When the kiss turned just a shade gentle, she bit his tongue and he growled. Luna tasted blood and his fingers scraped her hips and his body jerked and he said, “Fuck, Luna, you pushed me.”
He was coming, looking pissed and desperate and God…so fucking gorgeous.
His eyes flashed storm-blue and he said, “Fuck…Luna” again. When he bit his lower lip and gave a final hard thrust, so damn deep, so damn feral, she came. Wrapping her legs around his lean waist to hold him closer, tighter.
Adam kept moving, sliding against her and into her, so that she could get every spasm from her peak. And when she stopped moving, stopped making needy sounds, he stopped too.
All she could feel was the pounding of his heart against her chest—echoing her own thundering pulse. All she could smell was the smell of leather and sex.
Chapter Fifteen
He kissed her softy. It stunned her a little, made her throat tickle with tightness. Adam nuzzled her neck, dragged his tongue over her collarbone, kissed the spot right between her small breasts. She’d always worried her lovers would want more in that department, but when he kissed the swell of each before placing an infuriatingly chaste kiss on each nipple he said,
“Perfect”. More to himself than to her but it made her blush, a sudden infusion of pride making her face warm.
“How do you feel now?” Adam asked.
“Better,” she admitted. She meant it. She felt better—calmer, cleaner.
“I’ll get you free then. And then I have to go.”
Luna ignored the dip of disappointment in her gut. It was like being in an elevator on a day where your stomach felt a bit off anyway. “Okay,” was all she said.
Adam sat up, allowing her to admire the muscle-studded length of his stomach. The strong flex of his thighs. The way his chest beat rapid but steady where his heart lay underneath.
His fingers manipulated the buckle but just before it came free, she turned her fingers to grip at his.
“Wait.”
“What?” Adam’s eyes were wary now. The dark denim having gone down to a tornado sky gray.
“While I’m here. Bound. While all is…calm…” She shook her head, second guessing herself.
He didn’t move. He waited. Finally, saying, “What, Luna?”
“Just tell me,” she said. She tried to stare him down and not feel emotional, or frail, or nervous. She failed, but the stare she did manage.
He shook his head and went to unbuckle her again. “No point.” Luna jerked her hands back. “You’ll feel better.”
He laughed.
“I promise,” she said, squirming under him. He was leaning over her and when she moved she saw his pulse slam faster in his neck.
“You keep moving like that I’ll feel better.”
“Adam,” she said, and that was all.
He blew out a sigh and ran a hand through his hair. “There’s nothing to tell. A few years ago my mother started forgetting things. Then she forgot me one day. I knew it was bad. I called the number on the phone for her doctor’s. She’d missed four appointments. Seemed she’d been going for a while for the forgetfulness and then…” He shrugged.
Her heart broke.
“So you…” She held her bound hands tight to her chest and felt her heart pounding fiercely.
“I became legal guardian and put her in a really good place. They were expensive as shit but good. I had a good job, a decent savings thanks to being such a stud.” He winked to show some humor but the mannerism was sad and didn’t fool Luna.
“You mean a bachelor.”
“Bachelor, stud. Tomato, toe-mah-toe.”
She smiled at him. Watched him try and not be affected by the story he was telling. She wanted to soothe him and calm him. Instead, she sat and waited. Listening.
“And then the company I worked for hit two bad projects. One where we did the work and the company filed for bankruptcy, which meant no pay. One where business decisions—
spending decisions—were made based on the agreed price for a deal and we put them into effect.
Then the job fell through. Their funding was shit.”
She nodded. Domino effect.
“So then I had nothing. I had no job and a mother in a very expensive facility. And now…” He exhaled, his voice speeding up, his tone turning to chipper and dismissive. “Now, I work three jobs, including one at said facility and I keep her there and all is fine. No big deal.”
“Adam—“
“Hush up, Luna.” He unbuckled the belt and blood flooded her wrists.
The tingling became a gnawing thump in her pulse points. He leaned in and kissed her.
She tried to touch is face. To get him to hear her. “Adam, it’s oka—“ she tried again.
He cut her off, kissing her quickly on the lips. “Gotta go,” he said.
He grabbed his clothes and walked out the door before she could even speak. Moments later the front door down in the living room clicked shut. Luna rolled to her belly, eyeing the clock.
“Well, balls.”
* * * * *
She had just gone to sleep when the phone rang. Her heart leapt for a moment, her blood too. Luna felt for the phone in the dark.
“Yes?”
“Yes? You say yes?”
“Hi, Savannah. What’s up?”
“You okay?” She sounded bubbly.
“Yep.”
“You safe?”
“Yep.” Luna rolled to her back. Yawned. Her hair was still damp from a shower. She’d wanted to crawl into bed with his scent on her. Relive the night. But the way he’d shut her out had sealed her fate. She’d made herself take a shower and get clean.
“I was just checking.”
“He showed up,” Luna admitted. She hadn’t mean to. Was surprised she had.
“Everything all right?”
“Yeah. Long story. How’s Ted?”
“Todd. And he is fabulous. He’s in the kitchen making eggs,” Savannah said in an Irish whisper. “His ass is so hard you can literally bounce a quarter off it. I know, I tried!”
“Slut,” Luna said, but the giggling was ruining the insult. They both knew she didn’t mean it.
“You know it! Anyway babe. I was just making sure you were okay. I love you.”
“You, too, Savannah. Be safe.”
“I will. Now I’m going to go eat eggs. Preferably off some part of a handsome black man with a gigantic co—“
“Good night, Savannah!” Luna cried and hung up the phone.
Now she’d never get back to sleep. She felt wide awake and a bit anxious. The house was dark and quiet, and she was alone. She’d never expected to be nervous in her own house. But she’d never expected—at least not for many years to come—to be alone.
Rain ticked on the windowpanes and thunder rumbled. Far off. Not close. A storm was coming to usher in the muggy gross summers that Baltimore was well known for.
She rolled to her stomach, grabbed the spare pillows and fluffed them. “This is stupid.
You are a grown woman. You should be able to fucking sleep in your own house without someone else here. Even your son!”
She punched the pillow on that one and got a face full of scent as the air puffed out of the pillowcase. It smelled like him. Like Adam. That smell that made her warm and aroused as soon as she recognized it. Outdoors. Wood. Spice…Man.
“Christ,” she muttered, disgusted with herself. But that did not stop her from pulling that pillow in and cradling it against her body. Crushing the end to her face, she breathed slow and easy like she breathed in yoga class. It surprised her when her heart rate slowed down and her anxiety abated and she felt herself falling.
* * * * *
“Mrs. Roberts!” Luna almost tripped over her neighbor when she walked out the front door. Worse than that, she’d nearly dropped her very full bag of trash on the woman.
“Luna Watkins, what kind of neighborhood do you think this is?” Luna set the bag down gently on he
r porch, praying it didn’t leak stinky garbage juice on her clean cement. “Pardon?”
“What kind of neighborhood do you think this is?” Her neighbor, eighty-five if she was a day, slowly got up from her seat on the slate steps. She gripped the railing and hauled her frail frame into a standing position. Luna had a moment where she feared the woman would fall off the steps all together.
“A nice one, Mrs. Roberts,” she sighed. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, strange men hanging out on your porch, and the steps, and the street itself does not a nice neighborhood make. It makes a not nice white-trash, everyone-will-talk-about-it neighborhood. And that, Luna Watkins, is not the kind of neighborhood I want to live in.” Luna sighed. Her trash wasn’t going anywhere soon it seemed. “Do tell, Mrs. Roberts.”
“That man came out late.”
“Yes,” Luna nodded. “My son is away, and I am allowed to have visitors to my house, Mrs. Roberts. It is my house.”
The woman tsked, shook her head. “And you a married woman.”
“I’m not married, Mrs. Roberts. I’m a single woman. So what is the problem?” she asked, trying to hurry it along.
“Humph,” Mrs. Roberts said. She actually said that aloud and Luna had to repress a smile. “Well, having company is one thing. Even if it is unseemly. But to have him stand on your porch forever, and then sit on your steps forever…and then meander down the walk like he had not a care in the world. Or like it wasn’t full on dark and late and he wasn’t out here bathed in street lights for everyone to see—“
“And by everyone you mean you,” Luna poked.
“Yes, well, I did happen to look out the window just in time to see him.”
“Unh-hunh. Sure you did. What luck.”
She was the nosiest woman ever and Luna was growing weary of this talk. And also of the humidity and heat creeping into the morning. It was making her cranky.
“And then to sit in his car for even more time! My goodness.”
“So all told, Mrs. Roberts, just how long were you lucky enough to be watching this poor man in the dark of night? How long did his lingering last?” The woman shook her head and straightened the tee she wore that said WORLD’S BEST
GREAT GRANDMA. “An hour and a half.”
Luna tried not to react. “Well, thanks for the update. I’m sure it won’t happen again. And if it does, maybe you will be blissfully and ignorantly asleep.” Then she shocked them both by making a shooing motion with her hand. “My bag is leaking. Don’t want to get any on you,” she said.
Though her tone told them both she was lying.
Mrs. Roberts slunk off and Luna dragged the bag around the side of the house. Her mind was spinning. What in the world would he be doing hanging out for an hour and a half after he walked out the front door? She shook her head. And then it occurred to her, he’d been outside her house when she fell asleep. When she’d had her face pressed to the pillow to smell him.
Maybe he’d been considering knocking to come back in. Luna wasn’t sure how she felt about that. But she was leaning toward good, and it made her nervous.
Chapter Sixteen
Work time came too fast. She hadn’t been mentally ready to put on her catering hat. As a result, she was pushing chicken chunks on the damn skewers as fast as she could. It had taken Luna forever to convince Savannah that they needed to grill the chicken separate and then put it on the skewers with the pineapple. Otherwise what you got was mushy chicken with the proteins broken down.
But it was time consuming, shoving bits of grilled meat on with bits of grilled pineapple.
And messy.
“And this fucking lei isn’t helping any!” she hissed.
“They are annoying,” Adam said, walking past to get another tray full of Jungle Juice.
That was what they were calling the signature cocktail per the hostess’s request.
“I know.” She smiled at him but he didn’t smile. Luna realized that was fine by her. She felt like she had something on him anyway. She knew he’d been lingering outside her house. She knew he hadn’t wanted to leave. Even though, she really didn’t know why. She’d even checked her house for his wallet or keys or something important he might have left and not wanted to knock to get back in.
“—that you’re covered in juice.”
She blinked. “What?”
He grinned. “You a million miles away, Luna?”
“Maybe. I’m…distracted.” She shoved more meat and more fruit on more sticks and had to force herself to relax. She realized she was gritting her teeth.
“I said, I’m sure it doesn’t help your discomfort that you’re covered in juice.” He nodded to her fingers.
But Luna was distracted again because when he said discomfort her mind flashed to his leather belt and her hands bound and the helpless rage that had filled her, but then…the helpless pleasure that had taken its place.
She sucked in a huge gulp of air and he touched her hand. “What are you thinking about, boss lady?”
“Nothing.”
“Leather?”
“No.”
“Bondage?”
“No.”
He leaned in and pressed his lips to her ear. His voice was warm and sultry, “All the things that followed? The things I did to you?”
He broke the spell when he chuckled. It was almost mean and she would only admit to herself that it hurt her feelings. It was like being slapped when you were confused, or down.
Luna pulled back from him and gave her own smile. “No. I was just wondering why you were lingering outside of my house for over an hour after you’d supposedly left. When, you know…you were in such an all-fire hurry to leave.”
His expression closed down while she watched. He went from smiling and joking to shut off and aloof. He filled his tray and turned back to the crowd of the stupid Luau. He didn’t say a word.
Luna went from feeling superior to feeling cruel. “Damn.”
* * * * *
No time for bullshit. He was circulating with a drink tray and Luna had to pitch in since they were a server down. Savannah was slinging slow cooked pork, and Luna was giving out macadamia nut favors and taro chips with the chicken skewers. Every time her eyes darted toward Adam she had to focus on bringing them back to the task at hand.
This no bullshit just sex thing is a royal pain in the ass. Relationships are easier than this shit…
She shook off the thought as people selected items on her tray, or asked for cocktail napkins, or complimented the party. It was Louie’s Luau. Whoever the hell Louie was. But she smiled and nodded and then all of the sudden she heard:
“Luna Watkins! As I live and breathe!”
She turned. “Oh my God, Kenneth.”
She managed to put her tray down just as Kenneth came in for the kill. A big handsome man who stood about six foot four, and had arms that reminded her of a bear trap. Once upon a time, he’d worked with Ben and he’d always flirted with her—in a good natured but not skuzzy way.
He hugged her hard, and said directly in her ear, “I was sorry to hear about you and Ben.” Luna had a flash of what felt like grief. It was always hard to run into acquaintances that had known her as Ben’s wife. It made it harder when it was an attractive one who had flirted with her. But she didn’t doubt his sincerity.
“Thanks, Kenneth. It was…well, it is what it is, right?” She tried to cover with a laugh.
Adam floated past bearing a tray, but his eyes—a tumultuous navy color at the moment—
were glued to her and Kenneth. She kept her face trained calm and serious, and tried not to react.
The way he moved around them reminded her of a shark circling.
She found herself irritated but turned on.
“So, how is Nick? How’s he doing with the divorce?”
“He’s good.” Her voice was too high—too nervous. “I’m working a lot, he’s busy being a teenager.”
“That’s right, this is your party, rig
ht?”
“Yeah, yes, my friend Savannah and I run a catering company. And we’re the ones in charge of the Luau-ishness.”
Kenneth laughed and hugged her again. Feeling her tension or catching himself, she wasn’t sure which, he straightened big arms and set her a foot or so back. “Well, you look good, Luna.”
“You, too,” she said, meaning it. He had dark, chocolate colored hair and big brown eyes that evoked trust. He was a good man, with a good heart and a great sense of humor. But he didn’t do it for her. She realized she was assessing him just as Adam drifted past in her peripheral vision. A shark that did do it for her. A very annoying shark that was stalking her and Kenneth like chum in the water.
There was some annoyance, she noted, almost clinically. And then she did the stupidest thing. She put her hand on Kenneth’s forearm and squeezed. “Really good,” she said.
A light entered his eyes that she wished wasn’t there. She wanted to remove her hand and shout “Do-over!” the way she had as a kid when she’d made a mistake.
But it was too late. He took a step toward her, closing the gap. “Listen, it was no secret I always envied Ben his lovely wife…”
Oh shit.
“Kenneth—“
He held up a hand before she could say anything. That hand was the size of a baseball glove. “Let me finish before I lose my nerve, Luna.”
Adam had circled in and was now privy to the conversation. He cocked an eyebrow at her. His face said amusement, but under it was something more. Something darker. He made no pretense of oblivion. He was openly listening, balancing his tray on one hand. She felt her cheeks color.
“But I really—“
Kenneth barreled on. “I think you’re beautiful and talented and funny. You’re all the things us bachelor’s look for in a woman and then some. And we all always envied Ben his good fortune.” He chuckled. “So…maybe you’d let me take you out some time. Dinner, drinks, dancing, a hike…whatever you find fun. Because I think…” Here it was. He was winding up and she wished she could stop him, but her tongue had double clutched, and she was rendered mute.
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