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I twisted toward him, looking up at him. “You didn’t rush me, Lucas. I got…carried away. Lost, I guess, in feeling things I haven’t felt in years. But then it started to get a little bit…more…than I guess I was ready for, and I freaked out. I’m sorry for that, Lucas. I really, really don’t want you to feel…” I rolled a shoulder. “Rejected. Or…not wanted. I’m just—”
“How about neither of us apologize, then?” He slid down to lay on the bed, taking me with him, so I was curled in the protective shelter of his arms. “I did feel kinda stung at first, but then I saw that you were upset, and I got kinda scared I’d let myself get carried away, like I pushed you for too much, too fast. I…it’s been a long time for me, too. A real, real long time. And what I did have was…not very personal, I guess, and it didn’t last long. The boys’ mother was never meant to be part of a family, and we just sort of made things work until she left. After that, I…I had a few flings, but I couldn’t ever really…connect. Even physically. I mean, for one thing, I was a raging alcoholic, and in godawful shape, so there weren’t exactly ladies lined up to shack up with me.” He blinked a few times, cleared his throat. “I guess I been lonely a long time. Felt…undesirable. Like, why would anyone ever want to be with me? I think deep down, that’s a lot of why I—” He stopped, breathing slowly. “Why I was so motivated to make real, drastic, lasting changes.”
“You didn’t think I could accept you, the way you were?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t think I deserved to be. I guess I’ve sort of come to learn through therapy and long talks with the boys, and Bax—who, by the way, is a lot wiser and smarter than you’d think from first meeting him—that I have to accept myself and believe I deserve good things. Sounded like a lot of frou-frou self-help bullshit at first, but…you gotta know you’re worth it, for anyone else to know you’re worth it.”
I blinked back tears yet again. “Lucas, I…” I sighed, sniffled. “I was falling for you, Lucas. It scared me. I sort of, maybe…um, used my own insecurities as a way to push you away because I was scared of how I was feeling for you.” I touched his cheek with my palm. “As you were, then. For who you are.” I rubbed his chest with my other hand, his abdomen, and the hard plane of muscle that was slowly beginning to reveal itself through his hard work. “How you look now is…” I smiled, sniffed a laugh. “Icing on the cake, I guess.”
“Falling for me?” he asked, eyebrows lifted.
I nodded. “Falling for you. Have fallen? Am falling? I don’t know.”
“I’m gone, baby. I’ve totally fallen for you, and it’s been that way since I first laid eyes on you.”
I yawned. “Can I just…can I stay here with you?”
He tightened his hold on me. “I’d love that.”
He adjusted the blanket, tugging it out from under us and draping it over us. I nuzzled into his shoulder, letting myself feel him, letting my feelings for him well up and take shape—examining them, trying to fathom them, and know them.
They were complex, and deep. I would always love Darren, he would always define me, as a person, but I also had this new life, this new me—informed by who I had been, the Olivia Goode who had grown up and spent her life with Darren Goode, the Olivia who had created a life, had five children and raised them to adulthood. That Olivia was still me, but now I was beginning to understand that I had to leave that part of my life in the past—but it would always be there, always be real, always be important. I wasn’t leaving that Olivia behind, but I was moving on, and I was including her in the woman I was becoming:
A woman with a heart full of love that I needed to give away; a woman with a need to be known, to be held, to be touched, to be loved. I couldn’t replace Darren, and I wasn’t trying to. Lucas wasn’t trying to replace him. He couldn’t, and he didn’t want to. But he did want to be a part of my life, and I wanted him there.
I heard his heartbeat under my ear, felt his arm around me, felt him breathing and heard his breath.
I was falling asleep, but my memories of what had just happened with him tonight were all I could think of.
I felt Lucas all around me. His skin was warm under me, his arm strong around me. I remembered the taste of his kiss, the tender, passionate, hungry way his lips had devoured mine. The way he’d ripped my nightie apart to get at my naked body—that had been exhilarating and scary. I’d never felt so needed in my life. I still felt a twinge of guilt and worry and anxiety, but I let the memory of the thrilling wild fury of his passion pulse through me—his mouth on my skin, on my breasts. His hands greedily clutching my flesh as if he couldn’t get enough of me.
I felt sleep tugging me under, and I gave into it, but the ocean of need so long buried and ignored was coming to a boil inside me.
If I could feel safe enough to tell Lucas the deepest, darkest secret inside me—that I’d felt unfulfilled for the last several years of my marriage—surely I was safe enough with Lucas to give into that boiling ocean of need. Surely I could let it boil over, let myself go. Give up control. Let need reign, let desire rule.
I fell asleep wondering and trying to picture what that would look like.
When I awoke, I was on my side, being spooned by Lucas’s huge hot hard bulk. His arm was slung low over my waist, his chest expanding against my back with a soft, growling snore. Sunlight poured in through his open window.
I felt so safe, so secure. I never wanted to move, or to leave this moment. I wanted to bask in the warmth and safety of Lucas’s arms. I let myself drift, but never quite fell back asleep. Instead, I was focused on the feel of him behind me.
He stirred, murmured something unintelligible. Shifted. I twisted to face him, his hand now resting on my hip. I was naked, but for my underwear—I saw my nightie on the floor, ripped open, and shivered at the memory of Lucas tearing it apart like paper. My skin pebbled, and my nipples hardened.
I thought of the way he’d kissed me, his mouth on mine, his hands wandering, possessing. That ocean of need was boiling, sudden and furious. My skin tightened, heating. My breath was shallow. His bulk was slack, the huge muscles at rest. I ran my hand over his shoulder, down one thick arm and his hand tightened on my hip.
I bit my lip, not knowing what to do, or how to handle this. How to take what I wanted. I didn’t want to wake him up, but I…god, need and desire were pounding through me.
Lucas stirred again, snorted, sniffed, growled in his chest. His eyes fluttered. Opened. Deep liquid brown focused on mine.
“Mornin’, beautiful,” he murmured.
“Good morning, handsome.”
His smile was breathtaking, the tenderness in his eyes as he gazed at me left me gasping for breath, left my stomach churning and my blood pounding and my thighs pressing together to quench the growing ache between them.
“I slept better than I have in…god, ever,” he said.
“Me, too.”
“Thanks for bein’ willing to tell me all that, last night. Means a lot that you trusted me with it.”
“Thank you for listening with an open mind.”
“I just want you to know I’m here. That I…I care about you. That I’m all in, and that whatever we’ve got going on can happen at your pace. I want…everything, but I can be patient.”
I shifted toward him, realizing that I’d been covering my chest with my arm out of some instinctual habit of modesty. Now, I moved my arm, letting my breasts drape free, nestling against his chest. I ran my hand over his side, to his waist.
I swallowed hard. “I…don’t know how this will go. I may freak out again, I don’t know. But I…” I searched his eyes, bit my lip, exhaled a nervous, shaky breath. “But I would really like it if you kissed me again.”
He smiled at me. “I think I could do that.”
He gathered me in his arms and drew me closer, and suddenly he was all around me again, his breath on my lips, his eyes on mine, his arms protective iron bands around my shoulders and waist, his hands splayed against my spine and sho
ulder blades. I nuzzled closer, short of breath as his lips touched mine in a soft questing exploration.
I was dizzy at the first press of his kiss. Hungry as the questing kiss became more. Desperate as his tongue found mine. Something beyond desperate—wild, an inferno of sudden unquenchable need as I lost myself in his kiss.
I arched my back and pressed against him, moaning as he kissed me to breathlessness.
I couldn’t breathe, and I didn’t want to, but I felt myself pulling away to suck in a delicious breath of his nearness.
“Okay?” he muttered.
“More than okay,” I breathed. “Keep going.” I palmed his chest, ran my fingers down his belly. “I need more.”
“If you need to stop—”
I touched his lips. “I don’t want to. I want this. I need this.”
His smile was a blaze of delight and ravenous rapture as he twisted into me, pressing me to my back. He levered himself over me, and reveled in the feeling of my own smallness and delicacy beneath his powerful form. He rested on an elbow and bent over me, kissing my lips. I clutched at his shoulders, and then let my hands wander. To his waist. To his hips. Clutched the hard, firm, flexing mounds of his buttocks over his shorts. Ran my hands over the back of his head as he moved down from my mouth, tipping my head back so he could kiss my throat. My chest.
My breasts—and oh, oh, oh god, that was glorious. The aching tug in me traveled from my nipples to my core, and I was on fire, heat blasting inside me, throbbing at my core. Each breast in turn, he licked and lapped and suckled, and shifted so he could massage and squeeze and caress one while plying the other with his mouth.
I whimpered, moaned, and clawed my fingers down his spine. Ached to feel more, to lose myself more fully in this. Fear snuck through me, but I didn’t let it take over.
I was safe.
I wanted this.
I could have this.
It wasn’t going to change what I’d had—but I was adding it to the new life I was creating for myself, a life I was allowed to have.
Lucas kissed my belly, and his fingers curled into the elastic of my underwear at each hip—he paused, watching me, meeting my eyes.
I bit my lip and lifted my butt off the mattress, an invitation. I kept my eyes on his, nervous and afraid and exhilarated.
He tugged my last scrap of clothing down my thighs, and off. And then I was fully bared, naked for him, and his eyes raked over me, from my eyes to my breasts to my sex, and his chest swelled and his shoulders lifted and tensed.
“Jesus, Liv. So fuckin’ gorgeous.” He knelt over me, hands running across my stomach, over my hips. He licked his lips and hesitated, hands gripping my hipbones. “I want to touch you.”
My heart hammered in my chest, my pulse loud in my ears. I wanted his touch. I couldn’t say it, couldn’t find the words, so I grabbed his wrist and brought his hand to my lips and kissed his palm. My eyes never left his, and I knew he saw that I was scared; I guided his hand back down my body, my fingers over his as his palm skated down over my breasts and belly to my sex.
I left his hand there, ran my palms over his arm, clutching his bicep, breathless as he touched me intimately for the first time. I gasped, a shrill soft sound, as his finger trailed over my seam. Whimpered as he slid his fingertip inside me. I lifted my hips and whined in my throat when his fingers found my clitoris. I watched my hips flex under his touch, let my voice rise. He kissed my breast, suckled my nipples, one and the other in turn, as his fingers circled me.
I cried out—or, very simply, just cried as he touched me with tender and loving perfection, as if he knew me intimately already, touched me as if he knew exactly how to bring the most pleasure.
My stomach curved in, my hips pushed up, my back arched, my eyes closed involuntarily, and I clutched at Lucas, wherever my hands could find his skin. Heat billowed inside me, a pressure building madly in my core, expanding through me until I felt like even the tips of my fingers and toes were near detonation.
And then his finger slid deeper into me, and another when I accepted the first with a gasp and flex of my hips. In and out. Then a thumb or his palm or something was grinding against my sensitive, throbbing clit.
“Oh god, Lucas—oh god!” I heard my voice crying in a loud, breathless shriek. “Yes, god yes!”
His mouth moved from breast to breast, back and forth, keeping my nipples wet and hard, his tongue flicking. I grabbed at him—where? Hips, shoulders, buttocks.
I needed his flesh. Needed him with my whole being.
I felt the madness in myself, the wild need for all I could get, all I could feel and hold and touch and taste as he brought me to a screaming climax.
I forgot about touching him for a split second—the exploding scream inside me took over everything, a blast of wild ecstasy shredding me apart under his fingers and mouth.
When the crashing waves of climax subsided, I was sweating and shaking and smiling and laughing. “Oh god, Lucas,” I breathed. “God, thank you.”
He kissed my lips gently. “You’re even more gorgeous when you’re coming, Liv. Didn’t know that was even possible.”
“I don’t know that I’ve ever felt anything like that in my life.” The stab of emotion came and went, and I let it go.
“You okay?”
“More than okay.” I grinned up at him, eager and desperate for what was next, for more. “So much more than just okay.”
I rolled into him, nuzzled against him. Whispered in his ear. “My turn.”
15
Lucas
I found myself on my back, an erection throbbing so hard underneath my underwear that it hurt like hell. Liv was rolling toward me, moving to her hands and knees, and then kneeling beside me. Leaning over me, small, firm, soft breasts sliding against my chest, peaked nipples brushing my skin. Naked body curved like a goddess, eyes shining, sweat dotted here and there, a need in her eyes and a wildness in her that made me crazy, made me understand that I hadn’t just fallen for her, that I didn’t just care about her—I fucking loved her.
“Liv,” I whispered.
She touched my lips. “Just…sssshhhh. I know—I know.”
She saw it.
I saw it in her, and I knew that we weren’t ready to exchange those words, but each of us knowing they existed was enough, for the moment.
She bit her lower lip and raked her gaze over my prone body, tracing her fingers down my chest and over my ribs, over my stomach to the waistband of my underwear. She curled her fingers in the elastic, hooking the underwear…tugging them down.
She pulled them away from my erection and brought them down and over my knees, letting me kick them away, and her eyes were taking me in, the thick, fat-headed, purple-veined shaft of my cock, bobbing at my navel. Straining.
Her eyes widened, and she flattened her palm on my stomach just above it. She devoured me, my cock. Bigger than she was expecting, maybe, I don’t know. Didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she was touching me—wrapping her tiny hand around me, sliding her fingers down, then back up. I swallowed hard and felt myself reacting immediately.
“It’s been so long, Liv—”
She bent over and kissed me. “Hush. Just let me touch you.”
“But I—”
“I don’t care if takes ten seconds or an hour. I just want to—feel this. Feel you. We have all the time in the world.”
I gasped as she slowly, gently stroked me. “Jesus, Liv. The way you’re touching me—”
She brushed her breasts against my chest as she kissed my lips. “What about it?”
“So fuckin’ good.”
Her smile curved against my lips. “Yeah? How fucking good?”
I rumbled a laugh, turned on even more by the curse falling so unexpectedly from her lips. “Better than anything in my entire fuckin’ life. God, please—don’t stop.”
Her mouth demanded a kiss, and I gave it to her, dizzy from the furious passion with which her lips and tongue tangled with m
ine, even as her fist oh so slowly and tenderly caressed my length.
“I won’t.” Her voice was so quiet, so small.
I watched, barely able to draw a breath, as her hand slid teasingly over my cock, twisting and rubbing the tip with her thumb until I was groaning and growling and tilting my hips up to get more of her touch. I reached the edge within minutes, perhaps even less—there was no concept of time, no way to measure how much time passed while she explored me.
I didn’t want it to end; not at all, and not like this, not so soon, not without feeling more of her. Hearing more of those sweet, wild sounds of her release.
I grabbed her wrists in both of my hands, pulling them away from me. “Wait, Liv—wait.”
She stared at me, confused. “I thought you said you didn’t want me to stop?”
“I don’t.” I hauled her up my body, over on top of me until she was astride me, sitting on my belly. “I need you. I don’t want to come from your hand, sweetheart—I want to come inside you. I want to make love to you. I need to make love to you.”
She sniffed a laugh. “Make love to me?”
I palmed her cheek, dragged my thumb across her lips. “What? Somethin’ wrong with that?”
She laughed aloud, then leaned down to kiss me—and I could’ve come just from that, from the view of her on top of me, her breasts hanging to trace over my chest. “No, Lucas. I just expected you to say something else…” She shrugged.
“Something vulgar?” I suggested.