Then again, it wasn’t like he and Rio weren’t armed.
On the lower level, he couldn’t not kiss her again. She’d lit a candle in a stout, corroded holder, and the fragile light was like a distant star in the night over by the bolts of fabric he’d first settled her on when he’d had nowhere else to bring her.
He helped her stretch out, holding her hand to steady her as she got down on her knees and lay on her back. Joining her, she arched her body and he kissed her some more, his hands finding their way under the shirt he’d given her.
The layers that covered her came off, melting away as he undid buttons, unzipped zippers, stripped off the shirt, her pants, and her bra.
No panties. He’d ruined them.
“You’re so beautiful.”
“You always say that.” She smiled up at him. “I’m thinking you’re biased for some reason.”
It’s because I love you, he thought to himself.
Lucan kissed her in a lingering way. Then he sat back and just watched the candlelight play over her pink-tipped breasts, and her stomach, and the graceful curve of her hips. As his eyes traveled down her naked body, she moved her legs together, her thighs shifting restlessly, like she was wet and hungry.
Taking his time, his hands followed the path of his stare, stroking down her throat, lingering over her collarbones. Her breasts lifted as she arched, but he teased her, letting his fingertips cross over her ribs and curve up to her sternum.
He made a circle around one of her nipples, and as she gasped, he pinched her gently. Then he full-on caressed her, relishing the softness, the tautness, the silk—until he couldn’t help himself. He lowered his mouth to her and tasted her, one tight tip and then the other.
When his hand went lower, she opened her legs.
She was so undone for him, so vulnerable and powerful at the same time. She was ancient and she was new, a mystery and an answer, a secret and a truth. The contradictions made him desperate and that made him aggressive—but he relished calling on his self-control. He enjoyed the torture of keeping himself in check.
Slipping his hand between her thighs, he found her slick heat, and as he stroked her, penetrated her, he watched her writhe in the candlelight. With an erotic moan, she brought her hands to her face, bit down on a couple of her fingers, and then she put her arms over her head, twisting, turning.
She slapped her legs together at where he was pleasuring her as she came, holding him in place, locking her knees tight.
The rhythmic releases compressed his fingers, and he imagined his cock was inside of her.
Like she read his mind, she popped open her eyes. “I want you in me. Now.”
Rio was feeling like liquid heat underneath Luke’s hot stare and very talented hands. But it wasn’t enough. Fortunately, as he retracted his touch and immediately started stripping, it appeared that the foreplay hadn’t been sufficient for him, either.
In the candlelight, he was magnificent fully naked, his very male body hard and thick with muscle, hard and thick . . . where it counted the most.
When he came back down to the bolts of fabric, she held out her arms and opened her legs wide. She was done with the anticipation part of things. She needed him—
“I can’t wait,” he growled.
“Good.”
As he settled into the cradle of her sex, his tremendous weight made her feel pinned—and she wanted that. She wanted to be under him and pressed into the softness below her. She wanted him buried deep—
Rio cried out as his blunt head probed at her. Then she got what she wanted. With a decisive thrust, he entered her and stretched her wide, the sex better than the best she had ever had—and they hadn’t even started moving yet.
That little slow-up was promptly addressed.
Luke retracted his hips. Thrust again. Retracted. Thrust. The rhythm got faster and faster, and rougher, too—until he was pounding into her. Against the onslaught of him, it was all she could do to just hold on to his massive shoulders, her teeth clapping together, her core both numb and hypersensitive—no, wait, that was her whole body.
Her nails dug into his skin, and at one point, she nearly bit him in the biceps.
The orgasm tore through her, the pleasure so great it registered as pain, too—and then he was locking against her body. Then locking again. And again.
It didn’t stop.
Maybe later she would marvel at the stamina. At the moment, she was too blissed out and off the planet to do anything but absorb everything he pumped into her . . .
. . . until he finally went still.
As he collapsed on top of her, breathing hard, she stroked his back with slow hands. Even though the full weight of him was on her, she felt as though she were floating.
“I better let you breathe,” he said in a hoarse voice.
When he went to roll aside, she pulled at him. “No. Not yet.”
“I’m too heavy.”
How could she explain that she needed him to hold her down? She felt as though her pinnings were gone, her tethers cut, her balloon off and floating over the landscape of her life. She had no family, it was true, but her job, her mission, her . . . obsession . . . had been a grounding sure as all those Thanksgivings and Christmases, birthdays and weddings, that other people enjoyed. Okay, fine, her sense of home involved crime and danger and dead bodies, and required a constant, nagging self-preservation instinct, but it was still what was familiar to her.
What got her out of bed in the morning.
What gave her purpose.
Now, she didn’t know who to trust—and not in a “the streets” kind of way. As in inside the Caldwell Police Department itself.
When Luke shifted off eventually, he took her with him, the pair of them entwined together with him still inside of her. Reaching behind himself, he pulled some of the bolts of fabric over them.
“Please don’t go after Mozart,” she said as she stroked his face.