13. Chapter 13
Luca
Ihave wanted many things in my life and known exactly what to do with all of them. Acquire. Negotiate. Protect. Win. Lucy is the first thing I have wanted that I am afraid to mishandle.
I feel her softness against my chest and want to touch her there so badly. But I’ll time this right … or not at all, depending on the cues she gives me. It has to be something she wants. I have to be something she wants.
Lucy’s breath is warm and close, her hands threading up my chest like she’s searching for a place to anchor. When I kiss her, it’s softer than I mean it to be. I want to consume, to possess, but she’s trembling and I don’t know if it’s from nerves or need, so I gentle it.
She tastes like something sweet, yet savory. But she holds the faintest edge of panic. I soothe her with my mouth and wait for her to let me know what she wants. She lets me know.
Lucy pushes onto her toes and the kiss sharpens, her fingers digging into my shirt and her tongue against mine with a hunger that shocks me.
She makes a sound—half gasp, half moan—and I nearly lose all patience.
I don’t want to scare her. I want her to want this.
I want her to want me. So I slow down again, pulling back, just enough to breathe.
Her lips are kiss-swollen and she stares at me, blue eyes wide and shining.
“You’re allowed to say stop,” I say. My voice sounds rough. “Anytime.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t want to stop.”
The words are barely there, but they’re everything.
She clings to me like she thinks I’ll vanish if she lets go.
I am not going anywhere. I kiss her again, slower now, letting her set the pace.
Her body is soft and warm and I want to touch all of her, but I don’t want to break the spell.
When my hands finally slide down her back, she arches a little into my grip, and her mouth opens beneath mine with a shiver that is nothing like fear.
It’s need, and now that I feel it—now that she gives it—I stop pretending I’m not famished for her.
The dress Bianca put her in is soft, but what’s underneath is softer. My hands find the zipper at her spine, and I wait for a twitch, a flinch, something that means no. There is none.
I draw the zipper down slow, and Lucy’s whole body goes rigid and then loose, like she was holding herself together for the effort of getting here, and now she is not required to hold anything.
The green dress slips off her shoulder, then the other, and I guide it down her arms, watching every inch of skin as it appears.
She is wearing nothing underneath. I am not prepared for that.
I was braced for lace, for silk, for some playful barrier that would slow me down and give her time to breathe.
Instead, she is bare, her skin flushed in patches across her chest, her breasts perfect and so real I have to close my eyes for a moment to keep from making a noise.
Lucy’s hands fumble at my shirt. She grips the buttons like they are enemies to battle.
I laugh, which breaks the tension for both of us.
I let her undo me, and the moment her hands touch my skin she makes a sound—soft, uncertain, hungry.
I have been with women who made noise for effect.
Lucy is not performing. She is reacting, startled by her own need, and it undoes something feral to me.
I want to claim her with my mouth. I want to make her remember tonight every time she thinks of me, every time her skin prickles in the shower or she looks at the ocean and remembers the way I touched her.
Her hands slide over my chest, tentative at first, then more certain.
She strokes down my torso, over the flat of my stomach, learning the lines and the edges, and I realize it’s possible she’s not as experienced as I assumed.
It makes me slow down. I want her to remember this as good, not fast or just another decision she regrets in the morning.
She leans into me, her breasts pressed to my chest, her skin so hot it feels like a fever.
Reaching between us, I give each nipple a sharp pull.
She gasps, a high-pitched little noise that makes every cell in my body snap to alert.
Her hands go rigid on my waist, gripping me like I’m a lifeline.
Her breath comes faster, and I realize I am not the only one losing control.
I want to drag this out, make it last, but she is already rolling her hips against me, desperate for friction, for proof, for whatever chemistry is catching her so off guard.
I slide my hands down her back, cupping her ass and lifting her easily.
She wraps her legs around my waist and I carry her to the bed, laying her down on the cool sheets as gently as I can.
She looks up at me, lips parted, eyes enormous.
I have never seen anything more beautiful or more breakable, which makes me want to ruin her in the best way possible.
I strip out of my shirt and pants, never taking my gaze off her. She stares, hungry, and my cock twitches under her gaze. I want to say something—something clever, something that will make her laugh, or at least breathe—but all I can manage is her name.
“Lucy.”
She shudders. Reaches up, grabs my wrist with surprising force, and tugs me down.
Skin to skin, I realize how hot she is, how warm, how desperate.
She guides my hand to her breast, and I take the cue, circling her nipple with my thumb, then pinching, watching her writhe.
Her other nipple is tight, begging, and I alternate, teasing both until she is moaning.
I want to see her fall apart, but I want her to know she’s safe, that she can trust me to hold the pieces.
My mouth finds her breast and the taste, the feel of her in my mouth, is enough to make me want to grind against the mattress like a fucking teenager.
I suck, slow and deep, and she arches so hard her whole body comes off the bed.
Her hands are in my hair, yanking, and the pain grounds me.
She is not shy now. She is frantic, and I realize she’s trying not to beg.
I lift my mouth just enough to say, “You can tell me what you want.” She shakes her head, but she’s gasping, her hips rolling for more.
“I don’t know what I want,” she says, voice breaking.
I kiss down her stomach, softer, slower, soothing.
“I do.” I slide between her legs and she tenses.
Not fear, just surprise. I look up at her, and her eyes are wide, lips parted.
There’s a moment where I think she’ll push me away, some old memory or warning, but she doesn’t.
She just breathes. I taste her, softly at first, just my tongue between the folds, and she shudders, a full-body tremor.
I keep it light, gentle, letting her get used to me, letting her feel the difference between being taken and being cared for.
She’s wet and sweet, and when I suck her clit she makes a noise that is pure surrender.
I want her to come for me, so I keep it steady,
I feel Lucy relax into it as her legs open wider.
She is all slick, soft skin and hunger. She rides my mouth a little and the sound that comes from her is almost animal.
I hold her thighs wide, pressing my tongue in and up, and she shakes so hard I have to pin her hips down with my hands.
She’s so sensitive, so responsive, it’s making me desperate.
I want to push her over, see what she looks like when she loses every ounce of control.
I flatten my tongue against her clit, slow and strong, then flick it tight.
She cries out—an unguarded, beautiful sound, half sob, half plea.
I fuck her gently with two fingers, crooking them up to where I know she’ll feel it, and her whole body clamps around me as she comes.
It’s not shy or controlled. It’s raw and unselfconscious, and it makes me want her in ways I haven’t wanted anything.
She writhes, clutching my hair, riding the aftershocks with her head thrown back and her mouth open.
When she finally stills, she looks down at me, stunned and a little wild.
I wipe my mouth on the back of my hand and kiss her thigh, then her stomach, moving up slow, letting her catch her breath.
Her eyes are damp, but she’s smiling, lips trembling.
I want to say something, but I don’t trust my voice.
Instead, I kiss her—deep and soft, letting her taste herself on my mouth.
She’s still shaking. “Holy shit,” she whispers.
I laugh, surprised by it, and she laughs too—soft and shy, but real. It is the most honest sound I’ve ever heard.
I kiss her hard, teeth clashing, tongue deep, and she cries out into my mouth, her body arching up to meet me. She is so fucking wet already that when I reach down to touch her again, she nearly comes apart.
I slide two fingers into her, slow and deliberate, feeling her clamp tight. She shudders, her hips jerking, and her arms crush me closer.
“Luca—” she says, and I want to hear my name break apart in her mouth a hundred more times tonight.
I fuck her with my fingers, slow at first, then faster, until she is moaning into my neck, her nails dragging down my back.
When I thumb her clit giving it attention once more, she gasps and goes rigid.
I feel her whole body seizing. I don’t give her time to come down, teasing her with my fingers.
She is greedy for it, greedy for me, pulling at my shoulders until I am pressed between her thighs.
I want her to know how much I want her. I push in slow, every inch deliberate, and she locks her legs around my waist. She’s tight, impossibly tight, and I have to grit my teeth to keep from coming right then.
She moves with me with a hunger that makes me grunt.
Every thrust, she takes all of me, matching my rhythm, her mouth open and eyes wild, possessed by the same fever that’s burning me from the inside out.