“A squash sounds good to me,” he assured as he started to undress.
Nicky watched unashamedly as Lucien pulled his T-shirt up and then off over his head, revealing his deliciously golden and muscled chest, and those beautiful tattoos that covered his bare arms and the top of his chest. He slipped off his shoes and socks before unfastening his jeans and stepping out of them, his gaze holding hers as he hooked his thumbs into his black boxers and slipped them off too.
He was, without a doubt, a breathtakingly beautiful man in his prime: shoulders wide, chest muscled, lean waist and hips, and long, muscled legs. His shaft was fully aroused, and long and thick.
“Still want me to join you?” Lucien prompted ruefully as he ran his fisted hand along that silken length.
“Yes,” Nicky assured huskily.
“Scoot forward,” he encouraged as he climbed in behind her and slid a leg on either side of her body to rest alongside Nicky’s, his arms moving about her waist as she lay her head back against the warmth of his chest.
Lucien didn’t speak, wasn’t sure he could have if someone had asked him to, as a rush of emotion filled his chest at having Nicky nestled so trustingly against him. This evening had started out so disastrously—mainly his fault, he accepted that—that it was difficult to believe the renewed closeness between the two of them now.
A closeness that Nicky had graciously allowed him, whether he deserved it or not.
This, just sitting here holding Nicky in his arms, her back resting against his chest, the softness of her curls beneath his chin, was the closest Lucien had ever come to perfect peace and contentment in the whole of his thirty-three years.
That feeling of contentment had nothing to do with his extreme wealth, the success of his business, or his heartfelt relief at the life he had left behind fifteen years ago, and everything—everything to do with the woman he now held in his arms.
No matter what he had to do, no matter what her secrets, Lucien wasn’t going to let Nicky go again.
He had a feeling that Nicky had become his weakness.
His arms tightened about her; just the thought of anything ever happening to Nicky was enough to make his blood go cold.
Nicky felt totally relaxed and happy as she continued to lie in Lucien’s arms, aware of the rise and fall of his chest behind her, his legs surrounding her, his arms wrapped tightly about her.
She looked over her shoulder at him. “Would you like to go and prepare dinner together now? Unless, of course, you would prefer to go straight to bed?” She turned over in the bathwater, her breasts pressed against the muscled hardness of Lucien’s chest. “I’m happy to give dinner a miss if you are.” She held Lucien’s gaze as she slowly lathed one of his copper-colored nipples with the moistness of her tongue.
God, Lucien loved Nicky like this, playful and seductive—forgiving—as she lay between his parted thighs. “I might be persuaded to forego eating dinner if you have something more...juicy, to tempt me with.” He sat up, his arms remaining about Nicky’s waist as she moved up onto her knees, her breasts level with his hungry mouth.
“Ah uh.” Nicky’s fingers became entangled in the dark thickness of Lucien’s hair, preventing him from moving any closer, as he would have latched onto one of those deliciously plump nipples. “Do you know what I thought about your hair that first day I saw you in the coffee shop?” She continued to run caressing fingers through that dark silkiness.
“No, but I have a feeling you’re about to tell me.” He stroked his tongue slowly over and around the roused nipple closest to him, doing it again as he felt her quivering response.
“I thought,” she groaned, her back arching into that caress, “look at that gorgeous man with his just-been-fucked-hair.”
Lucien chuckled softly as he turned his attention to her other nipple, slowly lathing, moistly stroking before answering her. “I hadn’t been, but when I looked at you I wanted to be!”
There was a moment’s silence as Nicky stilled, and then she began to smile, that smile widening, before she burst out laughing and fell forward against him, causing the scented water to slop precariously close to the top of the bath. “That was really naughty of you, Lucien!”
“Oh I can be much naughtier than that.” He surged to his feet, Nicky still in his arms as he stepped out of the bath, snagging up a towel and his jeans on his way into her bedroom. He stood her in front of him and dried her with the bath towel before grabbing a condom from his jeans pocket and laying her gently down on top of the bed and then following her down.
“And I think,” Nicky moved quickly, turning so that Lucien was now the one lying on his back as she moved to straddle his hips before taking the condom out of his hand, “that it’s my turn to be naughty.”
“You do?” He looked up at her through narrowed lids.
“Oh yes.” She returned that gaze challengingly, feeling empowered as Lucien’s arms relaxed back to his sides in invitation and he dropped his head onto the pillows, looking up at her through dark, silky lashes.
Nicky continued to hold his gaze as she took the condom from the packet and slowly rolled it down his silky length before rising up on her knees, her fingers encircling his shaft as she now ran the moist tip teasingly along her labia before allowing that sheathed tip to penetrate half an inch inside her.
“Let me in all the way, Nicky,” Lucien groaned as his hips arched up for deeper penetration.
“Who’s in charge here, Lucien?” She arched a teasing brow, knowing she was playing with fire, but hoping that this more relaxed Lucien would allow her to play his own game. “Lucien?” she prompted again as she saw his eyes had narrowed.
“I guess you are,” he finally murmured half-questioningly.
“I am,” she nodded firmly as she slowly lowered herself down onto his shaft, holding back her own groan of pleasure as the whole of the bulbous tip now penetrated her slick heat and she deliberately flexed and then relaxed her inner muscles.
“Fuck,” Lucien groaned, his eyes becoming glazed, pupils wide.
“Not quite yet.” Nicky gave a satisfied grin at the pleasure she knew she was giving him. Mixed in with a little torture, admittedly, but no more so than those times he had deliberately tormented her like this in the past. “Did I say you could touch my breasts?” She leaned back and away from him as he would have done exactly that.
His eyes narrowed to glittering slits. “Remember what happened last time you— Fuck, fuck, fuck!” His hips arched up instinctively as Nicky sheathed the length of his cock in one smooth, engulfing stroke.
“Again, not quite,” she drawled as she made no move to do more than that.
Lucien breathed hard at the feel of Nicky’s pussy clamped about his cock as tight as a fist.
“Just feel, Lucien,” she encouraged in a croon.
He already felt, was totally aware of the rippling of Nicky’s inner muscles along the length of his cock, caressing him from base to tip. “Ride me, Nicky,” he groaned achingly, hands grasping her hips in encouragement.
A smile tilted her lips as she leaned forward, just low enough to rest the arousal of her nipples against the heat of his chest. She moved slowly as she rubbed those nipples against his oversensitive flesh, at the same time as she ground her hips against him slowly, tortuously, until the whole of Lucien’s body felt as if it were as taut as a bowstring.
“I need you to ride me, damn it,” Lucien gasped desperately; he was so desperate to be more inside her right now he would have begged if Nicky asked him to.
But it was as if she didn’t hear him as she continued that slow grind against his hips and that rubbing of her nipples against his chest. And all the time the muscles of her sheath were rippling and constricting as her own arousal deepened.
It wasn’t enough. Lucien wanted the friction, the hard clutch of her pussy moving up and down his cock, riding him, hard and fast. And he wanted it now.
“Nicky!” He thrust up into her, at once desperate for the downward s
troke he needed to take his pleasure to the climax he ached for. “Ride me, damn it!” His hands tightened on her hips. “Nicky, please... Oh God, yes,” he choked as she finally lifted up and then slid down again on his cock. “Yes!” he hissed as she began to move, her hands resting on his chest for leverage, her expression concentrated as she set a rhythm and pace to those upward and downward strokes that made Lucien’s balls tighten and pulse.
He arched mindlessly up into the heat and rhythm of those strokes, wanting deeper friction, wanting, needing, everything this woman wanted to give him.
“Please, Nicky— Oh-my-God!” Lucien totally lost it as Nicky now set a harder, faster rhythm that seemed to draw his cum up from his toes as her pussy began to spasm and clench on his cock, her own climax beginning deep inside her womb.
They were both groaning now, thrusts hard and fast, as wave after wave of pleasure swept them up and then over the edge, before crashing them down onto the rocks below.
Lucien continued to thrust as he came harder and deeper than he ever had in his life before, his seed rising and pumping into the woman, who although she may not realize it yet, had just claimed him as her own.
Chapter 14
“Time to wake up, sleepyhead. I’ve brought you breakfast in bed.”
Nicky wasn’t sure whether she was dreaming—the breakfast, and that deliciously sexy voice whispering in her ear—but if she was then she really didn’t want to wake up just yet.
“Nicky?” Lucien crooned in her ear now, followed by teeth gently nibbling on her earlobe.
She wasn’t dreaming. Lucien really was still here, in her bedroom, and she could smell coffee too. “If you’re a hallucination could you leave the coffee before you disappear?”
He chuckled softly. “There are also croissants, and some of the fruit we didn’t eat for dinner.”
“Tempter!” She opened her eyes and looked at him, drinking in how good he looked, his face relaxed and smiling, his hair in that wonderfully messy style, morning stubble visible on his jaw. “Have you ever wondered why there’s no specific male equivalent of ‘temptress’?”
“No,” Lucien chuckled as he straightened. “But I think you need to drink some of your coffee!”
“I do, too.” She pulled the sheet over her bared breasts as she moved up the bed to sit back against the pillows. “You’re very bright and cheerful for...” she glanced at the bedside clock, “seven o’clock on a Saturday morning?”
He placed the breakfast tray across her knees before sitting down beside her on the bed. “I just spent the night with my beautiful and sexy lady, and now I get to bring her breakfast in bed; what’s not to like?”
Nicky felt a warm glow inside at hearing Lucien call her ‘his beautiful and sexy lady’. It wasn’t quite on par with girlfriend, or a declaration of love, but it would do until Lucien got used to the idea. All of this was still new to him—
What was she thinking? She wasn’t Lucien’s girlfriend. And expecting him to return the love she felt for him wasn’t sensible either. He wanted her, he desired her, he didn’t love her. Which was perhaps as well, when she wasn’t even sure she would be able to stay in London after today.
At the moment it was a little difficult to think of anything else but this gorgeous—and immediate—sexy man, sitting on the side of her bed...
After such a shaky start, last night had been...wonderful.
They had wandered back to the kitchen after making love that first time, Nicky wearing Lucien’s T-shirt, Lucien only in his jeans, as the two of them prepared a late supper together. They hadn’t bothered with the food Nicky had bought for their starter or main course, or even the fruit, instead making do with just the cheese and crackers.
That appetite satisfied, they had gone back to bed and made love again, finally settling down to sleep with Lucien curled spoon-fashion against Nicky’s back, his arm about her waist, the softness of his breath against her nape.
It had been too perfect a time for Nicky to want to waste a second of it by falling asleep.
And yet that appeared to be what she’d eventually done; she hadn’t even been aware of Lucien waking up and getting out of bed, let alone heard him making her breakfast.
“Mm, perfect,” she murmured after sipping the coffee.
“But how’s the coffee?” Lucien quirked teasing brows.
“Are you always in this much of a good mood in the morning?” Nicky frowned. “Because if you are, that could be a problem. Not that I’m not bright and cheerful inside, I’m just a little...quiet, until after the caffeine kicks in. Do I have serious bedhead?” She grimaced as Lucien just continued to smile at her.
“You look fine.” Lucien liked Nicky this way: newly awake, her eyes still sleepy, her face flushed and bare of makeup, her hair in wild red curls.
“Seriously?” She didn’t look convinced.
“Seriously,” he assured indulgently. “How are your feet this morning?”
Nicky wiggled her toes beneath the covers. “They’re okay.”
“Good,” Lucien nodded as he stood up. “Do you need the bathroom?”
“Not just yet, no.” She settled back comfortably.
“Then I’ll go and take a shower while you finish drinking your coffee and eating your breakfast.”
And then the two of us will have the conversation we avoided having last night.
Lucien didn’t say those words, but Nicky heard them anyway.
She also knew what the ‘conversation’ was going to be about. And it was enough to rob her of her appetite.
“I’ll expect to see the croissants and fruit eaten by the time I come back,” Lucien seemed to know exactly what she was thinking, and feeling.
“It looks delicious.” Nicky gave him a beaming smile, that smile remaining on her lips only long enough for Lucien to disappear into the bathroom, at which time she sank weakly back against the pillows, knowing the time for prevaricating and procrastinating was at an end.
Lucien knew his last comment, before going into the bathroom earlier, had to have been responsible for the return of that wariness in Nicky’s expression when he joined her in the kitchen twenty minutes later. But if she wouldn’t go away with him, even for a few days, then they would have to have this conversation here and now. He couldn’t protect her if he didn’t know what he was protecting her from.
“I’m not going to judge, Nicky,” he assured her as he bent to give her a lingering kiss. “God knows—and so will you very shortly—I’m the last one who should ever do that!”
“You really are going to tell me your secrets too?” Nicky turned to watch him as he replenished their coffee cups before sitting down opposite her.
“Well, not all of them. For instance, I think we can give exchanging our sexual histories a miss, don’t you?” He grimaced self-derisively before sobering. “But I need to tell you some of the things about myself, yes.” He nodded seriously.
“Are you sure you should trust me with your secrets?” Nicky eyed him uncertainly. “Not that I’ll ever tell anyone,” she hastened to reassure him. “But once you’ve told someone else then it isn’t a secret anymore, and—” She broke off as Lucien reached over and placed his hand over hers. “I’m just delaying, aren’t I?”
“You are,” he confirmed softly. “Would you like me to go first?”
“No, I need to get this over with, if I’m going to do it at all.” Nicky looked down into her coffee mug as she drew in a deep breath before beginning to talk, not wanting to see Lucien’s expression—disgust? contempt?—when she told him about her father.
Lucien was silent for so long after Nicky finished speaking that finally she couldn’t stand the tension any longer and raised her eyes to look at him.
He looked extremely calm, even expressionless, for a man who had just been told that her father had been an accountant who laundered money for his clients, until he had decided to steal ten million pounds of that money for himself. For which he had paid the ultimate price of
his life.
Nicky gave a shake of her head. “I never realized what my father did for a living. I thought he was just a boring accountant, not some—some sleazy person who laundered money for criminals!” She chewed on her bottom lip as Lucien still remained silent; had she shocked him so much that he was speechless? “Lucien...?”
“So your name is Felicity but you now prefer Nicky?”
She gave a pained frown. “I’ve just told you that my father was as much of a crook as his clients, and that he was murdered for stealing ten million pounds from one of them, and that’s all you have to say?”
No, of course it wasn’t all Lucien had to say.
He simply didn’t know what else to say right now; Nicky’s ‘secret’ was so much more than he had expected.
Than he could ever have guessed.
Or wanted.
And he was too stunned as yet to know how he was going to deal with that knowledge.
He frowned. “If your father was murdered then the police must have been involved?”
“Of course.” Nicky sighed. “Neil and I had a visit from—from some threatening men, on the morning of my father’s funeral, and Neil and I left London straight after the service. But I continued to follow the story in the newspapers. The police never found the person, or persons, that did it. Which they wouldn’t, because the man responsible is just too powerful to ever allow himself to be implicated in murder himself.”
“What happened to the money?” Lucien enquired mildly.
Nicky gave an impatient shake of her head. “If I knew that I would have given it back to him, and maybe then he would have left us alone.” One thing she hadn’t yet told Lucien was the name of the man her father had stolen the money from.
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