Forgiven--A Second Chance Romance

by Garrett Leigh

  “What?” I spun around to face her again, my shout ringing out in the quiet pub car park, the vehemence in it surprising me as much as Mia. “What?” I tried again, softer this time, but no less desperate. “You don’t want to talk to me, I get it, okay? So leave me the fuck alone, and I’ll do the same for you.”

  “I never asked you to leave me alone.”

  Our eyes met and held on for the first time since our chip shop reunion two weeks ago. I fell down the rabbit hole of those fucking stormy blues, and as the seconds ticked by, so did my resolve to walk away.

  Chapter Six

  Mia

  Vodka had always made me reckless. I tightened my hold on Luke even as every instinct I had told me to run a bloody mile. “I don’t like this town.”

  “Okay.”

  “And I don’t like you.”

  He snorted. His slow gaze told me that he was at least a little tipsy, but otherwise his handsome face gave nothing away. “Why are you telling me shit I already know?”

  I had no idea. The last words I’d spoken to Gus had been a promise to go straight home, and I’d barely made it out of the car park, but Luke in all his slightly dishevelled glory had cast a brand new spell on me, and I couldn’t seem to make myself leave.

  “Walk with me.” I tugged on his arm. “But don’t speak.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you have nothing to say that I want to hear.”

  Another snort. He fell into step beside me. “What do you want from me then?”

  As if I knew. I ignored him, and it took me until the next street to realise that I was still clutching his arm.

  Severing our physical connection felt like sacrilege, but I did it anyway, and I didn’t look at him to gauge his reaction. My thoughts were having a rave in my brain, but one stood out more than anything: God, I wish I’d just met him.

  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 sp
read 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.

  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.”

  “I did.”

  “And?”

  Gus shrugged. “She said you walked her home and she didn’t kill you.”

  “Excellent. You wanna get back to work now?”

  Me pulling the boss card was as rare as my own brother giving a shit, but Gus knew when to quit. He gave me another hard look, then went back to measuring out the felt for the garage roof we were working on.

  I spent the rest of the day ignoring him. At five o’clock, I dit
ched him outside his house and drove away without peeking at Mia’s bedroom window. I went straight home and took a shower, then hit the gym, smashing the treadmill, then the weight room—an exercise in solitude I often craved when Gus and I didn’t wind up in the pub.

  Rushmere’s fitness centre was fairly quiet, just the after-work crowd getting their workouts in before heading home, and a couple of brothers I often saw in the pub—faces from school whose names I could never remember. Benton? Benson? Fuck. I had no idea. And I didn’t much care. I kept my headphones on and ignored the world—standard OP—and finally found my chill halfway through my third set on the bench press.

  Relieved, I pushed through a fourth, then stood, enjoying the rush of endorphins buzzing through my fatigued muscles. I wasn’t a meathead, but staying strong kept me sane.

  At least it did until I lazily scanned the room and spotted a petite blonde lunging with a loaded barbell slung across her slim shoulders.

  Jesus. Really?

  Every instinct I had told me to turn tail and run all the way home. To lock myself away and pretend the spectacle of Mia easily lifting a ridiculous weight while she lunged like a pro didn’t make my dick hard.

  But I remained rooted to my spot, transfixed. Mia had always been fit, even in our chain-smoking youth, but I’d never seen her lift, and never imagined that her lithe teenage body would mature into the shapely curves she had now. Her upper body was slight, but her legs—her thighs, man. How the fuck was this life? And how the hell had I not noticed how tight and firm she was the other night?

  Erm, maybe because you’d been knuckle deep in—

  I killed the thought before I embarrassed myself in front of the people who were starting to notice me staring across the gym at Mia, especially the younger Benson brother, who was glaring at me like I was having a wank in a play park. Fuck, I need to get out of here. So much for my safe space. I was starting to wonder if I’d ever leave the house again without stumbling across something that put Mia on my mind.

  Reeling, I escaped to the changing rooms and took my third shower of the day. A cold one this time, and I felt marginally calmer after. Calm enough to stroll through the gym without glancing to where I’d last seen Mia. I made it all the way outside until the sight of her leaning against my van tripped me up all over again.