You’re More Than Enough

With a gentle touch, he slowly glides a hand up my bare leg. "You're so beautiful," he breathes.

He sounds like he means it. But that isn't enough to stop me from shaking my head because it isn't true.

I know it isn't true.

I'm ordinary. I'm plain. The only thing special about me is what I am and what I can do.

He lifts his head, and his brow creases in a frown. "You don't believe me."

"You don't have to tell me that," I tell him, as if what I'm saying doesn't matter. As if I don't care what he thinks of me. "I know I'm not."

He stares into my face for so long that I start wishing I was somewhere else—that I was someone else—because this is the moment that he's finally seeing me the way Kieran sees me: worthless.

This is regret I'm witnessing. This is Lucian trying to find a way to let me down gently.

I open my mouth, ready to tell him that it's okay, I'm used to it. But he speaks before I can.

"If the person who made you think that ever came to Winter Lake, I think I could quite happily gut him. And that's not in my nature," he says mildly.

I blink at him in surprise. "Oh."

Lucian lowers his gaze and resumes exploring my body with his eyes and with his hands, taking his time doing it. His fingers skim all over me—my breasts, my hips, my belly. What he does isn't merely touch, but a caress. It's as if he's showing me in ways beyond words that he finds me beautiful.

"Your skin," he says, stroking his hand down my leg and to my ankle. "Is so soft. I don't think I've ever seen or touched anything as soft in my life." He lifts my leg and presses a kiss just above my knee.

I suck in a breath.

"Your legs," he murmurs, as he kisses his way up them, pressing another lingering kiss on my inner thigh that has my stomach tightening in anticipation, "are a favourite, I think. Long. Slender. Strong. I dream of you wrapping them around me when I sink inside you."

Heat pools at his words, words that make me desperate for him to keep talking, and desperate for him to stop talking and do just that. Sink inside me.

"Your waist is the perfect size for my hands," Lucian continues as he gently returns my leg to the ground, leaving a space wide enough for him to lie between my open thighs. He trails a series of kisses across my belly as he strokes my hips with both hands.

"Not just my hands. They are perfect. Just like the rest of you."

I lose the ability to speak at his words.

"I think you know how I feel about your mouth. At least I hope you do." He glances up at me, and I chew on my lower lip because I do. He doesn't hide his pleasure at how much he likes to kiss me. I've caught him staring at my mouth or leaning toward me often enough. "Don't you?"

After a pause, I nod.

"Good." When he lowers his gaze to my breasts, I swallow at the heat I see in his eyes. "Your breasts are…"

I study him as he seems to struggle to find the word he's looking for to describe my breasts. They're small, nothing like Nova's or the other women in the Frosts pack. They aren't anything but—

"In a word, perfect," Lucian interrupts my thoughts, as he strokes his hands up my sides and cups them in his hands. I close my eyes at the feel of his firm touch on me.

His fingers brush against my nipples and I let out a low moan, a sound that's almost immediately followed by Lucian's groan.

"I can smell what I'm doing to you, Cassia. The scent of you is incredible. But the scent of your arousal… It's addictive."

A haze of pleasure surrounds me. Distantly, I'm aware of Lucian's words as I focus on the brush of his hands on breasts I always thought were too small, not special, not anything. But when Lucian touches me, he makes me feel beautiful.

I arch my back because I want more. And he gives me more.

Lucian slides his hands over my belly, leaving a trail of heat behind as he kisses a path down my body. I bury my fingers in his soft hair and sigh in contented pleasure. Until he kisses me between my thighs.

Contentment flies out of the window. Is replaced by a searing need building deep inside me.

My eyes fly open and clash with his. Steadily, Lucian gazes back at me. Without breaking eye contact, he lowers his head and kisses me intimately. It doesn't take long before I'm writhing and moaning beneath him, tossing my head from side to side as I pant with a sense that an explosion is coming.

Everything Lucian does is making me feel is so new, so overwhelmingly pleasurable that I struggle to contain it all. When the feelings only seem to grow, I fight against it because it's all I can think to do.

But then he grips my thighs and eases them apart a little more, and his tongue invades me. I throw my head back and scream as my body comes apart, leaving my muscles trembling all over with the intensity of my release.

I lose track of time as I struggle to catch my breath, my muscles so loose, I can't believe a moment ago—a second ago—I was a bundle of tension.

Slowly, I come back to myself, opening my eyes when I feel Lucian settle his weight on top of me. He's naked now and I have no memory of him removing his clothes.

The world could've ended after my climax, and I wouldn't have known it until I opened my eyes. I never knew it could be like that.

We stare at each other in silence for several seconds, and then without a word, I lift my uninjured leg and wrap it around his hip just like he said he wanted. But when I move to lift the other, his hand on my thigh stops me. "Don't. I don't want you to hurt your ankle," he murmurs, staring into my eyes.

"What ankle?"

Neither of us laughs. All I can focus on is the feel of Lucian's hardness pressing against my core, and how much better it would feel with him inside me. This time, when I lift my leg to wrap it around him, he doesn't stop me.

With our gazes locked, he sinks deep into me.

My eyes flutter closed, and we both groan, the sound overly loud in the quiet stillness of the forest. I can't believe how incredible this feels, how he fills me so completely.

His hand slides along my hip and burrows beneath me. He grips me tight as he eases away, pulling out almost all the way before thrusting back into me.

My moan is so loud that it seems to echo all around us. His answering groan, just as loud as mine, tells me I'm not alone in my pleasure.

Lucian lowers his head, and his lips find mine. I kiss him back, hungrier now than I was before because I know what pleasure he can give me and I want more of it. I swallow his groan as he tightens his hold on my ass, and he moves again.

We find a rhythm almost immediately, a smooth motion that stuns me that we're doing this for the first time and already it feels so perfect, as if our bodies know each other already. With each drive into me, my fingers cling harder into Lucian's sweat dampened back until I know I'm going to be leaving nail indentations behind. But I don't care.

I lift my hips as he strokes himself inside me with an increasing desperation that has me moaning and him growling.

We lose our rhythm. All too soon, it's a frantic meeting of bodies as each new movement brings him—and me—closer to the edge. When Lucian breaks our kiss and his hips slow, I cut off my cry of complaint just in time because I am close, so close. Only, this isn't Lucian stopping because he's found his release and now that he has, my needs don't matter. This is something else.

"Lucian?" I pant, as I fight back the need to force him to move.

"Your eyes, I forgot to say how beautiful they are. Like a summer storm," he gasps. Before I can respond to beautiful words that are melting my heart, he's already moving again. His face is harsh with strain as he drives himself so deep into me that my back arches and I slam my eyes shut.

My climax has me screaming so loud it's a good thing Lucian doesn't have any close neighbours. His lips find mine again as he jerks inside me, filling me with heat as I wrap my trembling body around his, never wanting to let him go.

Together we ride out the waves of pleasure until my head falls back against the earth, and Lucian braces his weight on his elbows as his kiss turns softer.

I don't mean to go to sleep, but somehow, between one kiss and the next, my eyes close and I sink into a blissful stillness with a soft smile on my face and Lucian serving as my blanket in the cool night air.