Sara arched closer, flattening her br**sts against the hard wall of his chest. She didn't want to think about the past. She didn't want to think about the future, either.
They had this moment where the world stopped. What were the odds of the planets lining up for a time like this again? She wasn't willing to risk it.
Sara peeled his shirt up and over his head. Tanned skin called to her fingers. She could envision him running along the beach with his shirt off as he used to do when they'd been dating. And while she was staring at his chest and sketching her fingers over the hard stretch of muscles her shirt went fluttering to the ground and she couldn't even remember him taking it off.
Some things definitely stayed the same.
She smiled. So did he, and suddenly the rest of their clothes were disappearing, tossed aside until she was n**ed and so was he and wasn't that conveniently wonderful? He pulled her flush against him, skin to skin, her br**sts tightening to a near-painful tingling against him.
Carefully, he lowered her to recline on the quilt, keeping his weight on his elbows, off her, trailing kisses down her neck, her shoulders with such sweet and tender attention. She ached for a firmer touch. He eased away without breaking contact.
What?
Threading her fingers in his hair, she urged him against her. She might as well have been pressing against a brick wall. She'd felt the unrestrained passion of Lucas. Why was he holding back now?
Hmm... Hadn't he always said to tell him what she wanted? "Touch me."
"Oh, I will."
"No. I mean touch me. Really touch me." She pressed his hand firmer against her.
"I don't want to hurt you. You're so damn fragile, and you've been sick." He palmed the scar high on her stomach where she'd been shot, damaging her pancreas. There were other bullet scars, as well, and if she let him explore them all the mood would spoil.
She moved his hand back to her breast over her hammering heartbeat. "What we're doing here is about feeling alive, and I am very much alive, as are you. Please don't cheat either of us of the full pleasure we can have together."
His jaw flexed, his hands shaking.
Damn it, he was stubborn.
She was more stubborn.
Sara nipped kisses along his collarbone, down his chest, circling his nipple with her tongue on her way down, down. She wrapped her fingers and her mouth around him, his low groan thrilling her as much as she seemed to be thrilling him.
His hands went to her shoulders massaging for a moment before he gripped under her arms, hauled her up and flipped her on her back. He stroked with his hands and tongue over her body until she wasn't thinking anymore.
She languished in the magic of an intensely intimate Lucas Quade kiss, flowing tingly champagne bubbles through her veins, fizzing and popping in microbursts of pleasure. She shivered, every inch of her skin oversensitive to the least touch, even the brush of air from the ceiling fan clicking overhead.
Lucas eased from her, reaching to snag the small packet from the corner of the blanket and sheathing himself. He rolled to his back, his hands gripping her h*ps as he guided her over him. More of his protecting her by keeping her off the hard floor? She would let his protectiveness go this time since it came with the payoff of being on top.
Thank goodness he didn't ask again if she really wanted this. Smart man.
Kneeling, she straddled him and stared into his eyes, watching him watch her, tendons tight in his neck in a tension she understood since it echoed the need inside her. He inched her down slowly, the heat of him stretching her after so many years of abstinence. Her brain short-circuited at the onslaught of emotion from having Lucas alive and inside her again. The pure rightness of it all. Tears stung her eyes.
Tears?
She blinked fast, praying she wouldn't start crying and ruin this moment by sending Lucas into over protective macho mode where he pulled away to comfort her. She wasn't sure there could ever be enough comfort to erase the grief and anger over what had been stolen from them.
Move, damn it. Or at least say something to let him know she was okay. "Lucas—"
He traced her lips. "I know. Me, too." His hand trailed from her mouth to her jaw, teasing along her skin, calluses rasping over her chest before he tugged her hair lightly. "Your hair's longer now. I like it."
Lucas and his simple statements, far more potent than some overplayed rambling. With a new insightfulness that came from age or a wisdom born of suffering, she understood what he'd meant. Longer hair translated into passage of time which urged them to live for the moment, not the past.
Her tears dried as quickly as the ache in her heart. She grided down to rest over him, her h*ps rocking once, twice. His answering. Their bodies remembered and reclaimed.
She bit her bottom lip to hold back the moans building as they moved together. Staying quiet to keep their lovemaking private stretched tension tauter within her.
Her body tingled to life again. If anything the pull between them was stronger, deeper, more mature.