tugs, the top slipped over the beaded tip of my nipple.
Lucian groaned, the sound almost animal. I arched my back in response, pulled by his need, my bared breast coming closer to the wall of his chest. I wanted to feel his skin on mine.
But he didn’t move. He gripped the edge tighter, his body working with heaving pants. “Fuck,” he whispered. His pale gaze flicked to mine, a furrow knitting between his brows. “I want a taste. Please. God. Please, Em.”
That he was undone nearly had me sliding under the water. But the need in his eyes made me whimper. Lids heavy with desire, I nodded, and he swallowed hard, his expression becoming fierce.
“Just a taste,” he said, as if to hold himself to that. I whimpered, and his hot gaze snared with mine. Something passed over his expression—determination, reassurance, I couldn’t tell; lust and need had scattered all rational thought. “Just a taste,” he said again.
“Take it,” I whispered, barely able to form the words.
Lucian let out a breath, his mouth moving closer. “Fuck. Em . . . lift that sweetness up for me.”
My breath left in a swoosh, everything squeezing with a lovely tightness. With a shaking hand, I cupped my breast and lifted it out of the water. Offering myself to him.
On a groan, he ducked his head. The hot, wet flat of his tongue dragged over my cold flesh. I let out a cry, a bolt of pleasure punching to my core.
He made a sound of pure hunger, his lips gently kissing the tip before he sucked it deep . . .
“Last one in the pool is a dirty fool!” Tina’s shout was followed closely by a massive splash as she launched herself into the water.
Lucian surged back, as though struck, then turned to block me as I hastily hauled my top back into place.
It was clear from the wide-eyed surprise on Tina’s face that she hadn’t noticed us. Just as clear from Brommy’s slow stroll to the pool edge and the grin on his face that he had.
Whatever the case, the mood was effectively doused. I caught Lucian’s eye, but his walls were up, and he shook his head with a nearly imperceptible motion. With an internal sigh, I swam over to a sheepish Tina and pretended nothing had happened.
I couldn’t regret teasing Lucian to the point where he turned the tables on me. But I would definitely think twice about engaging that way again. Not when he apparently regretted his moment of weakness.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Lucian
After pulling back from the brink of falling on Emma in the pool like a man starved, I stayed away from her and hung out with Brommy. I managed it for two days. And I missed her.
It was irrational, annoying, nonsensical. You weren’t supposed to miss someone you barely knew. You weren’t supposed to crave the sight of them, the sound of their voice, the scent of their skin. Not like this. Holy hell, I’d had the sweet pink rose of her nipple in my mouth. I could still feel its shape on my tongue like some lust phantom designed to drive me out of my mind.
I put it down to being mentally weakened by months of sexual solitude.
My one concession was to bake. For her.
Baking had always been a private thing, something I’d learned at my great-grandfather’s knee, but I had never sought to do more with it. But now? It had become both a challenge and intensely satisfying to come up with new ways to tempt and pleasure Emma. Feeding Emma somehow fed my soul as well.
She didn’t know that the brioches in her breakfast basket had been formed by my hand. She didn’t know the macarons—two each night, sent in a small box—were mine. But I did.
In moments of weakness, I’d close my eyes and try to imagine her soft lips parting over jewel-bright confections, pink tongue tasting the flavors of me—achieved by the strange alchemy of whipping egg whites, infusing creams, and straining ripe fruits, all melded together into an intense burst of flavor.
Had she preferred the inky-black chicory chocolate, the butter-rich caramel and burnt pear? Or did she moan for the juicy brightness of the grapefruit honey or blood orange and rose?
It was enough to make a man hard.
And aching for the sight of what he shouldn’t have.
Which was why I kept doing it. Maybe I wanted to be found out. I could just tell the woman I was the one making her food, leaving