Chapter 7
7
LUCAS
I just lost a major battle. That battle was with the growing erection in my pants. I’d been fighting it since watching Darby lick ice cream off that spoon. At the time, I was pretty sure she had no idea she was even turning me on, but the bomb she just dropped had confirmed it. This woman was clueless about the effect she was having on me.
I looked at her then, and I knew all efforts to keep my expression neutral had failed as well. Another battle lost. My desire for her had to be showing in my eyes. In my clenched jaw. In the way my chest rose and fell dramatically with every breath.
“You’re telling me you’ve never been with a man?” I asked.
Darby shook her head. “Never. I’m bad about knowing I want something and not being able to pinpoint exactly what it is.”
I narrowed my eyes at her, suddenly noticing out of the corner of my eye that her chest was rising and falling too. It was hard enough to keep my attention on her face instead of those generous curves.
“Until now,” she said.
My eyebrows rose. “Until now?”
She took a deep breath and turned to look at the fire. If that made it easier for her to open up to me, I was all for it. Maybe it would give me a few minutes to get this erection in check.
“It’s crazy, considering my car’s all smashed up,” she said. “But from the second I saw you, I knew this was different. This is what I’ve been looking for my whole life.”
She was only twenty-three, and I was assuming she hadn’t even thought about guys until at least the age of eight or nine, maybe even older. Still, no matter how I tried to justify keeping her at arm’s length, the truth was, her words went straight to my heart. They were exactly what I wanted to hear.
“I feel the same,” I said. “And I suck at this stuff. I’ve been with women before, of course.”
Shit. I probably shouldn’t have said that. It was a complete dick move to bring up other women in front of her, but she should know some things about me before we took this any further.
“But I’ve never gotten close to any of them, even the ones I actually dated.”
Sighing, I turned to face the fire. Yeah, it was definitely easier to open up this way. Looking at Darby just tied my brain in knots.
“When your own mom doesn’t want you, I guess you don’t really feel like anyone else will either,” I said in a quiet voice.
She was looking at me now. I saw that out of the corner of my eye. I maintained my focus on the fire.
“My dad raised me,” I continued. “He was a son of a bitch, but at least he kept me out of the foster care system. Although hell, maybe I would have been better off.”
I was cussing a lot. Not something I usually did in front of a classy woman like this. The subject got me fired up, though.
“Mostly, I raised myself,” I said. “As long as I stayed out of trouble and got passing grades, he left me alone. One fuck up, though, and…” I shook my head. “Well, it didn’t go well for me.”
She didn’t need to know about any of that. In fact, if I could protect this woman from all the nastiness in the world, I would. I’d wrap my arms around her and make sure nothing bad ever got to her.
But what I didn’t count on was how I’d feel when she reached over and put her hand on my arm. I was the one who wanted arms wrapped around me. I wanted the love of a good woman and maybe a family of my own someday. Kids I’d raise better than my own dad raised me. I’d right those wrongs if it took me the rest of my life to do it.
“Where is he now?” she asked, leaving her hand on my arm.
I took a deep breath and let it out. “Dead. I guess technically he’s in a cemetery over in Adairsville. His body is, anyway.”
He took his own life, but I wasn’t going to mention that. He didn’t even leave a note. But it wasn’t like he would have bared his soul in one final letter.
No, I had to get closure on my own. And that closure was telling myself I didn’t need a family. I was just fine on my own.
“You deserve better,” Darby said. “You deserved a mother and a father who loved you and raised you right.”
My mother was dead too. I’d avoided trying to track her down for years, but a couple of years ago, I went online and paid some money for her death certificate. She died of a drug overdose in New Orleans, of all places. How she’d ended up there was a mystery, but it didn’t really matter. All that mattered was I had no family. Not even an aunt or uncle I could track down. I was truly alone.
Until now. Until I met this woman seated beside me. She gave me hope that maybe my life could be more than just work and hanging around this cabin.
“Are you sure?” I looked over at her. After the words were out, I worried I’d been too vague. The quick shift in topic would throw her off. She’d have every right to have changed her mind about sleeping with me now that she knew who I really was. I had to give her that chance. “Are you sure you want to share my bed naked?”
She tilted her head slightly, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “Later,” she said. “Right now, I want you to kiss me.”
She didn’t have to ask me twice. I shifted until I was facing her, then slid my hand beneath the blanket, finding her waist and tugging her toward me.
She came willingly, moving even farther than I would have expected. She was still moving as our lips met, climbing on top of me, straddling me like a woman who’d had experience with this sort of thing. In fact, everything about her, from the way she kissed to her hands moving over my back, would have led me to believe she’d had tons of experience— if I didn’t know better. But part of that was just how natural everything felt with her.
My hands moved over her lower back, then cupped her ass with a hunger I’d never experienced before. The difference this time was that I wasn’t holding back. This time I was opening my heart, my home, and everything I had to a woman I’d just met, and it all felt right.
As our tongues tangled, our hands explored, and within seconds, I had both her shirts untucked and was running my hands over her bare skin. She felt so good—so warm and soft. And when she moaned against my mouth, it was almost my undoing.
While she returned my kisses, she arched away slightly so she could move her hands between us. I moaned against her mouth as she began slowly gyrating her hips, the movement rubbing her along my erection. Too much of that and I’d come in my jeans.
I was so focused on what was going on down below, I didn’t even notice she was unbuttoning my shirt until a sizable chunk of my chest was exposed. Despite the fire, my cabin wasn’t quite as warm as I liked it, thanks to the below-freezing temperatures outside. But it would be well worth it when I felt her bare chest against mine.
Speaking of which…
I began tugging her shirts upward, hating to break the kiss but knowing the pause would be well worth it. Once it was midway, she lifted her arms and sat up, separating our mouths for the first time in what seemed like hours. As she slid the shirts over her head, I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful her breasts were—what I could see of them, anyway. Cleavage spilled over a beige bra, and my fingers itched to see what the cloth was concealing.
But as she looked down at me, preparing to go back in for another kiss, the sight took my mind off her chest. Off everything but the look in her eyes. The heat I saw there went straight to my cock. She wanted me. That realization slammed into me, making me feel like the luckiest bastard on Earth.
When she went in for the kiss this time, both of us put our whole hearts into it. I pulled her toward me, craving her like I’d never craved anything in my life. I had to feel her against me.
And as our mostly bare chests touched, I was rewarded with a warmth that shot through me. Yes, this was what lovemaking was all about. This was exactly what had been missing with every woman I’d been with before.
As Darby had said, this was exactly what I’d been looking for my entire life. I just didn’t know it until I found it.
My hands made their way to her bra strap, expertly sliding the hooks through the eyes. Once the back was separated, I reached for the straps and slid them off her shoulders. She pitched in and somehow managed to get the bra completely off without breaking our kiss.
My eyes were closed, so I didn’t get a good look at her bare chest, but I felt those soft, perky mounds as they pressed against the hard wall of my chest. If I keeled over right now, I’d die a happy man.
But my body was already taking it to the next level, my hands sliding around her waist and pressing between us to find the button on her jeans. I finally got them unbuttoned and my hands beneath her jeans and panties, but I was limited in what I could do.
Finally, she broke the kiss. “I’ll take those off.”
Instead of sliding from underneath the blanket and standing, though, she rolled off me, blanket still covering her, and did a little dance as she wiggled her way out of the jeans. I took that as my cue to bare my lower half, unbuttoning and sliding everything down past my knees.
And then she was on top of me again, straddling me, her bare thighs on either side of my body. Feeling her against me was enough to push me even closer to orgasm, but I held on.
I cupped one breast with my right hand and left the other one free for my tongue to run over her nipple as my thumb centered on the swollen bud between her legs. The contact snapped her head down, her eyes wide as she looked at me. She’d never touched herself before. I could see that in her expression. Those wide, innocent eyes were bright with discovery.
Soon, her hips were moving again, her head back, her eyes closed, her lips parted. That image would be imprinted on my brain until the next time we made love, which would be soon if I had anything to do with it. Maybe every day for the rest of my life.
“Oh, fuck,” she said. “I think I’m going to?—”
She didn’t finish that sentence. Maybe she didn’t know the words, or maybe she was hesitant to say them out loud. It was even more possible that her orgasm was so strong, it rendered her speechless. All I knew was she threw her head back and cried out, gripping my shoulders, her hips moving faster, until finally she stilled and looked down at me.
“That was…wow,” she whispered.
I took that to mean I’d done a good job. “Was that the first time you ever…?”
Now I was the one not finishing sentences.
“Yes,” she said. “I knew I could touch myself and have an orgasm, but I never tried it. I don’t know why.”
If nothing else, I’d taught her about a part of herself she could touch when she wanted to feel good. Even if she never wanted to be with me again after today, that would be something.
I wanted my girl to be happy. Even if she didn’t want me to be her man.
“Now it’s your turn,” she said, a smile slowly spreading over her face. Before I could think through what she might mean, her hand was around my cock. “I’ve never touched one of these before.”
Her expression was still innocent, but it was mixed with a hint of naughtiness. It was the hottest thing I’d ever seen.
“Did I cause this?” she asked. “Is that why it’s so hard?”
She knew exactly why it was so hard. She was naked on top of me, after all. But I got it. It was giving her a thrill, knowing she could have this effect on someone. Maybe someone she found really attractive.
She definitely found me attractive. She’d said earlier she’d never met anyone she wanted to be with before me. I had to face it. This woman wasn’t going to treat me like crap or walk away from me once she was done with me. We were both in this for the long haul.
And I, for one, couldn’t imagine anything I wanted more.