Let's Pretend (Romantic Comedy, Contemporary, Second Chance, Sensual) (10 page)

“Belle, I doubt you’ll remember doing this tomorrow.”

Her eyelids brushed down to half-mast as her gaze zeroed in on his mouth. She licked her lips in a slow, tormenting glide. “You have the most beautiful lips; do you know that?” Her finger traced his bottom lip.

Luc gulped, then chuckled to cover the groan her compliment tore from him. Turning down Belle’s unspoken invitation was going to be harder than the organ in his trousers begging to get out. “Honey, let’s get you tucked into bed. You’ll feel better once you sleep this off.”

With a lethargic smile, she cupped the back of his head just as he started to turn her toward her bed, bringing his mouth to hers. She snuck her soft tongue into his mouth, inciting his response. He took the kiss and turned it into an erotic caress that was deep and hot and left them breathing hard. When she pulled away, her dark blue eyes twinkled with mischief.

“I know exactly what I’m doing, Luc.”
 

His good intentions went up in smoke as every part of him came alive. Just for tonight, he’d believe Belle wanted him as much as he longed for her. Just for tonight, he’d pretend everything was all right between them. But when tomorrow came he planned to win the battle for his marriage. Because Luc knew after this weekend, he’d never be able to give her up—she was his, and he loved her. To him, “for better or for worse” meant just that. He’d given her time to reconsider, but the decree nisi he’d received a few weeks ago told him she did not intend to do so.

He’d believed it prudent to give her time to calm down; he now knew that to be a foolish mistake. He shouldn’t have let her go so easily.

Luc dropped his gaze to her lips, parted and swollen from their last kiss as she waited for him to make the decision. He couldn’t summon the strength to fight the urge to kiss her—he needed her more than his next breath.

Her cool hands snuck beneath his shirt, sliding up over rigid stomach muscles on their way to his chest.

“I’ve always loved your body.” She lightly drew her short nails down his pecs, scraping his flat nipples.

He swallowed back a groan.

Little minx! She knew exactly what that did to him. Clearly, she wanted to tease him out of his skin—as if he wasn’t already heavy and throbbing for her.
  

Belle leaned into him. “It always makes me so…” She reached up on tiptoe to press her cheek against his, her lips touching his ear. “…
hot
.”

This time no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t prevent the rough groan from escaping his throat. Like a
backdraft
, her words caused a
rapid combustion.
He tangled his hands in her glossy hair and covered her mouth with his. Good and hard was how he wanted to kiss her, and evidently she felt the same way, because she pulled her hands from underneath his shirt and slid them into his hair. She held him while she gave herself over to his kiss, kissing him back with equal ardour until they both fought to catch their breaths, only to lock onto each other’s lips a second after breaking away for air.

Soon Luc lost track of where one kiss ended and the next began. All he knew was that he couldn’t stop kissing Belle now he’d started—not even if someone held a gun to his head.

Lips sliding against lips, tongues gliding together, Belle’s hands stripping off his clothes; he had to slow things down because his body wanted to rush ahead and leave his mind behind. If he didn’t take control, this would be over
way
too soon.

The problem was that when she kissed him like this, nipping at his bottom lip with her teeth before slipping her tongue into his mouth for him to suckle,
 
he didn’t feel capable of finding control.

He growled, enveloping her in his arms, hugging her tight as he reclaimed control of the kiss. Months of celibacy seemed to enhance the heat surging through him. Was it always like this? This
intense
? Like nothing mattered or even made sense except the sensation of Belle in his arms, the tingle of her kiss in his mouth? He stroked his tongue against hers in a primal message that pulled a deep moan from her as she sucked his tongue in a message of her own.

Luc backed them up until he felt the bed behind him. He sat on the edge and pulled her between his legs. “I pray to God you know what you’re doing, Isobel.”

She held his gaze and stroked his face. His evening stubble rasping against her palms sounded overly loud in the stillness of their room. Was his stubble too rough? He knew Belle’s skin was soft, and he’d given her beard burn once or twice before. Should he shave?

He was about to ask when Belle smiled down at him, lightly ran her nails over his cheeks to his chin, and, as if reading his mind, said, “Don’t shave it off—I like it. It’s very sexy.” She brought her lips to his in a tease of a kiss. “
You
are very sexy. And I’ve told you already. I know what I’m doing.”
  

 
“Good. Because I don’t think I can stop now.” Sinking his hands in her hair, he kissed her properly, enjoying the sensation of her silky robe moving smoothly against his naked inner thighs. Without him being fully aware, between them, he and Belle had removed most of his clothes, leaving only his black boxer briefs.

Belle smoothed her hands over him as if she wanted to touch everywhere all at once. Her palms slid over his shoulders, over his deltoid and down to his biceps. She tightened her hands on the bulge of muscle and mewled against his mouth with renewed passion.

He praised God his job forced him to stay fit. But he knew the extra hours he’d spent in the gym the last few months working off a hefty dose of frustration had given his body a more ripped appearance. From Belle’s reaction, she liked the result.

Luc brought his hands to her waist, finding the knot in the silk belt. His hands shook as though it were the first time he’d unknotted a woman’s satin garment to reveal her naked body. He fumbled with the knot until it came loose a second before frustrated impatience set in.

The thin satiny material of her negligee robe brushed against his hands as he separated the edges. Releasing Belle from the kiss, he dropped his gaze to take in the female body he had missed, the body that filled his dreams with liquid heat on a regular basis. As if in slow motion, his hands parted the robe far more leisurely than his eyes would have liked.

When he finally saw her sexy body, the breath stalled in his throat. It seemed he wasn’t the only one putting in extra time at the gym. Belle had always been slim; her work schedule ensured that. But she’d been soft curves and slender limbs. Now her body sported toned feminine muscles on her stomach, arms, and thighs. Luc spanned her waist with his hands, running his thumbs over the ridge of her external
obliques
. Heat surged through him; his wife was hotter than he’d thought possible.
       

Belle sunk her fingers in his hair, letting her head fall back. The action brought her breasts inches from his face—his mouth. The full, dusky-pink tipped mounds invited his attention, and he wasted no time in complying. Nuzzling first one hardened peak then the other, he delighted in her deep moan of pleasure.

Groaning, he pulled Belle onto the bed in a smooth move that had her on her back next to him without Luc having to release his ministration on her breast. Her fingers tightened in his hair as he suckled her. She arched her back in a silent greedy plea for more.

Her breaths were quick and shallow, and her head rubbed back and forth on the tan cotton sheet. “Luc...please...”

He switched to the other breast, using the same slow, tortuous strokes of his tongue and nips of his teeth to keep her on the edge.

“Tell me what you want, babe.” He travelled kisses in the valley between her breasts, inhaling Belle’s
aphrodisiac
scent before tracing a path down to her stomach. He kissed his way to her navel; firm muscle flexed beneath the soft skin—she was a delicious mixture of toned female and soft curves.

She hesitated.

“Say the words. Tell me you want me to make love to you.” He licked a slow trail back to her breasts. His intent stare locked with her slumberous gaze. “This is as far as we go until you say them, sweetheart.”

She may have claimed to know what she was doing, but Luc knew Belle well enough to recognise that if she was sober, she’d run a couple miles in the opposite direction from him before she’d let him do this. Therefore, he needed to make sure one last time that this was what she wanted. And even if she’d used a bit of Dutch courage to get her to this point, he wasn’t going to let her accuse him of taking advantage of her in the morning.

Her kiss-swollen lips parted, then closed; then she caught the bottom one between her even teeth.

Stifling a groan, Luc resisted the urge to kiss her and waited.
Say the words, honey,
he urged in his mind.
Just four little words—say them.

Finally making the decision, she said, “Make love to me, Luc.”

 
Okay, five words. And they were music to his ears!

10

C
aution clawed to the surface of Belle’s mind, but prudence had no place in this bed where her desires rose reckless and free, aided by the sexy nips of Luc’s teeth and lips over the responsive flesh of her inner thigh. She pushed caution away, and gave in to the sensation of Luc’s lovemaking.

“Oh, Luc.” She lost count of the number of times she’d whispered his name during the last five minutes. Pure need blazed through her, turned her insides to mush, and made her breathless. He hadn’t yet kissed her where she wanted him most, and her desire to have him there grew desperate.

 
She clutched the sheet with both hands, her eyes squeezed tight to block out the erotic image of Luc’s dark head between her legs.

“Luc...”

His lips skimmed her inner thigh, moving closer to his destination, but nowhere near fast enough.

“I know.” His breath tickled her skin.

Her thighs trembled; her breathing grew choppy. She craved him with a desperation that should have brought her to her senses but it’d been so long...so, so long since he last did this to her...for her. She raised her hips.

“Then why are you—”

His warm mouth landed on her, right where it mattered most. He swept the tip of his tongue between her moist cleft. Her whole body shook with a rush of pleasure that ripped a gasp from her. If she missed nothing else by not being married to Luc, she missed this. And she hated to admit...she missed
him
.

“Oh, my...Lu...
cas
!” She sank her fingers into his short hair.

“Is this what you wanted?” He spoke the question against her sex, setting off eye-crossing sensations that rippled from her core to her head and back down to curl her toes.

His tongue flicked, swirled, dipped, explored and teased until he wound her into a tight spring of sexual tension, then he orchestrated her release. Luc slipped a finger into her wet core and, like an expert playing an instrument he knew intimately, pressed all her right keys.

As her release shuddered through her, Belle’s internal muscles clenched and spasmed and her whole body burned as though she was on fire.

“
Oh, Luc
!” Her breathy cry bounced around the room. She clutched his hair in her fists, needing something to hold onto, some sort of grounding device. “
Yes...yes...yes
!” The powerful orgasm washed over her, almost drowning her in waves of intense ecstasy and she had never been more ready to greet her little death.

While Luc waited for her to come down, he kissed her inner thighs. “I don’t know why I’m not bald already.”

His moist lips moving across her skin tickled. Not like before when the sensation stimulated her erogenous zone and turned her on, it just plain tickled, and she laughed.

“Luc, stop.”

“You like this. Admit it.”

“It tickles.”

“You like being tickled.”

“
Luc
.”