Hold Me (15 page)

“Maybe you’d better take it easy there, slugger.”

“Me? I’m a two-fisted drinker. Don’t worry about me.”

“Lush.”

She glanced over and watched him take a sip from his own glass.

When he spoke again, his voice held a strangely wistful quality. “I can’t imagine growing up with so many kids. I was in a group home once when I was about eight, but it’s not the same.”

“No.” She had to clear her throat before her voice would work, but Luc didn’t seem to notice. He was still staring off into the middle distance, obviously seeing things she couldn’t. She put her glass and the whiskey bottle on the coffee table and laid her hand on his knee, trying to comfort in spite of the fact that he aggravated her no end.

Luc stared down at her hand on his leg, then deliberately leaned forward and put his own glass next to hers on the table. He covered her hand with his warm, large one.

“I meant what I said out there.” He spoke quietly, but the words were distinct. “David Allen is the best man I know. I would not be surprised at all to find out that you’re, uh, attracted to him.” He paused. “But I’m glad you’re not.” He looked right into her eyes, his own dark and deep and full of secrets.

Her breath caught in her throat. She stared back at him, trapped by him again. Her hand tightened on his knee. His fingers pressed hers closer to the hard muscles under his cargo pants.

The hell with the whiskey. Luc was the one going straight to her head.

“You and David keep insisting I’m stupid,” she said, her voice breathless even to her own ears.

“Never that.”

“Okay, you think that I’m silly then. Naïve.”

He shook his head once. “No.”

“Neither of you think I know my own mind.” That mind was spinning at the moment. The fire of the whiskey running through her system was nothing compared to the fire of touching him. “Neither of you think I’m smart enough, adult enough, to know how to handle myself. David spent the whole time he was here running interference—”

“Noticed that, did you?” Luc seemed to have shifted closer to her, even though she hadn’t seen him move. “He was trying to protect you from—” He broke off, looked away, then back at her. His gaze tracked down to her mouth and focused. Her lips tingled just from the force of his attention.

She licked them, and he actually shuddered.

“Protect me from…?” she murmured. She felt like she was looking at him through a soft mist.

“Me.” He breathed the word. The air stirred on her face, and she smelled the whiskey he’d just drunk. He was definitely closer now, filling her senses.

“Did he need to?”

“Yeah,” he growled. “Oh, yeah.” He smiled, just a quirking of lips, and she found herself as fascinated by his mouth as he seemed to be with hers. She wanted to taste it, to bite it.

“I don’t want David, Luc,” she whispered. The words floated out, and she saw him tremble when her breath brushed him. It made her feel powerful. It made her feel alive. It made her feel like a goddess.

“Who do you want?” His voice was strangled.

“You.”

And she kissed him.

Luc knew this was a mistake. Knew goddamn right well he should not be doing this, but he couldn’t stop himself from responding. He pulled back slightly, found her looking at him through fogged eyeglasses.

Slowly, deliberately, he removed the glasses and put them on the coffee table next to the whiskey bottle, heard her breath catch as he did so. Then he kissed her.

He tried to keep it gentle, as light as when he’d kissed her back in the ballroom, an undemanding exploration of lips, a journey of touch, of taste, even though her mouth, the warm sensation of it overwhelmed him. Maybe he could keep it to this, he thought hazily, just this. He needed to taste her. Needed to.

His good intentions lasted until Katie wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and pulled him closer. Until she acted as if she wanted to crawl inside him. Her mouth was busy on his, her tongue demanding, wordless noises coming from somewhere deep in her throat. Her hands stroked into his hair, tugged at it with fierce insistence.

And he lost it.

Somehow he had her on her back on the dense oriental carpet. Somehow he was on top of her. Their mouths met, clung, separated, came together again, wet and open and searching. Passion flared, bright and hot between them, and blew away his rapidly disintegrating control as if it had never existed.

He’d never felt like this before. He didn’t know how to handle this, and he knew how to handle almost anything. He was losing his mind. His tongue swept inside her mouth, sparred with hers, pulled hers until he could suck on it. She moaned, clutching at him, and he couldn’t control a little groan of his own. He buried his fingers deep in her beautiful, untamable hair and slanted her head to give him easier access.

The kiss grew even wilder. Hotter. Volatile. For long moments he ate at her as if he was starving. And he was.

Most of his blood had drained right out of his head, but a little voice of reason managed to make itself heard through the blinding throb of lust. Luc finally remembered to pull back a little.

“Katie,” he murmured. He found he couldn’t not touch her, and trailed his mouth over her cheek, over the freckles scattered across her nose, while his hands wandered. “What the hell are we doing?”

“Kissing.” Her voice was husky and breathless as she lifted herself against him. “Boy howdy, are we ever kissing. Your mouth should be bronzed.”

His laugh strangled in his throat, muffled against her ear. Then he gasped when she finally managed to yank his shirt out of his jeans so she could run her small, cool hands under it. The sublime feeling of her touching his skin made him close his eyes for a second.

“We should stop,” he murmured.

“No.” She pulled his head back down and whispered against his mouth. Then she kissed him again, scorched him.

And just that quickly, Luc’s control shattered.

He forgot what a big mistake this was. Nothing mattered except being with her. Loving her.

Loving Katie.

He touched her hair, her face, the silky skin of her neck, then lower. She gasped when he palmed one full, firm breast, her fingers tunneling through his hair into his scalp. He rubbed his thumb across her nipple, and it hardened and swelled under the thin cotton of her shirt and bra.

God in heaven, nothing had ever been this good.

He was erect and hard, moving restlessly against her to torment them both. Digging the fingers of his left hand deep into her hair to hold her mouth where he wanted it, he went to work unbuttoning her shirt with his other hand. He was frantic with the desire to touch her, to taste all of her, to pull those sumptuous breasts into his mouth and suckle on her, to lick every inch of her body.

When her thin shirt parted, when he finally touched the incredibly soft skin of her feminine, rounded stomach, he growled and deepened the kiss further. His tongue dove, met hers, seduced as she was seducing, mated as hers was mating. She tasted of whiskey and woman. Katie.

A little voice deep inside tried to pull him back from the brink, to tell him that he shouldn’t do this, but he ignored it now. He had a right, didn’t he? She’d said she wanted him, and he’d waited so long. So goddamned long.

He let go of her wonderful, living hair and ran both of his hands under and around to her back, down to the rounded ass he’d craved since the moment he’d met her. Grasping her, he pulled her more tightly against him, settling himself between her thighs, letting her feel the force of his desire. He moved against her with more purpose, his legs sliding against her, entwining with hers. He wanted her to know exactly what he was going to do to her.

Oh, yeah, he was going to do all kinds of things to her.

Katie wasn’t idle. Her busy hands were under his shirt again, her fingers running over the muscles of his back and chest, then sliding to clutch at his ass when his mouth finally left hers and wandered down her throat to where the unbuttoned shirt exposed her soft, beautiful breasts cupped like jewels in the plain cotton bra.

“God, more freckles,” he muttered against her skin. “They drive me freaking nuts.”

He had to taste the ones dancing in random patterns across her exposed skin before tonguing the upper slope of her right breast. Then he teased her by sucking her nipple through the bra. She gasped and bucked against him, which made him groan in turn and instinctively grind himself against her.

He laughed breathlessly, his hands moving to cup her, massage her until her breath came fast and light.

“Jesus, Katie. Jesus, you’re so beautiful.”

She wasn’t. Katie knew she wasn’t. But she just couldn’t bring herself to disabuse him of the notion right now. Not when he was staring at her as if he would devour her. Not when his lean brown cheeks were flushed and he was breathing hard.

Her bra fastened in the front. He dealt efficiently with the hooks before spreading the material wide.

“Look at you, Katie. Just look at you. All pink and pretty.” His voice was gruff, and he ran his thumb across one of her nipples.

She gasped.

Katie looked at herself; she couldn’t help looking. Her breasts were flushed and seemed bigger somehow, swollen. As if they were reaching for him, the tips a deep, dark rose that said clearer than words exactly how turned on she was. More turned on than she’d ever thought she could be. It was because of him. Because of who he was. He was Luc. He was Bruce.

“Hmm. Time to play,” Luc murmured, his dark hair tousled and a sexy twinkle in his beautiful eyes. And play he did. He lapped her with his soft, rough tongue, touched her with his long, elegant fingers, until she writhed on the carpet, her head thrown back, too far gone to be embarrassed. Waves of sensation kept building and building until she thought she was going to explode. It had never been like this before. Never. She felt so wild that it was almost frightening.

He pulled back abruptly and she cried out.

“I need to see all of you,” he panted.

He attacked her clothing and while he fumbled with buttons and zippers, Katie scrabbled to return the favor. She really, really needed to touch him, to have him against her without clothes in the way.

They ended up wrestling and rolling on the carpet until Luc sat back, laughing. “Wait, wait.”

In one fluid movement he stripped off his T-shirt. His chest was broad, his stomach flat. He was ripped with muscle and dusted with dark hairs. His skin was golden brown except for some lighter patches that had to be scars.

In the next moment, he was pushing down her khaki shorts, cursing when they got caught on her shoes. She toed off her sneakers, then her socks, and then the shorts were gone along with her shirt and bra.

Luc laughed again, a warm, husky sound. Standing, he shucked off his pants, underwear, socks and shoes in what seemed to be one single movement. Then he was standing before her, gloriously naked. Wonderfully aroused.

Mute, wanting him desperately, Katie reached for him. He pushed her back into the delicious softness of the oriental carpeting. And then she wasn’t alone anymore.

His clever hands roamed over her body. She couldn’t seem to stop touching him, the hard muscles and the rough hair and the way his skin seemed to be satin in certain places, like the back of his neck and the small of his back. The rougher patches of scars on his shoulder, bicep, thigh, spoke of a hard life. A dangerous one. The thought that he could have died before she’d ever met him froze her and had her clinging to him, her short nails biting into his skin.

And then his mouth was back on her, and she couldn’t think at all. Except to get her mouth on him too.

He kissed her, tongue thrusting again and again, then raised his head and looked at her, his eyes narrowed. “I hope you’re ready for me because I can’t hold on much longer here.”

She laughed breathlessly. “What do I have to do, hold up semaphore flags? If you’re not inside me soon I’m going to die.”

He kissed her and pulled back slightly, running his fingers inside the waistband of the sedate cotton panties she’d just realized she was still wearing.

Then he ripped them off her body.

She helped him.

He came down on her again, but not completely.

“Beautiful,” he murmured and combed his fingers through her pubic hair, then ran his forefinger between the plump, slick folds of her most intimate place. She drew in a deep breath when he found the excruciatingly sensitive bud hidden there.

He stroked. She practically came off the floor, grabbing his biceps not so much for support, but to make sure she didn’t go flying off into outer space. Her legs fell apart of their own accord, and he huffed out a breath.

“Jesus, Katie. You’re so fucking pretty.”

His finger sank deep. She arched again, back bowed, aching breasts pointing toward the ceiling. She moved, she couldn’t help moving, riding his finger. His thumb teased her while a second finger joined the first, and she cried out, hips lifting.

Luc groaned.

“I have to… I want to…” He wasn’t making any sense, but Katie didn’t care because his fingers were still moving. And then his mouth, his wonderful, clever mouth, was right where she needed him the most.

She cried out in shock, in pleasure, in excitement, as he devoured her with lips and teeth and tongue. He hummed into her, the vibrations driving her insane. His tongue lapped her, worried her like a particularly juicy bone. Faster and faster. Side to side. Bringing her up and up and up…

And Katie exploded over the edge.

The top of her head almost came off, her moans flying up to the ceiling and echoing off the stone walls. Her body spasmed around his fingers while he moved them to prolong her pleasure until she finally lay limp again on the carpet.

“Oh, my God.”

“Don’t you dare fall asleep on me.” His voice was so rough it was practically unrecognizable as he pulled his hand from her body and rubbed his fingers across his stomach, painting himself with her.

Suddenly Katie didn’t feel so limp anymore. Maybe a little embarrassed, absolutely and incredibly alive, but definitely not limp.

Neither was Luc.

He grabbed his jeans and clawed through the pockets until he found a small foil packet and pulled it out. His hand was shaking. His whole body was shaking.

Katie sat up and got onto her knees, watching him. She was energized, powerful. Sexy. “No.”

He froze. Stared at her with blank desperation and she smiled.

“I want to play too,” she continued. “Lie down and get comfortable.” She took the condom out of his unresisting fingers and pushed at his chest.

“Jesus Christ.” But he fell back obediently, his arms flung wide, fingers digging into the nap of the carpet, his skin golden and glowing against the scarlet and black and navy rug.

She clutched the foil packet, but didn’t open it right away. She was too busy devouring the sight of him all spread out for her. Yum.

“Katie…” His voice was gruff with warning and pleading.

She smiled. “Please. I need a minute.”

His head fell back to the floor with a solid “thunk.”

Katie lowered herself down on top of him. For a moment she just kissed him, gnawed on his lips as if he were a particularly tasty snack, thrust her tongue into his mouth again and again, showed him what she hoped they’d be doing soon.

When his hips started bucking helplessly, she straddled him, deliberately spreading herself wide against his pelvis so he could feel the heat he’d caused. Luc’s neck and head bowed back, veins standing out as he let out a loud, inarticulate noise that was somehow more than a groan.

He reached for her, but she leaned back to avoid him.

“No,” she said. “I’m not ready to stop yet.”

He looked at her, his lean brown face and throat flushed a deep red, his pupils so dilated that his eyes looked like black pools. “Then you’d better hurry the hell up.” His voice was hoarse and barely recognizable.

Katie felt a wave of giddiness wash over her. She’d done this. She’d done this to him.

She licked her lips and his head fell back again.

“Shit,” he said.

Katie laughed and leaned over him, rubbed her nipples through the hair on his chest to tease both of them. She stretched farther out, heard the frantic rhythm of his breathing, saw his fingers clench the carpet until his knuckles turned white. She kissed him. His mouth, his jaw, his neck.

He groaned.

She laved his throat with her tongue, nibbled on it, on the strong cords and sinews. Who knew she was a neck person? Eventually she moved to his collarbones, his pecs. Learning the taste of him, the scent of him, taking extra care to love every scar she found—and she found quite a few. Cataloging them as her hands moved over him.

“What are these from?” she breathed, letting her tongue trace the ragged edges of two round scars in the meat of his muscled shoulder.

“Gunshot—Jesus, Katie!”

“Oh.” She loved the scars with her tongue, trying to draw out the pain, the memories.

“God.” He moaned and threw his head back farther, strong throat working until she had to taste it again, had to draw that brown, salty skin up against her teeth. Had to mark him.

No other man had ever offered himself so freely to her before. No man had made himself so vulnerable. Noises were coming out of his mouth constantly now, helpless groans and gasps that made her writhe on top of him, even as she circled one of his flat nipples with her mouth, pulled at the nub with her lips.