“Don’t apologize,” he ground out, not because he was angry but because he could barely speak. He found her hand and dragged it back. “This is how much I want you,” he said, wrapping her around him. “With everything I have, everything I am.”
His nose was barely an inch from hers. Their breath mingled, and their eyes…
It was like they were one.
“I love you,” he murmured, moving into position. Her hand slid away, then moved to his back.
“I love you, too,” she whispered, and then her eyes widened, as if she were stunned that she’d said it.
But he didn’t care. It didn’t matter if she’d meant to tell him or not. She’d said it, and she could never take it back. She was his.
And he was hers. As he held himself still, pressing ever so softly at her entrance, he realized that he was at the edge of a precipice. His life was now one of two parts: before and after.
He would never love another woman again.
He could never love another woman again.
Not after this. Not as long as Lucy walked the same earth. There could be no one else.
It was terrifying, this precipice. Terrifying, and thrilling, and—
He jumped.
She let out a little gasp as he pushed forward, but when he looked down at her, she did not seem to be in pain. Her head was thrown back, and each breath was accompanied by a little moan, as if she could not quite keep her desire inside.
Her legs wrapped around his, feet running down the length of his calves. And her hips were arching, pressing, begging him to continue.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, every muscle in his body straining to move forward. He had never wanted anything the way he wanted her in that moment. And yet he had never felt less greedy. This had to be for her. He could not hurt her.
“You’re not,” she groaned, and then he couldn’t help himself. He captured her breast in his mouth as he pushed through her final barrier, embedding himself fully within her.
If she’d felt pain, she didn’t care. She let out a quiet shriek of pleasure, and her hands grabbed wildly at his head. She writhed beneath him, and when he attempted to move to her other breast, her fingers grew merciless, holding him in place with a ferocious intensity.
And all the while, his body claiming her, moving in a rhythm that was beyond thought or control.
“Lucy Lucy Lucy,” he moaned, finally tearing himself away from her breast. It was too hard. It was too much. He needed room to breathe, to gasp, to suck in the air that never quite seemed to make it to his lungs.
“Lucy!”
He should wait. He was trying to wait. But she was grabbing at him, digging her nails into his shoulders, and her body was arching off the bed with enough strength to lift him as well.
And then he felt her. Tensing, squeezing, shuddering around him, and he let go.
He let go, and the world quite simply exploded.
“I love you,” he gasped as he collapsed atop her. He’d thought himself beyond words, but there they were.
They were his companion now. Three little words.
I love you.
He would never be without them.
And that was a splendid thing.
Twenty
In which Our Hero has a very bad morning.