Free Dark Alpha (ALPHA 2) by Carole Mortimer Page B

close!” He stood up abruptly. “Just sit there while I clear the table.”
    Her eyes widened. “Now who isn’t being flattering?”
    Lucien gave a derisive shake of his head as he placed the used plates and mugs in the sink before returning to the table. “I was only clearing the table so that I can eat.”
    “Why didn’t you eat when I—oh!” Nicky gasped as Lucien gave her a pointed look as he now pulled her to her feet before impatiently tugging the baggy sweater up and over her head, taking a long and lingering moment to enjoy looking at her white lace-covered breasts, his expression intense as his fingers lowered purposefully to the fastening of her jeans.
    She was held captive in the intensity of that glittering green gaze as he slowly unfastened the button before lowering the zip, tugging the jeans down her hips and thighs, Nicky helping him by stepping out of her shoes and jeans.
    She saw Lucien’s eyes darken as he looked down at her wearing only her white lace bra and panties. “I should have guessed you would be wearing white.”
    “Why?” She eyed him curiously.
    He looked up at her briefly. “Because it’s who you are. Pure and virginal, Nicky.”
    Her cheeks blazed with color. “I’m not—”  
    “I don’t mean physically, Nicky,” he drawled hardly. “You’re aged in your twenties, so of course you aren’t a virgin. And I wouldn’t want you to be,” he assured dryly.
    “Then I don’t understand...”
    “Innocence isn’t just physical, Nicky, it’s a state of mind, and you’re still untouched in so many ways.” Lucien placed his hands beneath her elbows and lifted her up onto the table before stepping in between her parted thighs. “Life hasn’t had the chance as yet to scar you enough for you to have become jaded or cynical,” he continued talking as he nuzzled his lips against the soft fullness of her breasts.
    “Both my parents are dead!” Nicky reminded. Her mother had died when she was eleven, and she may not have actually seen her father gunned down, but she had certainly suffered the sudden loss, and the consequences of his death; she and her brother had been on the run from those consequences for almost six years.
    “And I’m sorry for your loss,” Lucien murmured softly. “But death is an inevitable part of living.”
    “And is the fact that Lionel Jenkins’ is a lecher also an ‘inevitable part of living’?”
    “He’s gone from your life too,” Lucien rasped harshly as he continued to kiss and nuzzle against her breasts. “Forget him.”
    Easy for him to say, when he wasn’t the one who was still out of a job, and soon to be evicted from her home too—
    “Who did give this to you, Nicky?”
    She looked down and saw that Lucien held her heart-shaped locket in the palm of his hand. “My father, shortly before he died. There are photographs inside, of my mother and father together, and my brother Neil.”
    “Ah.” Lucien placed the locket carefully back between her breasts, relieved to learn it hadn’t been a present from a previous lover. If it had been then it would have had to go, and he would have replaced it with those diamonds he’d imagined her wearing. He had no intentions of looking at something another man had given Nicky every time he was inside her.
    “It was his last Christmas present to me just before he died,” Nicky added huskily.
    Lucien was aware he had caused her sudden sadness, and he was just as determined to be the one to wipe those shadows from her eyes. He unfastened her bra before removing it completely. “Lean back on your hands and let me look at you,” he encouraged gruffly as his gaze feasted on the breasts that were still surprisingly full, despite her weight loss, and tipped with plump pink nipples. Succulent nipples that he was shortly going to enjoy devouring. “And don’t move.”
    “Bossy much?” Nicky’s cheeks were blazing with color even as she did as he asked.
    His eyes glittered as he placed his