pulled away, it was only to retrieve a towel. He wiped up themess he’d made—both on my chest and between my legs—and coaxed me back into my usual spot in the bed, where I curled onto my side. He slipped behind me, pulling me deep into his arms.
“Will you sleep?” I asked, remembering his haunted look from when I’d first woken.
“You’re the one who needs sleep. Don’t worry about me.”
“I always worry about you, Lucas.”
His hand slid up my stomach to rest between my breasts, over my heart. “I’m right here, sweetheart. Just rest.”
I gripped his forearm, my thumb brushing over the ridges of the brands there. Quiet descended, but before I fell asleep, I whispered his name.
“Hmm?”
“I’m sorry if something bad happened tonight.”
He pressed a long kiss on my shoulder. “You happened tonight. That’s all that matters.”
26
The Return
You’re lucky she’s not dead.
—LUCAS SCOTT
Lucas was insatiable.
So was I.
After he decided no amount of sex would rip open the wounds he’d so carefully sewn back together, he took to worshipping my body with his mouth. For days, I was drunk on him and dead to the world outside. Like an addiction, every moment he wasn’t with me was spent fantasizing about when he’d return. I wanted to map him with my tongue.
Funnily, Lucas as a lover was not much different from Lucas as a sparring partner—he still kept me pinned beneath him, but the result was far more enjoyable. I always let him spread my legs.
But eventually, I healed enough to leave the house. As I stared at the faded bruises on my leg, greenish-yellow in the early morning sunlight, I fought the urge to cry. Was it too much to ask to stay inside our bubble, to lock the door and hide, disappear into the fantasy we’d created?
But I had to return to the real world, and we both knew it. I had a job to do, and without Lucas’s information, the Defiance was operating in the dark.
