by Jill Shalvis
They broke apart and stared at each other.
“Wait here,” he said, and gently nudged her aside to open the bedroom door.
He took his time walking through the house so as to not open the door with a full-blown hard-on. But looking through the peephole took care of that.
Ted Marshall stood on his doorstep.
Chapter 14
Ali followed Luke through the house and then went still when he opened the front door.
Teddy stood there in a business suit that, unlike Zach’s, fit him perfectly.
“What are you still doing here?” he asked her, looking just as shocked as Ali.
What was she doing here? “Oh no. You first,” she said, going for polite, but not quite making it.
“I’m looking for my backup cell phone,” Teddy said. “I was going to ask the new tenant if he’d found it.”
“You sure you don’t want to accuse me of stealing it?” Ali asked, not even in the realm of polite now.
“Did you?”
Luke slid a hand to the nape of her neck.
Right. She had no idea if Zach could defend premeditated murder. “You might want to close your eyes,” she said to Luke, “so that you don’t have to testify against me.”
He smiled.
“Oh for crissake,” Teddy grumbled. “For the last time, you were the only one in my office who had a motive.” He pulled off his expensive reflector aviator sunglasses, the ones she’d used to think made him look so hot, and stared at her. “So what’s going on here anyway? And what’s wrong with you? You’re all…flushed.”
Extremely aware of her kiss-swollen lips and just-made-out hair, Ali stormed off to the kitchen, opened the junk drawer, and—shock—found Teddy’s spare phone. Grabbing it, she slammed the drawer and brought it to the front door. “I didn’t steal it, and for the millionth time, I didn’t steal that money either.”
“Then who did?”
“I don’t know!” She tried to take a calming breath. It didn’t help. “And I don’t even know why you thought it would have been me.”
He sighed. “You need the money. You always need money.”
Low blow. It took her a minute to catch her breath. “There are more important things than money,” she said. “And have you thought that maybe one of your other girlfriends might have done it?”
Guilt flashed for a single beat on his face. “Look,” he said, “whatever Melissa and Aubrey have told you is—”
“Aubrey?” Ali stared at him. “You had both Melissa and Aubrey on the side? Seriously?”
Ted’s face had closed up. “All I’m saying is that you’ve been misinformed—”
“Stop,” she said, lifting a hand. “You’re just reinforcing your ass-ness.”
“Fine. I don’t have to explain myself to you anyway.” His gaze flicked to Luke. “And what’s going on between you two? You found a way to stay here, huh?”
This time Luke tensed, and Ali grabbed his hand. “Don’t bother,” she murmured.
Luke didn’t take his eyes off Teddy, but he kept his thoughts to himself, looking extremely dangerous to Teddy’s well-being. “You’ve got your phone,” he said quietly. “Leave now.”
“I’m going, but I want to talk to you first,” he said to Ali. “Alone.”
He was very brave, or very oblivious. Either way, Luke didn’t budge, and Ali was choking on all the testosterone. “Oh for God’s sake.” She turned to Luke. “It’s okay.”
When he still didn’t budge, she stepped outside and shut the front door. “You have two seconds,” she said to Teddy.
Teddy eyed the front door warily. “My attorney advised me to stay away,” he said. “But you really embarrassed me, Ali. At work. In town. I thought we were okay, that we had a good run and then it was over, no hard feelings. So I have to know—why did you do it? You had to know you wouldn’t get away with it.”
“I didn’t do it—”
“I’m trying to work my way up to council and then to mayor,” he said, “and you made everyone doubt and mistrust my judgment.”
“Me? You were sleeping with half the town! You made yourself look bad.”
“Ali, you broke into my office and stole back a stupid ceramic pot that you’d given me. That’s just ridiculously stupid. Stupid and childish.”
“I didn’t break in.” But she flushed because he was right, on all accounts, and she hated that. “Yes, okay, it was stupid and childish. But I was hurt. You’d walked away without so much as a look back. You didn’t deserve the pencil pot.”
“Forget the fucking pot!” he yelled, and then made a visible effort to relax. He even poured on a little Teddy charm. “Look, I was just trying to be nice, okay? You were cute and fun, and when you had to get out of your apartment, I wanted to help you out. So I offered to share a place.”
This stunned her. “I thought we were a thing.”
“Okay, yes, we had a thing. But you weren’t my thing.”
She stared at him. “You could have told me,” she finally managed.
“You’re right, I should have told you. I should have said that I’d made a mistake. That you weren’t my type.”
“And what is that supposed to mean?”
He sighed. “Forget it.”
“Tell me.”
“Fine,” he said. “We’re…different.”
“You mean you’re a cheating bastard and I’m not?”
He sighed again, the put-upon ex-boyfriend, suffering through the breakup talk. “That’s not what I meant.”
No, actually, she knew what he meant, she knew exactly. He’d come from money and she’d come from nothing.
“I want that money back, Ali. I mean it.” And with that, he strode off the steps like he owned the world.
She’d have given just about anything to be holding the new key pot she was making so she could wing it at the back of his thick skull. In fact, she whirled around looking for something, anything, to bean him with.
“Later,” Luke said, joining her on the porch after clearly having listened to the whole exchange. “I’ll hold him down for you.”
“When?” she demanded.
“When you don’t have witnesses.”
She followed his gaze to Mrs. Gibson, who lived on the other side of Luke’s grandfather’s house. Fifty-something, she was a local teacher, soaking up the spectacle from her doorstep.
Luke waved at her.
Mrs. Gibson returned the wave and went inside.
“We’ll make Facebook before the hour’s up,” he muttered.
Luke could feel Ali vibrating with emotions.
“I really want to hit him,” she said.
“Bloodthirsty,” he murmured, taking her hand, running his thumb over the pulse racing at her wrist. “I like it.”
She didn’t look at him, and he realized she was shaking. “Hey,” he said softly, pulling her inside, turning her to face him.
She looked down, so he bent his knees to put them nose to nose. “What are you doing, letting him get in your head like that?” he asked.
“I—” She pushed him. “I don’t know.”
But he knew that she did know. She hated that someone believed she might have stolen that money, hated knowing that anyone thought she was a thief, even if that someone was the cheating bastard Ted Marshall.
“Forget him, Ali.”
She covered her face. When she shuddered, his heart stopped.
“I’m not crying,” she said through her fingers.
“Thank Christ.” But his relief was cut off by the solo tear that tracked down her cheek. Drawing in a deep breath, he pulled her in close. “Ali,” he murmured helplessly.
“Don’t,” she said, muffled against his chest.
“Forget it. I’m going to be nice to you for at least a second. You’ll have to just stand there and bear it.”
“No, I mean I’m all sweaty now. I think it’s the fury.”
Her body was overheated, her skin damp. He didn’t car
e. He lifted her chin and looked her over.
“I’m a wreck,” she said, trying to turn away. “A complete wreck. And a fraud.”
“Why, did you take the money?”
“No!” She took in the teasing in his expression and squeezed her eyes shut. “I wanted to be someone different here,” she said, and broke his heart. “Not an invisible nobody florist’s assistant from White Center.”
“Do not listen to him,” he said, maybe a little harshly, but he wanted her to hear him. Really hear him. “You’re not a nobody. And you are a florist, a great one. You also teach ceramics. Hell, Ali, half of your students are in love with you. You care enough to be nice to nosy, old men. You helped a stranger avoid the rest of the world, even when he was a total ass. You’d give that stranger the last of your paycheck simply because you thought it was the right thing to do.”
“It was the right thing to do,” she said. “And you weren’t a total ass.”
“You’d probably give away your heart and soul if it was needed,” he said. “But that would be a shame, because you’re one-hundred-percent heart and soul. You’re the real deal, Ali, the way the rest of us have forgotten how to be.”
“I have…faults.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, “but they’re not the ones Marshall said.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “You wear your emotions on your sleeve, and you care. Hell, most people would say those are good things.”
She snorted, and he smiled, relieved. “But one thing you’re not, Ali, is invisible. You’re standing right here, strong and beautiful—”
“No—”
“Beautiful,” he repeated fiercely, stunned to find that he meant it from a very personal standpoint. He stared at her, impacted on a visceral, physical, and mental level by her. “So beautiful,” he whispered, and then he kissed her.
Ali didn’t think anyone had ever told her she was beautiful before. It should’ve felt like a cheesy line, but it didn’t. Mostly because though she knew he meant it, she also knew he didn’t want to find her beautiful.
In some twisted way, it was that reluctance that made her feel better. She didn’t want to feel anything for him either. She didn’t want to feel anything for anyone ever again, and yet she wasn’t hardwired that way. “I’m all sweaty,” she said again, even as her hands fisted in his hair.
“That’s okay,” he said silkily, his mouth brushing her temple. “We’re going to get even more so.”
The words made her shiver. So did the way he pressed her up against the wall right there in the foyer.
“I thought we were a bad idea,” she said.
“We are.” Her halter top slid down, revealing her bare breasts. He’d been so smooth she’d not felt him undo it. Then his fingers caught in the hem of the sundress, and he slid it up to her waist.
He sure was quick when properly motivated. “So this is what?” she asked breathlessly, already so excited she was rubbing her thighs together. “A pity fuck?”
His smile was heated and wicked as he kissed her. “That’s a two-part question,” he said. “Yes to the pity part, but it’s not for you, it’s for Marshall.”
If she’d had enough air in her lungs, she would have laughed.
“Now,” he said, pressing closer so there was no mistaking his intent—as if she could mistake anything about his pinning her to the wall with his hard body. “As for the fuck part…” He kissed her again, until she nearly forgot herself.
“Are you sure?” she managed to ask, staring up into his gorgeous blues. “Because you weren’t sure a few minutes ago.”
He rocked into her, and she felt exactly how sure he was. It tugged a moan from her, and she let her head fall back. This gave him better access and he took it. Lowering his head, he kissed her throat, her jaw. The corner of her mouth.
“What changed?” she managed to ask.
He licked her pulse point. “Watching you turn all violent when you got pissed off.”
Oh, God, his tongue. “That was sexy?”
“Yeah. Big time.” A big, warm, callused hand slid into the back of her panties and palmed her bare bottom. “Everything you do is sexy.”
His mouth and the placement of his talented hand were driving her crazy. He was driving her crazy, and she struggled to get closer to his big, tough body. “Luke?”
He didn’t answer, presumably because his lips were busy moving along the curve of her jaw, her throat, her breast, teasing her nipple, which had long ago tightened for him. But they had to talk first, or at least she had to talk. “Luke?”
“Hmm.”
“I haven’t been intimate with Teddy in weeks. You know that, right? You heard him mention it when they were searching the house.”
He lifted his head and met her gaze.
“I just wanted to make sure you really knew,” she said softly. “Once we moved in together, things got…weird. After only a few weeks, he started working late, and then he got allergies and snored. He slept in a different room than me, and…” For the love of God, Ali, zip it and let him do you.
Pushing her hair back from her eyes, he traced a line along her jaw. “It’s been a long time for me too,” he said quietly. “So long I can’t remember the last time.” He kissed her shoulder. “I have a condom.” He gestured with his chin to his wallet, which lay on the small foyer table at her hip.
She started to reach for it, but he dipped his knees and ran his tongue around her nipple and then sucked the tight bud into his hot mouth.
She moaned, and her head fell back against the wall. She arched, trying to get him to take more, and felt him smile against her damp skin as he made his way to her other breast. His fingers trailed down her quivering stomach and then slipped between her thighs. “Mmm,” he said. “Hot and wet.”
And then he dropped to his knees.
“Luke…”
Not bothering to answer, he stroked the pad of his thumb over her panties, but apparently that wasn’t nearly good enough, because then he caught his fingers in the sides. “Pretty,” he said, “but they have to go.” Slowly dragging them down, he kissed her just beneath her belly button. And then lower, letting his teeth graze over her, his rough jaw scraping her soft skin. His lips applied pressure, and his tongue brought to mind all the wicked things he might do to her. Her knees wobbled.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured, a big, callused hand gliding up the inside of her legs. He kissed first one inner thigh, and then the other, and then…in between.
Her hips jerked.
“Easy,” he murmured, and gripped her hips tightly, holding her to the wall while he gently, but thoroughly, began to take her apart with his tongue and teeth. It was the sweetest, most exquisite torture. Dying to have him inside her, she begged, “Please,” her pulse racing, her heart pounding.
But he still teased.
“Luke…”
“I like the way you say my name,” he said, his mouth against her wet flesh.
She had her fingers in his hair, holding on as he drove her out of her mind with slow, hot laving of his tongue, leaving her trembling and beside herself. And still he took his time, until finally, God finally, he took her to the edge and nudged her over.
When she finally caught her breath and her eyes fluttered open, Luke surged to his feet, one arm around her lower back, the other just underneath her butt as he hoisted her up.
“Wrap your legs around me,” he said, voice low and rough with need.
She did, wrapping her arms around him too, drawing him tightly to her.
“The condom,” he said, eyes as intense and heated as his voice.
With shaky fingers, she opened his wallet and dug out the condom. “Here?” she breathed. “Now?”
“Here. Now.”
His words should have felt presumptuous, pushy. Aggressive. Instead, she was more aroused than she’d ever been, making needy little whimpers as she tore at his clothes to get skin to skin.
With calm, steady ease, he took over. He undressed them both,
and then, pressing her into the wall to free up his hands, rolled on the condom.
She quivered just watching him. Then his hands were back on her, sliding along the underside of her thighs, angling her hips. And then, hot, fierce, eyes on hers, he slowly thrust into her in one sure stroke, pushing to the hilt and holding there, giving her nowhere to hide.
She didn’t want to hide.
For once, just for this once, she wanted to let go and revel in the delicious sensations of being wanted, cherished, needed, and not worry about what came next. Rocking into him, she tried to match his rhythm, but she was pinned and unable to move. He could move though—and did—pulling out only to push back in, his body taking hers along for the ride.
She cried out, the sound of her pleasure echoing through the house. Her last thought before her mind shut down completely was for the neighbors—specifically, Luke’s grandfather.
Please, she thought, please let Edward’s windows be closed.
Funny, Ali thought hazily some time later from flat on her back on the foyer floor, the moments that marked the most important things in a woman’s life. For her, it’d been graduating high school, moving out of White Center, learning that she was strong no matter what happened, and…
Getting busy with Luke Hanover up against the wall.
Her body was still quivering, little aftershocks of sheer pleasure, and she was pretty sure she couldn’t have moved to save her life.
Beside her, Luke stirred, then came up on an elbow and looked down at her, his eyes still dark with heat. “You good?”
“I moved beyond good a few minutes ago.”
He was thinking about smiling, she could tell. “How far beyond?” he asked.
“The stratosphere.”
She thought maybe that would tug a smile from him, but it didn’t. In fact, he looked a little stern as he helped her up, holding her steady until she found her sea legs.
