by Maisey Yates
“Of course,” she said, her tone flat.
“I needed a reason to be here. One that wasn’t Kaitlin being pregnant. She hasn’t told them yet. She doesn’t know when she’s going to. I’m mad at her, and I’m mad at Beckett, but I’m not going to blow things up by bringing my parents into it when things aren’t settled.”
“So, you lied about us?”
“I told them that it happened after the wedding.”
“What is wrong with you, Shuller? Who tells their parents they’re sleeping with someone?”
Luke shoveled a bite of cake into his mouth. “It isn’t like they thought I was a virgin.”
Melanie choked on her coffee, coughing, her face turning red. “I guess not,” she said, the words coming out on a squeak.
“And, it’s not like I said hey, Mom, I totally nailed Mel, and I’m now in town so we can continue nailing. I said that the nature of our relationship had changed, and I was going to come stay here for a while until we worked it out.”
“But that is basically code for the thing you didn’t say.”
“I know. But still, it’s code. The time-honored method of communicating with your parents.”
“I wouldn’t know. Keeping secrets from grandma is impossible.”
“Yeah, I would have been screwed living with her.”
“You would have been. But please don’t change the subject. Do you realize what you just did to me? I’m on a mission here, Shuller. A mission to change my life. And now I’m dating you. How am I supposed to go out and get laid when I’m dating you?”
Luke felt like he’d been hit in the head with a two-by-four. It gave him a small amount of gratification to see that Melanie was blushing. That she had a small share in the horror that was this conversation.
She looked down. “I’m tired of being scared, Luke. I have to change something. I have to change me.”
Luke sighed heavily. “Mel, Changing yourself doesn’t mean doing something stupid or drastic. You’re worth more than that.”
It was Melanie’s turn to sigh. “I call bullshit.”
“Why is that?”
“Because, you’re not worried about you or Beckett deserving the sex you have. You’re sure as hell fixated on Kaitlin and me deserving more, or whatever that’s supposed to mean.”
“Kaitlin is my sister.”
“And I’m not. You lost your virginity, what? Ten? Twelve years ago? You have had so much more sex than me. It’s not fair.”
“I won’t have this conversation with you.”
“Too late, Luke. We are having it, because you involved yourself. And if what you did last night was lame, this is even worse.”
Luke slammed his fork down on the counter. “This is the thanks I get for protecting you?”
“I do not need to be protected from penises.”
“So, what? You figure you’ll go out and hook up with some random guy and that will just open the floodgates? All your past baggage conveniently thrown out of cargo?”
“Basically.”
“Newsflash, baby. Sex tends to complicate more things than it fixes.”
She looked at him, her jaw set, her chin tilted upward stubbornly. “I wouldn’t know.”
For a full second he imagined her going back to Grey’s tonight. Allowed himself to imagine that jackass’s mouth on hers, his hands running over her skin. No way. No freaking way.
“You need a guy to help out with that? What, you need like a… A warm-up guy?”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“Then let me do it. Let me be your warm-up guy.”
*
Melanie was certain she was hallucinating. She had probably been hallucinating since last night. Hell, maybe it was still last night. Maybe she’d had too many drinks, and was still sitting at the table in Grey’s having some kind of out-of-body experience.
Because there was no way she was actually sitting in her kitchen having just received a pity sex offer from her best friend.
She wished that the tiles on the floor would separate and make a crack big enough to swallow her whole. She was thinking disappearing into the earth would be preferable to this. This was mortifying. She doubted anything on earth could top it.
“You didn’t… You’re not… Luke.”
“What?”
“You aren’t suggesting that we have sex.”
He lifted a shoulder. “You’re so eager to throw it away.”
“Stop talking about it like that. Like my virginity is a thing. Like it even matters. All it is right now is a roadblock. You know what? It isn’t even that. It’s the representation of everything I can get over. I’m done. I’m over it. But you know what would be even worse than staying a virgin for the rest of my life? Pity sex.”
She pushed away from the counter, backed away from him. She couldn’t deal with this.
It was so close to what she wanted. So close, and yet so painfully far. He’d never wanted her. Had never noticed her like that.
“I never said I pity you.”
“You didn’t have to. You’ve pitied me from the moment you met me. Don’t think I missed that look in your eyes the first time you saw me.”
“You were a skinny little thing with matted blonde hair and bruises all over your body. The only people who wouldn’t have pitied you then were people like your dad. The person animal enough to put those bruises on you. That has nothing to do with right now. It has nothing to do with this.”
“Sure it does. You don’t want to put your hands on me, you just want to keep other men from putting their hands on me. That isn’t the same as wanting me.”
“The hell it’s not.”
“Luke –”
Before she could finish the sentence, before she even knew what she’d been about to say, Luke had taken three large steps across the kitchen, backing her up against the counter, his hands resting on the marble surface on either side of her, boxing her in.
“Let me get this straight, Mel, you would rather have some stranger touching you than me?”
“Let me get this straight, Luke, you would rather turn the light off, close your eyes and think of England, than let some other guy be my first? I know you’re a possessive, overprotective bastard, but this –”
This time, she was cut off by his lips against hers. For a moment, she was so shocked by what was happening she couldn’t even process it. He was so hot, so hard and perfect, and so much more than she had ever imagined.
She’d been kissed last night. That had been her first kiss. It had tasted like her fruity drink, and his beer combined. It had been strange, a little bit wet, and she’d felt it right against her lips and nowhere else.
This was an entirely different experience. Luke tasted like coffee, but mostly like Luke. Exactly like he should. Exactly like everything she’d always wanted. He was the promise of a spring day at the tail of winter. An edge of warmth piercing the cold, all the way down to her bones.
And she felt it everywhere. Not just her lips, but all through her blood, like warm honey. Her breasts felt heavy, her nipples tightening to stinging points. She ached between her thighs, slick and ready for him.
Her body gave no fucks that he was only doing this to keep her safe. That he was only doing this to protect her. That he didn’t want her the way she wanted him.
That he’d ignored her at Sierra’s wedding when she’d tried to show him that she wanted something more.
That she never would have been in the bar last night if not for him ignoring her then, if not for the other woman she’d seen leaving his place.
Yeah, she was ignoring all that, because right now he was kissing her, and it didn’t feel like pity at all.
He parted his lips, his tongue sliding against hers and a shiver wound through her body. Oh, holy night. This was nothing like the kiss from the bar with what’s his face. Nothing at all.
She arched her back, pressing her breasts up against his chest. He was still holding onto the edge of the counter. And it
wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted his arms around her.
Wanted him holding her close so that every inch of her was pressed up against every inch of him.
It was too much and not enough all at once. It was everything she had ever fantasized about, and so much more.
She’d been kissed yesterday. Barely even twelve hours ago. How, in all the world, did this feel like an entirely different activity?
She reached up, planting her palms flat on his chest. He was so strong. So solid. She wanted to cling to him, lean against him, take everything he was offering and then some. Who cared about pride? She was getting the best kiss in the entire world. Pride couldn’t hold her at night. Pride couldn’t kiss her. Therefore, pride seemed not all that that important.
She couldn’t say yes to this though. Couldn’t say yes to him. It was wrong, and crazy. He didn’t really want her. He wanted to protect her. And she… She wanted to protect herself from that.
But you want it. So what does it matter what he feels? It’s his decision. He wants you enough.
The same way he wanted the women he had one night stands with in his apartment behind the garage, at least. Men couldn’t fake desire. That much she knew. She might be a virgin, but she wasn’t sheltered. She knew how everything worked. And right now, she could feel that everything Luke had going on worked just fine.
He was hard and insistent against her hip, a clear signal that he possessed at least the physical desire for sex. No matter how deep the wanting went, Luke did want her.
She curled her fingers into the fabric of his shirt, kissing him harder. She’d always wanted this. She didn’t want to be with just any man, she wanted to be with him. The only man who had ever made her feel safe. When she first discovered lust, it hadn’t been in the general sense. It had been Luke Shuller-driven lust from moment one. And some small part of her had always been afraid that if she didn’t satisfy that specific lust, it would never be satisfied at all. This was her chance. To have what she wanted. Finally.
Was she really going to say no because he didn’t want her for the right reasons?
As if she wanted him for the right reasons. She wanted sex. Because somehow, in her mind – sex had become the brick wall she had to break through to move on from her emotional baggage. It wasn’t like she wanted love, marriage, a relationship. Not now. Not yet. There were other things she had to conquer first.
She’d seen firsthand that love, or at least, the idea of it, made people do terrible, selfish things. Could make a woman retreat deep inside of herself, could make her sacrifice everything. Her safety, her soul, her own children.
No, she had no interest in that.
But she had a lot of interest in what was inside Luke’s jeans.
“Luke,” she said, pulling her mouth away from his. He kissed her neck, trailing down toward her collarbone. “Luke!”
“I’m kissing you, I can’t talk.” He swept his tongue over her skin, blazing a trail of fire through her blood. She really didn’t want to interrupt right now. Except, she did need to hear this one thing before they went forward.
“Do you want me?”
He lifted his head, his brown eyes meeting hers. He looked so deadly serious she almost laughed. Luke never looked at her like that. Like she was a tomb or a rabid wolverine or something equally unfunny. He reached up and wrapped his hand around her wrist, tugging her palm from his chest and slowly lowering it down so that it covered his denim-clad erection. “Doesn’t it feel like I want you?”
Her cheeks stung with heat, and she knew they had to be bright red. She’d never touched a man like this before. And it was Luke. Which made it a lot more terrifying and strange and exciting than if it had been a stranger. “Yes,” she said, her voice hushed. She moved her hand over his length, marveling at just how hard he was.
She wanted to press him for more. To ask if he really wanted her, or if he just wanted sex. To ask if she was special at all. So stupid. She would not have been special to the guy from the bar last night, and he wouldn’t have been special to her.
But the fact remained that this was Luke. And that made it different.
“You’re beautiful, Mel. You know that, don’t you?”
Tears stung her eyes, and she wanted to run and hide. She couldn’t remember ever being told she was beautiful. Her grandma loved her, but Mel was almost certain she’d gone out of her way to build up all of her other qualities, excluding those that were overly feminine or connected to the way men might see her. Mel had always imagined her grandma was trying to compensate for whatever mistake she felt she’d made with her daughter. The one who had gone off and married a man who’d done nothing but abuse her, and their only child. Whether she would ever say it or not, Melanie knew her grandmother blamed herself. Melanie never had. But, that blame had meant that the older woman had taken a hard line with Mel in a few different ways.
She wanted Melanie to be strong. To stand on her own. Ideally, Melanie imagined, she wanted her to not need these things. Men, sex.
But when Luke said she was beautiful she realized just how much she’d craved those words.
They felt like a long cool drink of water after years of deprivation. And that made her want to cry even more. But she couldn’t cry. If she cried he would definitely stop. Tears would interfere with his overprotective nature.
This was all a little bit weird. But she would worry about that later.
“I’ll take your word for it,” she said, tilting her head and finding his lips, kissing him again, because things seemed to move faster when that happened. Her heart raced, her blood got hotter, and it got a lot harder to think. Became much harder to feel anything beyond physical things, and that was more what she was after.
“Bed,” he said, his voice husky, moving his hands from the countertop to her hips, holding her tightly against his body. “We need a bed.”
“But it’s…” He kissed her throat and she shivered. “It’s the middle of the day.”
“So?” he asked.
“Shouldn’t we like… Wait until it’s dark?”
He chuckled, a dark, rough sound like she’d never heard from him before, as he rolled his hips forward, pressing his hardness against her softness. “This isn’t gonna keep that long.”
“It isn’t?” When he said things like that it seemed an awful lot like he really wanted her, not just generically wanted her.
He cupped her cheek, stroking his thumb over her cheekbone, his dark eyes serious. “No. Now that this is happening? Now that I’ve tasted you? I need you. I need you now.”
She studied his face, so familiar, and yet, a stranger’s face now too. She’d never seen this side of Luke before. Intense, single-minded. Had never been this close to his body, had never touched him the way she was touching him now. He had always been Luke Shuller, her friend. She hadn’t realized she’d only seen a sliver of him all these years. This whole vast part of him had been hidden from her. This raw, sexual part of him.
Other women had seen it. Countless other women.
And in that moment she hated those bitches.
A small smile curved his lips, his eyes softening for a moment. “Mel, I’m going to need for us to get to a bed, or I’m going to put you up on the kitchen counter and knock cake all over the floor.”
Suddenly, she saw the stranger intertwine with the familiar. With her friend. And she felt smug because sure, those other women had had the sex god, but they didn’t have him.
“Well, we have to save the cake.” Suddenly she found herself being lifted off the ground again, thrown over his shoulder as he done last night at the bar. “Luke!” she squeaked. “This is becoming a really bad habit.”
This time, he slid his hands up to cup her butt. “Yeah, but I’ve also discovered it’s really effective. So I’ll probably keep doing it.”
He carried her down the hall, to the back bedroom. The curtains were open wide, the windows facing out over the empty lake, evergreen branches crossing over the view, prov
iding a little bit of privacy. Luke didn’t seem all that concerned. Not about the sun filtering in like a golden spotlight, not about being seen, not about anything. Which was good, because she had quite a few concerns. It was nice to be with someone who seemed completely at ease.
She found the world inverting again as she landed on her back on the bed, Luke still standing to the side of it. Then he gripped the bottom of his black T-shirt, and wrenched it over his head. Her mouth went dry and she curled her fingers tightly in the quilt that covered the bed, needing something to anchor her to the earth. She’d seen him shirtless before. Countless times. And she always had to pause and check him out. His muscles were well-defined, his chest broad, his waist trim, just the right amount of dark hair sprinkled over his tan skin. But this was different. Now, she could look. Really look. She didn’t have to disguise it, didn’t have to hide just how much she liked what she saw.
Even better than that, she could touch him.
She pushed into a sitting position, scooting to the edge of the bed, pressing her hand against his stomach, trailing her fingers over his ab muscles. “Oh, good Lord, Luke,” she breathed.
He laughed, the motion causing his muscles to shift beneath her touch. “I hope that’s positive.”
She didn’t say anything, instead she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his hot skin, arousal piercing her like an arrow. She looked up, her eyes clashing with his. He was like a man carved from stone now, his brows locked tightly together, his mouth set into a firm line, his eyes nearly black. “Does that answer your question?”
He planted one knee on the mattress beside her thigh, and leaning in, he gripped her chin with his thumb and forefinger and tilted her face up higher, capturing her mouth with his. She thought her heart was going to beat right out of her chest. She couldn’t believe this was happening. Right now. With Luke.
Luke. Luke. Luke. His name beat along with her heart, over and over again, bringing up her arousal, drowning out the nerves that were threatening to close in.
He pushed her onto her back, covering her body with his, settling between her thighs. Her feet were still hanging off the bed, and he still had one foot on the floor. But that didn’t matter. This was all working just fine. He sifted his fingers through her hair, rolling his hips forward slowly, his arousal making contact with the bundle of nerves at the apex of her thighs, making her internal muscles clench tight, sending a streak of white-hot pleasure through her veins.
