His laughter follows me out of the room, and I’m kind of glad that I’m heading to bed first tonight. That way I can pretend to be asleep when he comes in because I sure as hell know I’ll be too nervous to actually fall asleep as I’m just lying there waiting for him.
I get ready for bed, and then I stand in front of the mattress as I realize we didn’t pick sides when we talked about this arrangement. I assume he’ll want the side the clock is on, so I go to the other side. I don’t use a bedside clock since I sleep with my phone next to me. Maybe he’s old school with this whole clock thing he’s got going on. I snap the light off and slide down into the bed.
It’s fucking luxurious. The sheets must be a billion-thread count, and the mattress is firm and cool.
His sheets smell like him, and suddenly I’m incredibly horny lying in the bed of the man I’m crushing hard on.
Okay, maybe not suddenly, but smelling him as the cool sheets lie over my body is making the ache between my thighs rage for him.
I’m just about to dip my fingers into my panties to find some tiny measure of relief when his bedroom door opens.
He’s quiet as he closes it behind him, shutting himself into the dark room. He uses the flashlight on his phone to move around the room, and I lie as still as I can, my hand resting just under the elastic band of my panties.
He disappears into the bathroom, and I ease my fingers out before I get caught.
That was close.
I probably shouldn’t even consider fingering myself in someone else’s bed.
But he just...does that to me. He makes me want to make bad decisions.
He’s only in the bathroom a few minutes before he emerges and slides quietly into the bed beside me. I force my breathing to stay even because I don’t know what the hell to say to him. We’re sharing a bed. It’s all for pretend. My massive crush on him seems to be getting exponentially larger by the millisecond, but it doesn’t matter because he’s already written me off.
I’m sure he thinks I’m fast asleep.
And then he whispers into the darkness. “Sweet dreams, Sexy Ellie.”
Oh, that’s just great.
One more thing for my overactive brain to overanalyze.
I must fall asleep at some point because when I open my eyes to the bright morning, Luke isn’t in bed. He’s an early bird, obviously, and he’s already catching the worm.
Except when I glance at my phone, I see that I’ve slept in...and I have a missed call and voicemail from my mother.
It’s already nine—later than usual for me, but I was up pretty late trying to figure out why he’d call me Sexy Ellie when he’s made it so clear that he doesn’t want to be with me. What a confusing guy.
I blow out a breath as I click through to my mother’s voicemail. I’m not looking forward to this already.
“Ellie Marie Nolan, how in the world could you get engaged and not even tell your mother? What is going on with you? How well do you even know this guy? You’ve only been there a few days! Are you crazy? Are you pregnant? Is it Todd’s? Am I going to be a grandmother? Call me!”
She’s a handful.
And I’m neither caffeinated nor drunk enough to answer any of her questions. Not any of the fifteen thousand of them.
Instead, I take a shower and head down for breakfast. I slept too late to catch the morning show better known as Hot Luke’s Workout, but he’s just coming in from the patio, a towel around his neck and his skin glistening with sweat. His hair is wet and his face is flushed and his abs are practically calling my name but I’m apparently not allowed to answer that call.
“My, uh, mom called,” I say, trying my damnedest not to be distracted by those abs. I’m trying not to even think about them, but it’s impossible. The more I try not to, the more the only thing I can think of is them. My eyes flick down of their own accord, and when they wander back up to meet Luke’s, his are a little heated...and not from the workout. At least I don’t think that’s what it’s from. I’ve been wrong about these things before, though. “It seems she saw our news. Are we keeping the lie up to our families—apart from Josh since he already knows—or do they get the truth?”
Luke sighs and glances away from me before he answers. “I’m not telling my family but I’m not going to tell you what to do with yours.”
I nod. “Okay. Can I ask why?”
“My brother will go straight to the press and blow our whole cover.” He glances away from me like he’s hiding his true emotions about all that.
We may not have known each other long yet, but I will find a way to get him to open up. He doesn’t need to screen his emotions around me.
“Do you have any other siblings?” I ask.
Pepper walks over to Luke with a ball in her mouth and drops it at his feet. He tosses it into the family room, and she runs to get it. “Yeah, a sister, Kaylee. She’s still in college. She was a surprise ten years after I came along.”
“Are you close with your siblings?”
He lifts a shoulder. “Not really. I really only see them on our annual family trip.”
“How come?” I ask.
“We don’t see each other on the traditional holidays because my brother and I can’t make it. I talk to my parents maybe once every three or four months. Jack and I occasionally shoot off a football-related text to each other. Kaylee texts me a few times a week.” He shrugs with nonchalance, like it’s not a big deal he isn’t close with his family when to me that’s a totally foreign concept.
“Is that hard?” I ask, and I move toward the fridge.
“It’s actually easier that way.” He leaves it at that, and I don’t press despite the strong desire to.
I look in the refrigerator and find some little egg muffins Debbie left. I take two and put them on a plate. “The annual family trip sounds fun.”
“It’s fine.” He nods at my egg muffins. “Can you make me two of those?” Pepper returns and he tosses the ball again while I arrange more on the plate, and then he walks over to the pantry and grabs the box of Lucky Charms. “It’s always nice to escape the Vegas heat in the middle of summer.”
I’m about to ask a follow up on the weather when I realize that’s exactly how Luke manages to keep himself private and why I’ve been living with him for a week now and I still don’t know much about him. He brings up topics that we can explore in our conversation that have nothing to do with him. I can look up the weather later.
What I can’t look up is Luke Dalton.
Although the thirst traps have been working. His Instagram account is building quickly, and I can tell his fans want more.
Even though a tiny part of me wants to keep him all to myself.
That’s not what he’s paying me to do, though.
“Where do you take your family trips?” I ask after I stick the plate in the microwave.
“Always somewhere different, and we rotate who picks the location. Last year my brother chose New Zealand.”
“Oh wow. How was it?” I grab another plate and some forks.
“It should have been amazing, but Michelle was there.” He pours himself a bowl of cereal and holds it up in my direction as if to ask if I’d like some. I shake my head, and then he mutters, “She managed to find ways to make it miserable.”