Chapter 26 Saskia
Istretch out my sore body from head to toe and open my eyes, a smile already on my lips.
That was one of the best nights of my life.
But when I crane my neck to tell Lucan so, his glower hits me square in the chest. His face is etched in hardened lines, his eyes dark and sunken.
“Finally awake, little nightmare?”
I smile uncertainly. “I slept like the dead.”
“I’m glad,” he replies, though he looks anything but glad. “Do you feel all right?”
“Feel great,” I confirm, then ask cautiously, “Did you sleep well?”
“Oh, no, definitely not.” He gives a dead laugh. “Didn’t even close my eyes.”
“You stayed up all night…?” My voice trails off as hazy memories float to the surface—dancing that felt like sex with clothes on. I caress a hand across his cheek before I sit up. “You stay in bed and get some rest. I’ll make you breakfast.”
After I tuck Lucan in tight while he watches me with a gaze intense enough to slice the air, I’m up and out of the room in a flash, leaving him in a heap of sheets and fluffy pillows.
Beyond his kitchen window, the woods fan out, glimmering in the sun that is just starting to peek through the canopy in different shades of orange and yellow.
Moving closer to the stove, I light the gas with a set of matches Lucan keeps in the drawer, then turn to grab one of the pots that hangs on the hooks above the adjacent counter...
Only to gasp and almost drop the pan on my foot when I catch Lucan leaning against the doorway, his glare stronger than ever.
“You’re incredibly quiet for someone so large,” I say as the spurt of fear subsides.
“What are you doing?” he growls.
I look down at the pan in my left hand and the spatula in my right. “Making you breakfast?” Even if I don’t need anything besides blood from here on out, Lucan still needs to eat normal food. And I’m sure I can figure out how to cook.
But his eyebrows lift.
“What, exactly, are you planning to make?”
“Uhhh…” I gaze around his kitchen for any detail that might help, because I didn’t actually think this far ahead.
A few browning peaches sit in a fruit bowl, and several strips of dried meat hang over his smoking fireplace.
“You tell me.” I pop a hip against his cabinet.
“What do you have that I can cook with?”
Lucan clicks his tongue, then surges forward and crowds into my space.
“Do you remember last night?” he asks, peering into my eyes.
I blink. “I think so, yes. I drank. We danced. We had sex.”
“We did not have sex.”
I blink again. The memory of me splayed out on the bed with my fingers exploring between my legs… and then it goes blank.
“I had to force myself to turn around, and when you were finished, you begged me to sleep with you,” Lucan growls, “so I slept by your side. But I never touched you in that way.”
“Oh,” I breathe. “You’re mad.”
“No,” he seethes. “I’ve just been stuck with this for about ten hours now.” He gestures down at the noticeably large and hard bulge in his pants.
Confusion pulls through me. “Then why didn’t we have sex?”
Something flits across his face that looks a lot like anger. Not directed at me, but… “You can’t consent to sex when you’re drunk, Saskia.”
“What?”
Again, that anger flashes across his face, and now I know where I’ve seen it before: it’s the same look he always gives when he talks about the Guardians.
Like he wants to murder them and puke on their shoes all at the same time.
But he doesn’t raise his voice at me when he explains calmly, “Alcohol lowers your inhibitions and impacts your decision making. And I was sober, in a position of power over you. I was taking care of you, not taking advantage of you.”
“So the lines were blurred.” It’s a statement and a question. My mind pieces together his reasoning, the way I felt last night, completely uninhibited. And how easily consent was taken from me every Sanctuary Sunday. How Malcolm had to have sex with me when he wasn’t even interested.
Lucan nods slowly, his face so close to mine, I could stick out my tongue and lick his lips for him. He smells like pine and smoke from the bonfire, and my body starts to itch from the heat it’s creating on its own.
“That’s actually hot,” I murmur, biting my lip. “And I can consent now, can’t I?”
He wraps a hand around the pan and practically throws it on top of the stove. Then he takes the spatula from me and lets it fall to the ground.
“What do you want, Saskia?” My breath hitches. His voice is a deep baritone, thrumming through my core. “Tell me.”
I don’t have to think about it for long. I still want what I wanted last night, just now with a clear mind. “Touch me, Lucan.”
He hovers his lips over mine and brings the tip of his finger up to my nipple but doesn’t quite touch me.
“You’ll have to be more specific than that.” His breath travels across my jaw and down my neck.
Goosebumps rise on my flesh in his wake. I whimper.
And then I decide to flip on him because my defiant little fantasy to take control isn’t just a drunken one.
“Where’d we leave off?” I ask, backing up until my butt hits the counter. I place my palms on the cold edge and drag myself up so I’m perched right on the edge.
This time he’s the one who whimpers.
I’m still in the shirt Lucan dressed me in last night—no underwear—so I simply spread my legs while Lucan watches with an inferno of a stare. His hands clench into fists as my finger circles my clit twice, then slides into my wet heat.
“What was it you said a while ago?” I taunt him before throwing his past words back at him. “‘Once I’m inside that Wall, you’ll be crawling after me of your own accord’?”
Lucan’s eyes blaze, never breaking away from where I continue to pleasure myself. His chest heaves, trying to drag in more oxygen.
“Well, we’re on the outside of the Wall… Lucan.”
His nostrils flare, pupils blown. “Tell me what you want and it’s yours.”
“Crawl to me.”
Lucan doesn’t hesitate. His knees hit the wood floor with a thunk before his palms flatten out in front of him, and he crawls on all fours until his face is settled in the space between my knees.
“Now touch me.”
He presses his lips to the inside of my thigh and hums as his fingers glide up my delicate skin to replace my own. His thumb swipes over my clit in tight circles before two of his thick fingers fill me. His other hand slips under the hem of my shirt and pinches one of my pebbled nipples.
I let out a strained breath as a current pulses through me in waves.
He moves his mouth closer to me, but I braid my hand into his soft hair and hold him back.
“Can I taste you?” he pleads.
Tugging harder on his roots, not letting him move his head an inch, I nod.
Lucan smiles in understanding before he extracts his fingers and brings them up to his mouth to clean them off.
He groans as he closes his lips around them, savoring the taste of me as he slides them out slowly.
“So good,” he moans. “I want the real thing.”
And because I can’t take another second of his tongue not on me, he smirks as I guide his mouth exactly where I want it.
With a flat tongue, he licks all the way from bottom to top before he inserts his finger again and curls it. His lips capture my clit, teasing me, sucking me, biting me, until my hips have a mind of their own.
They arch against his tongue, matching his rhythm, and I fall apart, panting his name in shockwaves.
When my body unfurls from the snapped tension, now putty in his hands, Lucan tugs at my ankles, and I follow his lead, sliding to the floor.
But I’m not done with what I want yet.
Slinking to my knees between his legs, I reach out and inch Lucan’s shirt over his head. Each tense ridge of muscle reveals itself as I peel it off and fling it to the side. Next I slide my palm down his shaft bulging in his pants with a sly smile.
Lucan hisses through his teeth.
I waste no time unbuttoning and unzipping to let his cock spring free. Wrapping a hand around him, my mouth waters when my thumb runs over the wet tip.
“I’ve never done this,” I whisper.
He covers the back of my hand with his, stopping my slow strokes. “Saskia—”
I cut him off with a firm voice. “I want to.”
His hand rises to my face, and he sweeps his thumb across my cheekbone as his eyes bore holes in mine, then laser across my lips, an understanding passing between us.
He presses his thumb along the seam of my mouth, so I part my lips to let him slip it in.
My tongue swirls around the rough pad of his fingerprint.
“Beautiful,” he coos.
I release the suction around his thumb, wanting to look beautiful with something else in my mouth.
Teasing his cock with one long stroke of my tongue along the bottom, I savor the taste of him as a rush of heat twists below my belly button.
He’s warm and heady, filling my throat as he presses into me gently. My tongue works itself over every vein, trying to memorize the way he feels, how large he is.
I moan when our eyes connect and Lucan thumbs my hollowed cheek. He watches himself slide in and out of my mouth through half-lidded eyes until they flutter closed.
Then it’s my turn to watch him through my eyelashes, power building in my chest at how wild and crazed he looks. Proud of how much of an effect I have on him.
Lucan sucks in a sharp breath before his voice comes out hoarse. “Does that make you wet, little nightmare? Having my cock in your mouth?”
I nod, the gush between my legs undeniable, and wrap my full lips around him now.
Up and down, I work my lips and my tongue as Lucan gathers my hair in his fist and mumbles curse words under his breath.
Instinctually, I know what to do, and it’s easy to follow his cues whenever he groans for me or his legs tremble. I quickly learn that he especially likes it when I take him deep enough to hit the back of my throat.