Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Istared at the dark balcony for so long, unable to sleep, unable to relax. I was hyper aware of Luka. He hadn’t tried to touch me, but I could feel his body heat radiating over me. He was on his side, facing my back, breathing slowly, but obviously still awake.
I gripped the thin blanket in my hand, squeezing it tightly as I tried to slow my heartbeat. I tried not to be affected by him, but it was impossible. I could smell him. His cologne. His sweat. A potent mix that had me pressing my knees together to assuage the uncomfortable throbbing at my core.
Adrenaline and other hormones saturated my bloodstream. I had been through it tonight. Anxiety. Fear. Panic. Terror. Desperation.
Fight or flight? I’d done both, but my body wasn’t ready to calm down yet.
Fuck. That was the third F, wasn’t it? And now my body was stuck in a loop of arousal and need I couldn’t escape, not with my enemy only inches away.
“I can’t sleep.” Luka’s deep voice shattered the silence. “And I know you’re awake, too.”
“So?”
“So maybe we should help each other?”
My voice cracked as I asked, “Help each other what?”
“You know what.”
“I really don’t,” I lied.
“You do.”
I did. God help me, I did, and I wanted it. I hated this man. I loathed everything about him, but I couldn’t deny what my body was telling me.
I want him to touch me.
I want him to kiss me.
I want him to do to me what he was doing to that dancer.
I shut my eyes and tried to ignore the lust burning through me. I couldn’t give in to my desire. I just couldn’t.
“Elona.” His hand reached across the empty space under the blanket covering us before it touched me. His hot palm settled across my hip.
“Luka, what are you—?”
“Let me,” he said, his voice husky with something I didn’t want to name.
I gulped and gripped the blanket even tighter. “Let you what?”
“Earn your forgiveness.”
I gasped at his words. How many times had I imagined this? Fantasized about putting him in his place, making him apologize and serve me?
His hand moved along my hip toward my navel. I couldn’t speak. My breaths were coming in shuddery pants, and I couldn’t make a single word form on my tongue.
“Let me,” he pleaded again, his mouth right against my ear as he molded himself to my back.
I stopped fighting it. I stopped fighting myself and my wants.
I let him embrace me, slipping one powerful arm underneath me.
His hand caressed my breasts through the thin fabric of the cheap T-shirt.
He made a desperate sound as he held the full weight of my right breast in his palm.
“I’ve been thinking about this since the kitchen at your mother’s house. ”
“What?” I squeaked in shock.
“I’ve been fucked up over you since I saw you bending over in front of that oven,” he confessed, his voice heavy with emotion. “That night I went out in Houston and got drunk and slept with those women I was thinking about you. I called them by your name.”
I sucked in an appalled breath. “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”
“Isn’t it?” He nipped at my ear lobe and then pressed soft kisses to my neck. “I had to get drunk and high and fuck two women to get you out of my mind. And it only worked temporarily.”
My clit throbbed. It actually fucking throbbed. Betrayed by my body, I shook my head and insisted, “That’s wrong, Luka. It’s so wrong.”
“Maybe that’s why this feels so right between us.” He licked a slow stripe along my neck to my jaw. He kissed my cheek as his hand dipped under my shirt to touch my skin. “I don’t think it’s hate that has us acting like this.”
He was right, and I loathed him for it. I was going to tell him how awful he was, but my voice arrested in my throat when he brushed his fingertips over my hard nipple. I tried to escape his touch, but the only place I could move without falling off the bed was back and right into his body.
He growled and then tugged on me, forcing me onto my back. “Take this off.”
I was helpless against his command. He jerked the shirt up, covering my face with the fabric. I lifted my shoulders and arms, letting him yank the whole thing free. My ample breasts escaped the prison holding them at bay. They weren’t perky or firm, but he didn’t seem to care.
In fact, he seemed to love them. He grabbed my tits in both hands, my flesh spilling over his fingers, and then buried his face in my chest. I gasped as the wild action.
He groaned and started lavishing my breasts with kisses.
He squeezed them in a way that had me crying out and aching down between my legs.
My hands flew to his head, grasping at his hair as he kissed one nipple and then the other. He swirled his tongue over my pebbled flesh, suckling and teething until my nipples were swollen and sensitive. “Luka!”
“The next time I get you into my bed, I’ll have you on your knees while I fuck between these,” he promised in the dirtiest, nastiest way. “Imagine my cock right here, squeezed between your tits. You’ll stick your tongue out and let me rub the head of my dick against your mouth.”
I cried out at the wicked image he painted. I wanted it. I wanted him to use my body, to enjoy it.
“But I’ll make sure I earn that right,” he vowed before kissing my breasts one last time. When he lifted away from me, I felt suddenly cold and exposed. He reached across me, his fingers fumbling on the wall until they found the light switch.
A harsh, cheap light illuminated the room, and I shielded my eyes with the back of my hand. “Luka, what are you doing?”
“I want to see you.” He threw back the covers and grabbed the waistband of the shorts I wore. “I want to see you when I eat you.”
“Oh, my god.” I could hardly breathe as he moved down my body, jerking at the shorts and peeling them off of me. He threw them over his shoulder and made quick work of taking off his boxers. I lifted my head to get a better look at him—and it was even hotter than in my fantasies.
He had the toned body of an athlete, his muscles defined.
He was strong and fit, and he was looking at me like I was the most delicious thing he’d ever seen.
I’d had lovers who enjoyed my body type, who cared about me and made me feel good.
They’d never looked at me like this, their eyes gleaming with appreciation and need.
His tattoos didn’t surprise me. Ink told the life history of men like him. Loyalty. Oaths. Crimes. Kills. I didn’t know what each symbol meant, but he had earned quite a few more than I’d expected, probably during the war between our families.
My gut soured at the idea that he’d earned some of that ink by killing my family, but it didn’t last long. He captured me between his body and the bed. All thoughts of betrayal and wrongness fled when I gazed into his dark eyes.
I kept my hands on the mattress, flattened at my sides, refusing to touch him. But once his lips touched mine, all bets were off.
His kisses were unhurried. He took his time, working his way from chaste pecks to sensual twirls of his tongue around mine.
I closed my eyes and melted into his kisses, letting him have control as he proved what a tender and slow lover he could be.
His languid pace surprised me. He wasn’t trying to get to the good part.
He was enjoying this, enjoying my mouth and the feel of my curves under his hands.
I didn’t shy away as he mapped out the slope and roll of my belly and hips.
He had eyes. He knew what he would find under my clothes.
I was a big girl, nearly three hundred pounds of muscle and fat and curves.
I couldn’t hide that, not even if we’d been in the dark.
If he wanted to enjoy my body—all of it—I was going to let him.
He eased off his kisses. Gently, he said, “It should have been us from the beginning.”
I didn’t know what to say. My mind was at war with my body. My heart wanted this man, but my brain screamed at me to stop, to run away from this complicated mess.
He kissed me again, tenderly, lovingly. I lost myself in him, sharing his breath, tasting him. Maybe this was it. Maybe this was the only night we’d ever have together. I wasn’t going to waste it with thoughts of what was right or wrong.
Luka’s kisses started to drift from my mouth down to my chin and along my throat. His mouth danced across my breasts and then rode the lines of my belly to my hips. He slipped farther down the bed and pushed my legs apart with his broad shoulders.
I gasped as he gripped my inner thighs, shoving them wider and opening all of me to his gaze.
For a moment, I was embarrassed that I hadn’t shaved fully in a while.
I never did during the hot summer softball months.
I kept things tidy and trimmed, but it probably wasn’t the pretty, pink hairless pussy he was used to having that close to his face.
But at his first lick, I realized I didn’t need to worry. He didn’t care about the grooming. He just wanted his tongue on me.
“Luka!” I gripped the sheets in my hands, tugging so hard I felt them pop off the mattress corner by my head. He approached this the same way he did kissing. He took his time, tasting and licking and exploring with his tongue.
But it was the sounds he made as he dragged his tongue through my slit that made my heart race. He was enjoying himself. He was enjoying me.
His beard made the whole experience more pleasant. I’d never slept with a man who wasn’t clean shaven, and there was usually a little rasp of stubble by the time we made it to bed. This was different. There was no drag. It was velvety and soft.
His tongue dipped into my opening before it slipped straight back to my clitoris.
He fluttered his tongue over it, and I shifted my hips, searching for the pressure I needed to get there.
He must have realized I wasn’t interested in drawing this out any longer because he concentrated his attention right where I needed it most.