“I don’t want to stay upstairs. I came down to tell you that I understood if you didn’t want me, but…” She took him in, from the wild halo of hair around his head to the broad, tense shoulders, over his flushed face with that scar she wanted to lick. “But you do want me, right?” When he looked to the side without answering, she went on. “I don’t want you to protect me from yourself, Luc. I’ve been protected enough, okay? Over and over and over again, I’ve been told what I should and should not do—for my own good, you see. Always for my own good. And I’m done with that. You think being with you would be bad for me? I can take that. In fact, I want it.” He was watching her now, eyes glittering on hers. Feeling brazen and raw, she lifted her hand and set it on his knee, saying, “Show me what you were doing under there, Luc. I want to see.Please.”
On a muttered curse, he reached a hard hand out, hooked her behind the neck, and pulled her closer, bringing her face near to his. His breath was harsh against her cheek, but even those agonized puffs meant something. They confirmed that hedidwant her.
“I want to help,” she finally managed to eke out, breathless and hoarse. “I’ve never… I didn’t know men did that. Will you show me?”
His hand started rubbing audibly up and down his…his… She didn’t have a word for this. No words for the motion she could hear, could imagine but couldn’t see. She was dying to see. “What do I do?”
Touch me, she wanted him to tell her.
His face, when he finally spoke, was a picture of reluctant submission, as if she’d forced his hand somehow. “Take off that shirt.” The words zapped her, lit her up, made all the soft parts of her body feel stiff and painfully alive.
Wordlessly, hands shaking, she reached for the back of the shirt, shook it forward, and let the sleeves slide down her arms. Oh, how odd that showing her body would make her wanthimmore.
This is it. My succumbing.
No. Not succumbing. Overcoming.
The thought was unclouded, her decision self-aware, this descent into depravity utterlyhers.
And oh, that got her wetter, screwed her up tighter, and made her ache for more.
Eager now, she flung the fabric away. He stopped moving and exhaled audibly, his jittery eyes flicking over her.
“I want…” he started, one hand frozen in midair. A glance down showed her braid, a thick rope draped over one breast. “Take it down for me? Please?”
She pulled the strands apart, letting her hair cascade over her shoulders, and he started moving again, slowly, the sound of his palm rough and explicit in the fire’s warm glow.
Just as she opened her mouth to ask what was next, he grated out words, raw and vulgar and almost incomprehensible to her ears.
“Pinch your…”
She frowned in those few moments before she understood. The sizzle of shock worked its way from those two sharp points, all the way to that unbearably empty place between her legs. She lifted her hands, almost afraid to touch herself. She was so sensitive, so needy. But his rasped “Do it,” in that voice, with that accent, and that look on his face, compelled her.
She tweaked her own nipples as Luc looked on, his eyes somehow watchful and lazy all at once. As she moved, she couldn’t even begin to picture the other times she’d been touched. What she’d done before—even with Benji—had absolutely nothing in common with this ocean of sensuality. It felt deep and limitless in a way she couldn’t begin to describe. This felt inevitable, natural.
Right.
She moaned, the sound as tortured as the man before her, and he stopped. But Lord, why did he look so angry, still, as if she’d cornered him and made him do horrible things?
And I haven’t even touched him.
“What do you want me to—”
“Would you…take the pants off?”
Oh. Oh no, she couldn’t do that, be completely unclothed, and wet to boot. Goodness, what would he think of all that wetness between her legs? He’d think she was—
“You don’t have to, Abby.” Funny how those words made her want to.
“You’re right. I don’t.” But she did want to. Lord, wasn’t having a choice the most addictive thing in the world? Their eyes caught and held, shared something profound.
It lit her up as surely as her fingers on her breasts.
Shoving away the doubt—not easy when there was a lifetime of shame to get through—she stood before him and pulled off the pants he’d loaned her.
He let out a breathy groan that sounded like it hurt. When her eyes went to his, she saw exactly what had brought it on. That place between her legs was glistening with need, her hairs curled and visibly damp. She hurried to cover herself, but Luc, fast as lightning, moved to still her wrist, just grazing her in the process. That wisp of contact—barely a breeze over the light hairs there—was enough to still her. It also broke through the wall he’d built between them. The wall that had allowed them to talk and move and touch themselves but hadn’t even hinted at this connection.
Oh, but they’d known about the connection. They’d felt it before, every time they’d touched. Only now it went from thrilling to something bigger, more electric, harsh and almost unbearable in its intensity.
