His lingering annoyance on that score made her tense. But just as suddenly he hauled her all the way into his arms, devouring dark eyes searching hers. ‘Whatever else has changed, you still need me, mon ange,’ he murmured with unhidden satisfaction.
She went limp against him, but not for long. The fiery demand of his sensual mouth on hers awakened her. And the most consuming impatience seemed to possess both of them. Star helped him to haul his shirt over his head, but was sidetracked when he bared his muscular chest, spreading her palms there, pressing her lips lovingly to every part of him she could reach.
He came down with a groan, struggling to snake his hips free of his trousers while she wrenched at her skirt. But the zip caught, Luc gave it one sharp tug, and when it stayed jammed, he just ripped it apart.
‘So I’ll buy you another ten,’ he muttered feverishly, already engaged in extracting her from her T-shirt and capturing a tautened pink peak with a very vocal male groan of appreciation.
Her excitement was so intense she felt drunk and out of control, heart racing insanely, every pulse pounding. Her body throbbed with a kind of ecstatic torment of anticipation. He traced the damp heat of her readiness and she twisted and turned, frantic for a more forceful invasion, every sense craving him with shameless, helpless abandon.
‘I just want you…I just want you.’
‘This is not a very cool start to a honeymoon.’ Luc freed her of her last garment with a dexterity that was more driven by desperation than actual skill.
‘Honeymoon…? Oh…oh, please,’ Star moaned, clenching her teeth. ‘Talk later?’
‘If I’m still alive after this much excitement, mon ange.’ With a ragged laugh, Luc came down on her and entered her in one powerful thrust. A shuddering groan of pleasure escaped him.
Star wasn’t capable of vocalising at that point. The height of her excitement was blinding, silencing, all-consuming. The whole centre of her being was locked into every glorious movement he made. It was like suddenly entering heaven and hoping that heaven was endless. Never before had she experienced such a sense of oneness with Luc; never before had she felt sheer joy rippling through her in concert with the wild high of his possession. An intoxicating combination which sent her spinning into an earth-shattering climax of mindless strength.
He held her so close and tight in the aftermath it was a wonder that she could breathe. In fact she didn’t think two adults could ever before have occupied so small a space in so large a bed, and that closeness made her feel so good it brought tears to her eyes. She kissed a loving trail across his shoulder, caressed his damp back.
He held her back about six inches from him, but kept their bodies still intimately entwined. His slashing smile made her heart bang up against her ribs. ‘I really do get a high from giving you pleasure…I just want to do it again…and again…and…and again,’ he teased, punctuating each repetition with tiny provocative and still hungry kisses. ‘Rain-check on talking?’
Star studied him with passion-glazed eyes of wonderment, happy, so happy, that if she could have stood being separated from him she might have danced round the room. He hadn’t gone to Gabrielle on their wedding night. She decided there and then that he was a god among men; Gabrielle had been incredibly gorgeous, yet Luc had clearly ended that relationship because he was getting married. So, whether he recognised the fact or not, he had made a commitment to his teenage bride, Star concluded with a wave of enormous satisfaction.
‘You look wonderfully smug,’ Luc muttered.
Tact seized a rare hold of her. ‘I’m just happy…’
* * *
Star opened her eyes and lay sleepily still while a vague memory of Luc assuring her that he would see to Venus and Mars slowly surfaced.
For goodness’ sake, it was eleven! Luc couldn’t possibly have managed the twins on his own! Feeling guilty as hell, Star got up, and, hearing sounds from the lounge area, headed in that direction.
Luc was down on his knees with Venus and Mars propped up against the sofa cushions he had dragged down onto the floor for their benefit.
‘Daddy…that’s what you call me in English, but if it’s French, which you have to learn as well,’ he was warning them, ‘it is Papa,’ he sounded out carefully, and then repeated it, even more slowly.