Lucas patted Victoria’s shoulder. “Sleep well.”
The control Lucas liked to keep around himself like a protective cloak had gone, ripped away by Victoria’s innocent question. This was the very reason he kept his feelings out of the way. Because when he didn’t, they overflowed, releasing an avalanche that threatened to bury him alive.
Chapter Five
Frankie stood under the light on the beach, Lucas’s discarded towel in her hands.
She watched as he strode towards her, hair slicked back from the sea water, the white cotton underwear soaked through and hiding nothing from her hungry stare.
Silently, she handed over his towel. He ran it over his hair, down his arms and across his chest. Her gaze followed everywhere the towel touched.
“If you stay here on this beach, I’m going to make love to you.” Lucas’s voice was rough, his eyes full of banked passion.
Frankie swallowed, his blunt words unnerving her but not changing her resolve. She hadn’t come down here to admire the sunset. “I know.”
His lips curled into a ghost of a smile. “Protection?”
“Right here.” Frankie patted the pocket of her scrubs.
“How? Where?”
“Remember I’ve made two trips to paediatrics now? It’s amazing the stuff they have up there.”
“Clearly.” Lucas reached for her, pulling her up tight against him. “Thank God for paediatrics.”
His mouth hit hers with none of the gentleness and all of the frustration of the night before. His tongue found hers and stroked it. Her body shivered in response while her hips positioned themselves against his. The evidence of his instant need for her lay heavy against her inner thigh.
Lucas’s hands lost themselves in her hair, holding her head in position while he kissed her so thoroughly her knees threatened to buckle. She pulled back, yanking the scrubs top up over her head. Lucas pulled the tie on her trousers and she kicked them away as they pooled around her ankles. The soft breeze hit her bare skin and she shivered.
“Cold?” Lucas rubbed his hands briskly up and down her arms.
She shook her head. “I’m hot.”
“You’re not wrong.” Lucas laughed. “That was maybe the corniest line ever.”
She smiled, kissing his mouth. “I kind of like corny.”
“Lay down.” His voice was soft but his eyes smouldered as they looked over her breasts, rising out of her bra, and continued down to her borrowed underwear.
“Under the light?” She’d never seen anyone but Lucas down on the beach, but that didn’t mean other people didn’t use it.
“You’re bothered about seeing who is making love to you?” He delivered the words calmly but she’d seen the hurt before he had time to mask his expression.
“I’m bothered about someone else seeing you make love to me,” she whispered, her eyes not leaving his face as she did as he’d asked and laid on the sand.
“I’m not going to fall in love with you or give you pretty words, Frankie. I don’t do relationships.” He lay next to her, leaning over and touching his lips to hers.
“I don’t remember asking for any of those things.” She said in between the gentle, caressing kisses he was treating her to, although they had always been things she had expected to have, had believed that she did have.
Casual relationships had never been her thing. She’d been with Joey since she was eighteen. His career had taken off shortly after she’d finished her nursing training and that had been that. She’d given up her future to be a bit-part player in his.
“I want us to be clear before we start anything,” Lucas’s mouth trailed downwards and over the rise of one of her breasts. He licked the valley between them, and her nipples hardened in response.
“I think that’s a bit late,” she murmured as he sat her forward and released the clasp on her bra. “We started this days ago.”
He lifted her breasts, holding them gently while his wet mouth licked each nipple in turn. “And tonight we’ll finish it.”
She deserved this night. She needed a night to forget who she was, the media scrum no doubt waiting for her to return and explain what had gone wrong in the most-talked-about relationship in the English isles. But most of all, she needed it for herself, to prove that despite what Joey had done, she was still desirable to men.
It didn’t matter that this was Lucas, her boss, the man she’d fought hard to impress with her skills the last few days. The man she’d come to admire, the one who made her breath hitch every time she caught him looking at her. None of those things mattered. They weren’t important. They meant nothing.
Satisfied that she’d dismissed those niggling concerns, she allowed herself to give everything she had to the time she had with Lucas. She’d worry about how she’d face him in the morning later.