The moment our mouths touched, a much stronger current of energy washed over me, leaving my lips and throat tingling. I didn’t pull away from the strong sensation or from the heat that now flared around him. I parted my lips and deepened the kiss, proving to Luc that I didn’t fear him and doing my best to erase what we both felt, what we both now shared.
But then he slipped a hand to the back of my head, seeking for control of the kiss, and I happily handed it over.
A low rumbling noise came from the back of his throat; it curled my toes and twisted my stomach into tiny delicious knots.
Evie.
I swore I heard him say my name even as his lips moved over mine, and it had been his voice, not the frigid, apathetic one that had worried me—but that wasn’t possible, and then I wasn’t thinking about that at all. A hand on my hip tugged my body under his, and I gasped at the riot of sensation. The heat and the hardness pressed into me, obliterating all thoughts except for how he felt—how I felt.
Wherever he touched, static followed, dancing after the hand that slid down my arm, over my waist, and then lower, stopping to clutch my hip in a way that left me breathless, and then he gripped my thigh. His hips settled into me, and when he lifted my leg, I hooked it around his.
He didn’t taste like bad memories or haunting nightmares. He tasted of sunshine and summer midnights. I was falling and falling into his warmth and in him, and when he moved against me, I gasped, “Luc.”
“The way you say my name like that? It’s going to kill me,” he said, his tone still that strange, power-heavy, cold one, but his words? They were all Luc as he caught my lower lip between his teeth. “You have no idea.”
I didn’t think he knew what he was doing to me as his mouth blazed a path of kisses down my throat. He dragged his teeth along that incredibly sensitive place just above my shoulders, causing my back to arch.
Okay.
Maybe he did know exactly what he was doing.
Luc chuckled as one of his hands slipped under my shirt, his hand a brand against the bare skin of my stomach.
“You’re in my head again.” I barely recognized my own voice.
“I am.” No shame. “And it’s not the only thing I want to be inside of.”
My entire body flushed at the boldness of his words. “Shocker,” I managed to whisper as his hand skated up my ribs, over the thin cups of my bra. The material did nothing to shield my skin from the heat of his hand.
His mouth returned to mine. “You want the same thing.”
It wasn’t a question. It didn’t need to be. I did. I wanted the same so badly it was almost painful, but this …
This was Luc, but it also wasn’t.
He kissed me then like he was staking a claim, like he never had the luxury of doing so before, and I was thoroughly claimed.
Things spun a little out of control as the intense glow that consumed Luc pulsed and flared, creating flickering shadows along the bed and the wall. His shirt came off, and his hair felt like strands of flames between my fingers as he kissed his way down my body, over clothing and then against skin.
How my pants and shirt came off had to be due to some nifty ability of Luc’s, because I was completely unaware of it happening until I felt inches of heated, bare skin tangling with mine. The bra I was completely present for, because his fingers and then his lips chased the straps down my arms, and when it fell to the bed and clothing no longer provided a barrier between me and his hands, his mouth, I felt like I couldn’t breathe past the way my pulse pounded all over my body. Our hands were everywhere, and I knew where this was heading. The intent was heavy in the air, a tangible third entity, and when I pushed at the last clothing Luc wore, I did so without really thinking. I just wanted to feel—to feel him, to relish in these precious, stolen moments while everything beyond us felt like it was on the brink of falling apart. We had no idea what was going to happen from hour to hour, and I just wanted the beauty of this, of him, of us together, and there wasn’t a single thing wrong with that.
For one thing.
Our first time together should be ours, and not Luc’s, mine, and whatever it was he’d pulled out of me.
Luc drew his mouth from mine in a slow, savoring kiss. “Evie?”
Opening my eyes, I saw that the radiance of power around Luc had faded just enough that I could make out the diamond brightness of his pupils. He was staring down at me, unblinking, his gaze familiar and yet not.