by Abby Knox
Luke nods solemnly, like he seems to understand what it means that I’m letting him use something that belonged to my parents. It warms my heart to see it.
I watch him move about the kitchen, making me coffee. He really looks at home in my kitchen, in my house. That’s because he is at home, silly.
“Listen, Luke. I was about to get ready to go into work. And actually, I did like the way you organized all my things. So, if you really want to help, you can do the guest room and my office, and the closets. Just don’t…just don’t throw anything away. I’m not ready yet.”
Luke watches me, looking like he can see the real me. But how is that possible? I haven’t told him anything about what all this junk lying around my house actually means to me.
“I wouldn’t dream of throwing anything away unless you expressly told me to.”
I move to the stairs to start getting ready for work, but then I hesitate. “Aren’t you supposed to, like, be cleaning someone else’s house today? I mean, you do work for the agency, don’t you?”
The expression on Luke’s face is slightly mischievous. “I’ve decided to branch out.”
I smile. “By branching out, you mean coming back to the same house? How does that work?”
He shrugs. “It’s a work in progress.”
Chapter Nine
Luke
What I don’t tell her is that I ended my employment at Maid for You.
Maybe that was a dumb move.
But it was dumb of me to lie on my résumé in the first place.
What I really feel is the need to be near Stella at all costs. If that means spending my days helping her organize her house and waiting tables at night to pay off my debt, then so be it.
I’ll figure it out. Maybe it’s an incredibly stupid move. Or maybe I’ll become a full-time housekeeper for her. I am pretty handy, so you never know.
If all goes well, maybe a live-in housekeeper. She needs one, and I need a job.
But I have to try—both at making a career and at pursuing Stella.
I haven’t yet laid a hand on this woman but I hurt when I’m not around her. That’s as good a reason as any to quit pursuing acting to pursue her instead.
When she comes downstairs after getting ready for work, she bowls me over. As if she didn’t look stunning yesterday all in red, today she looks ethereal in light blues and more loose fabrics.
“Wow,” I say before I can stop myself.
She beams at me. “Thanks.”
We share an awkward silence and she says. “I’m gonna go, I guess. So you…do whatever you need to do to get my house in order.”
Her eyes land on my mouth while she’s speaking to me.
Thank god I’m not wearing gray sweatpants today. I chose jeans to hide the twitch that happens inside them. Wonder what she’s thinking about when she’s staring at my mouth like that?
I can guess.
“Right, well. Off I go. I’ll see you when I get home.”
“And when will that be?”
A smirk tugs at her lip. “Late. Here’s the new code for when you leave.”
Stella slides a slip of paper toward me along the marble countertop, and my big, rough hand just brushes against her when I reach for it. We barely touch at all—the pad of my index finger brushes the top of one of her fingernails. The spark penetrates my skin, magically imprinting itself on every muscle, vessel, bone, and nerve inside me.
The effect of that touch is totally different from that of our first handshake. The handshake was nice. Coupled with her shy smile, it was completely disarming. But this simple touch—an incidental moment with no intent but full of consequence—feels as if we’re opening a door to each other.
What’s going to happen beyond that door is a mystery I’m very prepared to explore. To not do so would be denying a lot of overwhelming attraction at this point.
My hand slides away and our eyes make contact for a second too long before she wishes me a good day.
But she doesn’t leave.
The next thing I know, Stella is leaning in.
I pull her into my arms as her handbag falls to the floor.
Chapter Ten
Stella
Whoa. So this is happening.
I’ve thought about it. Fantasized about it.
I’m officially his client. Am I really going to let this happen?
The clatter of lipstick tubes falling out of my bag as they hit the kitchen tile underlines the fact that I’ve lost control of myself.
Luke’s lips claim mine so fully, I feel my knees nearly give out. I relax into him, and his huge arms squeeze my body against his.
For the last twenty-four hours, I’ve thought about wanting to do this.
About how his eyes, his smile, his voice saying my name shot electricity through my body, out to my toes, my lips, my nipples.
It’s a gentle kiss but in no way hesitant. He knows what he’s doing, knows just how to angle down to meet my face, just the right amount of pressure and suction for a first kiss. Just enough of everything to make me feel both relieved that we’ve broken the awkward tension, but also excited and curious about what’s next.
I’m comforted by the idea that I get to inhale his scent without looking like a weirdo. Desert sage and some kind of moisturizer. Of course he takes care of his skin; he’s an actor, after all.
I take back what I said before. I never had control in the first place, not as soon as I laid eyes on this guy. I can get control of my emotions and organize a company to work efficiently and effectively, but I have no control of the flood of emotions that surges whenever I’m around this person. I tried, but I don’t want to try anymore.
Kissing him is exactly what I thought it would be, only amplified by a thousand.
His soft lips alternate between tasting me and letting me taste him. Luke’s strong hands explore my back and in my mind I’m cursing the layers of designer fabric separating his hands from my bare skin.
As if he knows I’ve been thinking about his rough hands, Luke cups my face in them. It feels like he’s holding a delicate china teacup, trying his best not to crack or chip me.
I shouldn’t be giving in like this. I have to go to work.
But his skin smells so good up close, and the friction of his stubble against my skin is starting a fire inside my belly.
I want to touch more of him; I want to feel his skin against mine.
“This is going to sound crazy forward, but can I touch your stomach?”
Luke looks at me as if I do, in fact, sound crazy. But not for the reasons I think. “Most women I’ve been with before don’t ask permission. So, thank you. And, hell yes.”
I gasp when he peels off his shirt. Sure, I ogled this body last night when I came home. Guys like him live in my fantasies only. Such a far-flung fantasy, I usually don’t even imagine guys like him. I’ve only ever dated guys with softer bodies. I never even imagined getting turned on by someone with this much muscle. It always seemed like too much, unrealistic. Probably not great for cuddling with all that hardness everywhere.
But up close, it’s working for me. So much coiled strength in those arms. So much hard work went into achieving this much muscle. The thought of how sweet he is, yet so strong, is a comfort. His ease with me makes me want to test him out, climb him, see how long he can hold me up while I ride his cock.
I run the palm of my hand over his washboard abs and my insides quiver when I watch what happens. Goose flesh forms on his skin under my touch. He lets out a sigh that’s full of meaning—he likes it but he’s holding something back. Is he stopping himself from guiding my hand lower?
I don’t know what I was expecting; certainly, I wasn’t expecting his skin to be this warm and responsive. Maybe an irrational part of me thought he would be made of granite.
But he’s so real, so kind, and so inviting, I want to touch, squeeze, and nibble every inch of his tanned body.
“What?” he asks.
He’s caught me smirking. I
might as well fess up. “Just wondering if every bit of you is tanned.”
Luke laughs and the sound sends ripples down my back.
“I was a pale, pasty farm dude from Indiana. We don’t take our peckers out into the sunshine unless we’re masochists.”
I have to laugh and nearly blurt out a marriage proposal. I love a man who can make me laugh.
“I love your imagery. Naked farm hands, free willies everywhere,” I say.
We laugh and joke some more, which makes me more reluctant to go to work, even more so than the kissing and the touching and the half-naked muscled man offering himself to me.
“I should really go to work,” I say, biting my lip.
“And I should really tell you the truth. I quit my job at Maid For You when I saw your review.”
Chapter Eleven
Luke
Stella’s confused expression remains while she waits for me to answer her question. It’s a valid one: why would I quit my job after one day?
Well, there’s nothing left for me to do now except tell her the gods’ honest truth. I’m already shirtless; I may as well go completely bare, so to speak.
“I wanted to come back here, to you, and finish the job.”
“Oh my,” she breathes. “You quit your job because you wanted to finish my house?”
Here goes. This is it. “And because I can’t stop thinking about you. I knew if I stayed with that job, I’d be assigned to come back, based on your review, maybe every week or two weeks. And that’s not good enough for me.”
Stella nods. “My house is that bad, is it?”
I can’t take how the distance between us seems to be growing with every poorly thought-out thing I say. I step toward her, and she doesn’t step back. Instead she looks up at me again, her eyes glancing from my eyes, to my mouth, to my eyes again. I cup her face again and, oh god, it’s just as surprisingly soft and smooth and ready to be kissed as it felt a moment ago. “Stella. I mean I don’t want to be away from you for a single minute.”
“Oh,” she replies. “But don’t you need to be looking for audit—”
I shush her with my lips, and my tongue tries again to have a taste. Her body relaxes against mine, her soft hands gliding over my skin, exploring my arms, my sides, my abs, lighting little sparks of desire in their path.
Stella’s lips open to my teasing tongue. I push inside her welcoming mouth, and we both exhale noisy moans of pleasure at the rightness of this.
So much right about this.
Her lush mouth, her meadowy scent, and her soft sighs of pleasure flood me with both relief and excitement—relief because she doesn’t think I’m a crazy stalker, and excitement because, well, look at her. I dare any man to spend five minutes talking to her and walk away willingly.
God, what’s happening to me? Just the thought of another man spending time with Stella pokes awake the grumpy alpha bear inside me.
Yes, I say to the beast, you and I know this is more than just a make-out sesh. But let’s not scare her away just yet.
As Stella’s hands blaze a heated trail down my chest, the pads of her thumbs graze my nipples, sending delicious shock waves through my body. My already-hard cock jerks. The beast is wide awake now, and I can’t hold back the growl that rises in my chest. I feel her lips curve into a mischievous smile.
“You gotta go, don’t you?” I say, backing away from her lips, even though I don’t want to.
“Convince me not to go,” she whispers, and I’m already tracing kisses down her neck before she finishes the sentence.
“I want to,” I say. “But I really can’t do my job if you’re here. It’s, like, the first rule of housekeeping.”
“Well, if those are the rules, you must follow.”
My mouth finds its way to the lapels of her jacket and I tug them to the side to reach her collarbones, where I nibble, kiss and suck my way across, from one side to the other, pushing aside the fabric of her silk blouse underneath. My hands manage to remove her jacket so I stop what I’m doing and step away to drape it gently over the back of a kitchen chair before returning to sample the petal-soft skin of her bare arms. I lift one of her arms to my lips, kissing the tender spot inside her elbow, inhaling her delicate outdoorsy perfume.
“This doesn’t feel like you’re letting me leave,” she teases, her delicate fingers exploring my torso, driving me mad.
“You’re free to go. Tell me to stop and I’ll stop,” I reply.
Stella doesn’t tell me to stop, but she says something that makes me stop what I’m doing anyway.
“I suppose I can fit in a quickie before work.”
I pull myself up but still hold on to her arm, warming her skin with my hand as I examine her face. She’s short of breath; her lips swollen from our kissing. I could take her now on the kitchen counter if she wants me to. She would let me. She wants it as badly as I do.
But this isn’t right. This isn’t how I want our first time to be.
I want there to be no barriers, no time limit, no deadlines.
“Stella,” I say, drawing her in close and caressing her midsection with one hand and holding her face with the other. “When the time comes, it’s gonna be slow. We’re not gonna be on a schedule.”
Stella narrows her eyes at me. “You can’t possibly send me to work like this…all heated up and ready to go.”
Now it’s my turn to smile mischievously. “I have no intention of sending you to work on high heat. But I will give you a preview of what we could get up to later, if you want.”
When my hand cups her breast over the silk of her shell top she bites her lip and closes her eyes. I devour her moan with my mouth while my fingers draw out her nipple into a taut peak.
With my other hand I lift her skirt and plunge my hand between her thighs, quickly finding her heat. With me cupping and stroking her pussy, she lets out a groan of pleasure and presses herself into my hand.
“Luke,” she whispers.
“Is this what you want?” I ask her, pulling her panties aside and finding that welcoming, warm place I’ve been dreaming about since I first laid eyes on her. My fingers part her heated, wet folds and explore the center of her. The part of her that’s going to be completely mine tonight.
“Yes,” she murmurs, her eyes pleading with me, her parted lips so close to me I can’t bear to keep from claiming her mouth for myself again.
We taste each other deeper, more hungrily than before, my tongue caressing in concert with the squeezes of my hand on her breast and the strokes of my fingers pleasuring her pussy.
The volume of her moans increase with every swipe of my fingers. She’s soaking herself, and me.
“Please, Luke.”
Between wet, sinful kisses I ask her, “Do you want me to fuck you with my fingers or massage your clit?”
Her eyes widen in shock at the way I’m talking to her. But then she licks her lips. “Both.”
“Naughty girl,” I say with a wicked chuckle.
“I ask for what I want and I get it.”
I let go of her breast and grip her around her waist, bringing her in as close to me as I can while my other hand continues to increase her pleasure.
“You’ll get what you want all right.” I sink two fingers into her channel and let the pad of my thumb find her clit. She gasps. Her body tenses up and her brows knit together when I swipe against the swollen little button.
Stella’s hands grip my shoulders, hanging on tight to me as I tower over her shorter frame. Her skirt is hitched up around her waist. “Hook your leg around me,” I tell her, and she does.
Her pussy fits in my hand perfectly, like she was made for me.
But it’s me who was made to please her. To take care of her.
I do just that, stroking in and out while circling and swiping her clit, over and over, increasing the pressure until she comes. When she does, she presses against me so tightly she climbs up and wraps her other leg around me.
I feel her rele
ase pulse through her, her body jerking against me as her arousal soaks my hand and makes me hunger to throw her down and taste her.
As soon as her body calms, I gently set her down, painting kisses over her face, smoothing out her skirt. I grab her jacket and help her put it on before I send her on her way.
“I really don’t want to go now,” she says. “My undies are soaked through.”
Her eyes widen when I kiss her on the nose and hold out my hand. “Then take them off and let me wash them for you.”
Chapter Twelve
Stella
All day long, I can feel the imprint of where his fingers were. Every time I swivel in my office chair, stand up, sit down.
If that’s all it takes for him to leave his mark on me and make me crave for hours to see him again, I can just imagine what other things he could do to me.
My whole body flushes.
I gulp down water all day but nothing helps.
All through my meetings all day, and through phone calls with important international clients, all I think about is his touch, how he made me drip, how his lips made me feel thoroughly kissed.
I pack up my things and call for the valet to bring my car around. I’m so ready to do unspeakable things to Luke, my hands shake when I use my phone.
I thought orgasms were supposed to calm you down and help you focus on other things. All he did this morning was make me want more. Want all of him. Want him to take all of me.
Had I known my skin would be crackling with lust all day and that my knees would be buckling at the memory of his lips on my neck, I might have called for a rideshare driver today.
My car is waiting for me at the front doors when I leave work, the seats already heated. I slam the door shut and instantly turn off the heat and blast the air conditioner, and drive like a madwoman.
When I arrive home, kick off my heels and spring up to my room, however, everything seems off.
My stacks of books are no longer where I left them. They’ve been put away on a bookshelf that I don’t recall being there before. And I don’t even care where it came from because there is a deeper matter at hand at the moment.
