22. Green Protein Smoothie
GREEN PROTEIN SMOOTHIE
*Blend the greens first to hide the bitterness.
S ubtle rays of sun, thinned slightly by fog rolling off the Thames, woke me from the deepest sleep I’d had in a long time.
I blinked into the light, unable to move. Not only because I was so content but also because I was pinned in place, completely wrapped in a man who had not moved for the last eight and a half hours.
Lucas’s arm was draped over my waist, holding me fast in his sleep, the other wedged under my pillow to cradle my head in the crook of his elbow. One long leg rested between mine, knee bent, powerful thigh weighing me to the mattress.
I was his captive, unable to move. And just like last night, I’d never felt safer.
“Marie…”
The sound of my name—soft and aching—spilled against the back of my neck. Stubble grazed over my skin before his full mouth found the spot just beneath my ear and sucked, slow and deep.
A moan, soft and low, escaped my chest.
Then his hand began a lazy perusal up my body.
It slid under the hem of my camisole and found my breast. As he squeezed, Lucas’s groan shook his chest. Then he squeezed again, rougher the second time, like even his subconscious couldn’t be patient.
He thrust against me from behind, grinding against my backside with his unmistakable erection pressing between the cheeks of my ass.
“Lucas,” I breathed as the hand on my breast kneaded a third time.
“So soft,” he murmured. “So perfect. So— fuck .”
At that moment, his whole body tensed. The hand on my breast. The thighs curved behind mine. The arm under my neck.
It was clear that neither of us was asleep anymore.
Lucas swore and tried to move away. “Jesus, I’m so?—”
“Wait.” My order was small, but audible as I kept the hand on my breast where it was by covering it with my own. And with a slow roll of my hips that would have made Joni proud, I pressed back against him. Urging him on.
“Marie.” My name was cut with a ragged gasp. “Jesus. Baby. We—no, we have to stop?—”
“Please.” Didn’t he want me to beg? He’d said that once before, and here I was, practically doing it without a thought otherwise.
All I knew was that every cell in my body was telling me that I didn’t just want Lucas to touch me, I needed him. Everywhere.
I needed to know what he would do next if I said it was all right.
“Please,” I whispered again as I took the hand at my breast and guided it by the wrist down, down until his fingers met the elastic band of my shorts.
Lucas’s shudder consumed his entire body.
“Lucas,” I breathed as I steered his fingers farther down to where they could tickle the edge of my underwear, the thatch of soft curls, and the aching place that yearned for him. For more.
His hand curved around the heat of me, cupping me through my underwear, one finger brushing over the part that had already soaked through.
“We can’t,” he whispered painfully. “We shouldn’t.”
But his hand stayed where it was.
One fingertip pushed through the cotton, testing the slick entrance pulsing with need. The contact was enough to make me suck in a labored breath.
“No one’s ever touched you like this, have they?” His tongue swiped along my ear.
I shook my head and moaned as he pulled the cotton aside so he could slide a finger through the slick edges of me. Not entering. Not yet. Just toying. Exploring.
“I’m not the one for you.” His thumb swept over my clit. “You deserve someone better.”
“Noooooo,” I whimpered as his thumb pressed down and one finger circled slowly around my aching entrance.
“What do you want, sweetheart?” His voice rumbled like a storm on the horizon against my neck. Still in control but on the verge of losing it.
The finger pushed in just the slightest bit and stayed there without moving.
Like he was waiting for me to help him breach that last barrier myself.
“You have to tell me what you want.” He sucked the rim of my ear between his lips and worried it between his teeth. “I need to hear you say it.”
I tried to speak, but the words caught. My body was trembling, hips rocking into his hand, and my mouth open— silent—because I didn’t know how to articulate what I needed without falling apart.
“You want me to finger this virgin pussy for the first time?” Lucas whispered as he pressed that one fingertip just a little deeper. Not all the way. Not quite, just a tease.
He licked my neck from the throbbing pulse to the sensitive spot just below my ear in a move that was as reverent and filthy as the question he’d just asked.
My breath hitched as a sound between a gasp and a “yes” escaped my throat. “Please, Lucas.” His name tasted like chocolate. “ Please .”
But even after he slipped his finger deeper inside me, his thumb continuing those maddening circles over my clit, it wasn’t enough.
I needed more.
I needed him .
Without thinking, I extended a hand behind me and felt his sharp inhale when I reached under the waistband to pull him free of his briefs.
It didn’t feel the way I’d imagined. In pictures or videos, there were a variety of shapes and sizes, of course. But they always looked angry Flushed and hard, so big and intense.
As my hand explored Lucas’s cock, I marveled at the unexpected smoothness. He was big, yes, and broad enough that my fingers didn’t quite touch when wrapped around him completely. But the texture was like silk, unbearably soft under my tentative strokes.
Why had I been so scared of this part of a man?
Why had I ever been scared of this moment at all?
“Marie,” he hissed like something broke inside him.
I made to turn in his arms, but he kept me where I was, his arm draped over me, my hand between us, still holding his arousal. For me.
“Don’t make me stop.” The weight of him heavy and long and perfect. I guided him between my legs so he was nestled at the seam of my body like a promise. “Move.” I could barely breathe. “Like we did in the onsen, Lucas. Please. ”
A groan sounded like it was ripped from his chest.
“God, you ask so pretty.” He rocked forward just once, like he couldn’t help himself, and his cock slid through the slickness between my thighs while his finger dipped deeper and thumb continued to work my clit along with his sensual rhythm.
Unable to hold him any longer, I moved my hand back down to cover his, entranced by the rhythm of his fingers in time with his hips and cock.
“ Lucas .” I squeezed my eyes shut, unable to do anything but feel.
“You want me with you this time, baby?” he asked as he started moving more quickly through the slippery juncture while his thumbs and fingers worked in tandem. “You want me to come between these soft thighs? Feel them squeeze me tight when you come too?”
I arched back, urging him to continue. “Yesss, Lucas. P-please.”
“What did I tell you, Marie? I said you’d beg for it, didn’t I?” His hips pistoned forward, creating hot friction that drove me toward that edge with him. “You’re not quite begging now, baby, but you will. You will, and when that day comes, I will give you every inch you ask for, I promise.”
Just the thought of it set me alight, the idea of his cock replacing the fingers, echoing those movements. How he might press me to the mattress, hold me down while he pushed, stretched me, filled me, broke me…
I exploded with a shout, my thighs clenching around him, my entire body arched backward as Lucas set his mouth on my neck and sucked hard while his hand, oh, that beautiful hand, massaged out my orgasm as it coursed through me.
“Fuck,” he gasped, voice pained, breath heavy. “That’s right, squeeze me. Fuck, just like that. ”
Warmth spilled between my thighs, mingling with the balm my body had already provided. I knew if I looked down, beneath the sheets, I’d see it—the silky tip of him, pulsing between my legs. Begging to be let inside. Wanting it as badly as I did.
We lay wrapped in each other, Lucas’s arms back to bands around my waist, his face buried in my hair while both of us took long, labored breaths.
“The more time we spend together,” he murmured after several minutes, “the more I forget the man I’m supposed to be. The more I think about the man I wish to God I could become.”
He sounded hopeful.
But when I turned in his arms, uncaring about the mess we’d made and wanting the brand of quiet kindness only those slate-blue eyes carried, fear was all that waited for me there.
Fear, yes. And longing.
Because the man he was supposed to be wasn’t the man he wanted to be.
Or the man he was.
Did that mean someone else was?
Daniel’s sunshine face flashed through my mind, and guilt lanced through my body like a spear.
“Oh,” I whispered. “Oh, God . Lucas, what did we—what did I just do?”
Lucas moved quickly, clasping my face and peppering urgent kisses over my mouth and eyes, making me keep them closed, stay in the moment, and forget about the outside world.
“It’s not real,” he said over and over again. “It was just play, I promise. It doesn’t have to mean anything.”
Not real? Didn’t mean anything? What was he talking about?
My body was still quivering from the orgasm he’d just given me. A part of him had literally been inside me , even if it was a part that still technically kept me a virgin, and another piece was literally drying on my thighs.
What we’d done was intimate.
It was world-changing.
And here he was saying that for him, it was basically pretend?
“I…I need to get up.” I pushed at his arms, his chest, at the leg still flanking mine.
He tightened his grip. “Don’t hate me,” he mumbled. “Please don’t hate me.”
Tears pricked at my eyes. Deep breaths, Marie.
“I don’t,” I managed. “I could never hate you, Lucas.”
It was one part of the truth, at least.
It was only then that he released me so that I could slip out of the bed.
“I’m just going to shower and change.” I grabbed some clothes from my bag and headed for the bathroom.
When I emerged twenty minutes later, clean and having scrubbed every trace of him from my skin, but not my mind and heart, the room was empty, a note left on the bed where Lucas had been before.
Gone to meet with the trainer and dress at the gym. I’ll get dinner out tonight after meetings, so please take the night to yourself. Robbie will be in touch.
—Lucas
I stared at the note for a long time.
No comment about what happened between us.
No acknowledgment of our intimacy or even a quick “Thanks for the orgasm, hope you liked yours too.”
Not even so much as an X or an O .
Anger. Lust. Shame. Confusion.
They were all there, along with a hundred other nameless emotions, overwhelming me more with each passing second.
I crumpled the paper in my hand, and just as I was about to toss it in the garbage, my phone rang. I picked it off the bedside table to see my sister’s image on the screen.
“Hey,” I answered shortly.
“Marie! Oh, thank God. Are you okay? I’m so sorry I missed your calls last night. Xavi and I were taking a mini-break with the kids, and we had no service, but we’re back in Mayfair now.”
“It’s okay.” I sat on the end of the bed. “We found a place for the night.”
“Good,” Frankie replied. “Do you still need a place to stay?”
I looked around me. There was no word yet from Robbie, and worst-case scenario, I’d be back in this room with Lucas.
It seemed like both the best idea in the world and also the worst.
Tears sprang to my eyes. Everything was so confusing.
“Yeah.” I fought my tears. “I think I do. In fact, can I come over right now?”