Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
I t’s funny how the things that should feel like mistakes almost never do. At least that was the thought that went through Lucy’s head as Joel carried her down the hall to his bedroom.
How many times had he told her that he’d wanted to go slow? And yet, she’d watched him war with himself over wanting her for days, while she would have gladly given herself over to the lust that night after clubbing with her sister and friends. This closeness she craved with him; it had never felt wrong to her.
Mine. That’s what he’d called her. And maybe things were still fragile between them, and maybe it could still go to hell. But as much as she was his, he was hers too, and as his lips traveled down her neck, words whispering against her skin that she couldn’t quite make out, she knew this would be worth it. If it only ever remained a memory, it would be worth it—like all the other memories they’d made.
In his bedroom, he set her down and stepped back inhaling deeply as he took her in, his jaw bunching tightly. She could guess what he was thinking.
“You’re thinking that we should go slow,” she said.
The tic in his jaw picked up.
“You want to prove to me that you meant everything you said?” She kept an eye on that betraying flinch on his cheek, the only tell in his otherwise set, unreadable features. She pulled at the knot of his tie, fully releasing it, and letting the silk slip through her fingers to the floor. “You want to be careful and gentle because of our past.” She worked a few more buttons free before she brought her mouth right to that tic. “You forget that I never liked it when you were gentle.”
She licked across his cheek, already rough with a day’s worth of stubble, and that was what cracked him.
Poke the bear and the claws come out, was how the weight of all Joel’s untethered desire came down on her. His kisses were ferocious, all-consuming, like he needed to devour her entirely if he had any hope of survival. One hand gripped her nape, while the other yanked up her skirt, his hand moving expertly to find the soft spot between her legs.
Lucy gasped, her head tipping back,
He jolted. “I can stop,” he whispered harshly against her mouth. “One word from you and so help me God, I will stop, Luciana.”
He meant it. She trusted that his control was too well honed for her to believe otherwise. He might push her to the edge, but he’d always be able to stop. Except stopping was the exact opposite of what she wanted. What she wanted was for the full force of Joel Morgan to be unleashed on her so she could finally end this four-year starvation. So she let a slow smile stretch across her lips, before lifting her fingers to mimic zipping her mouth closed. There would be no stopping tonight.
A grunt tore from him as he yanked her blouse over her head and flung it somewhere along with the skirt he’d shoved down her legs and the shirt and tie she wrenched from his body. If there was a tearing sound and a spray of buttons when she’d done it, neither of them batted an eye.
They were down to their underwear as she stepped backward toward the mattress. He turned her swiftly, pressing her back against his torso, his hand settling in a loose grip around her throat. With a nudge, he tipped her head sideways and sucked the spot on her neck just below her jaw, hard enough so that there would be a mark there in the morning.
“So everyone who sees you knows what we did tonight,” he told her right before his fingers dipped into her panties and delved between her drenched center. “Oh fuck, Lucy, if that’s how wet you are for me already, I don’t think I can go slow.”
“Then don’t,” she begged, her voice vibrating against his palm.
He spun her, his eyes burning into hers for the briefest moment, and she let him see it all, her desire, her need, her consent. Content with whatever he absorbed from her gaze, he pressed her down onto the bed, laying her back until she was fully spread out before him.
With intense focus, Joel tugged her panties down over her thighs, his gaze never leaving the apex.
“I’m hungry,” he growled in a voice that brought back a wave of déjà vu, a memory of having done this before with him so many times. A memory she hadn’t allowed anywhere near her head space in years. He raised his eyes to look at her intently. “Can I? ”
Lucy nodded, and he pushed her thighs apart, gripping them as he lowered himself, running his nose along her seam as he inhaled, then moaned, the sound vibrating on her skin. When he licked his tongue right through her slit, from bottom to top, curling around her clit before doing it again, her back arched reflexively, mouth opening as she sucked in air.
Her thighs trembled beyond her control. She was ready to come apart right now.
His grip tightening on her flesh stopped her. “Not yet, Luciana. I’ll say when.”
Good God, the authority in that voice. The controlled, precise way he instructed her. It sent another flood of moisture to the place he was feasting on. After two weeks, it was hard to deny that she’d missed him, but she’d be outright lying if she said she hadn’t missed this . The way his body awakened hers. The way he had her begging for it within minutes. His kind of witchcraft went beyond seduction. His was a domination she welcomed.
“Joel, I can’t—” The pressure was already peaking. No way would she last.
“You can,” he intoned against her flesh. “And you will.” He slid his hand up her torso, over achingly sensitive breasts, where he found hers clawing desperately at her neck, as if she might be able to open her throat for more air.
Like a life preserver, she grasped his offered hand, clinging to it, lacing her fingers through his, as she held on for dear life, trying not to drown in the ecstasy. Holding off was taking every ounce of her concentration, sweat beading at her brow with the effort, but she did it, because he told her to and she’d learned long ago that doing what Joel asked of her in bed never failed to benefit her.
And then fingers found the inside of her, pressing upward to her belly and stroking. “Now,” he commanded, and she let the giant wave take her under.
A loud shout filled the air. Sweet relief, heat and pleasure, a sensation that boarded on the right side of pain, flooded her.
Clamping a hand over her mouth, she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to stifle the tail end of her shout. When the sensations ebbed, fingers around her wrist tugged her hand away from her lips, and she willed one eye open. Joel leaned over her, his lips glistening with what he’d just feasted on, eyes lit with lust.
“I like it when you’re loud.” He dipped his head to her neck and his tongue stroked the spot he’d bitten before. “I want you to be louder next time. So loud that the people in the bar downstairs will know my name. Understand?”
There were a lot of delicious things in that statement, but she focused on one. “Next time?”
Joel responded with a grunt as he shifted his body, the movement bringing his massive erection flush with her thigh. “And it might come sooner rather than later.”
“Oh,” she gasped, and he moved again, settling between her legs. “Oh?—”
“Breathe, Luciana. If I remember correctly, it fits just fine.”
Yes, she had the same memory. She had fit him like a glove, tight and snug, but warm and comfortable. Her hips wiggled in anticipation, and he dropped his head to her collarbone with a moan.
“Please,” she whispered, remembering the word that drove him the wildest. When she begged for it, there was no holding him back. Wrapping her knees around either side of his hips, she locked herself in, not letting him move anywhere but into her .
The hard length of his flesh inched forward, and it was like a memory coming to life. The first time he’d done this flashed through her mind. She’d been inebriated then. They both were, but this moment was crystal clear. A homecoming, a welcoming that was ingrained in her mind forever.
“No one has been here since me,” he told her, as he continued to ease his length in. “I can feel it. You’re so fucking tight. There hasn’t been anyone since me, has there?”
Her response was a low moan. What more could she say? Yes, he was right.
“Tell me,” he growled, pausing in his movement. “Look at me and tell me.”
Lucy opened her eyes, locked them on his, and was surprised when she found apprehension there. A very uncharacteristic uncertainty. The great Joel Morgan wasn’t sure.
“What would have been the point, Joel? No one would ever erase the memory of you.”
The force with which he slammed into her shoved her up to the headboard, her breath catching in her throat.
“Right answer. Only me for you, and no one but you for me. This is the last pussy I ever want to be inside, and the only one that matters.” He moved, driving her into the mattress, rough but quiet sounds emerging from deep within his throat, his skin slick with exertion and need. Everything telling her that he was close to snapping.
Her body responded like an orchestra to its conductor, moving to the rhythm of his dictation, her world building to a final crescendo.
And then he stopped. Stopped thrusting, stopped moving, stopped breathing, just stopped.
“Joel? ”
“ Fuck .” His body vibrated with the effort to resist continuing.
“What’s wrong?” She felt his hardness against her, the tip of his shaft already pulsing inside her. What happened? Panic started to list the worst-case scenarios in her mind, but when Joel raised his head, the eyes that met hers were deep with regret, and—sadness?
“I’m not wearing a condom.”
The sentence hung there between them, like a ghost in the room. And maybe there was one, because her heart started beating a bit faster.
They’d never once made love with a condom on. That first night of their wedding, they were drunk, beyond thinking. The next morning, they’d gone at it again, sober but still not thinking, as if they’d never had a freaking sex ed class between them. They’d had wild, unprotected sex multiple times and never had it occurred to them to discuss contraception. After they discovered she was pregnant (surprise, surprise), there hadn’t been much of a point. Then they’d lost the baby, and the sex had stopped altogether.
Until now.
And suddenly, the weight of the possible consequences fell, like a pall, around them.
Joel started to pull out.
“Wait,” Lucy said, tightening her knees around him.
He looked at her, gray eyes haunted with regret, for so much more than not having a condom at present.
“I—” What? What was she going to say? She’d opened her mouth, hoping a solution would come out. It did not.
“Do you have something?” Joel asked, a flicker of hope lighting the gray.
Lucy shook her head and frowned.
He matched it with one of his own. “Are you on—are you—?” He wasn’t a man who got awkward, but she knew what he was trying to ask, and felt bad for asking.
The onus of protection shouldn’t have been on her.
She shook her head again. “I’m not on the pill.” A fact she’d never regretted until this very moment. “You could pull out?” God, maybe she really hadn’t had a sex ed class in her life?
Joel dropped his head into her shoulder again and groaned. “Lucy, I can’t take that risk right now, I’m not—” He didn’t finish his sentence. Instead, he started with another. “The happiest day of my life was when I woke up married to you. And the second was when you showed me those two lines on that test.” He pressed his forehead against her collarbone, his voice catching. “I told you the other day that if I ever have another, I want it to be with you, but right now—” He swallowed. “We’re not ready.”
Lucy shifted beneath him as tears and the truth burned her eyes. A hiss sounded against her cheek.
“Christ. Wait, don’t move.” He pulsed dangerously inside her. “I have to pull out.”
“Joel—” She was so torn between knowing he was right and wanting him to be wrong.
When he feathered a kiss along her brow, she sighed, and he withdrew.
“Wait,” she whispered, running her hands over his warm torso. Her fingers danced over his heartbeat, then she splayed her hands over his pecs and gave him a push.
No way was this night ending like this.