‘And you would have believed me, of course.’
She didn’t know how she kept her tone light. Conversational. Not that it seemed to lessen the impact on Lukas. Another dark cloud crossed his features and Oti waited for him to deny it, but he didn’t even attempt to do so. She wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse.
‘I don’t blame you.’ The words tumbled out before she’d realised she was going to speak. ‘I played my part as the party girl at one time. Not to mention, my father put enough rumours out there about my lifestyle, my partying.’
‘I should have asked.’
‘Like I said, you wouldn’t have listened, and I can understand why.’
‘I’m listening now.’
‘Now?’ She snapped her head to him, praying he couldn’t read all the embarrassment that was surely written all over her face. ‘With you... inside me?’
‘I can think of a better time,’ he drawled. ‘But that boat sailed when you walked into my bedroom looking like a damned siren.’
She shouldn’t let his words heat her so easily. And still she felt the grin tug at her mouth.
‘A siren?’
‘A damned irresistible one,’ he groaned. ‘And now I find out you were saving yourself.’
‘I wasn’t saving myself...’ She paused, acutely aware that he was still so deep inside her. It seemed like such an odd time to be holding such a conversation. ‘I just...didn’t find anyone I liked enough.’
Lukas groaned again. Emphatically.
‘That’s hardly the best thing to tell a guy who’s just become your first. It tends to inflate the ego.’
‘Really?’ she murmured. ‘Well, if it helps, I can tell you that you’ve been a disappointment.’
‘A disappointment?’ he growled, clearly taken aback.
‘A terrible, terrible disappointment,’ she teased. Because somehow, in spite of all her lack of experience, he’d made her feel powerful. And utterly desirable. ‘It’s supposed to be about shattering my earth and rocking my world, is it not? And yet I feel quite...unmoved.’
‘Is that so?’ Lukas remarked drily.
‘It is.’ She fought to keep a straight face. ‘Because if...’
Lukas began to shift. Slowly drawing out of her, then back in, not so deep this time. Oti caught her breath and waited for the pain, but this time, though it felt odd, the searing sensation had gone, replaced instead by a dull ache. Then, gradually, as he began to move in a lazy rhythm inside her, that ache too began to dissipate.
Little by little, she began to move her hips to meet his, following an instinct that she didn’t recognise. Testing him and learning him, even as he moved himself so carefully above her.
Her hands had long since released from their fists, and now she pressed her palms against the solid wall of Lukas’s chest, allowing herself to feel the definitive beat of his heart and letting his heat seep into her. Revelling in the way that same heat spread through her, warming her. As if he could heal her...if only she might let him.
And, fanciful or not, Oti finally surrendered, giving in to everything as she’d told herself she must never do.
She forgot about the circumstances of their marriage and she simply relaxed into the moment. Into the incredibly glorious slide of their bodies, so intertwined that she couldn’t have said where she ended and he began.
As though she were handcrafted to fit him.
There was nothing but her and Lukas, and that incredible fire he was building within her. Stoking it slowly but surely with every roll of his hips and every pull out and thrust in. Making everything in her world hotter and brighter with each passing moment. Its intensity terrified her and thrilled her in equal measure.
It felt like a lifetime before she came back to herself, floating on sensations she had never experienced before, she’d never even dreamed about, just as nerve endings she hadn’t known existed still fired for an age afterwards.
But when she did come back to herself, it was to see Lukas walking back into the bedroom, still gloriously naked, which at least gave her confidence that he wasn’t making a bolt for it.
‘So—’ she licked her lips as she tentatively sat up ‘—where do we go from here?’
‘From here?’ he said slowly. Scooping her into his arms, he carried her through to where a hot bath was running, before lowering her in and then sliding in behind her. ‘You start to talk to me.’