There was something oddly arousing about the sound of our kissing, of our bodies hitting the sheets, crumpling them.
Lucas groaned as I jerked his briefs violently down his legs and kicked them off the rest of the way.
“What? No more patience?” he teased between searing kisses.
“No.” I kissed him harder, my hands digging into his muscular back as our bodies rubbed against one another. Fierce, aching need between my thighs drove my hips upward, pressing against his thigh.
I could kiss him all night long.
And not get tired of it.
But I suddenly wanted more.
His cheek rubbed against my face as he cupped my breast. “I didn’t even spend any time—”
“Not now!” I smacked his hand away, my body dying for the release his mouth had earlier promised.
“Sorry!” He gripped my ass and pulled me to my knees. “I got distracted.”
“No more!” I shoved his chest.
He let out a rough exhale and then chuckled. “Angry makeup sex, and we haven’t even been fighting . . . incredible.”
“If you want to tie me up, just say it. Otherwise, get on with it.” I winked and then wrapped my arms around his neck; my legs followed as I straddled him on the bed. Desperation burst through me. My already sensitive nipples hardened as they brushed against his chest, and chills spread outward, raising goose bumps all over my body.
“If I knew it would make you stay—I probably would,” he admitted. The smile fell from his face briefly before he let out a moan and touched his forehead against mine, then pushed his erection against my thigh. “I need to be inside you, I need to feel you.”
I nodded as searing waves of anticipated pleasure throbbed at my core.
“Avery—” He groaned again as I ground against his hips, easing some of the craving between my legs.
“Yes?”
“Just”—his breath hitched—“just tell me if it hurts.”
I silenced him with my mouth, hoping to end that certain conversation about my past sexual experience. Then I shocked myself by guiding him exactly where I needed him to be, not that a man like him needed help.
I just wanted to be in control of it.
Because that would end up protecting me, right?
Protection! Oh God!
“THORN!” I wriggled away from his hard length even as my body protested the move with a surge of pulsing desire. “Condom,” I gasped, feeling like a complete tease.
“Shit.” He stared at me in horror. “Avery, I completely forgot.”
Part of me deflated just a little, but I didn’t ask if that happened often. I did notice he was shaking when I pulled away so he could walk over to the nightstand.
I was ready to die.
I wanted him that badly.
“Could you walk any slower?” I demanded, my body twitching with anticipation.
He burst out laughing. “I figured it was better this way.” Seriously, an ant carrying a picnic basket could have walked faster. His eyes lit up with amusement. “You know, to make you so desperate for me that it consumes you the way it’s consuming me—the way it’s consumed me ever since you walked that tight ass into my office.”
I gasped, more turned on than I’d ever been in my entire life, damn him.
“So, yeah, I’ll walk slower.” He pulled a foil packet out of the nightstand and walked toward me. The foil crinkled as he tore it open. “I’ll go as slow as I can because a woman like Avery Black should be savored.”
I gulped.
I knew he shouldn’t say things like that to me.
Tenderness made me want what wasn’t mine.
He made me want more than Wednesday.
My eyes filled with tears, and I looked away and forced my emotions out of the situation, which just meant later I was going to end up crying into a box of chocolates while I dipped a serving spoon into a carton of rocky road.
He leaned over the bed and kissed me, and then very slowly pushed me back against the mattress. His hands grabbed mine as he pressed openmouthed kisses to my neck, his tongue making trails down my jaw, until he nudged my knees wider apart and I felt him press into me, stretching me, filling me.
It felt familiar.
It felt right.
Like coming home.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
LUCAS
It felt wrong.
Because of how right it felt.
With other women, I was easily able to objectify the situation—to go to that place in my head where, in each instance, I truly convinced myself we were in a mutually beneficial relationship that meant I pleased her, she pleased me, and eventually we both moved on.
I was a jackass.
And the minute I felt Avery’s tight body surrounding mine—I knew.
This would end badly.
Sex would change us.
I would break her heart.
Logically, that meant I needed to stop.
I tried pulling back, but the vixen hooked her feet behind me, trapping me in the most perfect hell I’d ever experienced, where the heat from her tight walls nearly suffocated me—brought me sweet death and then constricted, releasing me, only to tighten again. And from the look on her face, she was doing it on purpose. Tightening and releasing, tightening and releasing, building a rhythm I became driven to match. Looser . . . press forward, tighter . . . pull back. In and out. I was past that point of no return, past rational thinking and into straight-up pleasure.
So I stayed.
I tried to control it.
But the thing about sex—when it’s with someone you have feelings for, you can’t hold back.
She moaned.
We locked eyes.
I thrust harder.
She groaned louder.
Her lips parted.
I captured her mouth, my body slamming into hers in a punishing thrust as I gripped her hips and kissed her, bruised her mouth in an effort to make sure she never forgot it was me, it was us—together.
“Thorn—”
I pulled back and clenched my teeth in an effort to make the moment last longer—you’d think with all the sex I’d had, it would have been a simple matter of control.
But that’s another thing—when you’re with the right woman, you can’t help it.
One last thrust, and she clawed at my back and screamed my name so loud that I was pretty sure the neighbors were going to complain.
Release exploded through me with Avery Black’s name on my lips. I lowered my head and fused my mouth to hers, swallowing her cries as she contracted around me.
My heart would never be the same.
Because when we both pulled away from one another, I could have sworn I saw her grab the still beating vessel from my chest and hold it in the palm of her hands.
Without her—I felt empty.
Or maybe I’d always been that way.
The moment was crushed when she burst into tears.
I was still inside her.
And she was crying.
“Did I hurt you?” I tried to sound gentle rather than horrified that I might have harmed her physically.
Her answer was to shake her head and cry harder. Tears streamed down her cheeks to her swollen lips—and damn, I knew she was crying, but could she have looked any more beautiful?