Serena cried out as he took one turgid peak into his mouth and sucked strongly. She tangled her fingers in the black silk of his hair and pressed him closer as heat swept through her.

Together they sank to their knees on the rumpled canvas dropcloth. Serena leaned back, arching into the heat of Lucky's mouth. It was exquisite-the pull of his lips, the rasp of his tongue, the feel of his hand kneading her other breast. Her own hands moved restlessly over his broad shoulders, gathering the fabric of his T-shirt into her fists.

He pulled away and tore the garment off, flinging it aside, never taking his eyes from hers. His gaze was searing, hot, wild with desire. It took her breath away to look at him, at the intensity of his face and the perfection of his body. His body was a living sculpture of muscle. He looked to Serena like the consummate male animal, hungry and untamed, intent on one purpose.

She made a sound of surprise when he snatched her into his arms again, then moaned at the contact. They met flesh to flesh, soft white skin to hard, tanned muscle, woman to man. She trembled at the power of just touching him, and excitement swirled through her at the thought of being possessed by him.

He kissed her roughly, wildly, his arms banding her to him, his hands sweeping down her back, pressing her hard against his arousal, then finding their way around to the button of her shorts. The baggy khaki shorts fell to pool around her knees. She gasped into his mouth as he caught his fingertips in the waistband of her panties and jerked the scrap of silk and lace from her hips, tearing it free.

He whispered to her as he smoothed one hand over her bare hip and the delicious roundness of her buttock, kneading, squeezing, lifting her. While the fingers of his other hand slid into the nest of dark blond curls at the juncture of her thighs, seeking the heat and silken softness that lay beyond, he murmured against the shell of her ear-words of sex, words of praise, words in a language she didn't understand.

Serena tried to catch her breath to whisper his name, but couldn't. He stroked her intimately, knowingly, wringing another gasp from her as he slid a finger into her heat to test her readiness. Her hips moved against the pressure of his hand, inviting him, begging him silently.

Lucky raised his head and looked down at her. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted. Her back arched as she moved against him, thrusting her full breasts upward. With her hair tumbling around her shoulders she looked like a wanton angel. There was no sign of her infuriatingly cool control. There was no hint of polished sophistication. She was a woman who wanted a man, wanted him, and her body was making no secret of the fact. She moved against his hand, caught up in sensation, the soft petals of her feminine cleft dewy and warm.

Desire roared inside Lucky like an inferno, licking at his sanity, pulsing in his groin. He'd never wanted a woman like this. Never. He wanted her with every fiber of his being and she was hot and ready for him, her body begging him to take her. His nostrils flared like a stallions scenting a mare, his head filling with a mix of expensive perfume and the subtle musk of arousal.

He pulled back from her and tore at the fastening of his jeans, fumbling with the button and struggling to get the zipper down over his erection. She closed her fingers around him, measuring the length and thickness of his shaft. She stroked downward, opening her hand to cup him gently, then drew her hand slowly back up, tightening her fingers until he was throbbing. He pulled in a breath as her thumb brushed across his velvety tip.

She pressed her lips to his chest and flicked the tip of her tongue across one nipple, and Lucky lost what was left of his control. It tore away from him on a wild animal groan that started in his chest and worked its way up the back of his throat. He had to have her now. Sooner than now.

He lowered Serena onto her back and mounted her, attempting to enter her fully with a single thrust, the need to claim her as his overwhelming. She cried out and dug her fingernails into his back, her body tensing against his intrusion.

«Oh, sweet heaven,» Lucky groaned, bracing himself on his elbows above her, fighting his natural urge to bury himself in the tight wet glove of her body. «Take it all, baby,» he pleaded. «Please, please, Serena! All of me. All of me.»

«Oh, Lucky,» she gasped. «I can't. You're too-«

«Shh…»he whispered, brushing his lips tenderly against her temple. «Just relax for me, chere,» he went on seductively, schooling his own body to sink down against her. «Relax. It's gonna be all right. It's gonna be so good. Just relax for me, sugar. That's it. That's right.»

She moved hesitantly beneath him, taking another inch, then tightening around him, taking him to another level of ecstasy. Lucky checked his passion ruthlessly, reining in the urge to drive himself into her, to bury himself to his hilt. He brushed her hair back from her cheek and kissed her slowly, deeply, sinking into her a little at a time as her body relaxed beneath his.

«You're tighter than a fist,» he whispered breathlessly, his lips brushing hers. He struggled to hold himself still against the gentle rippling of her body as it adjusted to accommodate him. «Mon Dieu, don't those men up in Charleston know what to do with a beautiful woman?»

Serena didn't answer him. She couldn't. She was beyond speaking, beyond telling him she couldn't even remember the name of the last man she'd gone to bed with because it had just been permanently erased from her mind. All she could think of was Lucky. All she could feel was Lucky, filling her, stretching her, kissing her. She stroked her hands over the sweat-slick muscles of his back, stroked a finger down the valley of his spine. Her hands cupped his taut buttocks and pulled him deeper into her as she tilted her hips to accept him fully.

His big body pressed down against her and he began moving slowly, easing in and out of her, gaining speed and strength with each thrust, until he was lifting her hips off the floor each time he drove into her. Serena arched against him, straining to meet him, straining toward something she had only guessed at before now. It was unlike anything else she had experienced, this feeling of intense excitement that grew like a bubble inside her, pushing away sanity, pushing aside her need for control. It was at once frightening and exhilarating, sweeping her away on a wave of sensation.

She clung to Lucky as if he could anchor her to the real world. She wrapped her arms around him, wrapped her legs around his lean hips. And still the wild sensation grew, hotter and brighter and more intense, swelling until it burst into a million brilliant shards.

«Lucky!»

Lucky felt her climax, heard her cry his name, then his own consciousness dimmed as he exploded inside her. He arched into her with a hoarse cry, unable to think, unable to comprehend anything except the exquisite pulsing of her body around his. The moment was so sweet, so perfect, so golden that for an instant all the darkness was banished from his soul and he felt clean and whole and at peace for the first time in a long while. He clung to the feeling, clung to Serena, holding her to him as if he might be able to absorb some of the goodness he'd found in her.

Reality returned by slow degrees, coming to him as if out of a mist. The paint-stained dropcloth. The feet of his easel. The stripes of filtered daylight falling through the blinds. The woman beneath him.

He looked down at Serena and felt something squeeze painfully in his chest. She was crying silently, her head turned to the side, the teardrops leaking out through the barrier of spiky lashes. He'd hurt her. He'd felt how tight she was and still he'd let his own need overwhelm him and banged the living daylights out of her. Dieu, what land of an animal had he become?