Chapter 14
He moved to the edge of the bed, then dropped to his knees on the floor in front of me. He placed his hands carefully on my knees, gently, as if I might bolt with a sudden movement.
I wasn’t going anywhere.
I placed my hands on top of his. He turned his up so we were palm to palm.
“Remember what I said to you that first night? Right outside this building?” he said, looking up at me.
I did and nodded, but I waited, wanting him to repeat it. Wanted him to deny it, take it back.
“I’m not what you need,” he said, echoing his own words.
I hadn’t answered him that night, but now I said, “Don’t I get to decide what I need?”
“And do you? Do you need…this? Us? Me? God, I want to be. I want to be what you need.” Pulling his hands from under mine, he wedged them between the back of my knees and the chair, rolling it closer to him. I instinctively spread my legs so that the chair slid right against his chest.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Yes, what?” he said, his voice low and throaty.
Excitement rushed through me. My body, tingling since I’d seen him, moved to fever pitch.
“I need…us.” I slid to the edge of the chair, my legs dangling down at his sides. My ballet flats fell off my feet with a subtle movement. I heard them plunk softly on the carpeting like the sound was a million miles away. Everything was a million miles away, except Lucas right in front of me.
“I need…to kiss you,” I said. I wasn’t sure if I moved off the chair first, or he pulled me, but I was straddling his lap, my hands in his hair and my mouth on his.
He tasted like sweet coffee and I drove my tongue into his mouth, nearly frenzied with wanting to taste him.
He sensed my urgency, and wrapped his arms tightly around me, his hands going to my hair. In seconds, he had released my bun. I moved away from the kiss, his face following mine. He opened dazed eyes, watching to see if I had changed my mind.
No way in hell had I changed my mind. I wanted Lucas with an intensity I’d never felt before.
It was like a physical craving, like when you needed salty chips or chocolate. It was what had always been missing with other guys I dated. It had definitely been missing with the one boyfriend I’d slept with.
Craving. I craved Lucas. Probably like he had craved Oxy.
Who knows, it might be just as dangerous.
I took my hands from his silky tresses and ran my fingers through my own loose hair, lifting it, playing with it.
Like some skanky pole dancer, but Lucas’s eyes grew wider and the bulge that I sat on grew bigger.
Taking the stripper analogy a bit further, I ground on him, saying a silent thank-you for the thin fabric of my leggings.
He hissed, “Jesus Christ, Lily,” then his mouth was devouring mine again. He grabbed both my hands in one of his and lowered them from my hair, but kept them behind my back. Like he was arresting me or something.
He moved back to rest on his haunches, taking me with him, the contact now even more direct. I ground harder, needing so much more of him.
“I know, baby,” he whispered. “We’ll get there. I promise.” Then he kept on kissing me.
I wanted my hands free to touch his magnificent body. But I also liked being held back like this, having no control. Because that was how I’d felt from the moment I first saw Lucas—that I wasn’t in control of my own feelings. And certainly not in control of my body.
“Lucas,” I moaned into his mouth. “I need…”
He tipped me, brought me down onto my back on the floor, releasing my arms as he did, and following me to the carpet. My legs spread wide for him, giving him the space to be where I needed him.
My hands free, I reached for his hoodie, pulling, yanking.
He chuckled at my urgency, sitting up between my legs and—too damn leisurely—pulling the hoodie up and over his head, tossing it across the floor.
“The T-shirt too,” I said as I unzipped and peeled off my fleece jacket.
I pulled my sweater off, wriggling out of it while I still lay on the floor beneath him.
I was happy to see that I’d put on one of my prettier bras this morning—lavender satin with pretty lace along the upper edges of the cups.
Cups that were becoming increasingly confining as my breasts began to ache for his touch.
His long torso loomed over me and I just stared at him for a moment, admiring.
“What?” he said.
I shook my head with the tiniest of motions. “Nothing. I just like looking at you.”
He grimaced at my words, but in a cute, kind of embarrassed way. “Please,” he said. “You’re the one who’s a fucking work of art.” He ran the back of his hand from the bottom of my bra down my tummy, skimming the waistband of my leggings.
I could watch him watch me forever. But I needed to touch him. “Come here,” I breathed softly, waiting for him to lean over me, which he did, his strong arms bracketing my head, his hands dug into the carpet, next to my hair, some of it entangling with his fingers.
I snaked one hand along his bicep, like the twining ivy tattoo, wrapping my arm around his. My other hand slid up his abs to his chest, the reverse of what he’d just done to me.
He held himself away from me, still above, but within touching distance, which I took full advantage of. His chest was muscled, like the rest of him, and his skin was warm and smooth and rough at the same time.
He reached behind me and I eased off the carpet enough for him to unhook my bra and peel it off. As he untangled the straps from my arms, I flopped them back on the floor, over my head.
I wasn’t one who typically reveled in my nakedness with boys, but I wanted Lucas to see me. Wanted to watch his lids grow heavy and lick his lips, as he did now. I arched my back slightly, offering myself to him.
“Lily,” he whispered before he lowered his mouth to my breast. His hand kneaded and played with the other one, and the sensation was so intense I almost screamed. I didn’t, though I did moan his name.
“Yes,” he growled, then returned to sucking on me, licking and teasing my pebbling nipple.
I wrapped one arm around his broad shoulders, holding him to me, never wanting him anywhere else, doing anything other than what he was doing to my body. My other hand lodged in his hair, lifting and tunneling through the silky mass.
He moved to my other breast, and the sun coming through the window above the desk reflected on the wetness he left behind, making me glisten and sparkle. It matched the feelings he brought out in me.
His hand covered my wet breast, pinching and pulling the nipple as I squirmed underneath him.
His hips started rocking into me, the denim of his jeans creating a sweet friction against my leggings. “More,” I whispered, spreading my legs even wider, cursing the barrier of cloth between us, yet not wanting him to move from what he was doing, even to take our clothes off.
“This,” he answered. “This, this, this,” he said, kissing my breasts so sweetly between each word that he spoke.
His hair fell like a curtain over his face, over my chest, swinging as he moved from breast to breast. I could see snatches of my aching flesh and his wet mouth through the dark, glossy hair as he feasted on me.
He was rocking faster against me, and I could feel the wetness seeping from me, wanting relief. “Lucas, please,” I moaned as I thrust my hips up to meet his.
He didn’t acknowledge my words, but his mouth moved down my body, kissing and licking my tummy, dipping his tongue into my navel, causing a bolt of desire to rocket through me.
I was really restless under him now, my legs trying to wrap around him, trying to find relief as he ground himself into me. But I knew I’d get no relief—not the relief I really needed—until Lucas was deep inside me.
He must have felt it too, because he lifted himself away from me and sat up on his haunches.
Before I could groan about the loss of his body on mine, he was peeling my leggings down, lifting and moving each of my legs, one at a time, to get the stretchy material off of me.
He flung it over my head, beyond me, to Jane’s side of the room.
He placed his big hands on my hips, his thumbs right at the elastic waist of my lavender satin panties.
It was a sheer luck that my panties matched my bra, and though the bra was long gone, I said a silent prayer of thanks to the underwear gods.
Not that it would have mattered to Lucas if I’d been wearing big, ugly granny panties, if the way he was hungrily staring at my body was any indication.
He began to slide his thumbs under the elastic, to take the panties off, then stopped. Instead, he rocked back on his heels and effortlessly lifted himself from the floor and stood over me.
“What?” I asked, starting to scramble up, my legs catching in his.
“No. Don’t move,” he said. I stopped, and instead stayed where I was, but slightly propped up on my elbows.
He leaned over and untied his work boots and pulled them off, his socks following.
Setting them to the side of the bed, he stood back up and ran a hand down his chest, like I had done.
But where I had stopped, he continued, cupping himself, stroking along the outside of jeans, outlining his large erection.
I let out a sigh, not meaning to, but he smiled a very-sure-of-himself smile. And why not? The guy was gorgeous.
And he was mine.