His lips covered mine, and I whimpered against the feather-light touch. I half expected him to kiss me with ravenous hunger. The gentleness took me off guard.
He nipped at the corners of my mouth until my lips parted and he swept in, his tongue tasting of whiskey and mint. The flame that had been simmering in my stomach now ignited to a full-blown wildfire, and my hands slid up to his shoulders and around his neck in an effort to pull him closer.
I wanted this.
Oh, I wanted this like there was no tomorrow!
Lucas molded his lips over mine, his free hand finding my hip and pulling me into him as his other caressed the nape of my neck lightly. He held me almost like a cherished possession, and I didn’t want the feeling to ever end.
When he finally pulled away, I nearly tumbled against him.
“I want you, Leda,” he said, his nose nuzzling my ear. “I want to have you. Will you allow me?”
Was he… asking? It didn’t feel like he was asking. It felt like he wasbeggingme to allow him to do something. I pushed the thrill deep down inside, even as warning lights went off inside my head.
I didn’t care.
I wanted him just as much. “I want to see you naked.”
Lucas pulled away so suddenly that I thought I had run him off with my request. I hadn’t seen him naked before. I’d only been intimate with his cock and truly little else. Of course, in my dreams, I had conjured up what his body looked like many times. But I wanted to see it now.
When he reached for the buttons on his shirt, I realized I was about to get my wish.
“Are you sure, Leda?” he asked huskily.
I nodded and he obliged. When he shed his shirt and tossed it on the chair, I gasped.
Even in the soft candlelight I could see the scars, and my throat closed unexpectedly. There was a tattoo on the left side of his torso, too dark for me to see, but the silver scars dotting his torso told the story he hadn’t been willing to.
Unconsciously I stepped forward, and Lucas’s hands stilled on his jeans. “What are you doing?” he asked roughly, watching my hand touch the large scar on his shoulder, like someone had tried to hack his arm off.
“What happened to you?” I asked instead, my finger tracing the deep groove. What did Lucas suffer through? Were these scars the reason he kept those walls so tight around him?
If so, I couldn’t blame him. Not even Nico had these kinds of wounds.
Lucas caught my hand and pulled it to his chest. “Another time.”
Another time.Always another time. Fine. I would wait, but he was going to tell me everything one day.
Wait. Was I really thinking about this being more long term?
Gazing up at Lucas, I realized that I was.
Chapter 35
Leda
This was crazy. He had bought me, but he had also saved me from whatever my father had planned for me.
Lucas clearly needed someone in his life, someone that could chase away the darkness that was his life. No matter how hard he insisted that I was not the one to save him.
“You’re changing your mind,” Lucas said flatly, catching my attention.
I shook my head immediately. There was no way I was backing out of this tonight. Something was shifting in him, something I desperately wanted to explore. “I’m just wondering how much longer you are going to stand here and hold my hand.”
His smile was slow and genuine, not the grins or smirks he had given me up to now.
It was breathtaking.