One thing about Luc—when he decides to do something, he does it wholeheartedly. This was no different.
He nibbled on the exact spot. I gasped. It’d never felt like this—all spinning and hot and desperate. My back came off the bed, it was that intense. Panting, I said, “Did you know the average pig’s orgasm lasts for thirty minutes?”
“Let’s see if we can give you one that rivals.” And he latched on like he was never going to let go.
I screamed, then I screamed again when I felt his finger slide inside me. His other hand wiggled under the clothes I still wore and rolled my nipple.
“Luc!” Just like that, I came. Spots flashed behind my eyelids and for a second I was sure I passed out.
When I came to, Luc kneeled over me, trying to get the rest of my clothes off.
“Damn it, you wear too much,” he muttered. He tugged at my jacket sleeve to no avail. He mumbled something else I didn’t quite catch—something to the effect that I was wilier than a limp chicken, I think.
I grunted. It was his fault I was in this state. Not that I minded. In fact, I could get used to it.
He cursed again, grabbed the collar of my shirt, and ripped it down the middle.
“That was silk,” I protested weakly.
He didn’t seem to care that it took five hundred silkworms to make one kilogram of raw silk. He shoved the halves aside, pushed my bra up over my breasts, and stared.
Then he grinned at me as he palmed them. “You don’t know what lengths I’ve gone through over the past fifteen years to catch glimpses of these.”
I didn’t think I had it in me, but I arched into his hands, instantly ready for more.
“I’d like to dribble oil on you and do this but I can’t wait any longer, Kat.” With one hand, he reached down and slipped himself in.
Yikes, it was tight. And slightly uncomfortable. But I could tell there was potential here so I squirmed a little to situate things better.
“Wait,” Luc said from gritted teeth.
Was he in pain too? I didn’t want to hurt him so I stilled. “Maybe we should stop while we’re ahead.”
“Just try to relax, Kat.”
Right. As if I could.
Then he snaked a hand between us and touched me where it counted. Suddenly it was a whole new ballgame, and my team was winning.
The unease disappeared as every cell in my body started to do an excited jig. I clutched his butt (as firm as his chest—I’d have to investigate more later) and swiveled my hips against him.
“Kat?”
I opened my eyes and looked up at him.
Sweat had broken out on his brow and his eyes looked pinched with concern. “Are you okay?”
Okay didn’t even begin to describe how I felt. I wiggled a little to show him.
He groaned and flexed his hips into me. “I can’t wait anymore. You’re killing me.”
“Did you know in French orgasms are called ‘little deaths’?”
He moaned, laughed, and kissed me—all at the same time. Then he pumped into me, wild and unrestrained and thoroughly delicious. My body took over, undulating in ways I didn’t know it could.
Luc cried out and stiffened, still thrusting. It set me off again, a series of earthquakes, the first one catastrophic with each subsequent one weaker until I was a puddle on the mattress with him collapsed on top of me.
He rolled off me eventually and pulled me on top of him. He pressed a kiss onto my forehead. “I think we safely answered the nymphomaniac question.”
I grinned. I guess we did. “I didn’t quite last thirty minutes, though.”
He chuckled, a low rumble in his chest. “That might require a lot of practice. Good thing we have lots of years ahead of us.”
I lifted my head and blinked at him. “We do?”
“Yes,” he answered positively. Pushing my wild hair back from my face, he gazed at me seriously. “I love you, Katherine Murphy Fiorelli.”
I frowned. “I’m not a Fiorelli.”
“Not yet.” He kissed me, and it was soft and full of promise. “But soon, because don’t you think it’s about time you came home?”
I smiled, running a finger down his beautiful face. “It’s all I ever wanted.”
Epilogue
One year later
“Did you know in eighteenth-century England, macaroni was a synonym for perfection and excellence?”
Luc glanced up from buttoning his shirt. “Was it?”
“Yes. That’s why the feather in Yankee Doodle’s cap was called ‘macaroni.’” Frowning, I turned my back to him and looked in the closet. When had it gotten so full? And even with all the new clothes Luc had made me buy before our wedding (my trousseau, he said), I still didn’t know what to wear. “Did you know Thomas Jefferson introduced macaroni to the United States?”
His hands slid up my arms and he turned me around to face him. “What are you worried about?”
“Worried? What do I have to worry about? I mean, other than the fact that my father is downstairs cooking dinner for us, my boss, her husband, and my baby godson. Not to mention Rainbow.” I dropped my head to his chest and moaned. “What was I thinking, inviting all of them over at the same time?”
Luc nuzzled my temple as he stroked my hair. “You were thinking you’d have a nice intimate dinner with the people you care about most.”
“I’m insane.”
Chuckling, he lifted my head. “Yeah, but you’re mine, and that’s all that matters.”
Then he bent to kiss me, sweet and slow. His lips lingered until he was sure he had my attention—easy to know since I only had on a thin lacy bra and panty set (also from my trousseau). I gave back as good as I got. Soon it became apparent I had his attention too.
I broke away and wiggled my lower parts against his. “Maybe we should just stay up here all night. If we ignore the doorbell, I’m sure they’ll go away.”
“Two problems with that.”
“What’s the first one?”
“We have news to tell them.” Luc’s hands spanned my waist, as if he was measuring my not-yet-expanding belly.
“Did you know that an embryo’s heart starts beating by the twenty-fifth day?”
His lips twitched. “I’ve heard that somewhere.”
“Did you know by the second month of pregnancy toes start forming? Right now our baby is growing toes, Luc!”
This time he couldn’t hold back his grin. “I know.”
“And did you—”
“Kat,” he interrupted lovingly, “why don’t you save these facts for Lydia and Rainbow?”
“How about if I send them all an e-mail about it?” I brightened. I could break the news
and
list all the facts. I snuggled closer to him and bit the skin right above his collarbone. Sometimes my brilliance amazed even me.
“No.”
“No?” I pulled back and frowned. “Why not?”
“Because we need to ask Drake and Rainbow to be our baby’s godparents. In person,” he added before I could protest. “And didn’t you want to tell them we closed escrow on the house?”
Oh yeah—the house. Our house. It was in Noe Valley on a hill overlooking the City. Kind of expensive, but with my increased salary as VP of research at Ashworth-Drake Communications, the mortgage was doable. Luc planned on using the loft as his work studio and expanding his business.
Still, I could include all that in the e-mail too. “What’s the second problem?”
“Your dad is already downstairs cooking.”
“Oh.” Right. “Couldn’t we send him on an errand?”
He grasped my hips and did some wiggling of his own. “Not that your idea doesn’t have merit.”
I pouted and said plaintively, “I have to get dressed.”
“Katie bug,” Daddy called from the bottom of the stairs. “Where do you keep the bread knife?”
Hell if I knew. I gazed imploringly at Luc.
He smiled. “I’ll go help him, you get dressed.”
“Thanks.” Despite his best efforts, I still wasn’t culinarily inclined. We both enjoyed the cooking lessons, though. They were, uh, innovative. I’d never imagined how useful a chopping block could be.
Before Luc could leave, I grabbed him by the shirt and pulled his mouth down to mine to show him how much I appreciated him helping my dad. He’d never been overly fond of Daddy, but in the last year they’d come to a truce. It didn’t hurt that Daddy had been in Alcoholics Anonymous for over eleven months now. We’d bought him a computer and he was trading stocks on-line. With his drinking under control, he was actually making money rather than losing it.
I grinned at the dazed look on Luc’s face when I let him go. I loved that I could do that to him. I patted his chest and said, “Be right down.”
“Uh-huh.” He shook his head as if to clear it and lumbered down the stairs to the rest of our loft.
Still grinning, I studied the closet again, looking for the perfect thing to wear. Something nice ... Something special ...
“Just the one,” I mumbled as I pulled out my red silk dress. It had thin spaghetti straps and was short but not obscenely mini. Tasteful, and when I wore it I felt expensive and luscious.
I slipped into the dress, picked out a pair of strappy shoes to match, and fluffed my hair. I’d been wearing it down a lot lately, especially at home. Luc had a penchant for twining his fingers in my curls, and I found I liked that a lot.
Picking up a tube of lipstick from Rainbow’s new natural cosmetic line, I carefully colored my lips. I’d gotten better at the whole make-up thing under Rainbow’s tutelage.
Who knew she and I would have become such close friends over the past year? And now that she’d employed Ashworth-Drake to handle her marketing we worked together too. Kind of. I personally did the research required for her account. (I never knew most lipsticks contained fish scales.)
With a last look in the mirror, I declared myself ready and wobbled down to join the men.
When I walked into the kitchen, they both went silent, gawking at me. Blushing, I looked down. Was my skirt tucked into my panties?
Luc was the first to speak. “Wow.”
My dad nodded. “She’s as stunning as her mother was.”
I smiled at him and squeezed his hand. “Thanks, Daddy.”
“Wow,” Luc said again.
I would have thought he’d be used to how I looked by now. The new fashionable me wasn’t
that
different than the one he’d known for fifteen years. Still, I couldn’t help but feel a trill of excitement when my husband looked at me with pure lust in his eyes.
My husband
. I loved that. I loved him.
Luc walked over to me and rested his hands on my waistline (he’d been doing that a lot in the past two weeks since we found out we were having a baby). He fingered the silk of my dress. “Kind of fancy for mac and cheese, isn’t it?”
I glanced over his shoulder at Daddy. In his eyes, I could see he remembered all the special mac and cheese dinners with Mom, but instead of pain there was fondness, even if grief still mingled in too.
With a smile, I looked up at Luc and shook my head. “I think it’s just right.”
About the Author
When Kate was a little girl, all she dreamt about was moving to France and living in a stone castle while painting the Provençal countryside. To prep herself, she studied French, stocked up on berets in every color, and practiced her shrug for hours in front of the mirror.
But then, because indentured servitude seemed more attractive than eating baguettes and drinking wine, she took a detour into the world of high tech. Eventually, that insanity wore off and she decided to try something more stable. Writing seemed the logical choice.
Unfortunately, she doesn’t own her castle yet, but she holds out hope that one day soon she can pull her berets out of storage. Keep tabs on her progress by checking out
http://kateperry.com
,
or contact her at
[email protected].
ZEBRA BOOKS are published by
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Copyright © 2006 by Kathia Zolfaghari
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ISBN: 978-1-4201-2888-8