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Is it any wonder I’m fascinated with the man? “What happens to things you want too much?”
“I still get them. I’m just not especially gracious—or gentle—about the process.”
Oh my.
There was certainly more to Lucas than his steaming sensuality and good looks. He wasn’t just a corporate lawyer in a slick suit. Away from the rich and powerful crowd where he’d both blended in and stood out, his allure only grew stronger, the mystery of where he’d come from only deepened.
Vanessa set her glass on the ledge and stepped closer to him. “You’re trying to warn me off.”
“I’m not. At all.”
“But you’re deliberately acting dark and mysterious.”
“I am dark and mysterious.”
“Ha! You’re an open book.”
“No kidding.”
“You’re from Louisiana,” she began, watching his eyes widen as she obviously hit the mark. “I’m thinking New Orleans. The place is steeped in Creole history. The family homestead is probably in the Garden District. Your grandmother would be the matriarch—as is proper in all of New Orleans society. There’s a scandal in your family’s past, probably something to do with a riverboat gambler or pirate. I’m betting the family money started in agriculture—rice or sugarcane probably—but at some point somebody wise invested in manufacturing or real estate. And you, since you have a bit of the rebel in you, decided not to toe the family line completely and studied law. At Tulane, I’m sure. Where you didn’t pledge the proper fraternity, but instead bought a motorcycle and got a tattoo. With your wild days behind you after law school, you went into a well-established practice back home. But after a while you decided you needed a new challenge and came here. Where I found you, being bored to smithereens by the hunting stories and name dropping of the Atlanta Country Club.” She paused and studied his blank expression with interest. “Pretty close, huh?”
Roaring with laughter, he hooked his arm around her waist, pulling her against him.
“I’m right, aren’t I?”
His body continued to shake. “Absolutely. One hundred percent. That last observation was dead-on.”
She laid her hands against his chest and glared up at him. “Why do I have the feeling I’m more wrong than right?”
“Mmm.” He smiled broadly. “Well, let’s just say I’m not going to ask you to read a jury anytime soon.”
It was the smile that did it.
Her annoyance fell away. He was even more beautiful when he smiled. All he had to do was touch her, and suddenly she wasn’t quite so interested in her story as she was in the feel of his body against hers. The magic they generated. The warmth emanating from his skin. The spicy scent of his cologne.
His throat, just at eye level, begged for her touch. His lips, no doubt sweet and smoky from the drink, glistened. His erection, pressing against his pants, certainly had its own pleasurable agenda.
He tossed back the rest of his whiskey, then set his glass aside and didn’t make a move to get more. She could already taste him on her tongue.
With charm, money and looks like his, he was undoubtedly used to women throwing themselves at him. She was certainly one in a long line. But she didn’t care.
She had a package of condoms in her purse.
“I like the taste of whiskey better like this,” she said, then she cupped the back of his head and pulled him toward her waiting mouth.
3
AS VANESSA’S TONGUE SLID PAST his lips, Lucas pulled her hard against his chest, barely able to believe he finally had her alone. She at his mercy; he at hers.
She was glorious and beautiful. Smart and funny. Sexy and sassy. She tested his hard-won control, pushing him to impatience and recklessness. He’d overcome those weaknesses. He had to remember he’d moved beyond his ugly past. Though the intensity of his need for her scared him, he had no intention of turning back. Probably couldn’t even if he wanted to.
He wondered if she’d ever dreamed about the man she’d just described. He wondered if she cared about his money—or how he’d made it.
One night would never be enough, he knew that now, even if he’d tried to deny it when he’d first seen her. But when morning came, when she learned about him as he wanted to know her, would she understand? Or would she snub him?
Somehow, he didn’t think snubbing was in her. Certainly not because she was the hired help—she hadn’t started life that way. She’d bought his veneer of sophistication, as many had before, so she recognized the type of person he’d become. Without a doubt, there was a trust fund in her past. Maybe she was a caterer due to passion or hard times, but he had no doubt he’d find blue blood if she cut her finger.
Unlike the lovely Vanessa, he knew how to read people. And read them well.
He wondered whether she’d laugh or recoil if she knew how he’d become successful. He wondered if she’d appreciate or pull away from his need for control. Inevitably, he also considered whether she’d tangle her tongue with his quite so enthusiastically if she knew his true story. His true self.
“Nervous?” she asked as she pulled back with a gasp.
His gaze locked on her lips. He wanted them on his again. Had to have them. Had to have her.
And she wanted to talk.
She doesn’t know you. The whispered words of his conscience fought their way through his baser desires. Women—even a lovely rebel in a red dress—needed connections. He had to listen to the instincts that had served him well for so many years.
Making an effort to focus, he cupped her backside, pulling her tight against his erection. “No, I’m not nervous.” I’m dying.
Her gaze searching his, she gripped the back of his neck. “But you were.”
Vaguely, he remembered telling her that just before they’d left the country-club parking lot. A lapse, he realized now, though at the time he’d simply been trying to put her at ease. She’d been understandably uncomfortable about leaving with a stranger, and he’d wanted her to know his own nerves weren’t quite so calm.
Because I wanted you to like me.
He could hardly say that. Admitting a weakness, as he’d learned many times in the past, was always a mistake. “I’m not now.” Rubbing his thumb across her bottom lip, he added, “Let me show you.”
He trailed kisses along her jaw, reveling in the softness of her skin, inhaling the seductive aroma of strawberries and chocolate. Was that scent in his head, or did she really smell so sweet?
He fought the building tide of need coursing through his body, the ache that started between his legs and shimmered outward in waves of trembling desire. He’d made himself into something more than trailer-park trash, and he intended to prove it.
Slow down. Seduce her gently.
If he aroused her with enough skill, she wouldn’t think clearly enough to question their chemistry, to wonder if she might be making a mistake. He didn’t want her to think and question. He wanted the openness he’d sensed in her from the beginning.
He wanted her hot. Needy. Panting.
He flicked his tongue over her earlobe, and she gasped.
Mmm…progress.
“What, what are you feeling now?” she asked, her breath hitching.
“Hard.” He scraped his teeth against the soft skin behind her ear. “Impatient.”
More than impatient. He wanted to drown in her, to forget the past and the future. His need for her touch, her sighs of pleasure, had become vital.
Her hands slid down his chest, her fingers curling into his shirt. “I want you, Lucas.” She slid her thigh between his legs, pressing up against his hardness. “I probably shouldn’t, but I do.”
His erection pulsed almost to the point of pain. Having her was a compulsion, a mission that must succeed. The sugary scent of her surrounded him, enveloping him in a fog of lust so acute his world had narrowed only to her face and the warmth and pleasure her body offered.
He cupped the back of her neck. Her eyes glittered with hunger as she stared back at him. “You should.” Angling his head, he covered her mouth with his.
Dive. Drown. Never surface.
As he swept his tongue into her mouth, she kneaded his shirt in her fist and rolled her hips, the warmth between her legs heating his thigh.
He turned, leaning against the balcony wall, making sure she still straddled his thigh. She rubbed herself against him, a moan and gasp escaping her lips when their mouths parted. He could only imagine the flesh scraping his leg, but he knew he wanted a taste.
He slid his hands down her back, across her enticingly curvy butt, down to the hem of her racy red dress—which he bunched in his hands, then raised. When he encountered the miniscule thong panty beneath her clothes, he nearly dropped to his knees. He should have expected such freedom from his impulsive, tattooed caterer, but that didn’t lessen the jolt of erotic heat that hit him, knowing so much naked flesh lay barely concealed by her dress.
Trailing his lips over her chin and down her throat, he kneaded her bare skin and felt a shiver sweep her body, exposed to the night air.
Fast losing control, but knowing he had to hold on, he suppressed the desire to rip away her miniscule panties and drive himself into her tight, wet warmth. To assuage the hunger pulsing through him. Still, he had to touch her.
He hooked his thumbs beneath the seam of her panties.
She moaned.
And he smiled.
Moving around her hip bones, he slid his index finger slowly, deliberately toward the juncture of her thighs, the coarse hairs covering her sex teasing him. He let his finger dip briefly into the moist, soft heat.
Her breathing grew shallow, broken…needy, and he had to grit his teeth to keep from exploding on the spot. Just watching the pleasure skim across her face was its own form of torture and satisfaction.
With his other hand, he moved his palm over her bare behind, gripping the skinny thong fabric that fit between her cheeks. Holding both sides of the panties, he slid the fabric back and forth, gliding it between the lips of her sex.
“Oh, my,” she gasped.
“Oh, yes.”
She gripped his shoulders, then flung back her head, her long, blond hair spilling down as she let a long, low hum of need escape her lips.
Mercilessly, he worked the fabric. She rocked her hips in time to his erotic rhythm. He watched her in a fascinated daze. He’d anticipated being inside her as he brought her to the first orgasm they’d share, but he wasn’t complaining. Pleasure skated across her face with obvious abandon.
He switched their positions, pinning her against the balcony wall and hooking her leg around his waist. “Let go, lovely Vanessa,” he panted in her ear as he leaned forward.
“I’m…working on it,” she said, her voice hitching.
He pressed his hard cock between her legs as he dipped his head and tongued her earlobe. “We’ll get naked. I’m dying to taste you.” He kissed the top of her shoulder. “Everywhere.”
Then, letting go of the panties, he pressed his thumb against the bare nub of flesh centered around her desire.
Her body went rigid.
He knew she hung on the precipice. Knew he had the power to send her over. “What do you want?” he rasped in her ear.
“You.”
He rolled his thumb up, then down. “What do you want me to do?”
“That again.”
“My pleasure.” He rolled again.
“But faster.”
Smiling, he complied, noting her breathing quickened, her skin flushed. Watching her, gaining wild pleasure from her pleasure, he noted the small butterfly tattoo on the back of her shoulder. He smiled, never broke his stroking rhythm and laid his lips lightly over the spot.
She exploded.
Her back arched, her eyes fluttered closed, the muscles between her legs contracted against his fingers.
Though he was still as hard as a rock, crazy satisfaction rushed through him. She was so damn beautiful.
She sagged, so he swung her into his arms and carried her inside. She trailed her fingers through the hair at his temple. “I’m fairly sure a feminist shouldn’t be carried.”
“You want to walk?” he asked as he headed down the hall, his heart hammering so fast he was sure it would burst before he made it to the bed.
“Hell no. Can’t stand.”
Somehow chuckling in the midst of his own painful need, he strode into his bedroom. After laying her on the bed, he stripped off his shirt, then started on his pants.
She sat up suddenly, laying her hand across his crotch. “Hey there, lawman, not so fast.”
“I thought you were exhausted with satisfaction.”
Scooting to the edge of the bed, she tugged his belt from the loops. “Only temporarily.”
He sucked in a breath of anticipation as she started on his zipper. Hang on, man. Stay in control.
She slid his zipper down, her fingers dipping below the band of his underwear, skimming the head of his erection.
He had the crazy image of a plane going down.
Captain, we’re losing pressure. What should we do?
Hold the course.
Sorry, sir, control is outta here. You’re on your own.
The moment she wrapped her hand around his rock-hard penis, his whole body went rigid. He had to close his eyes to hold on. He tried to still himself as she dragged her hand down, then up, though his knees nearly buckled. The woman was…amazing.
And if she continued to stroke him that way, he was going to completely lose it.
But he couldn’t help reveling in her touch. She had a sure, confident grip. Her fingers cupped beneath the head of his penis, where she held and squeezed for a moment before stroking down again and sending his pulse soaring, his control spinning wildly.
