in the shower because apparently that was preferable to her in his bed. She started to pull away, to do something to protect herself from the pending rejection. Though really, there was nothing she could do to combat the sting. She’d learned that through far too many experiences.
Luke’s brows dropped, the forbidding expression strangely comforting. “Guess that just means I need to step up my game.” His fingers dug into her thighs, and she couldn’t stifle a gasp of surprise.
Before she could reconcile reality with what was happening in her head, he leaned down and pressed an openmouthed kiss to her whisper-thin panties. She sat bolt upright as if he’d hit her with a cattle prod. While she was trying to relearn how to breathe, Luke nuzzled her panties to the side and dragged his tongue over her center.
Oh my God, this is really happening. He hadn’t walked away, and he hadn’t rejected her. He was here between her thighs, his mouth on the most private part of her as if he’d never tasted anything as decadent.
A whimper slipped free as he did it again. He paused and met her gaze, the fire in his green eyes searing her to the core. “You taste like peaches here, too.”
“I—”
“Darlin’, as flattered as I am that you’re trying to talk right now, the only thing I want to hear is you screaming my name.” He leaned back long enough to pull her panties off, and then he was back, spreading her legs up and out, baring her completely. “Fucking beautiful.”
As he went to work exploring her with his mouth, she didn’t have the breath to point out…anything. Instead she let herself fall back on the bed and be consumed with how good his mouth felt on her. But one thought resonated even through the delirious pleasure he was drawing from her body.
No one has ever called me beautiful before.
Luke couldn’t get enough of her taste—or the noises coming out of her mouth with each lick. She writhed and moaned as if she’d never had a man take his time and savor her like this. The thought that maybe no man had before him drove the possessive feeling he had no right to higher. As selfish as it was, he wanted to be the one she never forgot, the one she compared every sexual encounter to for the rest of her privileged life. Even considering her with other men made him growl against her skin. The jealousy taking the steering wheel was as out of place as the possessiveness, but he couldn’t have stopped if he wanted to. And he sure as fuck didn’t want to.
“Who’s making you feel like this?” When she just moaned louder, he set his teeth against her clit. “Say it.”
“You are.” She laced her fingers through his hair, her hips jerking against his mouth until he had to pin her to the bed. The move only drove her wilder, her moans turning into cries that evolved into his name. “Luke, oh my God, oh, oh, oh, Luke.”
“That’s right, darlin’. Me.” He gentled his kisses until her shaking stilled, and then raised his head. Whatever dark thoughts had plagued her earlier were gone now. Because of him. Alexis watched him through eyes gone dark with passion, and though she looked sated, her gaze dropped to his mouth. Not quite sated yet. With a grin, he crawled onto the bed next to her. “You’re not done.”
It took her two tries to smile, but she somehow managed. “Good thing. I was sure you were a one-trick pony.”
He laughed. God help him, but he liked that the princess had claws. Even if half the time, she was sinking them into him. “Lord, woman, you always have a comeback ready, don’t you?”
A frown flickered over her face. “Not always.”
There it was again—whatever imagined burden she carried, trying to force its way back to the forefront of her mind. He was more than intimate with exactly how that shit worked. It struck him that he didn’t really know much about her, other than the fact that her sister and friends didn’t think she could handle herself alone in Europe. What hadn’t they told him before they sent him off on this protection mission?
It didn’t matter. Her worries could wait for another day. Tonight, Alexis was his.
He hooked the back of her neck and kissed her. Her hands immediately went to his hair again, which would have amused him if he weren’t half a second