Lucas had put his tongue there.
Then, his gaze still on hers, he put it there again and used it to open her sex so he could caress her clitoris with the tip.
Emmaline froze, then her heels dug into the bed and her hips shifted, arching into his teasing mouth. “Oh, God,” she whispered.
He didn’t hesitate after that. Lucas explored her thoroughly, tasting and tickling. Nudging inside her and nipping the outer lips of her sex. Someone was making frantic noises, of course it had to be her, and he laughed against her wet flesh and then focused on that single, pulsing, desperate scrap of flesh, dabbing at it, flicking it over and over.
Each second tightened Emmaline’s need, like thread wound too tightly on a bobbin. She was grasping at the covers again, scrabbling for control, then Lucas drew her clitoris into his mouth and sucked.
She arched, shuddered, swallowed a scream, the pleasure coiled in her belly spinning free now, a sweet, searing goodness like nothing she’d ever known.
He eased her through the quakes and crawled up her body to hold her against him as the last of them ebbed away. His hand caressed her hair, her face and when he kissed the side of her mouth, she tasted herself.
It shot a new bolt of desire through her. Emmaline lifted her head. “Lucas?”
Lifting onto an elbow, she kissed him, her tongue painting his lips and then delving inside his mouth. With a growl, he took over, rolling her to her back and coming between her thighs. His shaft nudged the wet softness between her legs, and she opened them wider, moaning as the plump head of his penis stroked her clitoris.
He shuddered and she chased it down his spine, feeling the heat of his skin and the slick film of sweat. His hips moved, his erection sliding up and down the groove of her sex, but she wanted more, as a deep inner ache clamored to be filled.
“I want you,” she said, her hands sliding to his hips, urging him to lower his weight.
Lucas sucked in a ragged breath. “We’ll go slow.”
And she realized she needed that from him, because the intrusion was thick and heavy, and her flesh and muscles needed time and coaxing to yield. Lucas soothed her with endless patience, kissing her face and stroking her hair and praising her as each inch was breached.
At one point he squeezed shut his eyes and gripped the pillow on either side of her head. He murmured words of encouragement—relax, baby, let me have you—and words of praise—God, so tight and wet, a fucking dream—until she was completely impaled.
It overwhelmed, it overpowered, but she wouldn’t choose to be anywhere else in the world. When he started rocking, the friction and pressure felt so good it brought tears to her eyes. She closed them to hold them secret to herself, but caressed his hair and lifted into each stroke, opening herself to him.
He was talking again. You’re incredible, nothing has ever been like this, I could live on your kisses, be fed forever by your taste, and the words and his actions were causing tension and desire to coil inside her again.
As she became more wet, he grunted and began moving more freely, and she felt the tension infuse his body as well. His skin burned under her hands, and she squeezed down on the thickness of him, her body unable to help itself.
He groaned. “Emmaline.”
She squeezed again, instinct insisting her muscles grip him, hold him, milk the pleasure from him she knew he was holding back.
His back went more rigid, and then he slid one hand between their bodies, finding space as her belly hollowed at the touch of his fingertips. They found her clitoris, and his strokes became deep pitches and surges. Her breath caught and, without notice, her body all at once unraveled, pleasure shooting to the ends of her toes and fingers.
Lucas grunted again, dove deep, and then she felt the pulse of his release jet into her body, once, twice, three times. On the fourth, he fell to his side, his erection slipping from her.
“Emmaline,” he rasped, his voice sounded parched. He blindly reached for her hand, and when he found it, brought it to his lips.
Minutes passed. Then finally he stirred himself to kiss her hand again. “Sweetheart. Are you okay?”
She commanded herself to play it cool. “I should be honest,” she said, attempting to sound languid. “I don’t think I can take it into next Wednesday.”
Instead of laughing like she’d hoped, he said, “Hmm” which sounded more like “We’ll see” than anything else.
A niggle of worry gathered at her breastbone, just under her heart. This wasn’t supposed to be an ongoing affair.
“I’ll settle for you admitting it was fantastic,” he said.
She cataloged all the tiny aches and sweet stings that pleasure—that Lucas—had wrought upon her. “It was fantastic,” she agreed, unwilling to withhold that from him.
“Good,” he replied, smug, then kissed her hand again and settled deeper into the pillow, obviously a man content in knowing he’d turned his partner inside-out.
You needed trust to do that, Emmaline realized now. There was no fantastic without having a true confidence in the other person. How could she have not known that? With her background of bruises and slap-burns, it should have been clear to her that it was the only way she could release her inhibitions and find unrestrained, physical passion.
But it went beyond trust, she thought, misery rolling in. She could no longer fool herself. She’d fallen in love with Lucas.
She, who couldn’t have any man.
Chapter 10
Lucas jogged on the hard-packed sand close to the surf line, side-stepping every now and then to avoid the incoming tide. Ten days had passed since he’d ended up in Emmaline’s bed, and much about his life had changed—except his relationship with her.
The damn woman had managed to return things to butler-as-usual.
He glanced at the ocean, squinting as the morning sun blazed on the dappled surface of the bay. The air tasted like brine and summer, and he breathed in a deep lungsful of it. The past months of the merger had kept him inside much too often, and now that they’d successfully completed the transition, he intended to spend more time doing things he enjoyed, like appreciating his Malibu digs and reacquainting himself with the notion of leisure.
Today, his first morning run in what seemed like forever, was supposed to be a happy beginning.
But no amount of endless ocean and golden sand could free him from his circling thoughts of Emmaline.
In his arms, she’d been both wildly responsive and sweetly awe-struck, as if surprised by what he could rouse in her. For his part, one look at that magnificent body of hers without the cover of clothing and he’d nearly swallowed his tongue. It was the kind of beauty that you made sacrifices to—leaving it offerings of hand-picked flowers, milky beach glass and polished beach stones, pots of golden clover honey.
A man could become a monk to that kind of lush nudity, if it didn’t inspire the very opposite of celibacy. He thought Emmaline’s body was why they’d named three of the seven deadly sins greed, lust, and gluttony.
But he’d managed to bring her to peak with some measure of aplomb, knowing Emmaline’s experience with the opposite sex had done nothing to make her comfortable in her own showy skin. Instead she’d learned to practice distance and detachment, something she’d reverted to the day after he’d had her.
Her wariness had snapped right back into place.
Consequently, Lucas hated every man who’d ever looked at her, resented how each lascivious glance had caused her to add layers of bricks to her walls. And at the thought of someone else’s hands on her, caressing her, kissing her, Lucas wanted to…
Hmm. Wasn’t wrath another of the deadly sins?
And how about obsession? Because he couldn’t get her, and his desire for her, out of his head. To strip it down to the basics, he wanted to go all Mr. Curry on Emmaline and demand she belong to him and him alone, that she let down her guard and allow him to experience all the warmth and sweetness she held so tightly and only released in precise
squares of feta-dotted flat bread and the clouds of cream she whipped for shortcake.
Deep in his thoughts, he nearly tripped over a tumble of glistening, amber-colored kelp, as big as a dog. At the last minute he leaped, clearing the mass, but it gave him a new idea.
Maybe he’d get himself a puppy. With his workload cut by a quarter, his sister about to be married, he could use a canine companion. His free time could be concentrated on training a dog instead of knocking his head against the fortified gates of a certain stubborn woman.
After ten long years of eighty-hour work weeks, didn’t he deserve something that came easy?
As if the universe meant to answer, a tennis ball came rolling toward him on the sand. Lucas looked up, expecting to see an exuberant Lab or a speed-demon mutt. Although this beach wasn’t designated for dogs, nobody would complain this early in the morning.
Instead, he saw Wells Archer running down the steps of the beach house Lucas knew was his, a tennis racket dangling from one hand.
“Hi,” the boy said, swooping in to pick up the neon ball.
“Practicing your game?” Lucas asked.
Wells held the racket horizontal and tried bouncing the ball off its face, only to lose control of it again.
Lucas watched him try a second time. “Choke up,” he told the kid. “Hold higher on the racket handle and stiffen your wrist.”
His coaching was rewarded with a six-year-old’s grin as Wells met with some success. “Cool.”
“Aren’t you going to say thank you?” Charlie asked, trotting down the steps. She smiled at Lucas. “Hi, there.”
“Good morning.” The butler wore a sleeveless, navy cotton dress that ended above the knees to reveal slender, tanned legs. Her sleek hair was pulled away from her elegant face in a low ponytail.
She eyed him with a professional air. “You look like you could use some water or a mug of strong coffee.”
“Are you butlers trained in mindreading? I could use both.”
“Come on then,” she said, gesturing him toward the house. “We have a few minutes before I have to run Wells to tennis camp.”
They left the boy at the bottom of the stairs, practicing his new skill.
Following her direction, Lucas sank to an outdoor couch on their terrace and she came back with a glass of water and a steaming coffee. He two-fisted them, grateful for both liquids.
Charlie watched him down about half the water, then swallow a big gulp of the dark brew. “How’s Emmaline?” she asked, when he set both on the table in front of him. “She’s been keeping herself scarce.”
“Oh?” He made sure his expression gave nothing away. “I’ve been wrapped up in my merger, so I haven’t been home much.”
“How’s that going?” Charlie asked, her gaze shifting to check on Wells, then returning to his face.
“Done as of two days ago,” he said, picking up the water to drain the last half. “I’m a much freer man now.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks.” He hesitated, then decided to go for it. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure. But I don’t think there’s anything you can do, say, or pay that will cause Emmaline to give you her lasagna recipe.”
He grinned. “Why do you suppose that’s my heartfelt desire?”
It was her turn to smile. “I don’t know how to get her to give you that either.”
Shit. Was he so transparent? “I was thinking of adopting a dog,” he grumbled. “I only wanted to know if she’s allergic.”
The lie didn’t result in even the weakest of guilty pinches, because he saw immediately that Charlie wasn’t buying it.
“I’ve been pumped for information about Emmaline since we became close at the academy,” she said kindly.
“I’m sorry.” And he was. “I didn’t mean to ask you to talk behind her back.”
“I understand your curiosity,” Charlie said. “Emmaline’s our mystery girl.”
“What does that mean?”
The woman shrugged. “It means I actually don’t know much about her before she showed up at the academy.”
“She was traveling around Europe for five years. A nanny, an au pair, a teacher of English.”
“Just so,” Charlie inclined her head.
Meaning, he surmised, that Charlie didn’t know what had set Emmaline to traipsing around another continent for half a decade.
“She’s a free spirit,” Lucas said, by way of a test.
Charlie snorted. “And I’m Atilla the Hun.” Then she narrowed her eyes, staring at him with a new soberness. “I will tell you one thing about Emmaline. She’s deeply lonely.”
Of course she was. Being both protected and isolated behind those walls she’d built. Perhaps that explained some of her attraction for him, Lucas decided. Finally, he’d found someone who seemed more solitary than he himself.
Charlie glanced down at her watch and raised her voice. “Wells! Time to go!”
As the boy clattered up the steps, his father strolled onto the terrace, his own mug of coffee in hand.
“Good morning.” He smiled at Charlie and reached out to shake Lucas’s hand. Then he caught his son to him for a brief hug. “Have a great day, pal.”
“Will do,” Wells said, then turned to his caregiver. “Get the lead out, lady.”
“Hey.” Ethan frowned. “We don’t talk to Charlie like that. It’s not respectful.”
“Sorry.” His son looked chagrined. “I heard it on a cartoon.”
Ethan’s gaze met his butler’s over the boy’s head. “My apologies on his behalf. Shall we eat all the ice cream before Wells comes back home?”
Without missing a beat, his butler responded, “And the rest of that bag of spicy tortilla chips he likes.”
“Yum.” Ethan rubbed his flat belly. “Best breakfast ever.”
Butler and boy exited through the house, the child extorting promises from Charlie that she and his father wouldn’t eat all of his favorite treats. For a second time, Lucas noted a fleeting resemblance between the pair. Maybe it was the set of their heads on their necks or the way they walked.
With a fond smile on his face, Ethan Archer watched them go, but Lucas noticed that at the last minute his gaze dropped to his butler’s long, fine legs. Then he glanced over at Lucas, cleared his throat.
“Well,” he said, and looked away as if embarrassed.
“I should go.” Lucas stood.
“No, no.” Ethan ran his free hand over his hair. “I could use a distraction. We’ll have to top off our coffees.”
More because he was curious than because he needed additional caffeine, Lucas followed the other man into the kitchen. “Is something the matter?”
“What?” Seeming to swim out of a fog, Ethan shook his head. “It’s nothing.” Grabbing up the coffee carafe, he turned to Lucas, ready to pour.
“I’m fine,” he said, putting up his free hand. “Trying to decrease my intake, now that my work days aren’t so long.”
“Tell Emmaline,” Ethan suggested. “She’ll have some magical way to cut back on the caffeine without limiting the number of cups you drink. You’ll never taste the difference.”
Lucas nodded, then became aware that the other man was studying him over the rim of his mug.
“How is our Emmaline?” Ethan eventually asked. “She hasn’t been around much lately.”
“You’re accustomed to seeing a lot of her.”
“The three butlers, they’re close. Like sisters.”
He nodded. It was the one of the few personal facts he knew about her besides she’d lost her mother and grandmother.
“I heard you say something about a dog,” Ethan ventured next.
Lucas shrugged. “Just a thought.”
“I’m considering one for Wells. My late wife was afraid of them—she’d been bitten as a child.”
Lucas noticed a photograph sitting on a nearby bookshelf, a blonde woman with hair cut as short as a boy’s and a piquant smile th
at radiated good cheer. “That’s her?”
“Yes. Michelle.” The other man stared at the photo as if wishing he could step inside the frame. “Ma belle. The love of my life.”
“Do you feel lucky to have had one?” Lucas heard himself ask, then instantly regretted the words. “Excuse me, I—”
“Don’t apologize,” Ethan said.
“I don’t know what got into me.” Lucas shook his head.
“Maybe it’s all the romance that’s in the air,” Ethan replied, setting aside his mug. “Sara and Joaquin’s engagement. And then I believe I heard your sister’s getting married soon?”
“Yes.” Lucas frowned, thinking of Stella and her upcoming wedding. He’d been so wrapped up in the final details of the merger, he hadn’t spoken to her about it recently. How was she doing as her big day approached? Though she’d fallen early and hard for Aaron, Lucas had worried about the exact depth of that feeling. Frankly, he couldn’t see her gazing on her fiancé’s photo like Ethan had looked at his Michelle.
Shit. Did Lucas really want her to experience that intensity of emotion? All at once it felt fraught with danger, and as a man who’d spent a decade being both brother and parent to Stella, it made him queasy to think of offering her up to what could ultimately end in tremendous pain.
“Would you take it all back,” he said, glancing at the blonde in the photograph and then at Ethan, “knowing…” Appalled at what he’d almost asked, Lucas back-peddled fast. “I’m sorry. Forget I said anything.”
“Would I take back falling in love with my wife knowing she would die so young of cancer, leaving me alone with our adopted son?”
Lucas winced. “Put like that—”
“If you could take it back, then it isn’t really love,” Ethan said easily.
Though Lucas had started the conversation thinking of Stella, now Emmaline took center stage in his mind. He rubbed the middle of his forehead. Had he really considered, even for an instant, to assuage his desire to make her his by a trip to the animal shelter? How ridiculous of him. It would never have worked.
The Seduction (Billionaire's Beach Book 5) Page 15