DONOVAN (Gray Wolf Security, #1)(154)

The woman was wearing a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses. She dragged one of those fancy suitcases with the attached handle behind her. She smiled shyly at Lucien when he asked what floor. Turned out our new companions were on two different floors, both below ours, so we were in for a bit of a ride.

Lucien slipped my hand into his, intertwining our fingers and rubbing my palm suggestively with one of his fingers. I glanced at him, but he was focused intently on the floor indicator above the doors.

“Business or vacation?” the man asked.

“A brief vacation,” Lucien said.

“Lucky you,” he said. “I’m at the conference. Have to give a speech later tonight.”

“Hope you don’t have stage fright,” Lucien said. “I hate giving speeches at conferences. The entire audience would often prefer to be somewhere else.”

The man laughed. “Isn’t that the truth.”

The elevator door opened, and the woman, who’d been silent and intent on staring at the doors, stepped off without so much as a glance over her shoulder. There was something odd about the way she moved, the way she behaved. I don’t know why it bothered me. She just seemed…well, rude. Maybe that’s what it was.

When the elevator stopped two floors later and the man started for the doors, he was polite enough to lift a hand to us. “Enjoy your time off,” he said with a little wink meant—I was pretty sure—for Lucien.

The moment the doors closed again, Lucien pushed me against the back wall and slid his hand under my t-shirt.

“I thought they would never leave.”

I slipped my fingers along the waistband of his jeans and tugged him closer to me.

“They’re gone now.”

He groaned, his lips brushing against mine with a delicious sort of hint that made my heart skip a beat. But then the doors opened for a third time, disrupting the moment.

Lucien practically dragged me down the hall to our room, dropping the card key to our suite twice before he finally managed to get it into the lock. I pulled away as we went inside, rushing ahead of him even as he reached for me.

“Where are you going?”

“You’ll see.”

I grabbed my overnight bag and locked myself in the bathroom before he even managed to get his key out of the door and follow me into the bedroom. There was another item Theresa had suggested I buy when we went shopping for clothes last week, and that I had hesitated over. But now I was glad I’d bought it. I quickly stripped out of my clothes, laughing when Lucien pounded on the door.

“You’re killing me!” he called through the thin wood.

“Be patient.”

“I don’t think I know how to be patient.”

I laughed again even though my hands were shaking as I slipped out of the simple cotton bra I’d been wearing. I couldn’t believe I was doing this. I wasn’t even sure he would care. But I’d paid good money for it, and I thought I might as well wear it once.

And I really liked it when Lucien looked at me like I was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. I was hoping he would look at me that way now.

But I struggled with it, so unused to wearing such feminine things that I wasn’t sure where, exactly, the straps were supposed to go. When I finally got everything where it felt comfortable—even if it was wrong—I stared at my reflection in the mirror. I almost didn’t recognize myself. I looked…pretty.

I hesitated before stepping into the bedroom. Lucien had pulled back the lovely down comforter on the bed and stripped out of his jeans and t-shirt, sitting in what I was sure he thought was a provocative pose at the end of the bed in nothing but his briefs. And it was a heart-thumping sight. But I was so nervous that I couldn’t muster even a small smile.

“This is what…”

He started to speak, but the words fell flat as his eyes drifted over the black push-up bra, white camisole, and black panties I was wearing. Whatever he’d been about to say turned into a simple, “Wow.”

“Do you like it?”

He stood and slowly started to approach me.

“No.”

“No?”

“No.” He touched his thumb to my chin, lifting my face to his. “I love it.”

My knees went weak. He lifted me and carried me to the bed, his touch so tender I thought my heart would pound right out of my chest. And then he was kissing me, his mouth so familiar on mine, yet still a new adventure, a new experience that I knew I never wanted to believe was too familiar.

His hands hesitated as they moved over my bare hips. His chest was already heaving as he pressed it down against me, as he prepared to love me. I tugged at his body, pulling him as close as I could physically get him, wanting to feel the weight of his body on mine even as he tried not to crush me. He didn’t understand how comforting his weight was, how good it felt to welcome him against me, to welcome his touch. I wanted him with an ache that was so much more than physical. I wanted him close to me because he made me feel alive, made me feel safe in a way nothing had done since the night my mother died.

There was no longer a need for games between us. We’d known each other such a short time, but there was something so right about the way we were when we were together. I didn’t need to know him to feel how flawless his touch was, to realize how that touch had the power to heal something deep in my soul I hadn’t even known was broken.