He flashed her a wicked grin. “Consider me duly chastened, my love.”
Lifting her in his arms, he carried her to the stretch of sand that held their blankets and laid her down, then tenderly dried her sun-kissed skin. When he sat back on his heels to look at her, Brynn shivered. The heat of his gaze set her blood on fire, leaving her breasts tingling for want of his caress, her secret hollows throbbing.
He bent to kiss her lightly, his tongue playing upon her lips, warming her as his hands drifted over her body. His palms felt like flames against her chilled skin, his fingers shaping the sensitive mounds of her breasts, her peaked nipples…
She drew a slow breath as his searing lips joined his hands, sliding down her throat to her bosom, sending tremors of delight rippling through her. Her limbs felt suddenly languid, weak with longing. The sand was warm at her back as his mouth poised over one taut, swollen bud. Her fingers clenched in the blanket when finally he dipped to tease it with his tongue.
He didn’t stop there. With exquisite sensitivity, his flaming tongue swirled over her breasts in a deliberate attack on her senses. Brynn twisted her head restlessly, fighting back a moan.
Lucian gave a murmur of satisfaction deep in his own throat. “Your nipples taste salty. I wonder what the rest of you tastes like.”
Dazed by the erotic warmth in his voice, she made no protest when hands moved slowly down her bare flanks to her ankles, then back up again along her shivering inner thighs, where he paused. He was watching her, contemplating her with a wicked half smile, his persistent gaze branding her like a blaze.
Her skin felt suddenly hot and flushed, along with her nerves, when she realized his intent. Parting her thighs, Lucian lowered his head to kiss the petals of her woman’s flesh.
“You are scandalous,” she accused, although breathlessly anticipating his caresses.
“And whose fault is that? You would tempt the devil, siren.”
Quite deliberately, he draped her legs over his shoulders and bent to pleasure her. Wet white heat scalded her as he suckled the bud of her desire. His long, clever tongue lapped at her, delving, tasting, ravishing her, ruthlessly driving her to the edge until she was panting and flushed with blazing heat.
She clutched his thick, dark hair, craving release. Yet he didn’t allow her fulfillment. Instead he left her writhing on the brink of climax, shuddering with agonized need.
“Lucian…” she warned and pleaded at the same time.
He drew back, the wicked satisfaction in his eyes replaced by a deeper smoldering light. “I would be happy to oblige, my lady.”
He shed his breeches quickly and with a lithe, athletic motion joined her on the blanket, lowering himself to cover her body with his, easing between her spread thighs.
Brynn arched against him hungrily. She loved the feel of him against her, the smooth, hard planes and ridges, the heat, the way his magnificent arousal pulsed and throbbed. The rigid rod felt huge and hot as she fully absorbed its swollen length. She gave a whimper of bliss as he thrust home, shuddering at the incredible sensation of being filled with him.
“I love feeling you so deep inside me,” she murmured, her voice suddenly hoarse. “I love you, Lucian…”
His gaze locked with hers. “And I love you, Brynn,” he said, low and hushed. “You are my life.”
“As you are mine,” she echoed, a promise.
That was all the encouragement necessary to shatter his pretense of sanguinity. His gentleness fraying, he surged inside her, impaling her with his thick, pulsing shaft. Yet Brynn welcomed his fever joyfully. Her legs locking around his hips, she clung to him, meeting him stroke for stroke, measure for measure. In only a moment their joining turned frenzied, the rhythm building to sudden wildness.
Brynn held on tightly as bliss burst upon them in an explosion of convulsive pleasure, her cries mingling with his harsh groans. Lucian poured himself into her welcoming body before finally collapsing upon her, shaking with the force of their fierce mating.
They lay locked together, the delicious sweetness slowly ebbing with the frenzied echo of their heartbeats. When the turbulence stilled, Lucian eased his weight to his side and drew the blankets over their still-entwined limbs.
Limp and sated, Brynn nuzzled her cheek in the curve of his shoulder, her fingers splaying over his smooth-muscled chest.
“Warm enough now?” he asked, stroking her hair weakly.
“Yes.” Brynn’s breath escaped in a soft sigh. Lucian made her feel so cherished. She knew it was not the Gypsy’s curse driving his attraction, either. She could see the love in his eyes each time he looked at her, could feel it in every beat of his heart.
She felt his hand move to her lower abdomen to gently caress the place where their child lay quietly growing inside her, and she smiled. Her cup of happiness could not be much fuller.
She would bear her husband a child. Grayson was safe in Scotland, and they had received word that his injury was healing. Theo was being covertly protected by two full-time bodyguards, while he and her other brothers were willingly keeping up the pretense of Gray’s disappearance…
The thought of that still-unresolved issue drew Brynn’s brows into a troubled frown. She never wanted this bliss to end, yet she knew that she and Lucian would have to return to London soon. Raven’s wedding was to be held shortly, for one thing. And Caliban was still at large, no doubt planning how to wreak further evil.
Brynn suspected Lucian would soon become restless to fulfill his duty; with her newly attuned instincts, she sensed that his failure to apprehend the traitor was already gnawing at his conscience. Yet she was reluctant for Lucian to face the threat again.
“I almost wish we didn’t have to return to London,” she murmured quietly. “I don’t like to think of the danger to you, or how Caliban wants you dead.”