He relaxed against her, loving her combination of strength and softness. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She continued to comb her fingers through his hair. “I think you needed that.”
“Guess so.” He drew in a breath. “I’m okay now.”
“You’re sure?” She eased back to gaze up at him.
The light wasn’t great, but he could see the shine of her glorious eyes and the outline of her lush mouth. “Yeah.” He should release her and step back, but he kept looking at her mouth.
Then the most amazing thing happened. She braced her hands on his shoulders, stood on tiptoe, and pressed that velvet mouth against his.
For a moment he stood there in shock, unable to register that she had kissed him. What’s more, she wasn’t being very quick about it, either. She stayed right there and increased the pressure.
What he’d thought would be a fast, over-before-it-started brush of lips was turning into something quite different. The tip of her tongue slid over his mouth. His pulse went crazy.
Still, he didn’t believe it. He lifted his mouth a fraction away from hers. “Giselle?”
“Don’t say anything. Just kiss me back.”
“What about Mr. Right?”
“He doesn’t exist.”
That was all he needed to know. He settled his mouth over hers. He’d suspected that he’d like kissing her. He hadn’t known that he’d love it. He could devote hours to kissing Giselle. Her lips fit against his with the kind of perfection he’d only dreamed of.
He shifted his angle to see if it would lessen the pleasure. Nope, perfect that way, too. And this way, and oh, God, when she began to heat up, and their tongues were involved, he lost all sense of time and place. Kissing was supposed to be a prelude to more intimate activities, wasn’t it? Yet he couldn’t imagine what could be more intimate than this—breath linked with breath, mouths seeking and finding, soft moans so alike that he was no longer sure which of them had created the sound. He was so absorbed by the wonder of her kiss that he didn’t realize she’d unbuttoned his shirt until her palms flattened against his bare chest.
Ah, that felt good. She stroked him and toyed with his nipples as she continued to devastate him with her hot mouth. Pressure built in his groin, and her breathing grew as erratic as his.
Things became a little crazy after that. She seemed as eager as he was to get rid of their clothes. He couldn’t remember ever finding himself naked and rolling around on top of his bed that fast, but there they were, and she seemed to want him as desperately as he wanted her.
But he wasn’t so far gone that he forgot about condoms. Leaning over her, he reached for the handle on the bedside table drawer.
“You don’t need those.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You don’t. I can’t get pregnant, and there’s zero chance of disease.”
Bracing himself on his forearm, he gazed down at her. “That’s the kind of speech an irresponsible guy makes because he doesn’t want to use a condom.”
“Use one if it makes you feel better, but I’m telling you, you don’t need it.”
He quickly calculated why she’d say that. If she couldn’t have children, that was the obvious answer to the pregnancy issue. And if she claimed to be healthy, he was inclined to believe her.
Who was he to argue when he had a warm, moist, and exceedingly willing woman in his bed? And he intended to enjoy every second of this experience. “Thank you for being here,” he murmured as he lowered his mouth to hers.
Her soft moan of pleasure and the arch of her body against his filled him with wonder. She felt so damned right in his arms. He knew exactly what to do, how to touch her, how to stroke her.
When he pressed his mouth to her soft skin, she gasped out his name. He loved hearing her say it, loved having her acknowledge who was caressing her and making her pant and beg for more.
“Please, Luke . . . please!”
“Yes. God, yes.” With a groan of ecstasy, he sank deep and thanked whatever twist of fate had brought him Giselle Landry in his hour of need.
She rose to meet him and gave him as good as she got. This wasn’t going to be long and languorous. She urged him to be wild, and he didn’t need much urging. He’d been sweeping emotions under the rug for months, and now they came pouring out.
They rocked that king-sized bed. As they did, he took a moment to celebrate the wonders of making love to a woman without wearing a condom. Being a responsible man in an enlightened age, he’d never done that before. And he’d had no idea. No. Idea.
They were so in tune with each other that they even came at the same time. He’d tried to orchestrate that with other women and had failed to do so. But with Giselle, it happened naturally, as if that was the way things were meant to be.
They lay in the semidarkness holding each other, and he wondered if that would be it. This might have been a gimme on her part because she’d felt sorry for him. If so, he’d take it and be glad. She’d started them in this new direction, and he’d take his cues from her.
She rubbed his back and arched against him. “That was terrific.”
“Yes, and you deserve the credit. I would never have—”
“I know. I was dead set against this, but . . . you’re worth it, Luke.”
That comment sounded slightly ominous, but he chuckled, as if she’d cracked a joke. “I hope you’re not about to get in trouble. Will someone come after us?”
“No. It’s a personal thing. Don’t worry about it.”
“As mellow as I feel right now, I’m not sure I could worry about anything.”
Well, she’d done it, and the world had not come to an end. Giselle had expected to feel guilty afterward, but, like Luke, she was too mellow to work up a decent case of guilt. If she wanted to drum up excuses for herself, she could always blame Luke’s obvious grief.
But that wouldn’t be fair. She’d been edging toward this ever since she’d met him. Something about him—his quick grin, his blue eyes, his devotion to his sister, his willingness to take a joke—had told her that Luke Dalton was her Waterloo.
Ha. That was funny, in view of the water-related pranks going on. Bryce would get a kick out of that if she ever told him, which she wouldn’t. She’d done this thing—had sex with a human male—but that didn’t mean she’d take any more steps down that dangerous path.
Well, she needed to modify that statement. Luke would be her one-and-only adventure in human sexuality. But as long as she’d gone this far, she couldn’t see wasting the chance to explore the issue for as long as they had time to do that. Maybe she could consider it research. How could she counsel female Weres to avoid sex with humans if she had no knowledge of the temptations involved?
With those thoughts in mind, she lifted her head and murmured in Luke’s ear, “Can we do that again?”
He lifted his head and gazed down at her. “Oh, thank God. I thought maybe you felt sorry for me, and you’d think one time was enough to express your sympathy.”
She started to laugh and couldn’t seem to stop. “Sorry.” She tried to catch her breath. “But that’s hysterical. FYI, that’s not normally how I express my sympathy for someone’s loss. Ordinarily I send a card.”
He snorted. Then he laughed. Before long they had to break apart because they were both laughing so hard they needed extra room to roll around.
Finally, gasping, they lay on their backs on his bed.
“The answer to your question,” he said, “is yes, we most definitely can do this again. But I’m warning you, once we turn on the lights, you’ll see that this is a very white bedroom.”