Luring Lucy by Lori Foster Page A

schoolmarm, scandalized but at the same time entranced. Bram continued to nuzzle against her. “Yeah, she was a little kinky. Sort of took me by surprise, bringing it up so fast and all. I mean, it’d been our first time together.”
    â€œDid you . . . that is . . .” She shifted, and her fingers moved nervously on the countertop in front of her.
    â€œDid I oblige her?”
    Lucy nodded.
    â€œI always oblige,” he rumbled softly. “When I’m with a woman, I want her to be happy. And I insist she leave satisfied. If a red bottom will do that for her, hey, I can handle it.” Keeping the laughter out of his tone was difficult. Lucy was downright rigid with indignation.
    Very lightly, he bit her neck, right where her pulse was suddenly rioting. “What about you, sweetheart? You have any kinky fantasies?”
    â€œI don’t want to be spanked, if that’s what you’re asking!”
    Bram laughed. “I wasn’t that into it myself.” He couldn’t stop kissing her, touching her. “And I’d never ask you to do anything that made you uncomfortable, so I don’t want you worrying about that, all right? But most people have something they like to fantasize about, something a little wicked that turns them on.”
    â€œDo you?”
    â€œAbsolutely.” And most of his fantasies centered around her. “I just want you to know you can tell me anything, ask me anything. Okay?”
    Again she shifted, those nervous little movements that told him so much. He wanted to squeeze her close, crush her to his heart. Instead he waited.
    â€œDid you date that woman much?”
    â€œA date implies time out somewhere, so no. I had sex with her off and on for about a month.” Bram trailed the fingertips of his right hand up her arm to her bare shoulder. He saw goose bumps rise in his path. “Sex is a hollow thing when it’s between strangers. For a while, when you’re young and stupid, that can seem exciting. It can seem like enough. But the older I get, the more I want . . . more.”
    Idly, Lucy turned her head to rub her cheek against the back of his hand where it rested on her shoulder. The gesture was tender, loving, and his heart twisted.
    â€œBetween David and me,” she whispered, “things got really . . . stale. I guess we’d known each other too long, gotten too comfortable. Doing anything risqué or different seemed silly. Whenever I tried spicing things up, I ended up feeling foolish.”
    Struggling not to curse, Bram said only, “David was the fool.”
    She shook her head. “I don’t know. Everything that went wrong wasn’t his fault. I’m to blame, too. I guess we’d just known each other too long to change things from mundane to erotic.” Shegave a self-conscious laugh and added, “The last few years, before I filed for divorce, David had totally lost interest. Sex was something that happened more out of boredom for him than out of love or lust. He didn’t want to cuddle, or hold me, or kiss me. He’d say,
‘Are we screwing tonight or what?’
And I . . . I just couldn’t.”
    Talking about her with David was killing Bram on several levels. He hated the thought of her with another man, even her husband, and beyond that, he hated knowing how frustrated she must have been, emotionally and especially physically. She was the very essence of feminine sexuality, but all her innate responses had been stifled rather than encouraged.
    By word and movement and look, Lucy was a very sensual woman. She deserved to have all her needs met, in any and every way. He wanted to ignite her basic nature, enflame her body. He wanted everything she had to give a man.
    â€œI think,” he breathed into her ear, “that we should work on stage one of this week.”
    On alert, she asked, “Stage one?”
    â€œYeah.” His heart