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The thought was too depressing to dwell on. Instead, Luce focused on thinking about what might happen when they got inside the cottage and bit her lip.
‘Okay, this is as close as we’re getting,’ Ben said eventually, wrestling the car onto the side of the road and pulling on the handbrake. They hadn’t even made it to the parking spot they’d managed the day before. This snowstorm was making yesterday’s look like a mere sprinkling. ‘Think you can walk from here?’
Luce nodded because, honestly, she could do anything if it meant Ben was going to kiss her again soon.
He trudged round to the other side of the car, helping her out into the snow, and pulled her arm through his so he held her tight against the side of his body. Together, heads down against the snow flurries, they made their slow way up the last of the hill to the cottage, with Ben yanking her upright whenever her boots slipped.
And then, just when Luce had started to fear they were never going to make it, the cottage appeared through the snow, and warmth burst through her despite the weather.
Ben fumbled the door open and in moments had slammed it shut behind them and pressed her up against it, his hands cold as they found their way under her coat and jumper to bare skin. His lips were hot, though, warm and demanding, and Luce let her head fall back against the wood and surrendered herself to his kiss.
Then he wrenched himself away again and Luce’s body ached with the loss.
‘This is what you want?’ he asked.
Luce nodded furiously. ‘Of course—’
‘For you,’ he interrupted. His eyes were dark with want, but his face was serious. ‘Not because someone else wants you to, or because it’s what you should do, or even because you’re trying to be something you weren’t in university. Because you want it.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you know...you know what this is?’
At last Luce realised what he really wanted, and even though she’d promised herself she wouldn’t give it to him, the need that burned through her body meant she couldn’t stop the words even if she wanted to.
‘I want you, Ben. Me. I want your hands and your mouth and your body on me. Just for tonight. Just one night.’
His hands tightened around her waist as she spoke and Luce swallowed at the heat in his eyes. Then she said the words she knew he was waiting for.
‘Seduce me.’
* * *
That was all Ben needed to hear. With a growl of satisfaction he captured her lips again, even as his hands pushed her coat from her shoulders.
‘You’re wearing far too many clothes,’ he murmured, working his kisses down her throat.
She bent her neck enticingly, to give him better access, and he allowed himself a moment to admire the pale skin there, and the line of her throat to her shoulders. How had he never noticed how beautiful she was when they were younger? Maybe she was more confident now, better dressed, more aware of her own attraction. But her beauty had always lain in the essence of her, the bones and the lines, and he just hadn’t been looking carefully enough.
Except for that one night, drunk and stupid. Then he’d seen it.
‘It was cold in the castle,’ Luce said, and Ben had to concentrate to remember what they’d even been talking about. He was past words already.
God, how had she bewitched him so completely, so quickly? Taken charge of his senses so that all that mattered was getting her in his bed as quickly as possible? Hell, he didn’t even care about the bed. He was on the verge of taking her right here against the door.
He needed to regain some control. He needed to be able to walk away from this tomorrow. The wild, blood-boiling feeling that had taken over had stripped away what he knew of himself. He needed this to be back on his terms.
With more effort than he would have liked, he pulled her away from the door. ‘Bedroom,’ he said, sentences still beyond him.
Luce glanced around as though she’d forgotten entirely where she was, hadn’t even noticed the splintered door at her back. At least he wasn’t the only one losing control.
She followed him without argument as he tugged her towards his bedroom and kicked the door shut behind them. He’d worried that she might be spooked when they were finally there, that once it became too real she’d change her mind. But instead she melted into his arms as he stripped off her clothes, her fingers already dragging his jumper up over his head.
Skin to skin, touch to touch, Ben laid her back on the bed, covering her with his own body. She was so smooth under his hands, and every touch made her arch and moan and mew, responsive in a way he could never have imagined. And he responded in turn, his fingers and his mouth reaching deeper, more demanding, until finally, finally, he slid home into her and felt her moan against his shoulder.
