I let the notion develop and grow into the fantasy that we’d met at the pub, and were stumbling home for a drunken hook-up. A few hours of glorious, uncomplicated sex before one of us crept away before dawn. I’d wake up stiff and sore from exertion, but sated...not craving his touch, his love, or even the simple brush of his lips over mine.
My pulse quickened. This was the other reason I never drank vodka. It made me horny as well. I wonder if he remembers. Not that it mattered. Luke hadn’t so much as glanced my way in the pub, and I’d spent all night wondering if he’d even known I was there.
Gus’s house came into view. Luke’s steps slowed, like he was preparing to ditch me. A humourless giggle escaped me, and I glanced up to find him watching me, his toffee-coloured eyes almost as dark as Gus’s under the gloomy night sky. “What?”
He shrugged. “You’re the one laughing like a maniac.”
I couldn’t deny it, and the urge to pick up the pace and walk away from him was strong, but I didn’t. I slowed to match him, then stopped altogether when we reached Gus’s house. “I’m laughing because us walking together through Rushmere is ridiculous. It’s a million miles away from where I pictured myself a year ago.”
“Where did you picture yourself?”
“Like you care.”
“Asked, didn’t I?”
He wasn’t about to trick me into believing he gave a shit about me just because we were having a conversation. I leaned on Gus’s wall, fisting my keys in my pocket. “Whatever. Put it this way, I haven’t ever pictured myself wandering around with you, half cut and horny, and not doing anything about it.”
The words fell out of me before I could stop them, or consider how true they were. On the rare moments I had imagined myself with Luke over the years, when I wasn’t bashing him over the head for being such a selfish prick, I certainly wasn’t saying a chaste goodnight and sleeping alone.
Mortification stung my cheeks, making me glad of the shadows around Gus’s front door. I didn’t look at Luke, and he didn’t speak. My imagination had him drifting closer, and I blamed the vodka until his warm grip closed around my wrists again, both of them this time, and he tugged me gently upright. My chest pressed to his, my breasts squeezed in all the right ways.
“If things were different,” he whispered, “what would you do about it?”
“About what? You being a dick? Or me being horny?”
“The second one.” He crushed up against me even tighter, the hardness in his Levi’s more than a match for the thin maxi skirt I’d tugged on in place of my dirty jeans. “If you were to do something about being drunk and horny...with me, what would you do?”
Heat pooled between my legs. Fuck, I hated him. The Luke switch in my brain had been dormant so long I’d forgotten about it. Never imagined a time when he’d reach for it again, flip it with his deep, rumbling voice, and I’d be powerless to resist.
I licked my lips. “Don’t you dare kiss me.”
“I’m not going to.”
“Good.” I straightened up and offered him my keys. “Now come inside.”
* * *
In Gus’s dark kitchen, I moved automatically towards the kettle, even though I’d never made Luke a cup of tea in my life. I sensed his presence behind me, but his hands at my hips, turning me around, and lifting me onto the counter, still shocked me.
His stare rattled me too. Luke’s face could be sweet when he wanted it to be, but his natural expression had kept anyone from ever fucking with him over the years. He was one of those dudes you just knew was strong and fast, and would lay you out before you ever got close to landing a punch on him. At least, that’s how I assumed other people felt. Luke didn’t scare me, even as he continued to deadeye me.
I opened my legs, smirking as he stepped naturally between them, his palms dropping either side of me, caging me. “What do you want?”
“Does it matter?”
Did it? I couldn’t quite decide, though the bulge in his jeans gave him away regardless of whether I chose to indulge him. Indulge myself—after all, he was here because I’d asked him to be, and now I was trapped in his arms with no real wish to escape.
Damn him.
I gazed at him, biting my lip as I got lost in his earnest eyes, strong jaw, and cheekbones I wanted to run my tongue over. He had long lashes too, so long he’d have been pretty were it not for the masculinity that oozed from every pore.
Dear God, what are we doing?
Like he’d heard my internal chaos, Luke leaned down, his lips inches from mine. “What do you want, Mia?”
Anything. Everything. But above all I wanted—needed—him to quench the thirst in my body, the craving I’d carried for ten long years that no other man had ever been able to satisfy. I’d lived with it for so long it had become a second skin, but now, with Luke so close, I couldn’t take it any longer.
I gripped his chin, my fingers digging into his face. “Make me come, then get the hell out.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
For a long moment I thought he would refuse, then he closed the remaining distance between us, and his mouth was suddenly at the base of my throat. His tongue. His teeth. My head fell back, granting him better access, and a shuddery moan escaped me, taking with it the very top layer of years of pent-up tension. I leaned back on my hands, gripping the countertop to keep myself from sliding against him, into him, and wrapping myself around him like a flame on a matchstick.
Luke ravaged my neck, and his hands roamed my body as I clawed his unyielding shoulders. My coat slipped away, and the silky top I wore beneath was no match for him. He pushed it up, exposing my abdomen, and then my bra.
He stepped back to gaze at me, robbing me of his devilish assault on my neck.
Breathing hard, I jerked my chin at him. “Done already?”
“Shut up.”
The fire in his eyes went straight to my belly, tendrils spreading through the rest of my body like molten, running lava. I spread my legs wider and freed my breasts from my bra just enough so my nipples puckered in the cool night air.
He licked his lips. His eyes had always been hypnotic, but they were bottomless now, and I was swimming in the deep end, fighting to stay afloat, but at the same time not fighting at all. I wanted this. I wanted him. Right now. Just once.
Luke cupped my breasts and brought one to his mouth. His lips closed around my nipple, and a startled yelp burst from my chest. No man had ever tapped into the Aladdin’s Cave of pleasure points in my breasts like he had. After all these years I’d almost forgotten how good he was at it. Almost. As he swirled his tongue and gently bit down, my body arched into him, pressing me against the arousal constrained in his jeans.