Did she dare follow through with her crazy plan?
What do you have to lose? You’ve already lost everything.
“I don’t want dessert or champagne,” she told him.
Lucas’s eyes narrowed as he closed the distance between them. He set the tray on the coffee table and studied her for several silent seconds. From the day they’d met he’d been able to sense her moods with uncanny accuracy. Neither her father nor her brothers had ever come close to reading her as well as Lucas had. She could tell from his expanding pupils that he’d picked up on her frame of mind this time, too.
“What do you want, Nadia?” His huskier than usual tone said he already knew.
She took a slow, deep breath and ignored the voice in her head urging caution. “You.”
“Why?”
She hadn’t expected him to make this hard. He never had in the past. She stepped closer, lifted a hand and flattened her palm on his chest. “Because your kisses excite me and your touch enflames me.”
And making love with him might fill the emptiness inside.
Temporarily. That was all she could ever hope for.
His heart thumped harder and faster beneath her touch and his chest rose on a slowly indrawn breath. His gaze held hers captive as the seconds ticked past. It had never occurred to her that he might refuse. But his lack of action spoke volumes.
She slid her hand upward to cup his nape. The crisp texture of his hair tickled her fingertips and his hot skin warmed her cold fingers. “I want to make love to you, Lucas, like we used to.”
His arm banded around her waist, his hand splaying over her lower back. One tug and her body slammed into his. He was hard. Hot. Solid. She could feel each tensed muscle pressed against hers from his thighs through his shoulders. And still he waited. For what?
She wanted mindless passion. Out-of-control lust. She didn’t want time to think, to wonder if this was a mistake.
Rising on her tiptoes, she pressed her mouth to his, opened, closed. She sucked his bottom lip between hers. His breath hissed, but he remained tightly leashed unlike in the past when that last maneuver would have made him putty in her hands.
She repeated the kiss with no better results then nibbled her way along his jaw and nipped his earlobe. Eleven years ago a love bite had always brought him to his knees. But not this time. The growing arousal pressing her belly told her he wasn’t indifferent. And yet he still didn’t capitulate.
Confused by his control when she was rapidly losing hers, she sank back onto her heels.
Lucas’s eyes burned like blue fire, which only fanned the flames in her middle. Oh, yeah, he wanted her. So why was he holding back? “We’re too old to neck on the sofa. Which bedroom is yours?”
Adrenaline raced through her then caution finally made itself heard. She wanted to scream in frustration. “The one on the left, but I don’t have any condoms. Do you? I wasn’t expecting…”
With her stupid midnight curfew she hadn’t expected to have a nightlife or any kind of life in Dallas.
“My place. Let’s go.” He released her and bent to lift the tray. Then he walked away.
Taken aback, she blinked after him. He’d walked away?
The Lucas she’d known would have taken her anywhere, any way and as often as she’d wanted. It wasn’t that he’d been a pushover, but he’d been a young guy, and she’d learned they tended to think with something besides the head on their shoulders. Admittedly, she’d been known to use that fact shamelessly to get what she’d wanted. But the man in question had never complained.
Apparently, the mature Lucas liked to call the shots. That he didn’t make the seduction easy ticked her off a little. But it also excited her. And okay, yes, earned her respect. If she wanted him, she’d have to work for it. A wacko part of her relished the challenge.
She followed him out her open door and through his. Tension twined tighter with each step. Or maybe it was arousal. It had been so long since she’d genuinely felt anything remotely resembling lust that she wasn’t sure.
She trailed him down his hall, unbuttoning her shirt on the way and draping it over the hall credenza as she passed. She left her shoes with the shirt and reached for the button on her pants. They fell to the floor. A niggle of doubt over what she’d be revealing hitched her step, but she didn’t stop. She kicked off the fabric and kept walking.
She’d bet—she hoped—he’d be so distracted by her black sheer demi-bra and panty set when he turned around that he wouldn’t be so in control.
And he wouldn’t care about the scar. The scar that told the world she was flawed. Imperfect. Incomplete.
He entered a room ahead of her. She followed and paused in the doorway. His bedroom. She surveyed the wide bed with its curved cognac leather headboard and cream-colored spread, then crossed the carpet to stand beside it. A cluster of lush plants created a small jungle near the wall of windows. Outside the uncurtained glass she spotted a patio with more plants, the corner of the swimming pool and the Dallas skyline in the glow of the setting sun.
He deposited his tray on the dresser and turned. His gaze slammed into hers and then slowly rolled over her from head to toe before returning to the scar. She fought the urge to cover it or dive beneath the comforter. It took colossal effort to remain standing and to breathe. That unsightly blemish defined who she was these days. If it turned him off, then that was his problem. She straightened her spine and squared her shoulders.
Without a word his eyes found hers again. He reached for his shirtsleeves and removed the cufflinks, first one, then the other without looking away. The gold clattered noisily on the dark cherry furniture quickly followed by the thunk of his watch. With his eyes on hers he continued disrobing, revealing his chest one button at a time.
His shirt fluttered to the floor and she caught her breath. He’d always had a beautiful body, but now he was more muscled, his shoulders wider, his chest deeper, his rippled belly leaner. His hands went to his belt. The chink of the buckle and slither of leather being pulled from the loops seemed unnaturally loud as did the rasp of the zipper. His pants slid down his legs and he kicked them aside. He stood before her in nothing but black silk boxers. The tented front said more than words. Even if he wasn’t saying he wanted her, his body was telling her.
What a difference time made. Instead of a lanky twenty-one-year-old boy, Lucas Stone stood in front of her, definitely all man now—every perfect, delicious inch of him.
Her pulse raced and her mouth dried. Her breath grew short as did her patience. What was he waiting for? She reached for the back hook of her bra.
“No.”
The quiet but firm command stilled her fingers. Intrigued by this new side of him, she lowered her arms. The old Lucas would have been all over her by now. Any man would. Despite the scar. She had a darned good body and she worked hard to keep in shape. And she only wore the most flattering lingerie.
He prowled toward her. Finally. But instead of yanking her into his arms he pulled back the covers.
Enough stalling.
She wound an arm around his waist and blindly trailed a finger from between his shoulder blades down his spine—the way he’d always loved. Goose bumps lifted his skin in wake of her touch. And then she hit a ridge of flesh at his waist and stopped in surprise. Her gaze jerked to his. He’d said he had surgeries, but somehow she hadn’t processed that information.
She grasped his thick biceps and turned him. Her breath hitched. Two straight scars ran parallel to his spine marring his lower back and disappearing beneath his low-riding boxers. She traced the lines with her fingertips tugging the silk over his h*ps to reveal the paler skin of his butt and the ends of scar tissue. His underwear slid to his ankles and his taut flanks flexed as he kicked them atop his discarded pants.
The lines had faded to silvery-pink, but seeing the damage done by the surgeon’s scalpel made her heart ache. They’d both been permanently marked by their accident. In his case, the doctors had given Lucas back his future, his ability to walk and his ability to live a normal life. In hers, they’d taken away the future she’d dreamed of and an ability most women took for granted and sometimes resented. She bent and pressed her lips to the insult on the otherwise perfect V of his tanned back.
A sharply indrawn breath was her only warning before he pivoted, and in one swift strike encircled her waist, yanked her upright and covered her mouth in a hard kiss. The warmth of his body against hers and his silky hot erection against her belly jarred her heart into a rapid rhythm.
Now that’s more like it.
But after that initial hard press his kiss wasn’t the same. He didn’t simply devour her. He sipped, retreated, teased, tempted and tortured her by withholding what she wanted—his tongue in her mouth, his taste, his body deep inside hers. She arched into him, craving his possession, needing to forget. Her present. Her past. Her defects. She needed to feel feminine and desirable.
The rake of his hands from her thighs over her h*ps and waist to the sides of her br**sts went a long way to fulfilling her quest, but still left her wanting more. She dug her nails into his hair and held him while she licked then nipped his bottom lip. He escaped her and transferred his attention to the pulse hammering in her neck. His teeth grazed her skin and the rasp of his evening beard sent a delicious shiver over her. But she wanted to growl in frustration, pound his shoulders and yell faster, faster, more, more, more.
She settled for mapping his body, mentally charting the changes in the shape and feel of him. His buttocks clenched under her palms, his tiny n**ples tightened beneath her thumbs. His abdominal muscles contracted under her questing fingertips. She loved the texture of his skin, supple and smooth and scorching.
He slid his hands beneath her bikini panties and cupped her bottom, lifting her off her feet and holding her against him. He had her off balance literally and figuratively. She had to clutch his shoulders to maintain her equilibrium.
His lips parted at last. She met the thrust of his tongue with her own. He tasted the same. But everything else had changed. The sure way he caressed and kissed. The make-her-beg-for-it tempo. The hunger. She’d always wanted him. But not like this. This wanting bordered on pain.
The thought jarred her enough to worry her, then she brushed her concerns away. She hadn’t slept with anyone in a long time. Months? A year? Two? She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d had sex. She’d been too busy fighting that damned Andvari.
Pent-up passion. That’s all this is.
She wound her legs around his waist, cradled his head in her hands and kissed him again and again. Arching and relaxing her back, she rubbed her center against his thick length. Her desire rose swiftly.
Her panties annoyed her. They were in the way. She wanted to be nak*d, skin to skin and have him buried inside her. Now. Impatient, she tightened her legs and pressed harder against his rigid flesh.
As if he’d received her message, Lucas flicked her bra open. His hands spread over her shoulder blades. He lowered her onto the bed and followed her down, pinning her between the cool sheets and his burning body. Breaking the kiss, he propped on one straight arm long enough to pull the black bra from her and toss it aside, and then he looked at her.