Chapter Thirty-Six #2
I would have laughed outright if I had the power to do anything other than panic and cling desperately to Lucas’s hands. I wanted to be naked with him, to have everything with him, but this was hard.
‘No,’ I whispered. His hand tugged at mine, like he was going to reach for the scarf, but I forced it upwards. I disentangled our fingers to press one of his into the hollow between my collarbones. ‘That’s where it was.’
I’d told myself a thousand times it was silly to miss something that fleeting partner after fleeting partner had told me was a stain on my perfect image. One had suggested looking into getting it smoothed out, that without it I would be truly stunning.
I wished I’d been with someone like Lucas before. His scent was threaded through with deep and enduring want, but crystalline sadness wound around the edges. He leant forward and pressed his lips to the place our fingers touched.
‘You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever known,’ he whispered into my skin.
‘And not because you don’t have a scar anymore or because of any other part of your body.
’ He breathed against my finger tip. ‘You’re beautiful because of who you are, inside far more than out, and that’s something that can never be taken away from you. ’
A breath shuddered from me. I’d imagined this moment many times.
I hated that becoming a werewolf had erased my scar, but I hadn’t wanted that to be a barrier to sexual intimacy for my whole life.
In shadowy fantasies, I’d wondered what I would feel and what someone would say in the moment I took off my scarf.
Nothing I’d imagined matched up to the reality of Lucas’s lips on my neck, to his kind words spoken into my skin.
‘Please take off everything else,’ I breathed.
Lucas pulled back, took one long second to stare into my eyes, then his hands left mine. His fingers tickled down my chest and stomach, they tucked under the thick wool of my jumper.
My hair couldn’t have looked good after he tugged the fabric over my head, but his brown eyes looked almost black as they dashed between my face and exposed arms and collarbones peeking out of the neckline of my T-shirt.
His fingers stroked my stomach as he fumbled with the button of my jeans. Brow furrowed in concentration, he eased open the zip.
We both gasped when his knuckles brushed the sticky fabric at the front of my tented boxers.
‘Naked,’ he whispered as he helped my jeans down my legs.
‘What was that?’
He looked up at me from where he was crouched, waiting for me to lift my feet. The stretch of his neck did something to me. My cock twitched, stomach contracting.
Lucas’s eyelids fluttered. The blast of pure desire he would have been treated to from his position right near my groin must have been overwhelming.
‘Naked,’ he repeated, as he eased my feet out of my bunched jeans, like saying it again would make it any clearer.
He swept my jeans out of the way and stood, then placed his hands on my hips and breathed deep.
‘I have loved seeing you fully clothed, but I am really fucking excited to see you naked.’
Lucas had gone from zero to a hundred since we’d kissed on his bed, which had to be less than an hour ago.
He had been so deeply unsure of what he was feeling but now he’d figured it out, he was embracing every aspect of wanting someone.
He had run and launched himself off a cliff, and I was more than happy to join him in the freefall.
I shivered as his hands moved from my hips to trace the sides of my stomach and up over my rib cage.
His thumbs spread, like he couldn’t resist the chance to brush over my nipples.
The rub of his calloused skin made me shudder.
He raised my T-shirt over my head, his face slack with awe as he dropped it on the floor beside us.
I resisted the urge to shuffle, left my hands at my sides despite the desire to cup my throat and hide the bulge in my underwear. Everything about Lucas – his scent, his face, his eyes, his hands – screamed that he wanted this. He wanted me. Just as I was. Inside and out.
He bit his lip as his fingers dove under the waistband of my boxers. Eagerly, he tugged them down. They slid over my thighs, then dropped to the floor. I untangled them from my feet, kicked them to join our tangled pile of clothes.
We both breathed heavily as we stood and stared. Lucas had been naked for minutes so I should have become acclimatised to it by now, but it was difficult to get my head around the sheer amount of tanned skin on show.
Since the moment Lucas had recoiled from my kiss weeks ago, I’d told myself friendship with him was all I could ever hope for.
I’d never get to touch across his chest, never nose into the hair at his groin, never see the most secret parts of him.
It was overwhelming for Lucas to have returned after weeks of absence and for all the things I’d told myself not to wish for to be in touching distance.
He reached out to hold my hand. ‘You okay?’
He’d checked in with me after he’d taken off my scarf. Then, I hadn’t been able to deny that being exposed was difficult. It didn’t feel so tough now that I could step forward and have so many parts of me on so many parts of him.
He gasped as our chests met, the hair on his tickling the smooth skin of mine. I eased forward until our cocks touched, and we both groaned.
‘I’m good.’ I rubbed my hands over his shoulders, twined my arms around his neck. I moaned as his hands stretched around my waist, his tentative touch questing up to my ribs and to the bottom of my spine. ‘You?’
He laughed, pressing our bodies together, and his mirth was replaced with another groan. He leant his forehead on my shoulder.
‘I don’t know how I’m ever going to get enough of you,’ he murmured.
His heartbeat didn’t skip, but his words couldn’t mean what I wanted them to. Lucas was so new to this. He couldn’t be feeling the same irresistible pull I did, prompting the belief that a thousand touches still wouldn’t be enough.
Only a lifetime together would satisfy the growling beast inside of me.
Lucas couldn’t be the same. I could hope that maybe one day he might be. In the future, he might want me as much as I wanted him. For now, I had to accept that he was revelling in the newness of sex that felt undeniably good.
I reached into the bathtub and twisted the taps. ‘Shower time.’
Lucas kissed across my shoulder while we waited for the water to heat up. As he nibbled the jut of my collar bone, the bathroom filled with steam.
He made a sad sound of abandonment when I stepped into the tub, but grinned wildly when I held out a hand to encourage him to join me.
My back to the spray, he stepped straight into my space.
His lips met mine, and the hot water and humid air and scent of anything other than Lucas’s want became secondary.
My hands roved over his broad back, the muscles flexing as his fingers dug into my shoulders, traced the swell of my bum, rubbed over my chest.
Despite the fact that his attraction to someone of the same sex apparently caused him no anguish, I’d been determined to let him take the lead in his first sexual encounter with a naked man. But I pulled back from his kiss as he rutted against me. I rested my hands on his hips, stilling him.
He blinked, then grimaced. ‘Was that not good? I don’t know what I’m doing.’
I leant in to kiss his worry away, then inched back to reach a hand between our bodies. I gripped myself. ‘It’s kind of impossible to fake this level of enthusiasm. It was actually feeling too good. Fun as it was, I didn’t want to come untouched for a second time today.’
‘You want to come touched?’ Lucas’s eyes were firmly on my hand.
‘Yes. Please. If you’d like to touch me.’ I was dizzy with the nearness of him, but I wouldn’t force him into doing anything he didn’t want to.
Lucas didn’t hesitate to replace my hand with his own.
I eased my fingers away, my breathing heavy as he explored.
His skin was rougher than mine, his grip lighter.
His fingers coasted across the whole length, his thumb rubbed around the tip, his nails scratched into the trimmed hair at the base.
I gasped when he explored lower, cupped my balls.
‘That good?’ His eyes briefly flicked to mine before fixing between us.
I nodded emphatically against his shoulder.
This was tame compared to my previous sexual encounters but if Lucas announced that all he ever wanted to do was bring me to orgasm with his hand, I’d be happy.
I hadn’t had the same disconnect from sex as him, but it had never meant this much before.
I’d never wanted anyone as much as I wanted him.
I’d given him long enough to explore without distraction. I reached between us and took him into my hand.
His chest expanded so dramatically that I was shunted back into the warm spray of the shower. Water dripped down over my face, jetting across my shoulders. I laughed as I righted myself, shaking the worst of the wetness away.
‘Was dunking me an unsubtle way to get me to let go?’ I loosened my grip.
‘No.’ Lucas accentuated the denial with a thrust of his hips. His free hand grabbed my upper arm, his eyes closing. ‘Fuck.’
I tightened my grip and his mouth fell open. I felt smug until he did the same, adding a rough jerk of his wrist.
After that, I didn’t have space in my brain for anything other than Lucas’s hand on me and mine on him. The rising scent of need and want swirled around us, the warm water pounding on my back as Lucas’s chest juddered against mine.
Breathing felt unimportant compared to keeping my lips on his. We were just about kissing, more panting and moaning into one another’s mouths. His stubbled chin rasped across mine, his tongue licked my lips, his nose bumped my cheek.
‘I’m going to come,’ I warned him. Beyond his fears about whether he actually wanted me this way, nothing about being with me had seemed to faze him, but I didn’t want surprise him by orgasming when he wasn’t prepared for it. The comedown from that wouldn’t be fun.
Lucas growled, his chest rumbling. His movements quickened, his grip deliciously tight. ‘Yes. I want to see that. I want to make you come.’
His words tipped me over the edge. I panted wetly into his shoulder as his hand sped up, prolonging the intense pleasure rocking through me. I couldn’t help digging my teeth into his skin when his cock jumped and my hand was coated with warmth.
Water sluiced down my back as we heaved in breaths together. Tiny sparks of pleasure zinged through me with each idle moment of Lucas’s fingers. My chest ached with something good and whole, like something I’d been missing for too long had found me.
I was jolted from thinking and feeling far too much by a deep rumble from Lucas’s stomach. I laughed, gently releasing him. He didn’t seem as keen to let go, but his hand fell away as I stepped back and water rushed across my body.
‘Quick wash.’ I stepped out of the spray and grabbed one of Louisa’s werewolf friendly shower gels from the high shelf beside us. ‘Then dinner.’
‘Yeah. Sure. Okay.’ Lucas didn’t seem very focused on my words, was more interested in the suds cascading down my chest.
‘Washing and food now.’ I shoved the shower gel at him. ‘More orgasms later.’
Lucas took the bottle and squeezed the lightly scented soap into his hands. ‘You have a deal.’
I turned away under the pretence of raising my face into the spray.
I had to control myself, had to get a handle on the feelings threatening to run rampant through me.
Lucas was new to all this, would want his hands on me as much as possible to begin with, but I couldn’t assume that would last forever.
It never had before. Lucas was kind and good in a way that no one I’d ever been with before had been, but I knew I was a lot.
It seemed unlikely that just because I’d finally had sex with someone I would call a friend that they wouldn’t decide, like all the others had, that being with me was harder work than it was worth.