26. Plateau de Fromage #2
“I know you learn the names of every person who works for you, even if it’s only for a few days,” I said.
“I know you care about your family more than you would ever admit, and that you stay chained to a job you hate out of an obligation to them. I know you spend most of your time actively working to make people’s lives better, not worse. ”
His eyes widened. “Do you now?”
I nodded and took a deep breath. “And I know that when you kiss me, I forget my own name.”
“Marie…”
“Please, Lucas. You are the one I want to do this with. If you’ll have me. If I’m safe with you.”
“If I’ll…” He trailed off, like the very suggestion of an alternative stunned him. “Marie, I will dream of this moment for the rest of my fucking life, do you understand? You are only safe with me.”
Warmth bloomed in my stomach as I reached out to tug him down to me. “Show me. Please .”
Like a puppet cut from its strings, Lucas collapsed over me, a broad, heavy tent that sheltered my exposed body, arms braced on either side of my head. He stared down as if he’d forgotten how to breathe. “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?”
I looked away, suddenly bashful despite my bold gesture. But his fingers caught my chin.
“You would have been a muse in another life. You would have inspired masterpieces.” His thumb traced my lower lip. “I don’t deserve you.”
I kissed him softly, trying to silence his guilt. “I said I want you. I meant it.”
“Thank God for that.”
His mouth captured mine again like it had never left, then drifted down my throat, kissed the pounding pulse there, and began a gradual quest to map my body with his lips.
Every few inches, he paused, looking up through thick lashes, those hurricane eyes brewing with a delicious combination of mischief and awe.
“Can I kiss you here?” he asked as his lips brushed my sternum.
I nodded.
His mouth traveled to one nipple. “And here?”
When I nodded again, he took it deep into his mouth, sucking hard enough that I arched up from the bed.
“These…” He shook his head in wonder before he traveled to the other side. “These were made to be worshipped.”
I couldn’t help but giggle. “Lucas Lyons is a boob man. I never would have thought.”
“Correction,” he said before breaking into that beautiful smile against my nipple. “Lucas Lyons is a Marie Zola’s boob man.”
I laughed harder when he said the word “boob” with such gravity, and he laughed too, the sound rich and warm.
“Keep going,” I told him.
He did.
“Here?” he asked over my ribs, into the softness of my belly, with a nip at my hipbone.
Eventually, a hand slid between my thighs and nudged them open.
“And here?” A finger teased my heat.
“I…” I gasped as it passed through slipperiness building there, then back down. “Y-yes. Please.”
His lips found my inner thigh. “God, I love it when you beg.” His tongue traced the tender crease at the top of my thigh, and my body quivered, breath catching as he blew against my aching center. “No one’s ever kissed you here, have they, sweetheart?”
My breath hitched. “You know they haven’t.”
“Oh, I know.” His lips pressed a kiss to my other thigh while one finger teased my entance. “I just wanted to hear it from you that I’m your first. Again.”
“Lucas,” I whispered.
“Hush, baby. Just feel it.”
His lips finally sealed around me, tongue stroking, exploring, dipping into the places where I throbbed for him. My back arched clean off the bed.
“Lucas!” I gasped.
“So fucking sweet,” he murmured as he continued his work. “So soft. So mine . Open for me, sweetness. Yes, just like that.”
His arm slid beneath my thighs to hold me wide, and his tongue licked inside, tasting my deepest, untapped spaces while his other hand slid up to thumb my clit.
Oh, God. The internet. Dirty novels. My own imagination. Nothing came close to what this man was doing with his tongue and his fingers.
“Lucas,” I whimpered to the ceiling while I grabbed at the sheets, the blankets, anything to hold me down. “P-please.’
“Fuck, you’ll even beg me for an orgasm, won’t you?” He nipped again, then sucked harder on my clit as he slid a finger inside me. “It’s okay, sweetheart, you can come. Go ahead, I can take it.”
With a deep, body-wracking sob, pleasure crashed through me. The arm at my hip pinned me to the bed while I convulsed, and Lucas feasted on every bit of ecstasy I had to offer.
It was only once my moans had subsided to whimpers that his mouth retraced its path up my torso until our hips were level again. By some miracle, his towel was still in place, except now it served solely as a hindrance, less as a tease.
“We can stop.” His voice was low but steady as he pressed kisses to my neck, followed by another to my mouth. “I’d still die a happy man. I swear it.”
There was something salty in his kisses. And a little sweet too.
It was me.
I reached down, heart hammering, and found the edge of the towel.
My fingers fumbled at first, but I tugged and looked down the lengths of our bodies, marveling at the contrast. Mine so pale and soft.
His hardened and slightly darker, like a cookie that had been baked a few minutes longer in the oven.
And the smooth, silky erection a weight against my skin, thick and so oddly beautiful.
A broken sound tore from his throat as my hips instinctively rolled toward his, urging his cock to slide through the slick proof of what he’d already accomplished.
“Please,” I begged again. “I want to, Lucas. It’s yours to take. If you want it.”
His shivers seemed to shake the entire bed.
“Marie,” he groaned as the tip of him teased my entrance. “God, I wish I could just—but I have to protect you, baby.”
Of course. Lord, nothing screamed virgin like forgetting something so basic as birth control, did it?
Lucas’s lips were a quick press of passion before he stood to retrieve a condom from his bag and roll it on.
Just as quickly, he returned between my legs as he kissed me, slow and deep, a promise.
One hand braced beside my head, and the other guided himself to where I was still dripping, still aching for him.
The thick head nudged against my entrance, and I gasped, tightening in anticipation.
“Are you sure?” His eyes were filled with so much uncertainty, it almost broke my heart.
Because in that moment, I’d never been more certain of anything in my life. Everything outside this room had ceased to exist. My family? I’d forgotten their names. Daniel? A ghost from another life. London, New York, S?o Paulo, Tokyo…they were all cities that might as well have been made-up places.
All that existed was this man. This bed. This moment.
I slid my hands down his back, took hold of his hips, and pulled. “I don’t want to beg anymore, Lucas. I just want you.”
“Thank fucking God.” His mouth took mine with another desperate kiss as he slid home with one intense shove.
I arched on a hiss, both from the shock of pain as well as the sudden size and overwhelming fullness.
He stilled, cradling my face with shaking hands. “I know.” He pressed soft kisses to my cheeks, my eyes, my lips. “I’m so fucking sorry, sweetheart. It won’t hurt like this again, I promise.”
“Have you…” I could barely speak, and tears pricked at my eyes. Christ, Joni had said it hurt the first time, but she didn’t say it was like this . “Have you done this often?”
Lucas’s eyes clouded with concern as he digested my question. “Have I done this…are you asking me if I make it a habit to deflower beautiful virgins in their sister’s guest room?”
He scanned my face like he was trying to decide whether I was serious. And then he emitted a short huff that turned into full-throated and unguarded laughter.
“I mean…” I bit back a smile. “Maybe not the guest room part.”
“Oh, Christ, Marie,” he wheezed in between beautiful gasps of laughter. “You’re going to kill me, do you know that? No, baby. I can tell you with absolute assurance that I have never done this before in my life.”
Despite the ache between my thighs, the pressure building where he filled me so tightly, I couldn’t help it. I laughed too.
And that, I realized, was the greatest gift Lucas Lyons could give me as he took my virginity. Not passion. Not even love. But humor. The ability to make me relax and be myself in this moment, no matter what that meant.
And it was through that gift that the pain receded enough to consider the fact that Lucas Lyons was inside me .
Filling me.
And that he felt really good.
“Lucas?” I asked.
His lips twisted into another smile. “Yes?”
“You can move now.”
He chuckled against my mouth, then pulled out an inch or so before pushing back inside me. “Like that?”
A sharp breath hissed through my teeth. The stretch was intense, a deep, aching burn that made my eyes blur with tears. My body tensed instinctively, caught between want and discomfort.
“Y-yes,” I managed. “Keep going.” And I meant it.
Lucas eased in a little farther, and I whimpered, my fingers curling against the thick ridge of his shoulders. It still hurt—God, it hurt —but not in a way that made me want to stop. It was the kind of pain that promised something more.
“That’s it,” he hummed as he rocked into me again, like he himself was held together by just a thread. “That’s it, baby. You’re doing so good.”
My thighs trembled around his hips as he continued pushing, the burn still there but shifting, morphing into something warmer. Fuller. Deeper. The pain was blurring into pleasure, steadier with every slow stroke.
Lucas sat up on his knees, taking my thighs and moving them around his waist before he moved back down to cover me. “Squeeze me. Yes, just like that. Does that help?”
To my surprise, it did. He slid in deeper still, and I arched against him, this time out of pleasure as the thick base of his cock rubbed against my clit. “ Oh !”
“You take me so well.” His lips skimmed my temple as he started to move with more rhythm. “Just like I knew you would.”
I squirmed against him, needing more, but having no clue how to do it. “Lucas, please. I need?—”
“I know, sweetheart.” Balanced on one hand flattened beside my shoulder, he slid his other hand between us, finding the sensitive bundle of nerves with his thumb. “Does that feel good?”
“Umm.” I was reduced to a simple moan.
He thrust again, harder now, and my breath hitched. Not from pain—not anymore—but from a ripple of something deep just beneath it.
“I knew you’d be perfect at this, perfect for me,” Lucas mumbled as a droplet of sweat made its way down his forehead.
His pace was careful, but growing more confident, fully on his way to unraveling completely.
“Knew it the second I saw you. Saw that mouth. That beautiful body. You can’t hide from me, Marie. You can never hide from me.”
Somehow, through the haze of sensation and the tears clinging to my lashes, I believed him.
“I didn’t know,” I whispered.
That feeling was building like a kettle ready to boil over. Oh, God, I wanted to sing like that kettle. Wanted the pressure to be released.
“I didn’t know how—oh, Lucas —how goooooood ?—”
“That’s it, baby. Fall apart for me.” His hips and fingers moved with his words. “Just. Like. That .”
The orgasm slammed into me like a wave, and I was the shore on which it broke. A sob burst from my throat as pleasure crashed through me. The release and the fullness and the heat of him inside me—oh God , it was so much, too much.
Hot tears spilled down my face as my body and soul shattered.
“Lucas.” His name was a plea and a gasp. Lost in this sea of too many emotions to count.
Lucas’s groan was raw as he thrust deep one last time and came with me.
“Fuck, Marie— fuck, ” he rumbled against my neck, pulsing and still moving in instinctive rolls of his hips that drew the pleasure out. “You’re perfect. So fucking sweet and perfect. I knew it. I always knew it.”
But I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t stop crying. Tears spilled and sobs choked the scant words I had.
“Marie?” Balanced on both forearms now, Lucas framed my face with his hands. “Baby—fuck—did I hurt you?”
“Oh my God,” I whimpered in between gasps. “I’m okay, I’m just—why am I—what’s wrong with me? Do people usually cry during sex?” I tried in vain to blink my tears away. It didn’t work.
“You’re okay.” Lucas looked like a relieved statue as he managed to regain his breath. “I think it’s…only when it…means something.”
“You—” I hiccupped. “You think ?”
Our eyes met. And then we both laughed—well, I laughed and cried at the same time, which I hadn’t thought was possible until then.
“I think , yeah.” Lucas was still chuckling. “That part…it’s a first for me too.”
As our laughter died down, we stared at each other again. Lucas wiped the lingering tears from my eyes before he kissed the rest of them away.
“Thank you,” he whispered. “You gave me a gift tonight. I’ll never forget it.”
My arms came around his shoulders, holding him close. “You’re not going to leave me now, are you? If I find another note in the morning, I will send Xavier to hunt you down. You’ll rot in a British prison.”
That provoked another soft chuckle before his kiss found my cheek. He burrowed into me, showing no signs of moving, not even to pull out. I didn’t want him to either.
“Not unless you ask,” he said. “Although I should probably clean you up, sweetheart.”
“Not yet.” I tightened my grip. “Not quite yet.”
His answer was to stay.
No shift. No retreat. No barrier between us.
Just Lucas—wrapped around me, inside me, holding me like I was the only thing keeping him steady.
One more thing to find just a little bit funny. Because somehow, I felt the same.