I ached to touch him. To close my fingers around him, squeeze him, take him in my mouth, inside me, and milk him dry. I couldn’t describe what stopped me, and Luke didn’t seem to care that he was clearly as turned on as me. Didn’t seem to care about anything except laying the foundations of an earth-shattering release with his talented tongue while his hand moved between my legs.
He shoved my skirt up and made short work of yanking my underwear aside. His fingers grazed where I wanted them most, a feather-light touch when my body was screaming out for so much more.
As if he’d heard the moan I suppressed, he gripped my face with his other hand, forcing me to look at him. “This what you want? My fingers inside you?”
Torn between begging and throat-punching him, I settled for yanking him impossibly closer and biting his neck. “I already told you what I want.”
Luke made a low sound, and heat rushed through me. The air around us thickened, and I was suddenly hyperaware of his rough stubbled jaw and the silky hair at the nape of his neck.
I wanted to bury my face in it. Nuzzle his skin. Breathe him in—
He slid a finger inside me, mercifully steering me away from a path that led nowhere good. I gasped. “God, yes. Like that.”
Luke’s breathing hitched in time with mine, his face hidden by his bent neck. Unacceptable. My thighs clenched and I gave into temptation, carding my fingers into his hair once more and tugging so I could see him properly. He gazed back at me and the years fell away. We were sixteen again and his tentative fingers were inside my virgin self while we both trembled at the thought of what would come next.
Except he wasn’t tentative, he was sure of his path, sliding his fingers in and out of me in a stroking rhythm that made my toes curl. Fascinated, I broke eye contact to stare down, counting the beats of pleasure that rippled through me. Tracking his thumb as it edged closer to the knot of nerves that would send me tumbling over the edge.
“Good, huh?” Luke’s voice had dropped an octave. “I forgot how much you like to watch.”
He had no right to remember anything about me, about us, and the history he’d walked away from without a backwards glance, but the will to fight him faded as his thumb pressed my clit, circling and teasing, falling into step with his long, precise fingers.
I was so lost. I let go of him and fell back on my hands, my mouth hanging open in a silent groan as I rode his hand, grinding myself on him in a frantic search for more friction. A coil tightened in my stomach, and heat flushed my exposed chest. My thighs quivered, and distantly I raged that he still had this power over me.
But the fury in my heart only added to the fire in my veins. I moaned raggedly and let my gaze drift to him again. He stared right back, his teeth digging into his bottom lip as a hoarse groan rumbled from his chest.
“Mia—”
I didn’t hear him. I ground down on his hand, clenching tight around him, and then I was coming, orgasm ripping through me so absolutely that I could only cling to him, and curse into his beautiful neck.
The pleasure tore me apart. Ragged sounds I didn’t recognise fell from me, and it seemed like it would never stop.
Until it did.
The fire faded, leaving me shaking and weak. My arms slipped from around Luke’s neck, and regret replaced desire, licking at my soul. In my mind I pushed him away. Kicked him across the kitchen and screamed all the things at him I’d never had the chance to a decade ago, but reality was silent...cold as he withdrew from me and backed away.
I brought my legs together, and my skirt slipped into place, even though my underwear was still all kinds of wrong. My feet hit the cool tiles as I slid from the counter and I wondered if I’d have to kick him out.
Stupidly wondered, because leaving me was his fucking party trick.
Chapter Seven
Luke
Luke: I fucked up
Billy: u did? call the fucking pope
I scowled at my phone. Having this conversation with my renegade little brother was the worst idea in the world, but I was desperate. Telling Gus how I’d made his sister come all over my hand on his kitchen counter wasn’t an option, so I was resorting to my own flesh and blood to talk me down from the edge.
Billy: so...u gonna tell me what you did?
Luke: Mia’s back
Billy: THE Mia? the bird whose <3 you broke to be Captain Birdseye?
Luke: fuck off
Billy: stop texting me then
I tossed my phone aside with a disgusted sigh, then immediately picked it up again and stared at the screen, trying to find the words to explain what had happened between Mia and me two nights ago. Words that Billy would take seriously and not judge by his own low standards.
Luke: I went home with her
Billy: u fucked her
Luke: no
Billy: but...
Luke: ...
I let it sit a few minutes. My brother was a wanker, but he had rare moments of intuition that had kept our bond alive since he’d gone off the rails. Moments when he forgot how much he resented me for leaving him alone in Rushmere, and when I put aside how hard I hated him for getting to stay.
But this wasn’t one of those days. Billy didn’t reply, and I had to go back to work.
Later that afternoon, Gus brought me lunch.
I grunted my thanks. He rolled his eyes, but instead of sauntering away, remained at the foot of my ladder, eyeballing me.
Sighing, I slid down and claimed the sandwich he’d dumped on my toolbox. “What do you want? A fucking snog?”
Gus scoffed. “Je préfère ton frère.”
I scowled at him. Mia had often chewed me out in French, and even when I knew she was calling me a bastard, it had always got me going. Gus was just annoying. “The fuck are you saying about my brother?”
“I’ll tell you if you spill what went down with you and my sister the other night.”
No fucking chance. Gus wasn’t fourteen anymore, and I doubted he’d take kindly to me finger-banging his sister in his kitchen, regardless of it being her idea.
A demand that drunk me had apparently been powerless to resist. Did I regret it? Yes. No. Probably.
Fuck. I had no clue. All I knew was that my Mia brooding levels were at an all-time high and I was about to lose my shit if Gus didn’t leave it alone. “Nothing happened. I walked her home, because you left her in the pub.”
“Dude, she’s an adult and we live in spitting distance of the boozer. Besides, you’re not convincing me that she let you babysit her. She’d kill you first.”
“So? What do you want me to say? If you’re that interested, ask her.”