The need for release swelled inside her like the most perfect bubble, floating her higher and higher, fuller until it stretched so tight there was nothing left for it but to...shatter into an umbrella of sparkling refracted lights behind her eyes. Except her eyes were open as she watched Lucas fly apart in her arms.
Tears welled again, and this time she let them flow.
Reclining against the pillows with Sara draped over him, Lucas tangled his fingers in her hair, telling himself he stayed in bed so she could sleep longer.
He should have been more careful with her, but they'd both been so damn out of control. Five years was a helluva long time to go without, although he'd never consciously decided to be abstinent. The encounters just never happened because Sara always intruded in his head. Now he wondered if on some freaking whoo-hoo level he'd known Sara was still alive.
And didn't that sort of intuition go against everything he'd ever believed? Being with her always messed with his head in a way nothing else ever had. She stirred him even now when he should be too drained even to twitch.
Rein it in and let her sleep, damn it. She needed to recharge for all the changes in store for her. He couldn't process how fragile she looked now. A result of the injuries or stress, he didn't know for sure. Although her outpouring of tears certainly leaned the scales heavily to the latter.
Either way he was determined to pamper her. She'd wanted more romance before, after all. About time he figured it out.
Although she hadn't wanted much to do with tender pampering a half hour ago as the scratches on his back proved. Remembering the feel of her moving over him, under him, then over him again... He gritted his teeth to regain control before she woke.
Reasonable thought was tough to find with the heat of her all around him. Sara, so familiar and perfect, no wonder he hadn't been with anyone since her. All of it hammered through him—the gut kick of seeing her for the first time. Finally realizing he couldn't stay away. Something that hadn't changed. His hands shook from the fear of losing her a second time.
They'd been so in synch together tonight, he could almost hope... But he knew better. He'd been overly confident after their first time, certain she would marry him...because he'd been her first...
"You should have told me you were a virgin." Lucas combed his fingers through Sara's shoulder-length hair, the sheet doing little to disguise what was now imprinted in his memory.
But while she'd been uninhibited during sex at her flat, he couldn't miss her shyness afterward.
She traced his collarbone. "'Were' is absolutely right. I am now thoroughly and happily no longer a virgin."
"You should have told me."
Snorting on a giggle, she thumped his chest. "So you could decide we shouldn't be together?"
He wasn't laughing. "You've waited for twenty-four years. Why now?" Another question hammered harder in his head. "Why me? I know I'm not—"
"That is bull."
"Excuse me?" His hand stopped midcomb through her hair.
"You heard what I said." She shook her hair free, shoved him to his back and straddled his h*ps while somehow still holding on to that sheet in a sexy dichotomy of shy temptress. "Don't even think about listing some silly excuses of why we should not be together. Such as how you're ten years older than I am. How you're from another country, and we're opposite personalities—"
"Now that you mention it..."
She kissed him, quick and so damn sweet. "I decided for myself and I chose you. I like to think you would have wanted me, regardless, but I wasn't willing to risk it."
Lucas stilled her h*ps with his hands. Damn, she was a quick study. All the same his brain was still reeling from that moment he'd realized he was her first, and before he could pull back she'd surged up. "If I'd known, I could have been more careful."
He was thirty-four years old, for God's sake. He should have read the signs, been prepared for the possibility at least, and given her more of a night to remember rather than their out-of-control tangle of arms and legs in their mad dash the second they'd entered her front door.
At least he'd made it to her bed rather than taking her against the wall.
"You were perfect. It was perfect."
As if she had anything to compare him to?
Nope, he wasn't feeling any better, and the thought of her finding someone else for comparison made him feel a lot worse. "Marry me."
Huh? Where had those words come from? He almost looked over his shoulder. Except he knew he'd said it. Asked her.
Couldn't wait to hear her answer.
She laughed, tumbling onto her back, holding her sides. And ah hell, seeing her bare br**sts made it tough for him to think. Then yeah, he remembered he'd just proposed, by God, and she was laughing her ass off at him.