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.
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—"