As he went to work exploring her with his mouth, she didn’t have the breath to point out…anything. Instead she let herself fall back on the bed and be consumed with how good his mouth felt on her. But one thought resonated even through the delirious pleasure he was drawing from her body.

No one has ever called me beautiful before.

Luke couldn’t get enough of her taste—or the noises coming out of her mouth with each lick. She writhed and moaned as if she’d never had a man take his time and savor her like this. The thought that maybe no man had before him drove the possessive feeling he had no right to higher. As selfish as it was, he wanted to be the one she never forgot, the one she compared every sexual encounter to for the rest of her privileged life. Even considering her with other men made him growl against her skin. The jealousy taking the steering wheel was as out of place as the possessiveness, but he couldn’t have stopped if he wanted to. And he sure as fuck didn’t want to.

“Who’s making you feel like this?” When she just moaned louder, he set his teeth against her clit. “Say it.”

“You are.” She laced her fingers through his hair, her hips jerking against his mouth until he had to pin her to the bed. The move only drove her wilder, her moans turning into cries that evolved into his name. “Luke, oh my God, oh, oh, oh, Luke.”

“That’s right, darlin’. Me.” He gentled his kisses until her shaking stilled, and then raised his head. Whatever dark thoughts had plagued her earlier were gone now. Because of him. Alexis watched him through eyes gone dark with passion, and though she looked sated, her gaze dropped to his mouth. Not quite sated yet. With a grin, he crawled onto the bed next to her. “You’re not done.”

It took her two tries to smile, but she somehow managed. “Good thing. I was sure you were a one-trick pony.”

He laughed. God help him, but he liked that the princess had claws. Even if half the time, she was sinking them into him. “Lord, woman, you always have a comeback ready, don’t you?”

A frown flickered over her face. “Not always.”

There it was again—whatever imagined burden she carried, trying to force its way back to the forefront of her mind. He was more than intimate with exactly how that shit worked. It struck him that he didn’t really know much about her, other than the fact that her sister and friends didn’t think she could handle herself alone in Europe. What hadn’t they told him before they sent him off on this protection mission?

It didn’t matter. Her worries could wait for another day. Tonight, Alexis was his.

He hooked the back of her neck and kissed her. Her hands immediately went to his hair again, which would have amused him if he weren’t half a second from ripping off his pants and sinking into her. Once again, reality spoke up. Luke broke away with a curse. “Condoms.”

“What?”

“I don’t have goddamn condoms.” The one thing he hadn’t prepared for, because this was supposed to be a babysitting mission, and one did not fuck around on a babysitting mission.

Unless, apparently, one did.

Alexis’s eyes cleared. “Oh, I do.”

He went still, refusing to move when she pushed against his shoulder. “What?”

“Condoms. I have them in my pack.”

“Why in God’s name would you have condoms in your pack?” He didn’t care that it saved them a trip to the market down the street. All that mattered was that she’d planned on having sex with someone. The thought of her with someone else made him crazy, and he had the totally insane need to mark her as his. It wasn’t some other man here, chasing the shadows away. It was him.

She watched him with an unreadable expression on her face. “I like to be prepared.”

“Prepared to let some idiot soccer player between your thighs.” As he spoke, he pinned her wrists above her head.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re unnaturally obsessed with soccer players?” She rolled her eyes, her levity calming him a little. “You sure you’re not harboring some guy-on-guy tendencies?”

Luke didn’t get it. He’d never once, in all his thirty-three years, reacted like this. He was the jokester, the one who ran his mouth, the footloose and fancy-free friend who was good for a bang and then moved on before anyone could get attached. Or at least, he had been, before his injury. He didn’t get jealous, let alone this, whatever the fuck this emotion could be called. “Alexis—”

Her eyes went hard, and he could practically hear her claws unsheathing. “Don’t you dare! Whatever the hell you’re about to say, just shut up. I’m here, naked, with you. Tonight I’m yours, and you’re wasting it worrying about what-if scenarios that are, frankly, none of your business.”

He didn’t miss the part where she limited this to tonight. “Look—”

“No, you look. I already came against your mouth. Are you really going to talk this to death?”

She was right. Tonight was for leaving all their baggage behind. Hell, this couldn’t go further than sex, because he could barely stand to be in the same room with her under the best of circumstances. That feeling wasn’t going to get better when he was chasing her ass all over Europe. Luke kissed her again, pushing all his annoyance and issues from his head. She was right. They were his problems—not hers.

There was only the here and now. When he finally broke away, they were both breathing hard. “You better not plan on sleeping tonight.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Chapter Five

Alexis yanked the box of condoms from her pack and thanked God she’d been optimistic enough to bring them in the first place. A truly impressive dry spell and crippling self-doubt didn’t exactly lend themselves to hot one-night stands… Or so she’d thought before she met Luke. A lot of things she’d previously thought were hard truths didn’t seem to hold up to the harsh light of his presence.

He pulled her back to the bed and into his lap. As promised, they faced the mirror, where she could see nearly her entire body and meet his eyes. The sheer intimacy of the position was totally and completely unexpected, and she wasn’t sure she liked it. “Why don’t we skip straight to the window?”

“Nice try.” He hooked her thighs and spread them to the outside of his legs, using his knees to open her even wider. After plucking the condoms from her hand and dropping them on the bed, he reached around her to cup her breasts. “Perfect, just like the rest of you.”

The insane urge to argue with him rose. I’m not perfect. I’m so flawed and broken, it isn’t even funny. Some days she was half surprised that her issues weren’t there on her body, marked out for all to see. “Actually—”

“Woman, enough.” He pinched her nipples, sending a zing of sheer lust through her that stole her breath. “I don’t need your pretty-girl insecurities clouding up the moment. I say you’re perfect, and that means you’re fucking perfect. The only thing I should hear from you in response is ‘thank you.’ Understand?”

She licked her lips. Part of her still wanted to argue with him, but it was the Old Alexis creeping in. He was right—arguing with him over something like this was stupid. “Yes.”

“Now, where were we?” He squeezed her breasts one last time before smoothing his hands down her sides and over her thighs. As she watched, one hand dipped to drag a finger over her glistening center. She could actually see how wet she was from here, and Alexis couldn’t help shifting and trying to close her thighs. Luke, of course, was having none of it. “I like seeing you, darlin’.” He spread her folds and worked a finger into her. “Christ, you’re tight. Haven’t let another man inside in a long time, have you?”