Page 56 of Ice & Steel

His boots began climbing the stairs. I let my head fall back and wondered why, after over a decade with him, the faintest suggestion of him sent my pulse running.

The bedroom door opened. I leaned into our room, eager to see him.

The room was halfway lit by my vanity light and moonbeams falling through the windows. Shadows filled the corners like cobwebs and inky darkness cut over the lines of his body.

He reached out and turned the lock.

The sound split the room.

In the last year, he’d changed. His body before exile had been hard with muscle, but now he was cut like stone. His shoulders and arms bulked up from all the physical labor he did and his tattoos faded into his bronzed skin from the relentless sun.

His hair was cut short, little more than a shadow on his head. The absence of it only made his eyes all the more startling. And, I had to admit, even more unsettling.

I saw those eyes move over me and I knew the flicker of hunger in them better than the back of my hand. Despite all the ice that hid him from the rest of the world, I knew him. He couldn’t hide his baser instincts from me any more than he could hide his physical body.

“Come here, Liv,” he said.

I went because…because he was Lucien so of course I obeyed him. He put a hand to the back of my head and kissed my mouth. My feet arched as my body sank into his while his taste crashed over me in a wave.

He pulled back and the scent of him hit my nose. Warm, clean, and smelling of the sea. There was something so primal about the way he smelled now that it never failed to rouse my desire. I ran my fingers up his neck, over his head, and down his shoulder. Relishing the feeling of his hard, suntanned muscles.

“Did you eat?” I asked.

He jerked his head. Yes.

I felt my lashes flutter. “Are you satisfied?”

His jaw twitched. “No.”

I brushed my forehead against the warmth of his jaw. “How can I satisfy you, sir?” I murmured, half teasing and half serious.

“I’m sure I can think of something,” he said, pulling back and stripping his shirt from his body. He moved towards the bed, using it to wipe his face and hands.

“Are you tired?” I asked, suddenly shy.

He looked so big and imposing standing over the bed. Sometimes it blew my mind that this man was my husband and the father of my children. He loved me, he fucked me, he cradled my face between his big, rough hands and kissed my mouth.

“I’m never tired, Liv,” he said.

I watched him take his clothes off and toss them into the basket. He moved towards the bathroom door in just his boxer briefs and paused, noticing that I was staring.

“What is it?”

“I thought about you a lot today?” I whispered.

“Really?” Was there a note of amusement buried in his voice. “Tell me about it.”

I following him into the bathroom. He shed the remainder of his clothes and I had trouble not staring at his halfway hard cock.

“Did you touch yourself?” His mouth barely moved.

I shook my head, a flush creeping up my cheeks. “I didn’t have time.”

“Do you need to?”

I bit my lip, nodding despite the warm flush moving up my cheeks. He stepped into the open shower on the far end of the room and I sank down on the floor, my back braced against the tub. His eyes fixed to me as I spread my thighs to expose my sex to him.

His lids flickered. “Fucking beautiful.”