by Ella Brooke
However, when Luna looked closer, she could see drops of sweat on his brow, a slight flush to his cheeks. She knew that he was breathing a little heavily, and when his hand came up to cup her breast, massaging gently, she could see him tremble.
"I'm going to make you feel good now," he said. "It will make what comes next easier."
She nearly asked him what he meant, but then to her surprise, he reached a hand between her legs. The sudden touch nearly made her want to close her legs again, but with him seated where he was, that was impossible. Instead, she simply bit her lip as his fingers probed her entrance gently. She wanted to whimper at the dampness he found there, but Tucker's soft groan made shudder in turn.
"You are utterly perfect here," he murmured. "Completely and utterly perfect..."
She gasped when she felt his fingers slide along her entrance, close but not penetrating yet. Instead, he carried some of that clear wetness up to the sensitive bundle of nerves above, stroking her clit with it until she could feel her hips toss in shock and pleasure.
"Oh! Oh my gosh, Tucker!"
"Really? All I warrant is an 'oh my gosh'? We'll have to see about that."
He increased the pressure he was using to stroke her, and the speed as well, and before Luna knew it, she was sliding her hips up to meet him, pressing her hands and her shoulders deeper into the mattress to desperately gain some purchase.
"Oh, oh..."
There was a pressure that was building up inside her, and soon enough, it could not be ignored. She frantically tried to fight the tide of sensation that was rising up inside her, but she couldn't. It felt like it was taking over every part of her, rising through her and conquering her. It felt good, it felt so very good, but there was an urgency to it that was nearly terrifying. Luna knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was not in control anymore.
Her eyes flashed open and she looked up, only to see that Tucker was watching her, his gaze intent and bright.
"Do it," he growled. "I swear to you, I'll give you what you want, just reach for it, beautiful. I promise, I'll give it to you..."
She whimpered at the force in his words, and then, as easily as slipping into a warm bath, she gave herself up to him. Luna stopped fighting the power of the release that was running through her. She gave herself up to the pleasure that howled through her, and it took her viciously. The fire that she had felt whenever she touched Tucker raged through her, and as his fingers worked her clit with fierce determination, she shook and howled, her hands flying up to cover her face as she climaxed so hard she saw stars.
It seemed to take several long moments before she came back to earth, before the trembling stopped and she felt even the least little bit human. She moaned a little as Tucker pulled his hand away. The loss was almost painful, but then he was rising up over her.
"Tucker?" she whispered, and he grinned at her.
"Don't worry, beautiful. I am not going to be away long."
She watched, half in awe, as he started to strip. Clothed, she had known that Tucker was powerfully built, but now she could see his lean bronze body. He was beautifully muscled with a strength that was barely leashed, and when he turned towards her to crawl back into the bed, she had the image of being stalked by some splendid predator in her mind.
Then he repositioned himself over her, and she looked up at him, biting her lip at what was going to happen. Tucker smiled down at her, reaching down to stroke her hair back from her face.
"I swear to you," he whispered. "You will enjoy this."
He leaned down, grasping the column of his cock to guide them together. Luna couldn't help but whimper a little in alarm when she felt the blunt head of the cock press up against her entrance. She was warm and wet, but surely he was too large? There was something intensely intimate about the bare touch of flesh, and a part of her wanted to call the entire thing off, to renege no matter what the consequences were.
The larger part of her, however, somehow knew to hunger for this. This was what she had wanted, what a primal part of her had wanted ever since she first touched this man. She wanted him, she wanted him to claim her, and finally, at long last, it was actually happening.
She moaned when he pressed forward. She was ready, but she still felt tight, as if he was too large by far. Surely that couldn't be true? That didn't seem very likely...
Suddenly, Tucker stopped her thoughts by kissing her hard, his tongue thrusting between her lips just as his hips thrust forward below. He entered her with a single hard motion, and pain spilled bright and hot over her body. His mouth drank in her shout, and for a moment, her hands came up to push him away, to claw, to do whatever it was that would make the pain simply stop. She could feel tears start up in her eyes, but Tucker did not stop until their bodies were as close as they could get, until he was pressed hard against her. She could feel the weight of him inside her, and she looked up at him.
"Shh, shh, it's fine, I promise," he murmured, dropping soft kisses all over her face. "It's fine, the pain will pass..."
Even as he spoke, she could feel that he was right. The pain pulled back and allowed her to feel the pressure of him inside her, to see how her body was stretching to accommodate him, how that heat was still there, low in her belly and ready to be kindled again.
"Yes," she said, not sure why she was speaking. "Yes... yes, I can feel it..."
She tensed when he got ready to move again, but at the first long and slow thrust, she could feel a wave of intense pleasure wash over her. It was different to the pleasure she had felt before, but there was something deep about this. She sighed, and she felt the last of the pain disappear altogether as he started to move over her.
She let him move over her for a few minutes, relishing the glide of their bodies together and how good it felt, but Luna had never been one to settle for good when she could do better. She went from stroking Tucker's body gently to wrapping her arms around him, and then, acting on a pure and primal instinct that she was not sure that she could explain even to herself, she wrapped her legs around his hips.
Her motions made Tucker groan, and then she tightened her legs around him, dragging him even closer to her. She felt a shudder go through him, and then he was looking down at her, his eyes hot and wild.
"If you do that..." he said through gritted teeth, "if you do that, I may not be able to control myself..."
There was still a shred of fear that haunted the back of her mind. There was still a vague heat that had been pain lingering in her body. Instead of heeding them, however, Luna threw caution to the winds. She shifted her hips up towards him, and she reveled in the nearly-wounded sound that he made.
Tucker held out for another moment, every muscle on his frame trembling, but then something inside him broke. He took her hips in his large hands, and he held her still as he plunged deep inside her, pulling back only to do it again.
"Oh, Tucker!" she cried out, throwing her head back, and he made a sound that was more a victorious bellow than anything else as he started to plunge into her, his entire body behind it. It should have been painful, and perhaps it was, but she was too overwhelmed by the passion that grew between them to care at all. There was absolutely too much sensation for her to think about pain, not when the pleasure was coming up inside her again. She could feel that same pressure start, and this time she knew to follow it. She clung to Tucker, and she could hear him murmuring soft words in her ear. His words were tender and passionate by turns, and though she would have blushed and squirmed if she had heard them earlier, now they only made her hotter.
Between one moment and the next, she could feel another blinding climax come over her, spilling heat through her body and making her shout. She clung to Tucker, and perhaps that was what pushed him over the edge. A violent shiver went through his entire frame, and then he thrust into her one last time, even deeper than before as he poured his climax deep inside her.
They clung to each other, their breathing harsh in the silent room. Luna only became awa
re of things slowly. She could feel his body slowly relaxing by inches over her, the slowing of her heart, the patter of the rain on the window panes, less violent now.
Finally, Tucker pulled away from her, making her whimper a little. There was a little bit of soreness there that felt as if it would linger, but then he was getting to his feet. She started to ask what he was doing, but then he gathered her in his arms, lifting her as easily as if she were a bag of feathers.
"Tucker, what are you doing?"
"I'm going to take care of you," he said simply, and it struck her that it was one of the first times she had heard Tucker speak without any kind of sarcasm or guardedness. They had been together, and now he was going to take care of her. Simple.
She looped her arms around him as he carried her back to the bathroom. It felt strange, as if she had crossed some kind of threshold since she was last in here some while ago. He seated her on the edge of the marble vanity, her legs dangling down as he went to the tub. A few twists of the knobs there sent hot water gushing into the basin, and then he returned to her with a towel in hand.
"Spread your legs for me."
The command was identical to the one he had given her before, and it made her shudder a little at the remembered pleasure. She did as he said, and this time, he simply laid the hot towel against her sensitive flesh. She hissed at the sensation of heat, and then she relaxed against his chest. His free hand came up to rub her back gently, and he used the cloth to clean her. When he threw it into the hamper, she could see that it was flecked with blood, making her wince a little.
"Are you all right?" he asked. "Look at me."
It was surprisingly hard to look up at him, Luna realized. There was something intense about the way he gazed at her, searching her soul. She managed it somehow, and she even managed to smile.
"I didn't think you'd be like this," she murmured.
"Like what?"
"So sweet. So caring afterward. Getting to know you in Chicago, well, I guessed that you would be... perhaps more brusque?"
He scowled at her, shrugging a shoulder.
"You thought that I would simply, what, ride you and put you away?"
She was in such a state of pleasured lassitude that even that only amused her.
"Well, you did say something of the sort," she reminded him, and to her surprise, she made Tucker Keene drop his gaze first.
"I suppose I did," he said. "Things were, well, different then."
She started to ask him how anything had changed, but then he was lifting her again, carrying her to the steps up to the enormous bathtub.
"Go on, while it's hot," he said, and he poured in a thick solution that made the water foam into bubbles, filling the room with the gentle scent of lavender.
The water was almost too hot when she touched the surface, but she gritted her teeth and got in. After a moment of discomfort, she relaxed with a sigh, feeling the heat sink deep into her muscles and making her whimper with the pleasure of it.
She cracked an eye open for a moment, watching Tucker watch her.
"Come in with me," she said simply. "There's more than enough room.”
He hesitated for a moment and then did as she said. He sat facing her, the hot water coming up to his chest. She could feel his strong hands massaging her feet and her calves under the water, and her eyes fluttered shut with pleasure.
She had not thought much about how her first time would go, but god, she had not expected this...
Chapter Nine
Tucker awoke, aware that he wasn't alone, and was briefly irritated for a moment. He wasn't sure where he was, but that was hardly a new thing. He flew all over the world on a regular basis and kept homes in a number of metropolitan cities. Not knowing precisely where on the globe he was was not necessarily uncommon. However, waking up with someone snuggled up to his chest was.
For a moment, he wondered what he could have been thinking, inviting someone to stay the night with him. It tended to lead to all kinds of irritating frustrations and entanglements, things that he had quite decided were out of the question for him as time went on.
Then memory reasserted itself, and almost immediately, he found himself relaxing into the pillows again. The thin dawn light coming through the shutters allowed him to inspect the girl curled up next to him, and almost against his will, he found himself smiling a little.
By the morning light, he decided that Luna was adorable. She looked even younger asleep than she did when she was up and dashing around. Her red hair was spread in showy splendor over the pillows, and her surprisingly dark eyelashes cast shadows over her cheeks. When he looked closer, he could see a faint splatter of freckles over the bridge of her nose and her shoulders.
Well, I suppose it's time to realize that I'm slightly besotted, he thought with a grimace.
There was something completely artless about the girl who was going to bear him a child. Other women of his acquaintance would have hated the idea of him examining him like this. They would have been appalled that he watched them sleep, suspecting him of cataloging all of their flaws. Not Luna, however. He wondered what it was about her that drew him in, that made him want to smile at her.
Tucker shook his head, dismissing the thought. It was likely only that she was so strange to him. He had known very few artists, and even less women who wanted to run their own business doing it. She was exotic, a bright blaze of color in his otherwise fairly well-ordered life. The idea pleased him in some elemental way, that she would blossom for a time in his life and then he could go back to the way that things had been before. Tucker resolutely ignored the voice in the back of his head that shouted at the idea of giving her up at all, because that was simply pure foolishness, wasn't it?
His train of thought was derailed when he realized that she was looking up at him with those pure green eyes.
"Well, good morning," he rumbled, and she smiled. It was a sweet smile, one that made his heart beat a little faster, and he smiled in turn.
"I don't know what to do now," she said, her voice barely a whisper.
Tucker frowned.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I don't know what people do the morning after they spend the night together," she said, a slight hint of agony in her voice. "I mean, I've seen the television shows of course, and um, I know that some people sneak out, but that doesn't seem appropriate, does it? I... I don't know what happens now, and I do not want to embarrass myself or be a bother..."
Tucker couldn't stop himself from chuckling, but he stilled himself when she looked indignant.
"You worry too much," he said, nuzzling the top of her head. God, she smelled so good.
"I just don't want to get things wrong," she said, somehow exhibiting defiance, which only made her more endearing. As small as she was, he sometimes thought of her as a falcon, diminutive but ready to tear out the eye of anyone who crossed her.
"You're presenting me with an interesting rare opportunity," he said. "I suppose that you'll take anything I say for fact, and after this, you will have habits that only I have influenced..."
Her chin took on a notably adorable and stubborn tilt.
"If I like what you have to say, I guess," she said, and Tucker laughed.
"All right. Well, how about this. We both wash up, and then I will take you out for breakfast. Even if you are still suffering from jet lag, I can't imagine that you are not hungry at this point."
In response, her stomach grumbled, and she laughed a little, shaking her head.
"I am not going to argue with any of that," she said, and Tucker wondered why he felt like he had won something when she finally smiled.
***
Luna would have said that if there was one thing that she knew, it was how to shower. She had been doing it for almost twenty years, after all, and she liked to think that she was fairly good at it. However, the shower that she shared with Tucker was far different from any she had ever enjoyed before, and enjoyed was definitely the right word.
An hour or so later, she was still glowing pink as he took her on the short walk to a café that was just up the street. The Florentine morning was gorgeous after the storm of last night, crystal clear with a fresh scent to the air, but her mind kept getting distracted by the memory of how he had pushed her against the wall, holding her still as he leisurely and thoroughly soaped every inch of her. The image of those dark hands gliding slippery over the planes of her body was enough to make her shiver, and when she glanced up, she saw that Tucker was watching her out of the corner of his eye, a slight grin on his lips.
"You are very smug this morning," she said, and that sly grin turned a little more menacing.
"You know, we need breakfast, but there is nothing that says we cannot return to the flat afterward," he said smoothly. "Nothing that says we cannot work on our endeavor for the rest of the day..."
Their endeavor...
It was startling how easy it was to forget why she was with Tucker in the first place. After everything that had happened in the past 24 hours, Luna had, strangely enough, put it out of her mind. Now she passed her hand over her slightly curved belly, wondering if there was already something -someone?- growing there. The thought awoke a surprising longing in her.
"Do you think that something might have happened already?" she asked.
Tucker shrugged, and it struck her that he was surprisingly unconcerned about something that should have been of paramount importance to him.
"Perhaps, but as I understand it, it can take some time. Probably not."
It was a strangely curt thing to say, but she could not think of it very long as they had reached their destination. Even this early in the day, the little café was already crowded, but they found a small table close to a window, letting them bask in the morning light as the busy waitress took their orders.
