Lucian

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There’s never been anything more beautiful in my life than Joss in that moment—reaching up to hold my hand, pulling me toward her. On her back beneath me, eyes shining, eager with passion and love and need. Heavy breasts swaying, dark nipples rigid points.

She pulled at my hand, reaching for me. I knelt between her thighs, on my hands and knees above her. I wanted this so bad it hurt, but I knew I needed to be careful, no matter how much she wanted it.

I trailed my fingers along her thigh, toward the juncture, never taking my eyes off of hers as I slid my middle finger up the damp, slick seam.

She shivered, biting her lip. “Luce, I want you.”

I bent to flick at her nipple with my tongue. “I want you back, more than you know.” I fluttered my tongue against her other nipple, then, and teased her clit with my finger. “Can you trust me?”

She gasped at the touch of my finger. “I trust you, I just…oh, oh…”

I slid my finger inside, and then withdrew it, smearing her essence against her. “I want this to be perfect.”

“It already is.”

I spoke in between flicks of my tongue against the erect buttons of her nipples. “If you’re on the verge of coming…it won’t hurt as much…or so I’ve…heard.”

“I’m all about it not hurting.”

I took my time building her up, plying her with my fingers, circling her clit, flicking her nipples, kissing her mouth, until she was whimpering and her hips were flexing. When she reached that point, I slid a finger inside her, and then a second, and she whimpered again, this time at the stretch of it, and I moved down her body again, sucking her clit into my mouth until her whimpers turned to wails of pleasure and her hips were driving against me and she was moments from her orgasm.

She pushed me away with her hands, pulled my face up her body. “No, no—not like that,” she panted. “I want—I don’t want to come again unless it’s with you…unless it’s together.” Her eyes met mine, fraught with emotion and racked with bliss. “I want to come with you.”

I settled between her thighs, and her hands reached for me, palming my shoulders and drifting down my back to cup my ass, a smile on her face as her fingertips dug into the muscle.

“I love your butt,” she said.

I laughed. “I’m glad. I work hard on that ass.”

The humor faded from her eyes as I pressed my fists in the pillows beside her face, levered over her. “Luce…” She pulled me closer, wrapping a hand around my condom-sheathed cock. “I’m ready.”

“No doubts, no hesitation?”

She leaned up to kiss me. “None. I’m nervous, and a little scared, but I want it. I want this, so bad.”

I slid my fingers against her opening, touching myself against her seam, and then she took over, guiding me. Our eyes met, and I felt a whirlwind of emotion flood through me—a raging maelstrom of need, a fear of how intense this was and how badly I wanted her, how intensely I was beginning to care for her.

This was love.

I’d told her I loved her, because I’d realized it and admitted it to myself while she was gone, but it wasn’t until then, until I felt her fingers wrapped around my cock, guiding me into her opening, how deep the love really went. It was more than this—more than this act. But this act in and of itself, that Joss was giving me—me, Lucian Badd—this amazing, beautiful, priceless gift of her virginity…it was so enormous in its meaningfulness. It made me breathless, made me ache with the preciousness of it. It made everything inside me melt and expand at once, made me say a vow to never take this woman for granted, to spend every moment she would give me making her happy, taking care of her, being there for her. Love was…it wasn’t just this one emotion, I finally understood. It was so, so much more. It was the act of trusting each other, of each of us mutually falling, trusting the other to have arms open, ready to catch.

I was falling, and I knew Joss would catch me.

Just as I would catch her.

All this flew through me in the instant she pressed the crown of my cock to the tight lips of her pussy.

She was trusting me. She was giving herself to me. Something she’d never given to anyone, she was giving to me.

I was her first, and, maybe, her only.

The weight of it, the enormity of it crushed me, shattered me.

Joss saw this in me, saw the emotion in me.

“I know,” she whispered, choking on a sob. “Me, too.”

“Yeah?” It was all I could manage.

“Yeah.” She palmed my cheek, and I bent down, kissed her.

She whimpered as I feathered two fingers between us and touched her again as she gasped and writhed into my touch.

“Now, Luce,” she breathed. “Now. Please.”

I held off until she was mewling, whimpering, and then I nudged against her, a gentle flex of my hips.

She groaned, her fingers clawing into the flesh and muscle of my ass. “More,” she breathed.

I braced my weight with one hand and pushed a little deeper, until she whimpered, a noise clearly of pain. “Joss, you okay?”

She nodded, her forehead against my shoulder. “Yeah, yeah. I just…just give me a second.”

I reached between us, but she caught my hand and pressed my palm against her breast.

“No…I’m already so close I could come, and I don’t want to, not yet.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

She smiled up at me. “Kiss me, Luce.”

And so I kissed her, playing with one of her perfect tits, forcing myself to stillness as her impossibly tight channel pulsed around me. She was so tight it nearly hurt, and I wasn’t even halfway in, yet.

Joss kissed me, then, as if that kiss was a lifeline, the only thing keeping her sane; and for me, that’s exactly what it was—the need to move was maddening, the effort to wait, to keep still almost more than I could take.

She palmed my ass again, pulling at me. “More,” she murmured, breaking the kiss to meet my gaze. “Give it all to me, Luce.”

I held my breath, reaching up to press my palm to hers, fingers tangled; she clutched my hand, squeezing my fingers in anticipation, her other hand clawed into my ass.

“Look at me, Luce,” she breathed.

I kept my eyes on hers, heart hammering wildly… and pushed into her the rest of the way all at once. She cried out, her hand crushing mine in a sudden vise grip, and I held myself utterly immobile, our hips locked together, all of me inside her. She was breathing shakily between pursed lips.

“Touch me now, Luce,” she gasped.

I used our joined hands as a brace to keep my weight off her, sliding two fingers between us to her clit. She cried out again as I touched her, and this time the sound was less of pain and more of pleasure. I held still, aching, throbbing, needing desperately to move, and guided her to the edge of orgasm, and then slowed, and brought her back, until she was whimpering and gasping.

“How do you feel?” I asked. “Are you okay?”

Her eyes flew open, and she blinked up at me. “God, Luce. You feel so…so huge. I’m so full.” She tested a movement, flexing her hips against me, and her eyes flew wide. “Oh…ohhhh!”

I groaned at the feel of her moving. “God, Joss. I need—”

She nipped at my earlobe, her death grip on my ass cheeks loosening. “What, Luce? What do you need? Tell me, so I can give it to you.”

“I need to move,” I growled, forcing myself to be still until I was sure she was ready.

She surprised me, as she always did. “Like this?” And she gave a thrust, pulling away, and then filling herself with me.

I could have wept with relief. “Yes! God, Joss…you feel…” I rested my forehead against her chest, between her breasts. “You feel like you were made for me.”

“I feel the same way,” she said, cradling my head against her. “More, Luce. I need more.”

“More?” I lifted up to meet her fiery, golden-brown eyes.

“Move with me, Luce.”

Gradually, hesitantly, I pulled out of her, paused, and then thrust in, and Joss’s eyes, already wide, widened further, and her mouth fell open, and I knew the pain was gone, now, replaced by perfection. Again, we met, thrust for thrust, and now Joss whimpered, and the whimper became a shriek as our pace increased, her need making itself known. She found herself, then, and gave over to it. Her feet drifted up my calves and hooked around the backs of my thighs, and her fingers scratched and scraped down my spine. She gasped with each movement, and now the shrieks became wails of ecstasy, and my voice was joined with hers, growls and moans tangled with her cries.

“Oh god, Luce!” She was gone, flying over the edge, screaming as she came. “YES! Oh fuck, YES!”

I watched her come apart beneath me, not daring to miss a single second of this, of the tightness as she pulsed around me, each minute movement and shift sending throbs of pleasure through me.

She gasped as her climax surged, and her eyes were hooded and wild on mine when she realized I hadn’t come yet. “Luce, I want you to come.”

“I don’t want it to end.”

“Me either.” She pulled at me. “Give it to me, Lucian. Let me see it. Let me watch you come while you’re inside me.”

I let go, then. I let myself thrust harder, let the climax build. Faster, harder, and the sight of her tits bouncing as I thrust into her drove me wild, and I had to bend to kiss them, take those thick, dark, delicious nipples into my mouth, hips working, cock sliding through her tight pussy. She moaned, and I felt it in my chest, in my soul.

“Can you come again?” I asked.

“Just the feel of you like this is almost enough to get me there,” she admitted.

“Touch yourself.”

“While you’re inside me?” The idea seemed to shock her.

“Yeah—I’m close, Joss, I’m so close. I want you to come at the same time as me.”

I felt her wedge a hand between us, and then felt her fingers moving against her clit, and her channel tightened around me immediately, and her cry of ecstasy was loud in my ear. She moaned, writhed, and I thrust in time with her moans and the desperate flex of her hips, an orgasm surging through me.

I tried to hold it off, but I couldn’t. “Joss! Oh shit, Joss, I’m—god, I…oh god!”

She bit my shoulder and yanked her hand away as I lost all control, driving into her. “Luce! Now, god, come with me, now!”

She screamed, then, and I roared, and the blast of my climax shattered me. I felt her walls clamping down on me, and she was so tight around me I could barely move through the spastic clamping tightness, each wave of her orgasm milking more of mine out of me. An eternity passed, in that moment, her beautiful golden eyes fixed on mine as we came apart together. She was weeping from the intensity of it, and I was gasping, sweating, panting, chest heaving, buried deep inside her.

“Luce—oh my god…oh my god—” She palmed my cheek, laughing breathlessly. “I had no idea it could be like that—I didn’t know.”

“Me either, Joss…me either.”

“That was—god, it was…” She clung to me, kissing me wherever her lips could reach. “That was the most intense experience of my life.”

“Mine too, I swear to god.” I rolled to my back, bringing her with me so she was resting on my chest. I had to pull out of her, but didn’t move otherwise.

She panted for a moment, her head pillowed on my chest, and then she lifted up on one elbow. “Lucian?”

I smiled up at her. “Yeah, babe?”

“I love you. It’s crazy, but I do.”

I leaned up and kissed her, pulling her back down to me. “I love you, Joss. It’s just as crazy for me, but it’s just as true.”

“I didn’t know you could fall in love this fast,” she said.

“Me either.” I laughed. “Although I should have, since I watched it happen to six of my brothers in quick succession.”

Resting her head on my chest again, she sighed, a sound of utter happiness. “Can we…can we just stay like this for a while?”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “That sounds perfect.”

She squirmed against me. “Although, if you could get rid of the condom first, I wouldn’t mind. It’s…wet and squishy.”

I laughed and rolled out of the bed. She watched with interest as I stripped it off, tied a knot in the end, and dropped it into the wastebasket in the corner of my room, and then used the same towel from earlier to clean off a little. When I was done, I lay back down on the bed and held out my arm. Joss eagerly nestled into the crook of my arm, and I draped the blanket over us. She nuzzled her face in the side of my neck, sighing again.

“I really, really like this part,” she whispered.

“Me too,” I murmured.

Her fingers trailed down my cheek, came to rest on my shoulder. “Is it okay if I fall asleep?”

“I won’t be far behind you.”

When I gradually floated up to wakefulness, it was gray outside, and my clock said we’d slept through until after six in the morning. Neither Joss nor I had moved at all in our sleep; her cheek was still pillowed in the nook of my shoulder and arm, one hand on my chest, her thigh thrown over my mine. My arm was asleep, and my bladder was screaming. I didn’t want to move, though. I ignored the minor discomforts in exchange for the feeling of Joss in my arms. I cupped her waist, her skin softer than any silk under my hand, closing my eyes and sighing at how amazing it felt to have this woman here in my arms, our bodies tangled together.

I felt her wake up, shifting, murmuring. She rolled, tensed, stretching against me like a cat, and I felt the round bulge of her breasts against my chest. She shoved the covers away in the process, craning her head to look at me.

“Hi.” Her smile was sleepy and sweet and shy.

“Hi,” I said back. “You’re beautiful.”

She buried her face in my shoulder. “You’re silly.”

“No, you are. You’re more than beautiful.”

Joss looked at me again. “You make me feel that way.” She rubbed my chest. “You’re pretty damn gorgeous yourself.”

A silence between us, comfortable and easy.

Joss shifted. “I…um…I have to pee.” She squirmed, consternation on her face. “Like…really bad.”

I laughed. “God, me too. So bad.” I reached down and snagged my T-shirt off the floor. “Here. Put this on. You go first.”

She tugged the shirt on, pausing to sniff it as she shoved her arms through the holes, smiling and giggling to herself as she climbed out of bed.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

She shook her head, pausing at the door. “Nothing.” Her smile was wide, and bright, and made me delirious with love. “It’s just my first time wearing my boyfriend’s shirt. It makes me kind of stupidly happy, that’s all.”

“Oh.” I grinned at that. “My girlfriend is wearing my T-shirt.” I laughed. “I see what you mean.”

She made an uh-oh face. “And on that note, I’ll be right back.”

She left the bedroom door open in her hurry to get across the hall to the bathroom, tiptoeing carefully yet swiftly. The shirt didn’t quite cover her butt all the way, a fact I appreciated as she vanished into the bathroom and locked the door. The moment the door was locked, I heard another door open and footsteps on the floor. I tugged my blankets up over my waist just in time, as Corin and Tate both entered my room. Tate had her hands over her mouth, laughing silently, while Corin just grinned at me.

“So that happened,” Corin said.

“Yeah.” I rubbed my hand through my hair, fingering through the tangles. “That happened.”

Tate leaned close. “Did you tell her you love her?”

I held her gaze, tugging the blankets higher up my torso. “Yeah. I did.”

Corin held out his fist, and I tapped my knuckles against his. He jerked his head at Tate. “You know she’s pregnant with twins, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“She’s got a scheduled induction tomorrow. Just wanted to give you a heads-up. We mentioned it a while ago, but in all the chaos lately, I’m guessing you may have forgotten.”

“A what?”

Tate smiled at me. “Having twins is complicated, so they don’t usually let you go into labor on your own. It just means they’re having me go in so they can bring me into labor in a secure environment.”

“Oh.” I cleared my throat. “And you had to tell me now?” I gestured at the bathroom. “Like, right now?”

Corin just laughed. “Well, we also wanted to get the dirt on how things went.” He made a face, and I knew what was coming next. “Although, we kinda heard how things went, na’mean?”

Tate whacked him. “Corin!” She shoved him toward the door. “Don’t embarrass them!”

“He’s my brother, it’s what I’m here for.” Corin pointed at me. “Kidding. Sort of. I’m glad you got your shit figured out so you could get that girl back here where she belongs, brother.”

“Me too,” I said. “Now get out of here.”

“We are,” Corin said, gesturing to a pair of duffel bags. “We’re staying at Zane and Mara’s tonight.”

I sighed. “Scared you off, did we?”

Corin shrugged. “I mean…no?” Tate laughed and smacked him again. “Kidding, kidding. It’s closer to the hospital, and they want us there first thing in the morning.”

“And also,” Tate said, “we wanted to give you privacy. To finish…um…working things out.” She winked at me.

Corin gaped at Tate. “You go around whacking me left and right for that shit!”

She shrugged primly, exiting the room. “Yeah, but I’m a woman, and I’m pregnant with your babies.” She laughed, a tinkling little sound. “Deal with it!”

They left then, and a moment later I heard the front door open and close. After a pause, the bathroom door opened and Joss peered out. “Are they gone?” she asked, glancing me from across the hall.

I nodded. “Yeah, they are.”

She bolted across the hallway and into my room. “Your family has no sense of boundaries, do they?”

I laughed. “No, they really don’t.”

She frowned at me. “They heard us?”

“We’re not a shy family, Joss. Don’t worry about it.”

She quirked an eyebrow at me. “I hid in the bathroom until they left so they wouldn’t see me wearing just your T-shirt.”

I laughed again. “Stick around, babe, you’ll see a lot more than that.”

Joss smirked as she leaned in the doorway. “I kind of already did. When I was getting onto Brock’s plane, he was looking at his phone. I didn’t look intentionally, but just kind of happened to catch a glimpse.”

I shot her a wry, knowing look. “Let me guess, Claire sent him a nude?”

She nodded, covering her mouth with a hand, laughing. “Oh my god! I couldn’t believe it! It was like something out of a porn magazine! She was all spread out and…” Joss shook her head. “I mean, wow.”

“And Brock just laughed it off, I’m assuming?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

I got up, still naked. “We just go with it, usually,” I said. “You’ll learn.”

Joss’s eyes raked over me. “I don’t know. I’m a pretty private person.”

“That’s okay.” Knowing we were alone in the apartment, I didn’t bother with clothes on the way to the bathroom.

When I was done, I washed up and went back to my room. Joss was sitting on the bed, still in my shirt, just waiting for me. Her eyes lit up at the sight of me, and then heated as she looked me over.

“Hi,” she murmured.

Now that I’d used the bathroom, things were more in a ready state, so to speak, and her gaze, openly and hungrily fastening on my cock, started the blood flowing.

“Hi there.” I moved toward her, kicking the door closed behind me.

Gnawing on her lower lip, Joss stood up, her eyes on mine; I could see nerves warring with desire as she stood facing me. “I just wanted to say thank you.”

I wrinkled my brow. “For what?”

“For last night.” Her smile was sweet and tender and loving and sultry all at once. “For making me feel so special. For making my first time…perfect.”

“Joss…” I had no idea how to respond to that; I huffed a laugh of helplessness. “I don’t even know what to say.”

“Just say you’re welcome.” She gripped the lower hem of the T-shirt in her fingers, eyes flicking up to mine and then away. “I also wouldn’t mind if you told me last night wasn’t…a heat of the moment fluke.”

“Joss, honey…last night was—” I touched her chin with my fingers, and her eyes lifted to mine. “It was just the beginning.”

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “So what you said—what we said to each other…”

Ah—I understood, then, the source of her nerves and trepidation. “Joss, I wouldn’t have told you I loved you if I didn’t really, truly, and deeply mean it.”

Joss’s laugh was one meant to disguise a half-sob of relief. “I was so scared you’d feel differently, afterward.”

“Once I got what I wanted, you mean.”

She nodded, not looking at me. “I wanted desperately to believe you’re different, but I’m just still so—I don’t know. Just scared it’s all going to vanish on me.”

“You have no reason to trust me, Joss. I have to earn that, and I know it.” I slid an arm around her waist and pulled her up against me. “So I’ll start earning it by telling you again, outside the context of a heat-of-the-moment kind of situation, that I am without a doubt deeply and irrevocably in love with you.”

She sobbed a laugh, resting her face against my bare chest. “You are? You really are? You’re not just saying it?”

“Let me let you in on a little secret about the Badd family—we tease each other and make fun and say offensive things because that’s how we demonstrate that we love each other. We don’t say the words. Not to each other. My dad didn’t tell us he loved us—up until Mom died, at least, he found ways of showing us. Mom said it, but then she died and we stopped hearing it. So…my point is, the phrase ‘I love you’ is a really, really, really big fucking deal for me.”

“Oh.” She smiled hesitantly, still not quite looking at me directly. “I get that, though. Dad wasn’t big on saying it either. Mom was, almost to an obsessive point, as if making up for how seldom Dad said it. So I heard it, but almost never from Dad.”

“Would it help if I tried to make up for that?” I brushed a thumb over her cheekbone, and sought her eyes. “If I told you I love you as often as possible?”

Her smile was hopeful, tentative, and sweet. “I would like that.”

“Then look at me.” I waited until her golden brown eyes fixed on mine. “I love you, Joss Mackenzie.”

She breathed out shakily. “I love you, Lucian Badd.” She giggled. “I like that. Hearing it, saying it. Meaning it.”

She was still off, somehow, still holding something back. “Joss, can I ask you something?”

She nodded. “Sure. Of course.”

“What else aren’t you saying?”

She frowned at me, eyes darting to mine and then away again. “What do you mean?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just feel like there’s something else bothering you, but you’re not saying it.”

“It’s not something bothering me, like I’m upset, it’s just…” She traced a vein in my bicep with a fingertip, one shoulder rolling in a half-shrug. “It’s more something I don’t really know how to…how to say, or how to express.”

“Just try, then. Do your best.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not? Start there, then. Why is it hard for you to express whatever it is?”

She sat on the edge of the bed, and I sat beside her. “Um. Well…it’s partly just how I am, how I’ve always been, and partly a habit forced on me from being on my own for so long.” A pause, as Joss gathered her thoughts. “I was always independent. I got my own breakfast as a little girl as soon as I was capable of doing it. Everything, I just learned to do myself. I never asked my parents for anything if I could help it. And then being on my own, I refused to beg. I refused to become a panhandler. I had three things I wouldn’t do, even if I was starving—I would never become a stripper, and I would never sell myself, and I would never beg. I would do literally anything else for change or cash. Wash dishes, shovel shit, clean bathrooms, anything. I never asked for handouts. I never accepted charity.”

“I get that. You had to know you were surviving on your own merit.”

She nodded. “Yeah. I’m not a beggar. That’s why, last night, your whole thing about making me beg was a big deal. I totally knew you didn’t mean it like that, but that kind of thing is hard for me. I don’t beg.” She glanced at me, and I realized we were getting to the real root of the issue. “But when it comes down to it, I’m just…it’s almost impossible for me to ask for anything. It’s hard for me to admit I want something, hard for me to accept something even if someone is willingly offering it.”

“So you may want something, but find it hard to say so?”

“Not just hard, Luce—like, literally impossible. I just can’t.”

“So last night—when you said you were ready, that you wanted more…”

She laughed, somewhat bitterly. “I’m scared that was a fluke. Like, I’ll never be able to be that bold about wanting anything ever again.”

“I think I’m starting to see what you’re getting at.”

Her gaze flicked to mine, hesitantly hopeful. “I just don’t know any other way of being.”

“What if instead of trying to jump right into saying what you want, you found ways of making it obvious?” I twisted to face her. “I get why coming out with ‘hey, I want this,’ or ‘can I have that’ would be hard. But with some things—like, for instance, between you and me, if you were to…be in a certain mood, but you didn’t know how to communicate that in so many words…”

She smiled at me. “I could just show you.”

“Right.”

Joss sat staring at me, and I could see the wheels in her head turning. Deciding, perhaps, how to show me what she wanted. With a shaky, nervous breath, she stood up. Turned around to face me, a foot or so of space between us. For a moment, she just stood there, hands at her sides, breathing nervously. She shook her hands as if to fling away the trembles, clenched her fists, and then grasped the hem of the T-shirt. For a moment, she just held it, arms crossed over her stomach to grasp the hem at opposite hips, eyes on me, searching me. And then, in a single, lithe, smooth movement, she peeled the shirt off. She held it in her hands, knotted in front of her body, and then she forced herself to drop it, and to let her arms hang at her sides.

I could see the war in her. Her shoulders hunched, her head ducked, eyes downcast; and then, with obvious effort, she drew up straight, lifted her chin, and met my eyes. Talking herself into confidence. Into standing in front of me, naked and bold.

“God…” I breathed. “You’re fucking gorgeous, Joss.”

Her smile was hesitant. “Does this communicate clearly enough what I want, Lucian?”

I grinned up at her. “I think I might have an idea where you’re going with this, yes.”

I reached for her, grasping the backs of her thighs to draw her toward me. She stood between us, gazing down at me. Her hands rested on my shoulders. She pressed her thighs together, breathing slowly and deeply, and I couldn’t help watching the way her breathing lifted the heavy teardrops of her breasts, sending them swaying gently side to side with each breath.

“Be bold, Joss,” I whispered. “You’re safe with me. Anything you could possibly want, I want just as much.”

“I’m scared of how…how strong all this is inside me,” she admitted.

“Me too.”

She shook her head. “No, like, ever since we woke up, I’ve been…” She ducked her head, and I knew if she was fairer of skin, her cheeks would be red from blushing. “I can only think of one thing.”

“What’s that?” I asked, knowing full well, but hoping to get her to talk about it more openly.

She ran her hands over my shoulders, slid them through my hair, petting me, caressing me, affectionate and loving and possessive. “Luce, I’m serious. I’m worried I’m going to scare you with how crazy I feel.”

“You can’t scare me.”

“You don’t know how I’m feeling.”

“Try me.”

She drew several deep breaths, thinking hard, and then dropped her eyes to mine. “I feel like you…god, I know this is going to sound stupid or cheesy, but I feel like you woke something up inside me.” Her laugh was self-deprecating. “Maybe that’s normal, I don’t know. I just know this feeling, this wanting you, it’s scary intense.”

“That doesn’t scare me, Joss, that excites me.”

A ray of hope bloomed on her face. “Really?”

I nodded. “And trust me, I’m sitting here feeling just as crazy, but I’m scared to show you how much I want you. I don’t want to scare you off or overwhelm you, or make you think sex is all I mean when I say I love you—”

She breathed a sharp sigh of relief. “Thank god you said that,” she breathed. “I was scared if I even said it I’d sound shallow or something.”

“I’m not sure I’m going to say this right, but…” I swallowed hard, letting out a breath. “Being in love with you feels like this whole big puzzle. It’s emotion, it’s a feeling of wanting to take care of you and protect you and show you that you’re safe and that you belong, but it’s also got this physical component. Being attracted to you, wanting you, it’s part of it. It’s not the only part of it, but it’s an important aspect.”

“It’s all I can think about right now,” she whispered. “The physical aspect, I mean.”

I laughed, resting my forehead against her belly. “God, me too.”

“Is that normal?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. This is new for me, too.” I glanced up at her. “But honestly, I don’t care what’s normal. All that matters is what works for us.”

Her fingers scratched into my scalp, massaging, caressing. “So—god, this is hard to say…I know last night you were being careful and gentle, and I appreciate that. But, I—I don’t think I would mind if—if going forward you were less…careful.”

“Then let’s be open with one another, Joss. You be bold, too. Show me what you want. Take what you want. And you can be damn sure I’ll do the same. We do that, we’ll both be sure we’re getting exactly what we want.”

She breathed a sigh. “I like the sound of that.”

I let my hands drift upward to cup her ass, staring up at her as I did so.

She smiled, biting her lip—a gesture I was beginning to recognize as one of pleasure and desire, a gesture of sensual delight. “That feels nice.”

“Your ass feels nice,” I said, caressing the globes, playing with their juicy bounce. “It’s a beautiful piece of anatomy, I must say.”

She giggled. “I’m glad you think so. Even with all the walking I did, it never got any smaller. I’ve always been a bit self-conscious about how big my butt is.” She wiggled her hips, sending her butt into motion. “It’s so jiggly.”

I growled as her ass cheeks shook in my hands. “Jesus, Joss…you have no idea, do you?”

She frowned at me. “No idea of what?”

“How much I love your ass…and how crazy it makes me when you do that.”

She bit her lip again. “When I do what?” she asked, coy, now. “This?” She shook her hips again, and this time added a little dip of the knees to it, making a dance of it.

My cock responded accordingly, dancing and throbbing to life, something I made no effort to hide. “You see what it does to me?”

She groaned in her throat. “Yeah, I see.”

Joss was at the perfect height, standing in front of me, and I was done trying to suppress the desire to do one thing—now that I knew she was as crazy eager as I was, I felt like it was safe to give in to my need for her without holding back.

I clutched her ass and hauled her up against me. She gasped as I jerked her forward, and I watched her thighs press together. “Are you wet, Joss?” I asked in a snarl.

“Luce…” she breathed.

“Are you?”

She threaded her fingers into my hair, gnawing on her lower lip, brows furrowed, and she pulled my face toward her core. “You should…you should check and see for yourself.”

“Check how?” I asked, and nudged my knee between hers, and she shifted her feet apart, gradually at first and then more eagerly as I leaned in to nip and kiss the velvet and silk of her inner thighs. “Like this?”

She dug her fingernails into my scalp at the back of my head. “Please, Luce…”

I couldn’t help a laugh. “Please what, Joss?”

She moaned in frustration. “Don’t make me say it again.”

“But it’s so hot hearing you say it.”

I took mercy on her, more because I was as eager to devour her as she was to be devoured. In reality, I couldn’t wait. I need her. I needed to taste her again. I’d been sitting here with her sweet pussy inches from my face, smelling her desire, and wanting to taste her all over again, and denying myself. And now…I was done waiting.

So was she, it seemed—she tilted her hips toward me and dipped at the knees and pulled my face against her pussy, a breathy whine escaping her throat as I buried my mouth against her desire-damp slit. I plunged my tongue inside her and lapped at the seeping essence, and then flicked my tongue against her erect little clit, and her breathy whine became a loud moan. It was mere moments before she was grinding against my mouth. I clutched her ass and devoured her with all the eagerness I possessed, thrashing her to climax as fast as possible.

She screamed as she fell over the edge, head thrown back, shrieking as her orgasm racked her.

She collapsed against me, and I caught her, letting her weight carry us to the mattress. She gasped for breath, shaking all over, limp against me. And then she lifted up, staring down at me, and the heat in her eyes seared into me. She looked as if she was about to say something, but then, instead, she stretched out over me and across the bed to the nightstand, snagging the string of condom packets. We were on the edge of the bed still, my feet on the floor with her weight on me, my throbbing cock wedged between us. When she had the string of condoms, she sat back down, ripped a packet free, and tore it open. After withdrawing the condom, she hesitated, sitting on my thighs, staring down at me.

I just smiled at her. Waited, my hands on her hips.

She reached for me, tilted my cock away from my body, and rolled the condom on with a hand-over-hand motion that drove me wild. I shifted backward on the bed, and Joss moved to get off me, as if to go to her back again, but I stopped her, holding her in place with my hands on her hips.

“Stay like this,” I said.

She settled back down astride my thighs. “Are you sure?”

I ground against her, sliding my palms up to her breasts. “Absolutely.”

After another moment of hesitation, Joss leaned forward to lift her ass off my thighs. Her eyes fixed on mine, she planted one hand on the mattress—I moved her hand to my chest, so I was supporting all of her weight. She reached between us, grasped me, guiding me to her opening. I watched her blossom, then. She hesitated again, my crown just barely splitting her open. Her other hand came to rest on my chest beside the other, her weight pitched forward.

I brushed my thumbs across her nipples, and she shivered; I dragged my palms down her sides to grasp her by the hip creases, and then touched her clit with my thumb, rubbing in circles, just barely making contact. Her shiver turned to a shudder, eyes shuttering closed, and she moaned, still leaned forward, keeping me not quite inside her, just the very tip splitting apart the lips of her pussy.

“Joss,” I whispered.

Her eyes flicked open.

“Take me, baby.”

She sucked in a long, sharp breath, held it, fingers clawing into my chest. And then, slowly, she sank down around me, groaning as I filled her and stretched her wide.

“Ohhhh—fuck!” she groaned, as her ass settled against my thighs, eyes sliding closed again. “Jesus, Lucian…”

I pushed up against her, deeper, and she whimpered, hunching over me.

“Joss…” I growled, my voice hoarse and ragged. “So…fucking…tight.”

She wrenched her eyes open. “Oh fuck, oh fuck, Lucian—you feel even bigger like this.”

“Because I can go deeper from this angle.”

She lifted up, a long whimper dragging out of her with each inch of me that slid between her pulsing walls. “I feel like I’m stretched apart so far I could break.”

“Are you okay?”

Pausing when I was nearly falling out of her opening, Joss stared down at me with wide, fraught eyes. “So much more than okay.”

“Well, I don’t want to break you,” I said.

She sank down on me again, impaling me into her. “Luce, please—please—”

“What, baby? Say it. Anything.”

Her voice was a ragged whisper. “Break me.”

“Oh…thank fuck,” I groaned. “I want to let you have this, but I need…”

Joss’s fingers pressed against my lips, silencing me. I bit playfully down on her fingertips, and she hooked her fingers against my teeth, leaning back to balance on me, sitting upright. She lifted up again, and this time I met her on the down stroke, our bodies crashing together with a loud slap. She cried out, throwing her head back, spine arching, tits bouncing, ass slapping against my thighs. My snarl was loud, feral, and her cry was raw and ragged. She lifted up, hands going to her breasts, lifting them, clutching, and letting them fall with a lush, swaying bounce that made me crazy. I lost all control, then, driving up against her—which only served to ignite her even more, setting her on fire. She whimpered as I filled her and gasped as we drew apart, and screamed when we slammed together.

“Luce, god, Lucian—the way you feel, like this—fuck, Lucian…it’s too good—so amazing…” The words seemed ripped out of her. “Like you hit me just right, and I can’t—oh god, I’m gonna come again, but I don’t want this to ever end.”

“Come for me, Joss,” I snarled. “Don’t hold it back. Just let go, baby.”

She gave up all pretense of control, then. She fell forward, hands clawing into my chest, dreadlocks dangling and dancing around my face, breasts swaying and flying back and forth as she rode me. She rolled her hips on me, driving me deeper, and then pulled forward and began slapping her ass against me with crazed abandon, riding me and screaming as she came apart. I was helpless against the vision of her like that, an erotic goddess taking her pleasure, dusky skin flushed golden and limned by the sunrise shining through my window, thick black dreadlocks dancing, big heavy breasts swaying forward and clapping back against her chest, her ass crushing against my thighs, her eyes closed in ecstasy, mouth open as she screamed her release, crying my name over and over again.

I came when she did, her orgasm forcing her pussy to clamp around me, bringing me to orgasm instantly. I felt it rip through me like an earthquake, hot and furious and concussive, my bellowing roar of release loud in my own ears, mingling with her breathless screams and shrieks.

She rode me through her orgasm until neither of us could move or breathe, and then she collapsed forward onto me, arms wrapping around my neck, her tits crushed between us, her face in my neck.

After we regained our breath, she lifted up, bracing her elbows on my chest. “I really, really fucking liked being on top, Luce.”

I couldn’t help laughing. “I could tell.”

She laughed with me. “I kind of lost control for a minute, huh?”

I caressed her flesh wherever I could reach, shoulders, back, butt, thighs. “I love it when you lose control.”

She nuzzled my throat. “I felt sexy.”

“You looked like a goddess.”

“I felt like one.” She lifted up again to fix me with a hot look. “Next time, I want to find out what it’s like when you lose control. How can we do that?”

“You’re becoming rather voracious, aren’t you?” I asked, grinning.

She ducked her head, and I knew she was blushing, even if her skin was too dark to show it. “That’s what I meant, earlier. I feel like you brought something to life inside me, something so…so wild and hungry for sex that I’ll never be able to satisfy it.”

“Joss, baby?”

She looked up, embarrassed. “Yeah?”

“That’s actually the exact opposite of a problem.”

“Oh. Really?”

I nodded. “That’s every man’s dream—a woman who can’t ever get enough sex.”

She buried her nose in the hollow of my throat. “Oh. Well…good, then. I want to be your dream woman.”

I laughed softly. “You already are, Joss.”

I rolled to my back and she moved to curl into me, finding a comfortable position immediately, tangled up with me, cradling my head in one hand and my ass in the other, her lips against my chest.

More minutes passed like that, and we may have dozed for a few minutes, I don’t know.

Eventually, she spoke without looking up at me. “That…was…incredible.”

I touched her cheek with my palm. “I didn’t—I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

She looked at me, then, smiling sweetly. “No, Luce.” She shifted, wincing. “I am a little sore down there, though. Can we take a little break?”

“I need one myself,” I admitted. “Need to recharge, if you know what I mean.”

She giggled. “If I wasn’t sore, I’d want you again right now.”

“How about I make us something some breakfast?”

She gripped my arm excitedly. “Eggs? And bacon? And some of those waffles?” She lifted up to meet my eyes, hers dancing, manic and alive and full of joy. “And coffee?”

I laughed. “Someone worked up an appetite, I see.”

She bit my chest. “All that fucking made me hungry—what can I say?” Joss glanced up at me in sudden consternation. “Should I not call it that?”

“It was lovemaking, and it was fucking. It can be both. It can be whatever we want to call it.” I chuckled and squeezed her butt playfully. “I like hearing you curse, though. It turns me on.”

I stood up, snagged my T-shirt off the floor, and tugged it on over Joss’s head. “My shirt, for my beautiful, sexy-as-fuck girlfriend.”

She shoved her arms through the holes, eyes shining up at me. “You talk to me all sweet like that, Luce, and I can’t be held responsible for what it’ll make me do, sore or not.”

I tugged on a pair of gym shorts, grabbed her hand, and hauled her to her feet. “Come on, babe. Let’s eat. And then I have something I wanna show you.”