Chapter 9
Lucas offered to take Emmaline home, and she quickly agreed, limping on her sore ankle as she exited with haste, the bitter taste of fear on her tongue. He took most of her weight as they traversed the parking lot and then solicitously helped her into the passenger side of his car even as she cast furtive glances over her shoulder.
What if Enzo heard that a patron had fallen and had come out to check on the exiting guest?
Sliding low, she mentally urged Lucas to rush behind the wheel. She had to bite her tongue in order not to insist he floor the accelerator.
He would think she was crazy if she did that, she reminded herself.
As they headed away from the restaurant, her panic subsided a little, and she could hear something in her ears besides the wush-wush of her heavy heartbeat. She swallowed to lubricate her dry mouth.
“I should have called for a car,” she said, thinking of that solution too late. “I’m sorry I interrupted your evening.”
“As if I’d let you hobble about on your own,” he said. “We’ll get you some pain relievers and elevate your foot. Do you think it’s too bad?”
“No,” she mumbled. “But you shouldn’t have to take care of me.”
“Just a little payback,” he replied.
Emmaline closed her eyes and rested her head against the seat back, trying to make sense of Enzo’s appearance at Cucina Verde. An answer instantly snapped into place. Roland had said it was owned by a group called Palma—Palm, in Italian. As in Palm Springs.
That had to be it. His family had owned restaurants in the Southland for years, and to venture into posh-and-cool Malibu with a new eatery wasn’t a big surprise.
Nor a threat to her, she decided, breathing more easily.
If she went about her business and stayed clear of the place, she should be as safe as she’d been before seeing him there.
When the only threat to her was getting too close to Lucas.
And didn’t she already have a plan for that? A new job as soon as Stella said her “I do.” Tomorrow she’d contact the placement service at the butler academy and give them her availability date, she decided. Though she hadn’t discussed it with any real specificity with her current boss, they’d agreed she’d only remain in his employ until his sister married.
So she’d start a job hunt right away. And if that resolve gave her a new stab of pain, she ignored it.
At the house, Lucas instructed her to wait in her seat. Instead of listening, she popped open her door and managed to hop out on one foot. His censuring look didn’t deter her from trying to put her weight on the twisted ankle.
A minor twinge. Pushing away his helping hand, she limped forward, noting another glorious end-of-day sky. Malibu didn’t do sunsets half-way.
Lucas’s arm went around her waist, and she leaned into him just a little as they moved into the house. He tried urging her to the couch in the living area, but she resolutely continued toward her quarters instead.
No dangerous memories lingered there.
She stretched out on her bed and drew a throw over her bare legs. Lucas slipped off her shoes and tucked an extra pillow under her injured ankle. He murmured about getting her something for the pain and left the room
Closing her eyes, she contemplated where she’d go next. Maybe an elderly couple would need someone to manage their domestic details and the three of them would putter happily together, with soft-boiled eggs every morning and Big Band tunes providing the soundtrack of their afternoons.
But…no. That situation would give her too much time to brood. A more dynamic household would be a better fit for her.
A high-powered couple in their thirties or forties, she decided. Who had to do a lot of business entertaining. She’d be required to plan multi-course meals and juggle caterers and valets—Roland would come in handy—and maybe even a spot of personal shopping here and there for the missus. Her couple would be into long distance biking, and she’d mix them homemade gorp and learn how to make yogurt from scratch.
That would keep her busy and be entirely different from the work she did for Lucas. The kind of work that made her feel almost like his…like his…wife.
“You must be hurting,” Lucas said.
She opened her eyes to see him strolling into the room, a glass of ice water in hand and a bottle of ibuprofen in the other.
He stopped by her bedside, looking down at her. “I’ve never seen you frown like that.”
It only deepened when she noted the soft light in his eyes. “I’m fine. Dandy.”
One of his brows lifted, and a corner of his mouth crooked up. “Which is it? Fine or dandy?”
His good humor didn’t sit well with Emmaline. How could he be so breezy and offhand when there was High Power Couple in her future and she’d have to say goodbye to this house? To Lucas’s splendid closet and his lovely suits and the kitchen with the view of the Pacific and the cabinets that she’d organized just right? The pressure of a hard cry formed behind her eyes.
“Hey, hey, hey. What’s going on?” He sat on the edge of the mattress and placed the water glass on the table next to it.
She immediately lifted the tumbler and opened a drawer to retrieve a 4 x 4-inch square of soapstone. “You need to remember to use a coaster underneath,” she scolded, hot tears pricking. “I won’t always be here to save your furniture, you know.”
“Okay.” He offered the bottle of pills instead of demanding to know why she was on the verge of crying over rings on wood surfaces. “Start with these, okay? We’ll work out what you need next after that.”
“An ice pack would be recommended, but I don’t think my little twist warrants that.” She fumbled with the plastic bottle cap, and he took the container from her hands and shook out a pair of pills that he tipped into her palm. Emmaline swallowed them down with a gulp of the chilled water.
Then she closed her eyes again, hoping he’d take the hint and go away.
Instead, his big palm brushed the hair off her face. Steeling herself, she lifted her lashes and looked at him.
“I’m fine now. You can go…do whatever. I recorded that documentary on the Cold War you were interested in watching.”
“Yeah?” His gaze didn’t leave her face, and he stroked her hair once more. “Or we could watch something together. Something you’d especially like. One of those reno shows.”
“Don’t concern yourself about me,” she said.
His regard didn’t lessen or shift. His full attention stayed on her face, and he studied her with the intensity of a man determined to solve a puzzle. Is this how he tackled a problem in his lab?
“You’re making me feel like a specimen,” she complained, though what she really felt rising inside her was a giddy kind of pleasure. Since her mother died, no one had ever stroked her hair or handed her a pain reliever.
Certainly Enzo had never looked upon her with such tenderness. It fluttered against her skin like butterfly wings, sensitizing her nerve endings. Her legs shifted, restless.
And Lucas drew a fingertip over the arch of each brow.
Emmaline shivered.
His hand dropped and he made to stand. “I’ll leave you to get some rest.”
She surprised herself by catching his wrist. “I should thank you.”
“You just did.” He tugged against her implacable hold.
Panic stole Emmaline’s breath again. Suddenly, perversely, she didn’t want to be alone. Thoughts would be certain to crowd in—how best to wash and dry those weird, neon biking togs of High Power Couple, what you could put in gorp that wasn’t just, in the end, peanut M&Ms and raisins, who would weed the herb garden once she left this house.
Who would look after Lucas?
Who would love him?
Her restless legs twitched again. He’d find someone, surely he would.
Though it wouldn’t be her, thank God, because that glimpse of Enzo reminded her of all that couldn’t be. As a matter of fact, right this instant Lucas could deliver to Emmaline one of his luscious, endless kisses, and she wouldn’t be moved to think of anything beyond the way he tasted and the impermanent glory of her blood simmering in her body. She’d only be feeling—womanly and desirable and blissful at the idea that the ultimate pleasure was within reach.
On that thought, her nipples tightened by degrees, a delicious, aching hardening that caused her cheeks to heat.
As if in a dream, Lucas slowly sank to the bed. Her hand still circled his wrist, and he gently pulled free of her hold.
“Emmaline.” With his palms, he cradled her face. “I don’t understand your mood.”
She didn’t either, because her mood was all over the place. Did she want him to go, did she want him to stay? But then hasty words tumbled out of her mouth. “I think we should have sex.”
He jerked back, yanking his hands from her face as if her skin had scalded him. Maybe it did, because she felt that hot.
“Where did that come from?” he asked.
Defensiveness seemed slightly better than desperation, so she welcomed its sharp edges. “I don’t know. I thought it might be an amusing pastime, that’s all.” She allowed a shoulder to rise and fall with casual nonchalance. “Feel free to delve into the Cold War instead.”
He looked around the room as if for cameras, then eyed her with the same kind of caution. “Uh…”
“Yeesh, I’m not asking for a commitment,” she spat out. “For once I wanted to have sex like other adult persons on the planet get to experience. The raw, meaningless kind that you don’t even regret in the morning because it was that fantastic.”
“Uh…” He rubbed a hand along his jawline. “I’m not sure that’s how it works, Emmaline.”
“Well, can’t you make it work that way?” she demanded, no longer caring about being reasonable, only caring about finding something to put off the despondency sure to settle in as she contemplated living without him.
He rubbed his jaw again and looked at her dubiously. “Raw, meaningless, and fantastic? All at once?”
She glared at him. “My entire life men have been looking at me with just that fantasy in mind. I may have been naïve and inexperienced, but I was never stupid. They stared at my breasts before they looked at my face. They practically drooled like they were dogs and I was a bone. Every single one of them would fall over their feet to provide me with raw and meaningless.”
Lucas winced. “First, I apologize for all of my gender. But second, and most important, you don’t want to be objectified, Emmaline. That doesn’t lead to fantastic, I can guarantee.”
“Whatever. I only know you owe me fantastic for leaving me that night in that hotel room without a word,” she said, trying a new angle. “My self-confidence needs fantastic to recover.”
“I know you’re perfectly aware of how beautiful you are—”
“I don’t need words, Lucas,” Emmaline said, and now the desperation was back, drying her mouth and making her feel like she might cry again. If she couldn’t get through to him, if he walked away and left her alone to dwell on the lonely future ahead, she would never know even a brief, transient moment of perfect bliss—not one-sided this time, but shared. Was that so much to ask for?
She met Lucas’s gaze. “As a matter of fact, words are the anti-fantastic. I need kisses and touches and…and…your cock,” she said, triumphant at last, as his eyes widened.
Sitting up, she fisted her hands in the sides of his shirt. “I want you to bone me into next Wednesday!”
He choked out a laugh, groaned, muttered, “I surrender,” then crushed his mouth to hers.
Emmaline’s thrill of victory lasted only as long as it took Lucas to get her out of her clothes. Then all thoughts of winning fled as he stared down at her nude body while he remained fully dressed. The sun had set during the last few minutes, and the only light left in her room was a pearlish-pinkish gray that seemed to make time slow and softened the edges of the furniture.
But it didn’t soften Lucas in the slightest. And she shivered under his intense regard. Desire surged through her as those summer-hot blue eyes traced her skin.
It felt as if he was peeling off the layer that was Emmaline, then the one that had been Coco, taking her down to sensation and reaction and passion. Primal passion.
It felt so freeing.
She gripped the cotton coverlet beneath her with her fingers, letting the heady sensation wash through her as he continued to study every inch of her body.
“Bone you into next Wednesday?” he murmured, one black brow rising in question.
A near-hysterical giggle rose in her throat, and she swallowed it down. “I don’t know where I heard that,” she admitted.
But she liked how direct it sounded. To the point. Nobody would think boning required deep emotion or lasting attachment.
Those she couldn’t risk.
He reached for the buttons of his shirt, leaving her there, naked on the bed, shivering in anticipation. Her avid gaze took in every movement of his nimble fingers, and a new flush rushed over her skin as his bare chest came into view. The shirt fell with a near-silent flup to the rug.
Her breath backed up in her lungs as he stood, his big body looming, all masculine power that made her belly flutter. He toed off his shoes and socks, and then his hand was at his belt. Her gaze shifted there, transfixed. She’d oiled the leather and polished the buckle, though he probably had no clue of that.
He also wouldn’t know that she snuck into his closet at random times during the day when she had no need to be there, excusing her behavior to herself by taking time to adjust the suit jackets on the hangers and tweak the cuffs of his lightly-starched shirts. The butler academy suggested sending all business clothes out for cleaning and pressing, but Emmaline laundered and ironed every one of Lucas’s dress shirts herself.
During their time at the academy, Sara had once remarked that one of the things she missed about living with her dad was doing his weekly laundry. When they’d laughed, she’d explained she was serious. “I tucked my love inside each and every fold,” she’d said simply.
Not that Emmaline did any such thing, she assured herself now. And then her attention was yanked away from contemplation of Lucas’s closet because he pushed down his slacks, taking his boxer-briefs with them.
Okay. Whoa. His erection pointed straight upward, the satin skin flushed, the plump head almost ruddy in color. It was bigger than she remembered a man’s member being, giving “bone” a whole new meaning.
Emmaline stared and, then harder as a drop of liquid oozed from the tip. Her breath caught in her throat, and between her thighs her flesh swelled and she felt a rush of her own wet. Oh, God.
“Are you all right?” Lucas asked, his eyes narrowed on her face even as he unconsciously, casually, stroked the thick, heavy stalk. His thumb brushed across the moisture on top, making the head shine. It was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen in her life, and she felt a stab of envy. Only a confident man could so nonchalantly touch himself like that.
And she wanted it to be her hand touching him.
Her lips.
Emmaline’s nipples tightened to hard, almost painful points at the image of herself reaching for him, then taking him inside the heat of her mouth, licking and sucking until he groaned and his hand sank into her hair. She shivered.
“Second thoughts?” Lucas asked, his expression alert.
Unable to trust her voice, she edged her body over, making room on the mattress for him. Then she patted the free inches of space, trying to appear as unflappable as he.
“Emmaline.” Lucas’s smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. “You’re looking a little nervous.”
She bristled, ready to defend herself, when his smile deepened.
“And I like it,” he said, sliding onto the bed beside her. He gathered her into his arms so they were face-to-face with a small distance between them. As he adjusted their bodies, aligning them, she felt the brush of his shaft along her lower belly and a brief, wet kiss that she could only assume was more leaking moisture.
The sensation electrified her, but she tried to hide it by clearing her throat and then licking her lips. “You really like me nervous?”
“Guys have their own anxieties,” he said, lowering his voice as if imparting a state secret. “It makes us feel on a more equal footing.”
She considered that. “Liar,” she said after a moment, then moved in so that her belly met his heavy hardness. “You’re not the least bit worried about your footing.”
Lucas snickered, even as his hand snuck around to her backside to hitch her closer to him. “God, you feel good,” he groaned.
Her heart jumped at the low growl, delighted that she had this power over him. Then his fingertips edged into the cleft of her ass and she froze, every cell on fire as he slowly drew them lower, touching private, sensitive surfaces.
His mouth found hers then, engaging in an endless, gentle kiss even as he touched her in places that made her blush and quiver. His hand delved lower, and she automatically opened her thighs.
A sob rose in her throat at his first touch to her aroused, swollen flesh. It throbbed at each point of contact, and she lifted her hips, silently begging for a deeper caress. But Lucas didn’t alter the gentle stroke. Instead, his mouth turned hungry, his tongue demanding, as his fingers continued to deftly flirt with the layers and pleats of her sex.
Her clitoris pulsed, but he ignored it. Emmaline’s hands clutched the swells of his biceps, then she tore her mouth from his to drag in air. His lips moved to her cheek, her ear, her temple, sweet as a spring breeze now, a counterpoint to her rough breaths.
“Emmaline,” he whispered, as if her name was praise in and of itself. “Emmaline.”
Her heartbeat steadied, and she twined her arms around his neck, bringing her lips to his throat, tasting the citrus-salt maleness of him, the grain of his beard pleasing to her tongue. He bit the lobe of her ear and slid a long finger inside her.
She bowed, the hard point of her nipples pressing into his chest, the light scrape of hair a delicious bonus sensation.
Then, in a burst of movement, he shifted, his hand pulling free of her, his body sliding lower in order to lick the peak of one breast. They groaned together.
“I can’t get enough,” he murmured against her hot, damp flesh, moving from right to left and back again. “I need to have more.”
His palms slid to the outside of her breasts and he drew them together, the pressure on her swollen flesh making her spasm with a deep, almost shameful pleasure. He opened his mouth and took in both jutting, sensitized nipples, and she moaned as he suckled, with each subsequent pull his hunger more evident. Another rush of wetness gushed between her thighs that might have embarrassed her if she wasn’t so turned-on. A heaviness settled low in her belly, a wild ecstasy gathering.
And then Lucas lifted his head, his mouth wet from the erotic attention he’d been paying to her breasts and nipples.
“Christ. You make me lose my mind.” He drew in a long breath. “Bad news, sweetheart. I don’t have a condom.”
She stared at him blankly, her mind still overtaken by yearning, her body quivering with unsated need. “What do you mean, you don’t have a condom?”
“Don’t worry,” he said, pressing a soft kiss to her mouth. “We’ll get creative until I can hit a drugstore tomorrow.”
There would be no tomorrow! “I’m owed intercourse,” she said, glaring up at him in the dim light. “Not some creative substitute.”
“You’ll like my creative substitute,” he said, kissing her nose.
“I’m on the pill,” she said, all at once aware she was making an offer that stretched the boundaries of “meaningless.” “We, uh, don’t need a condom.”
Even as she said the words, her body tried scooting away, but his implacable hands found her hips and forced her close again. His curled forefinger nudged her chin so their eyes met. “I would never hurt you, Emmaline.”
“I know,” she whispered, because she wouldn’t let anything go that far. Without sentimentalism, without romance, this would still be two bodies physically joining and nothing more—despite the lack of a condom.
Lucas pressed his forehead to hers, and they breathed in the scent of each other for a few long moments. Then Emmaline’s body began heating again, a new level of simmer, even though he wasn’t touching her in an overtly sexual way. Her breath shuddered in, out, and then she buried her face against his neck.
“What?” he said, kissing her temple.
“I’m ready for fantastic. I’m really ready.”
He chuckled, then found her mouth to begin more of those deep, languorous kisses that made her melt inside and out. Lucas’s hand curved around one of her breasts and his thumb teased the nipple, triggering the sweet, deep tingle that made her lift into his touch.
At her first low moan, he slid down her body, peppering her skin from collarbone to navel with kisses, sometimes sucking, sometimes nipping until her skin was glowing with heat and she was pressing her thighs together to find some relief for the relentless ache.
He brought his mouth to the top of her mons. Prickles washed over her skin as Lucas gently pried her legs apart. She swallowed, a little embarrassed, but also relieved that the main event was about to happen. Closing her eyes, she thought of his thick, heavy shaft, and another rush of hot chills flashed over her skin.
Then Lucas’s tongue slid along the seam of her sex, working itself into the furrow.
Emmaline’s eyes flew open, and her hand went to his head. His eyes met hers, and their blue scalded her skin.
“No,” she whispered.
He carefully licked again. “No?”
Mortified, Emmaline didn’t know what to do, where else to look besides at his handsome face poised between her thighs. Enzo had never performed oral sex on her, and she couldn’t imagine him being that interested in her pleasure. She’d read about it, of course, and maybe fantasized from time-to-time, but this was maybe more intimacy than she could handle.
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.