Chapter 14
Lucy
Dane moans low in his throat and immediately takes over the kiss, shifting to slip his hand under my towel.
His fingers are cool against my hot skin, but that’s not the only reason I shiver as he drags the backs of his knuckles lazily up and down my stomach, between my breasts, then to the hollow of my collarbone.
With a tug, he pulls the towel off me and throws it to the ground, making another noise as he gazes over my body.
It makes me feel beautiful and wide-open, exposed and exhilarated. To be looked at like this, like I’m something precious and impossible all at once, makes me lightheaded.
He leans down to kiss me, and I rise up, shivering when my nipples brush against the fabric of his suit.
Dane kisses me slow and deep, one hand coming up to cradle the back of my head, the other still lingering below.
He drags the back of his knuckles up the length of my abdomen, just brushing the bottoms of my breasts, then back down, glancing over my thighs, brushing my pubic hair, before beginning the path again.
It’s maddening, all the touching without touching.
I want pressure from him, want more. I whine into his mouth and buck my hips up into his hand, trying to get him to press down, to slide a finger inside me—anything.
If asked, I probably couldn’t articulate what I need, what I want, but I feel the ache for him like a gaping expanse in my chest.
When he grazes the inside of my thigh, I jerk up into him so I’m nearly sitting, letting out a sound close to a sob in his mouth.
That must break his resolve, because he pulls back, working his jaw.
“Turn around.” Those two words are a simple command that my body starts to obey before my brain can process it. I turn around, my knees sinking into the soft cushions of the couch.
Dane is behind me instantly, his mouth hot on the side of my neck, his arms encircling me, hands palming my breasts, which feel heavy now, needy and sensitive to the touch.
“I like looking at you,” he murmurs, removing one hand from me.
I hear, faintly, the rustle of his pants falling to the floor, the ripping of a condom wrapper, and it sends an anticipatory shudder up the length of my body.
“But this position can be better. I can touch you, you can touch yourself, we can go deeper—”
I’m nothing but sounds and feelings, and I let out another choking gulp now, reaching for him, so desperate for his touch I could cry.
“Please,” I whisper, rocking my hips back into him, finding his boxers still in the way. “Show me, Dane.”
He hums, deep and long, the sound morphing into a moan as he takes my hands and plants them on the back of the couch, before dragging his palms down either side of my spine and gripping my hips, his hands massaging, his hips thrusting gently against me.
I hear the faint rustle of his boxers falling, hitting the ground.
His cock is hard, and when I feel it bump against where I’m wet for him, I can practically swallow my heartbeat, all tangled up with the taste of him. Giddy isn’t the right word, but it’s the only word that comes to mind to describe the desire and anticipation mounting inside me.
“Tell me when you’re ready,” Dane whispers, before leaning down and planting a kiss on my back. He follows that one with a smattering of kisses up around my shoulders and the back of my neck, and I’m so breathless from them that I can’t answer him for a long moment.
Then, finally, I gasp, “I’m ready.”
I wait for him to find me, to push inside, but he doesn’t. Instead, tightening his hands on my hips, he says, “Tell me you want me, Lucy.”
Another thrill races up my spine, and I rush to say it, “I need you, Dane. I need your cock, I want—”
I’m not able to finish that thought, because Dane notches in my entrance, then pushes inside me in one smooth, full movement.
Gasping, I rock forward. It’s a stretch just to the point of pain, but no further, and he pauses, mercifully giving me a moment to adjust to him from this angle.
I’ve been using the toys—specifically the vibrating dildo he gave me—but that has felt nothing like this. He’s right—it is deeper, recreating that feeling from the plane and amplifying it by a million.
“Fuck,” I choke, and Dane growls, pulls out laboriously, his hands shaking on me from the effort of taking it slow. I lay my cheek against the back of the couch, breathing and moaning and letting out noises of pleasure that seem to make it harder for him to stay in control.
Then, he’s fucking me, his hand hot and massive on my back, his cock opening me up and building that pleasure. Even more than mine, more than that dizzying tightness in my lower belly, is how he shows how much he wants me.
The way he touches me, grabbing and massaging, caressing, reaching up to palm a breast then lowering his hand, finding me between my legs and running the pad of his finger over my clit, fast and loose.
“Touch yourself,” he commands, voice rough, and I do, replacing his hand with my own, letting out another near-sob at the combined pleasure of that and his length inside me.
I take all of him, and he murmurs his praises in my ear. You’re such a good girl, and take my cock just like that, sweetheart, and I love how you look like this, bent over for me.
Between his grasping hand and his words, my desire starts to pant inside me, and I start to beg.
“Harder.”
“Faster, please, Dane.”
And he complies each time, letting out grunts of satisfaction, indications to me that he likes me asking for what I want.
In the height of the moment, he reaches up and tangles his hand around my hair, tugging it gently so I have to look up, my back arching. Without meaning to, I glance to the side and see the image of us reflected in the windows that line the suite.
On the other side is Amsterdam. Perhaps the entire city is watching.
But in the reflection is us.
Me, bent over the couch, hair wound up in his hand. Dane, tall and strong, lithe abdomen giving way to a broad chest, his arm flexing as he holds my hair, his other hand tight on my hip, his eyes shut, chin down, a look of utter need on his face.
And, at the sight of that—of him fucking me so determinedly—I come.
It’s a tidal wave, and the moment I tighten around him, he picks up the pace, so we both chase the orgasm together. My fingers are numb on my clit, and no matter what I do, it’s like I can’t get close enough to him, can’t take him deep enough to satisfy the itch.
When it’s over, I go boneless, sweaty and breathing hard, and he leans down, clearly just as affected as me.
“I shouldn’t be winded,” I joke, when he plants a kiss on my temple and turns, heading into the bathroom. A moment later, he returns with a warm cloth. “You did all the work.”
“You were not star-fishing, Lucy,” he says, simply, and I think that he’s going to retreat back to his room, call this a lesson in the books, but he doesn’t.
Instead, he sits down on the couch—still nude—and takes me into his lap like it’s nothing, settling a blanket over me and playing absently with my hair.
It’s intimate. I wonder if I should press the issue, ask if this is something I need to study up on, too—after-sex cuddling. I could ask if it’s standard for a one-night stand. A courtesy.
But I don’t, because if he’s not already, I don’t want to prompt him to think about it.
We sit like that, warm and comfortable, for long enough that I start to doze off, then Dane’s phone rings from the pocket of his pants on the floor.
It makes me jump, and his hands tighten on me.
“Are you going to get it?” I ask, when the ringing stops for a moment, then starts again.
“No.” He says it definitively enough that I think that’s all he has to say, but then, quieter, he says, “It’s my father.”
That hangs in the air for a moment, and slowly, I raise my hand to his chest, running my fingertips over his skin. It’s satiny and warm, and, oddly, I’m struck by his humanity.
Obviously, I’m aware of the fact that he’s a person. But you hear about the Dane Rourke enough, and he starts to seem more like a myth. You spend enough time around him, and his intimidating nature starts to convince you that he’s more stone than flesh.
I’ve felt him, touched him, and after he said robotically that what we did was a mistake, even I started thinking of him as a being without weakness, without any soft spots.
But he has them. I can feel them under my fingers and hear them in the way he says my father.
“You don’t answer his calls?” I venture, hoping he’ll talk about it.
He shrugs a shoulder, then tucks a lock of hair behind my ear, “Sometimes. Not now. Usually, I avoid them for as long as I can.”
“Why?”
He’s quiet for a long stretch, then, “I’ve never leaned on my father for much.
When my mother died, we grieved her separately, despite the fact that we were the two people in the world who loved her most. He’s always tended to think of me more as a project, and less as a son.
It made me who I am, and I’m grateful to him.
Indebted to him, actually. But he tends to try to take advantage of that debt as frequently as he can. The pressure can be…”
In an uncharacteristic move, Dane trails off, and I bite my tongue, surprised at the tears that push at the backs of my eyes. Partly for what he’s going through, and partly for how much I can relate to the feeling. Loving a parent and resenting them at the same time. “That sounds awful.”
His gaze refocuses on me, and he tightens his grip, like reminding himself that I’m here.
“When do you get to paint, Lucy?”
The question is so surprising—and a blatant change of conversation—that it takes me a second to grapple with it, before coming up with an answer that feels right. “After leaving the office in the evenings sometimes, and more so on the weekends.”
“Is there something you want to do with your art?”