A Kiss in Lavender

by Laura Florand

  He lifted a curved hand to brush his knuckles over her cheek and down her jawline, then spread his fingers into her hair and stroked it away from her face. The blue of his eyes was more secret, in the dimly lit kitchen. The shadows softened his strong jaw. But his body was just as big. Just as warm.

  “I wonder if this is a good idea,” he said softly, his fingers sinking further into her hair, curving behind her head, so that they stirred all her roots and grazed over the nape of her neck. Pleasure shivered through her.

  Trust was so erotic. Such a strong hand on her vulnerable nape. And yet she didn’t have to fear it. She could just sink into the pleasure of touch.

  “I think I might still be rushing my goal.”

  Wasn’t he the one who typically picked up women in bars? How was this going fast compared to his usual?

  “What do you think, Elena?”

  “I think you over-analyze things?” she said doubtfully. In relationships at least, she was more instinctive. With most of her instincts usually trying to make sure she avoided committing her heart to a situation, and those all tangled now with an overpowering instinct to step forward into him and bury herself in his warmth as if it would hold her forever.

  “You don’t feel rushed?”

  She shook her head slowly, even though a great sense of rushing came over her at the gesture, as if she had gotten caught in a flash flood carrying her straight over the edge of a great fall.

  His arm slid around her and pulled her into him, firm and sure, like someone who could hold onto her and a log to keep them afloat even while going over a waterfall. But she was pretty sure heroes could only do that in movies. In real life, she’d be dragged out of his hold and drown, right? If she couldn’t keep her head above water on her own.

  She touched her lionheart again, seeking its chips.

  Lucien turned so that he leaned back against the counter and her weight was angled on top of him.

  It placed all his strength under her, a support not a trap. As if everything that happened was her choice. He slipped his fingers between hers, lifted her lionheart from them, and kissed it. Right on one of the chips.

  Oh. She felt awash in gentleness. In care. It dissolved all her armor.

  He tucked the heart back under her shirt, his fingers grazing the curve of her breasts. Her breath caught.

  His lashes lifted and his eyes met hers and grew heavier at what he saw there. He brushed his knuckles against the curve of her breast again, deliberately, but oh so lightly.

  She might have made a soft sound. A sigh.

  His fingers opened, a spread of warmth and calluses up to her collarbone, teasing the hollow of her throat. And grazing slowly down. Testing between the curve of her breasts to the tiny bow on her bra.

  She shivered and curved her fingers around his biceps. Oh, she liked the feel of those.

  Touching him was instantly addictive. Her drug, the thing she couldn’t resist—strength and hope and promise.

  Her hands stroked up to his shoulders, broad and solid. Spread out over his chest, kneading his T-shirt into resilience. He grazed his fingers back up over the curve of her breasts to her throat again, brushed them so teasingly delicately under her jaw, until the way he could wield strength and hardness so gently was shivering all through her.

  A swell of urgency rose through him, his hands suddenly stroking down her back and sinking into her butt muscles, pulling her up and into him so that he could kiss her. Then gentling again.

  Trust could let a woman do anything. The freedom of it was overwhelmingly sensual.

  She didn’t doubt him. She didn’t worry about what he would do. She knew what he would do—only what they both wanted. And that meant she could do anything she wanted at all.

  Run her hands all over that hard body. Drop kisses down his throat until she was back to his chest, no longer straining up to reach his mouth but where it was so, so entirely comfortable…her mouth moving across his T-shirt, which tasted of cotton and got entirely in the way.

  She pushed it up, over a taut washboard of abs and a little flinching sound from him as if that tickled. And then a deep murmur of encouragement that made her lose her mind and spread her fingers over his bare skin and see if she could get more of those murmurs from him, vibrating through her, charging her body.

  He made a little hissing, cursing sound when she first got his T-shirt high enough to press her lips against bare skin.

  “Yes. Bella.” His hands threading through her hair, cupping her head to him, running down her back and up again.

  His chest hair tickled her nose, so she found a spot that didn’t have any—a flat nipple, pushing the bunched T-shirt up higher to make it available.

  He pulled his T-shirt over his head and threw it somewhere.

  Oh. Oh.

  Nice.

  That expanse of chest and shoulder all revealed. The ridges of his abs. The lean waist. The curve of biceps and the sinewy forearms, and that burgundy-dark rose tattoo. His dog tags lay against his chest, and—oh, he had the ring with them. Niccolò’s ring. Joy and approval surged through her arousal.

  But he pulled his tags off now, too, and set them on the counter.

  So nothing at all was in her way.

  There was too much to kiss. She wanted to kiss all of it. She rested her hands in some awe on those washboard abs, spreading her fingers to stroke, and he made that little sound again, half-laughing, half-flinching. Ticklish. He’s ticklish.

  Then he tightened his body and forced himself still, as she ran her hands up past his ticklish zone to where he could just enjoy their touch. Oh, wow. Those shoulders. She pressed a kiss into the hollow of his throat. Rubbed her cheek into the curls of his chest hair. Wrapped her arms around him and for a moment just held on tight.

  She breathed there, hard, feeling as if she was taking them past the point of no return. Did she want to go there? He felt delicious, all that strength, just a little under her with his lean against the counter, as if that strength was to support her, not control her. She was just a little on top. As if everything that happened was all her choice. She loved it.

  And she almost immediately stepped away from him to test if it was really true.

  His hands resisted her first effort to withdraw, fingers kneading into her butt, pulling her back. She felt a little jolt of worry. But she pushed her hands against his chest, stepping back more firmly, and he made a rough sound of protest and let go.

  She stepped back two steps. His hands spread to either side of him to grip the edge of the counter. He was breathing hard, and his eyes were brilliant blue around dark, dilated pupils. But he smiled at her.

  He didn’t grab her or complain or do anything else. He just seemed to focus on catching his breath. Calming down.

  So she came right back to him. And he was still there. All that strength and warmth and his arms closing around her immediately. It felt wonderful.

  It felt as if she could play with his body as much as she wanted, and it would still always be about whether she wanted more of it, and not about whether he thought she should want it.

  I think I love you, she thought, all out of the blue. Her lips even parted around the first word, and she twisted her head and pressed them firmly to his chest instead.

  You idiot, Elena. Where the hell did that come from?

  She kissed him more so she didn’t actually say it, so that the words didn’t escape her on one of those little gentle, lapping waves of the urge that kept coming back. She kissed him all over. Kissed herself to silence.

  She liked the way he muttered her name. She liked the way he kind of begged for her. Begging was so different from taking.

  She liked going up on her tiptoes and pulling his head back down to her, she liked pulling herself up his body to wrap her thighs around him and give him more of her.

  He wrapped his hands under her butt to help hold her there and straightened from the counter to give her knees room. Then moved with her riding against his hips
through the apartment, clearly seeking a place where she could wrap her thighs around him more comfortably.

  He found her bedroom and lowered her on the bed with a hard and hungry sound, kissing her again lavishly, dominantly, coming down on top of her.

  Mostly she loved it, but a little part of her clicked off right then. Because now she was committed. Now it wasn’t her choice anymore. And now somewhere, deep down, now that she could no longer back out if she wanted, the play lost a little of its savor. Her hands lost a little of their intensity in their stroking. She stopped kissing him and let him kiss her.

  Lucien rolled off her, onto his side.

  He was breathing very hard. “You are knocking my strategies to fucking hell,” he murmured, ruefully, taking her hand and kissing the inside of her wrist.

  Oh. That felt sweet. Seductive.

  As if he still needed to seduce her.

  “Too fast?” he said. “Do we need to back up and slow down?”

  What?

  “Merde, but you’re pretty.” He leaned across the space of mattress to kiss her again.

  But then he rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling, breathing great, deep breaths.

  Until she had to roll up onto her elbow to look down at him curiously. “What are you doing?” He was a very strange creature, he really was.

  So damn sexy, though. Her hand lowered involuntarily to that muscled torso again, stroking it in tactile fascination.

  “Discipline,” he said wryly. “And self-control.” His head arched back into the mattress at her stroking, a shiver running up his skin.

  Her eyebrows crinkled. “Are you still practicing your tactics?”

  A rough laugh. “They’re a little tangled up in kisses right now.” He covered her hand with his and stroked it more across his body, closing his eyes, breathing still fast.

  “Don’t you still want to?” she asked, completely confused.

  His eyes flared open. “Oh, fuck, yes. I thought we were going too fast.” He searched her face. “We’re not?”

  He really was the most baffling man. “You know, no offense, but you really overthink sex.”

  “Oh, is that what we’re still calling this?” he said, exasperated. “Sex? Can we go back to Italian?”

  She frowned down at him, exasperated herself. But his chest so close to her grew too tempting. She lowered her head to rest against it and felt instantly as if everything was all right again.

  His heart thumped under her ear. His arms closed around her, hands stroking, just gently, not like the urgency of a moment before.

  “Do you know when it’s too late to get me to stop?” that deep voice murmured, and she could feel it vibrating through his chest, against her ear.

  Apparently not when they entered her bedroom. So what was his line? She trailed her fingers down the V of hair that showed the way to the snap of his jeans. Would it be there? If she touched that snap?

  “Never,” he said. He rolled them suddenly, so that they were both on their sides on the mattress and he could hold her eyes. “Never, Elena. I could be inside you, and you could tell me, never mind, you don’t like it, it hurts or you’re bored or what the hell ever, and I would still stop. I don’t know what the fuck kind of men you have met in your life, but if you want to point some out to me, I will be more than happy to rip a few damn dicks off since they seem to think someone else controls theirs anyway.”

  Elena stared at him, blinking great, big blinks.

  “And this is a lousy subject of conversation.” Lucien lifted her astride him and smiled up at her. “We could play on this bed all night and I’ll never even unzip my jeans, if you want. Would you like that?”

  “Would you like that?” Elena said incredulously.

  He made a kind-of-sort-of waggle of his hand in the air, his expression rueful. “Sometimes a man has to suffer short-term in pursuit of his long-term goals.”

  “What are your long-term goals?”

  He rolled them again, coming up onto his elbow, so that his body was now dominant over hers, bigger. It made her nipples prickle with anticipation. “Right now, I have a really burning desire to see what you look like when you orgasm,” he said. “Let’s work on that one.”

  Chapter 19

  He started so slow. Grazes of calluses down her inner arms. A breath against the curve of her breasts. A string of kisses along her collarbone. Fleeting touches, here and there, waking every centimeter of her body as no part of her knew quite where he would touch next…and all of her clamored for a turn at his attention.

  He tangled all of her in kisses, until she felt lost in them, kidnapped by sensuality, tied up and carried away in his arms, to be his.

  She wanted to kidnap him, too. And so she touched him like he touched her. Teasing, elusive, everywhere that tempted her. But he made small hungry sounds. He caught her hand and pressed it against his body, until she understood he needed a harder touch, he wanted her to dig her fingers in.

  Oh. Yes. Digging her fingers into those muscles made her glad she was strong.

  So you could be vulnerable and strong. Lost and centered. Boneless in a man’s hands and powerful.

  Who knew?

  He was so thorough. He kissed the centers of her palms. He kissed the inside of her elbows. He bent her knee up and trailed his fingers all down the outside of her thigh, down her calf, to cup her heel and squeeze her foot until she made a whimpering sound and arched off the bed. He took all her toes in his big hand and rubbed them together as she sighed a moan.

  That made him smile, and he kissed her upraised knee. Brushed little kisses down the inside of her thigh until his breath blew against her panties.

  And her panties dampened oh-so-readily.

  She tried to grab his head, but his hair was cropped so short. She tried to grab his shoulders, but they were too big, she could only pull him toward her or push him away, not grip those shoulders and hold them still. “Lucien,” she whispered. “No.” It was too intimate, too much.

  He kissed up the inside of her other thigh, raising that knee, too, kissed up to her knee cap. “No no? Or no I can change to a yes?”

  Her fingers dug into her sheets, and she stared up at him.

  “Maybe a subject to come back to,” he said and pushed her shirt off her body. That revealed her breasts, but he didn’t reach for them right away. He kissed her belly button, his big body settling between her upraised knees so that his chest pressed warm weight against those panties. He kissed his way slowly up her belly, until she giggled and twisted at the tickle, and every centimeter he kissed his way upward, his body dragged between her thighs. Reflexive laughter and involuntary hunger, everything about her opening and softening and growing more lush at that rubbing, warm, non-invasive pressure.

  Until his breath was warm against her bra. “Pretty,” he murmured, and kissed the curve of skin past the edge of lace. “I have so many fantasies about your body right now. And do you know what every single one of them have in common?” He grazed his jaw down the edge of her bra. He must have shaved just before his flight, because now, five hours later, there was only the faintest hint of prickle.

  She liked knowing he had shaved just before his flight for her.

  “You have to trust me with your body,” he said. “In every single one. The one where we’re at some party, and I drag you off into a closet full of furs and put my hand over your mouth and make you come, right there, and you’re a little bit protesting at first, but I push my hand under your skirt and start to stroke and you come so hard and you can’t make a sound. You see how much you have to trust me for that one?”

  Those rough-skinned gentle fingers slid under her back, stroking their way to the clasp on her bra. A surge of freedom from her breasts through her body as that day-long pressure on her rib cage was finally released. He pulled the straps down her arms, stroking her biceps, and the inside of her elbows, and her inner forearms, and wrists, in his passage.

  “The one where it’s a laz
y Sunday morning, and you’re asleep beside me, and you look so damn pretty and I want to touch you so damn bad. But you’re asleep. So I’d have to know you’d like it, if I stroked over your shoulder and down your back and kind of worked my way into your dreams. You’d have to know I wouldn’t get mad and sulky and manipulative, if you groaned and pulled your pillow over your head and told me to go away. That it’s just a lazy Sunday morning. We’re only going to do what you want us to do. See how much you have to trust me for that one?”

  He curved his big hand around her full breast and kissed the nipple, lightly.

  “It’s not something you can rush, trust.” His fingers caressed her breast as if he loved the texture of it. “It’s not something you can pressure someone else into. But there’s one way to earn it, and in my experience, it always works. Every single time. Be someone that other person can trust with his life. And he’ll be so damn happy to have someone at his back. Someone at his side. Maybe even at her side.”

  Her eyebrows furrowed. “But it’s not my life,” she said. “A lot of people have taken care of my life.”

  Lucien lifted his head from her breast to look at her.

  She didn’t want to talk about this. And yet she did. It was such a nice, safe space to let him understand something about her.

  “It’s…” Her hand crept to curl around her lionheart and press it over her own thumping heart. “It’s my…this is what I can’t trust people with.”

  She’d surprised him, she could tell. And made him think.

  “Ah.” Soft, as if what she had said had struck him right in the brain—right where he liked to analyze and figure her out.

  His gaze traveled back to her chest, to where her fingers protected her heart. “This?” He grazed his own fingers over hers, big and gentle. “This right here?”

  He laid his cheek against her fingers, trapping them and her lionheart, letting his ear press against her chest. “I like the way it beats,” he said. “Strong. Persistent. It never gives up on you, does it?”

  She shook her head.

  He pressed a kiss between her fingers, against her breast. “Who gave you the glass heart? Did he hurt you?”