It tracked, though. Lucas equaled safety, and my subconscious knew it.
He nodded and kissed my temple, my cheek. “You call, I come. They hurt you, they die. They were warned.”
Theywerewarned, I thought. Theo told them Lucas and I had been placed within a command sanctuary. Adam would make sure the other two were charged as the Articles of the Defiance decreed. The soldier Lucas had left with a hole in his neck had intended to kill me. He deserved what he got.
I pulled Lucas back to my mouth. “I love you. Do you know that?”
“You’ve mentioned it,” he said against my mouth.
When my hands wandered up his neck to tangle in his hair, he deepened the kiss. He’d been so vigilant with me since he’d rescued me from Miller, hesitant to do anything that might trigger bad thoughts, but now I sensed the bridle in him, the desire that pushed right to the edge of his control.
“Say you love me,” I whispered.
His mouth trailed along my jaw. “Love is too soft. I’m obsessed with you.”
Longing crashed with the force of an earthquake, and I clutched on to him the way he liked, as if nothing short of the world ending could tear him from my arms.
“Show me,” I said when he dipped his mouth to the pulse in my neck.
His movements slowed, and his gaze met mine. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
The blacks of his eyes expanded while he studied my face. The distance between us disappeared, and when his mouth finally touched mine again, I sighed in relief.
Worried I wouldn’t be able to have this, that sex had been poisoned for me, I moved without hurry. What if certain touches brought it all back?
But his caress was tentative, mindful, and he undressed me with the kind of reverence one would use to unwrap a holy object. Soft lips wandered down my body, lingering first in my favorite places, and then his.
After long minutes of leisurely kisses, his hand drifted between my legs, and that first wash of sensation shimmered through my nerves, pulling a moan from my throat. I’d almost forgotten how good he felt, how perfectly we meshed. His chemistry reacted with mine to create something transcendental. When the pleasure hit, it extracted me from my body for endless seconds to set me in a place where pain didn’t exist.
Afterward, I caught my breath while nuzzling into his throat, pressing open-mouth kisses across his stubbled jaw. He lay back as I pushed on his shoulder, then let me climb on top of him. Bracing my weight on his chest, I straddled him and sank down.
His fiery gaze flickered down my body, but mine riveted to his face. Flushed cheeks. Aquamarine thinned to a strip around his dilated pupils.
Even though he’d seen it dozens of times, my naked body still lit him on fire. A buzz shot through my stomach at the inherent power I held over him, all that danger and lethality lying docile beneath me.
“Lucas.” His attention returned to my face, and I smirked.
He licked his lips. “I think you like watching me burn.”
I did like that.
I liked it a lot.
His hands slid up my thighs, squeezing, but he let me go at my own pace. Taking my time, entranced by the adoring ocean in his eyes, I fell deeper into the bottomless sea between us.
In the end, I needn’t have worried. Even when it was wild and unrestrained, sex with Lucas had never been just sex. A burning ribbon connected us. With his hands warm and sparkly against my skin, it was nothing like when I was abused and forced.
I kept my gaze on his until I came apart again, and afterward, I luxuriated in his touch while he kissed his way from my fingertips to my toes.
“Lucas, when did you realize that you loved me?” I asked, threading my fingers through his hair.
His kisses slowed to a stop, and he stretched out next to me. “That day you nearly killed me. You had your blade at my throat, and you were searching my face. Do you remember that?”
I did. The agony in his eyes that day had shredded holes in my hate for him. I’d known even then that this man had layers, but I had no idea how many.
Still, that hadn’t been a good day for us. “You fell in love with me when I threatened to kill you?”
