Chapter 295: [295] "Now you get a reward" (R18)

Luc didn’t say a word. He stepped into the room, kicking the door shut behind him.

The latch caught, and the bedroom belonged to them.

Juliette didn’t move anymore to meet him. She stayed where she was, standing in the lamplight with her hair loose around her shoulders, and watched him cross the carpet toward her the way, already certain of the outcome.

There was champagne still on her breath from the party. He could smell it when he stopped in front of her, mingled with woodsmoke from the fire pit and the warmth of her skin beneath both.

"Forty-seven goals," she said quietly, laying her palm flat against his chest, over his heartbeat.

"Scored them all for us. Some with only you on my mind." His voice came out lower than he intended.

"Then prove it." Her fingers went to the buttons of his shirt. She took her time with them, and he let her, standing still under her hands while the fabric fell open inch by inch and the cool air of the room touched the skin she bared.

Outside, far off, a pine branch shifted in the wind. Inside, there was only the sound of each button slipping free, and her breathing, which had quickened without her noticing it.

When the shirt hung open she pushed it off his shoulders and let it drop to the carpet. Her hands came back up his chest slowly, mapping him, the swell of his pecs, the line of muscle tapering down his ribs, the soft trail of hair disappearing beneath his waistband.

She’d traced this exact path a million times over the year and never once hurried it, but tonight she was slower, her fingertips dragging, deliberate, as if she wanted to memorize the terrain all over again before what followed after the season took it away from her.

"You trained hard for this," she murmured, mostly to herself. "I can feel it everywhere."

"I had good motivation."

"Mm." She reached his belt and paused, knuckles resting against the buckle, and lifted her eyes to his. "Tell me what you want first."

"You." He said nothing clever, nothing performed. Just the word, stripped down. "All of you. Slowly."

Something softened in her face, the smirk she’d been wearing giving way to something more defenseless. She rose onto her toes and kissed him.

It started gentle. Her lips moved against his with unhurried care, tasting of the sweetness of the sparkling water, and his hands found her waist and settled there, thumbs stroking the bare strip of skin where her shirt had ridden up.

Then her tongue touched his and the gentleness deepened into something hungrier, her fingers curling into the back of his hair, his name breathed against his mouth between kisses-- Luc --once, twice, like she was confirming he was here and hers.

He pulled her shirt up over her head and tossed it aside. Beneath it she wore nothing but pale lace, and the lamplight lay across her breasts and the soft curve of her stomach like poured honey.

He looked at her thoroughly, with an appreciation that had never once made her feel anything but adored.

"Don’t stare," she whispered, even as her back arched toward him.

"I’ve been staring at you for almost a year now, Juliette. I’m not stopping tonight."

His mouth traveled down. He kissed the pulse point beneath her ear, the slope of her neck, the hollow of her throat where he could feel her swallow. Lower, over her collarbone, along the upper part of her breast, his lips lingering on each spot until she sighed.

Her fingers threaded through his hair and held on. When he drew one hardened nipple into his mouth through the lace, she gasped, a helpless sound, and pressed him closer.

"Luc--"

He switched to the other, teasing the first damp peak with his thumb through the fabric, rolling it slowly until her hips shifted of their own accord. Her skin tasted like her, and he took his time with all of it, savoring, feeling the tension gather in her body, that rising hum before everything breaks open.

She tugged at his hair, pulling his mouth back up to hers.

"Off," she ordered against his lips, tugging at his belt now with considerably less patience than before. "Everything. Now."

He laughed quietly and shed the rest. His trousers and boxers joined the shirt on the floor, and his cock sprang free, already very, very hard, thick and heavy along his stomach, flushed dark at the tip.

Juliette’s eyes dropped to it and stayed, and her breath left her in a slow stream.

"There he is," she murmured, curling her fingers loosely around him, feeling the weight of his dick fill her palm. She stroked once, root to crown, watching the way his jaw tightened. "All season I’ve watched you carry this team. Let me carry you for one night."

"Juliette--"

"Hush. Captain’s queen’s orders." She sank to her knees on the carpet in front of him. The dim light caught her face as she looked up at him, hair spilling over her shoulders, eyes bright and devoted all at once.

She kissed the inside of his thigh first. Then his hip. Then slowly, she ran her flattened tongue up the length of his cock, base to tip, one long, wet stripe that made every muscle in his abdomen lock.

"Damn--" Luc breathed, one hand bracing against the dresser beside him, the other coming to rest tenderly at the back of her head. Not pushing, just holding her. Touching her preciously.

She took him into her mouth.

Just the head at first, her lips sealing soft and hot around him, her tongue circling the sensitive underside while she sucked gently, drawing a low groan out of the depths of his chest.

Then deeper, a little more with each pass, her hand working what her mouth couldn’t yet reach, her hands and her lips moving in perfect tandem, slick and tight all for him. The wet sounds of it filled the quiet room, obscene and beautiful, punctuated by the satisfied slurps she made whenever his hips twitched forward.

"Look at me," he rasped.

She did, eyes lifting while her mouth stayed full of him, and the combination--her gaze steady on his, her lips stretched around his cock, her cheeks hollowing--nearly ended him right there. His thighs trembled. His breath came ragged.

"Juliette, I’m not going to last if you keep--"

She released him with an audible pop and a smile, wiping the corner of her mouth with her thumb, rising back to her feet with the fluid grace of a woman who knew precisely what she’d just done.

"Good," she said, kissing the corner of his jaw. "I want you desperate. I heard desperate men are honest men."

He answered by sweeping her up into his arms.

She laughed, startled and delighted, her legs wrapping instinctively around his waist, and he carried her the three steps to the bed and laid her down into the center of it, like something being set down carefully after a long journey.

The covers were cool against her bare back.

He crawled over her, braced on his forearms, and for a long moment neither of them moved.