by Lainey Reese
Andie was right there with him, that leg staying where he put it on his hip. He slid his hand along the soft column of her thigh, over the lush curve of her ass, and then with firm pressure, he followed the crease between her cheeks to the satin-covered center of her.
The doors slid open. “Christ,” he cursed again, because he was shocked at the realization he’d been about to take her right there in the elevator. What baffled him even more was that he wasn’t the least bit embarrassed or sorry about it. In fact, he was more than a little ticked, because they now had to wait until they got to her room.
Andie’s hands shook so badly she could hardly get the key card in the slot. It didn’t help that the sexiest man she’d ever laid eyes on was currently hard as steel and pressed against her ass so tightly she felt every glorious inch of him. “Dammit,” she muttered when the little light on the lock flashed red for the second time.
There was a warm, masculine chuckle at her ear seconds before she felt his hot breath on her neck, and Luke’s lips brushed her skin as he asked, “Problem?” Then his hands braced on the door on one side and the wall on the other, caging her in as he leaned closer and slid his straining shaft along the crease of her ass with mind-altering results. “Want some help with that?”
Her whimper was breathy and needy, and she forgot about the stupid key momentarily to drop her head forward as she arched her ass against that enticing bulge and pushed—hard. He growled in response. Andie saw in her peripherals that the muscles in his forearms bunched, and then her world caught on fire.
Luke set his teeth into her shoulder and powered into her, crushing her against the door with his body. She felt trapped in the most delicious way. Cold, hard door in front. Hot, harder male behind. His hips surged against her with explosive accuracy, grinding against her so expertly she knew she could come if he kept this up, so she forgot about the door and gave herself up to this electric once-in-a-lifetime moment and met him force for force. The two of them pressed and strained together, mindlessly hurtling toward the breaking point.
He stiffened after mere seconds, and his words were muffled, since he kept his teeth clamped deliciously tight on her shoulder. “Open the damn door or, I swear to God, I will fuck you right here in the hall.” Then one of his hands slid between her thighs and pressed on her clit with pinpoint accuracy.
Andie made a sound she’d never heard herself make as she frantically pushed at the key card again. It was breathy, staccato, and full of raw need. She was so close to orgasm her mind seemed foggy, and there was a filmy white cloud hazing her vision. When the tiny light finally flashed green, she released a sob of relief that was almost profound and pushed the door wide.
Lassitude, filmy and thick, settled over her like a cloak, even as Luke continued to shudder with his aftershocks. Andie reveled in every one as she cradled him close, replete and glowing in the aftermath. It wasn’t until an eternity later—when he sat back and she felt that telltale trickle along her bottom as he slipped from her body—that she remembered. Shocked eyes met his contented ones. She croaked out two words, and they wiped the lethargy from his face instantly. “No condom.” She assured him, “We should be okay though. It’s not the right time for me.”
“Shit.” Luke sat back on his heels and looked at her like she’d just sprouted a second head.
“I know.” She had a feeling she was looking at him much the same way, so Andie tried to rein back in the panic and offered him a small smile. “Well, that wasn’t how I pictured this particular segment of the evening going, but at least the sex was amazing.”
“Shit.” Far from reassuring, Luke had closed off completely. Andie knew a one-night stand was always a risk, but his abrupt and cold withdrawal cut deep. Five seconds ago, Andie had felt like a goddess; she’d felt sexy and powerful and desirable. Now, all Andie felt was regret and self-consciousness. As Luke slid off the bed and started to adjust his clothes without even looking at her, Andie felt like all her flaws were magnified somehow. As much as her inner feminist roared, there were the sneering and snide voices of her past echoing in her head all the negative things she fought so hard to deny she believed about her body. She was fat. Her thighs looked like lumpy, squishy bread dough. There were acne spots on her rear, and he’d been grossed out about them. The list trailed endlessly as she wiggled and pulled to bring the blankets up to hide under.
When Luke turned back to look at her, Andie had the covers up to her chin and was running a hand under her eyes in hopes of wiping away any smudged mascara. She was shocked to see anger on his face.
“I’m sorry. I’m trying to remain calm. I really am.”
“Okay,” she answered cautiously. In her experience, nothing good ever started with that sentence.
“First off, I’m clean. So you’ve got no worries there. Never had anything or been with anybody who did.”
“That’s good to know. Same here.” This wasn’t so bad, Andie thought. She could handle this.
He gave a curt nod, opened his mouth to speak, and then snapped it shut with poorly contained nerves. “I’m sorry, Andie, but I’m still reeling here. How in the hell could you have let me believe you were on the pill?”
Now it was her turn to open and close her mouth like a fish. She felt like she’d just been sucker-punched.
“What did you just say?” Then she lifted one finger pointedly into the air when she saw the look on his face. “And let me take this opportunity to strongly advise you to take this moment to think carefully before you speak.”
He actually snarled at her! “I’m not playing games, Andie. What if I just got you pregnant?”
“Excuse me?” Self-consciousness was now replaced with rising temper, and Andie gathered the sheet around herself to face off with him. “I don’t recall you asking me any questions about it at the time. And besides, I told you the timing’s off.”
“Do you even comprehend how un-reassuring that is? To rely on your timing? Besides, I just assumed you would have told me if we needed a condom. I thought you were on the pill or something.”
Andie was dumbfounded. “Wow, there’s a lot to unpack there. Let’s start with how stupid it is to just assume anything about a woman’s birth control. Just as ridiculous if I were to say I assumed you had a vasectomy.” She didn’t particularly want to give his ego the stroke these next words would undoubtedly deliver, but at least she was going to have the balls enough to own her part in this. “And the reason I didn’t say anything before is because you had my brain shut down with lust and I could barely remember my own name.” She gave him her most cutting glare. “Now that that is no longer a problem, you can show yourself out. I’m going to take a shower and try to wash the stench of this night from my body.” She took a wide berth around him on her way.
“We’re not done here.” He grabbed her elbow. Andie looked down at his dark hand on her pale arm and hated that, as mad as she was, the zing was still there. She snatched out of his grasp.
“Yes,” she assured him, “we are.”
“Look. I’m not trying to offend you or hurt your feelings. Just… I’d feel a lot better about this if you’d just get dressed, then we could head to an after-hours pharmacy, and get you one of those morning-after deals.” It did nothing to ease her volcanic temper that he fumbled at the end and looked uncomfortable asking.
“Fuck you.” Beyond livid, Andie stabbed an angry finger toward her door. “Get out now before I call security to get you out.”
“You don’t have to worry, it won’t cause you to lose a baby, only prevent you from—” The slap she landed across his face stunned them both silent. She was all but vibrating with rage.
“I know what it will and won’t do. And the last thing I’m going to do is stand here while you try to tell me what to do with my own body.” Tears of fury boiled in her eyes and made her vision blurry. If he didn’t leave soon, she didn’t know what she was going to do. Andie marched to the bedside phone and brought it to her ear. “I’m not kiddin
g, Luke. Get the hell out of my room or I’m calling for help.” He stood there in indecision for a second more, so Andie started dialing. She didn’t stop until she heard him leave.
“Front desk?”
“Sorry, never mind.” Slamming down the phone, Andie stomped to her shower and cried as she washed away the reminders of what was now a ruined night. She knew what the morning-after pill did. She knew it wouldn’t cause a miscarriage if a woman was already pregnant or hurt the baby. What it did was prevent ovulation and block pregnancy from happening.
It also had side effects. Side effects that differ from person to person. Her asshole ex had pressured and pushed her to use it once, and the side effects for her had been the worst cramps and heaviest period of her life. Knowing that prick, he’d also researched the side effects and had pushed her into taking it in hopes that things had gone exactly as they had. Thank God, she’d finally broken free from him. No way was she ever going to let another man tell her what to do with her own body.
Even as that small voice whispered that it couldn’t hurt to be sure, she shut that voice off and stomped into the shower. She’d wash and do what she could to clean every inch of him off and out of her, but she really did believe she was in the clear. The timing was way off.
Chapter 2
The sky wept openly over the forlorn graveyard of Harmony, Minnesota's grand old church. Behind the multi-steepled, red brick house of worship, mourners clustered around not one but two freshly dug graves.
One of the caskets being lowered held a life barely begun. Twenty-two-year-old Cassidy Rigby had been out on the town the night she'd been attacked and left broken in a ditch, thrown away like a discarded wrapper from a passing car window. All the promise and hope that new life held was gone, snuffed out like a candle, leaving the lives of the people who loved her a darker place.
The other casket contained a life well lived and ready for the grave that awaited it. Wallace Cooper had survived and thrived to the ripe old age of eighty-six and probably had another ten years in him if he hadn't been so bullheaded. He'd spotted a wasp's nest in the eaves of his barn, and even though he called on his good friend and neighbor that morning who had promised to take care of it before sunset, the crazy fool had gotten out his ladder and tried to get rid of them himself. The fall had taken him instantly and painlessly, or at least that was what the county examiner's report said, and those who loved him clung to that belief, held it close to their hearts like a security blanket and took what comfort they could from the knowledge that he went quickly.
Both of the people being laid to rest had each drawn a crowd. The young girl's was full of her tear-streaked college friends and grief-stricken family. Their clothes, though respectful for the most part, were still stylish and trendy with the young men looking G.Q. ready in black skinny jeans and crew neck sweaters or sharp business suits with bold-colored ties that popped with a splash of brilliance amongst the somber sea of black. While the young women were dressed in muted hues, like the colors of a rainbow seen through a hazy drizzle of rain.
Wally's people were more reserved. Not a speck of color to be seen in this crowd aside from the dull white of the men's dress shirts and the modest edging on the collars and hems of the women's dresses. Where Cassidy's friends and family wailed with open abandon and in a few cases outright hysterics, Wally's were quietly heartbroken and bore their grief in silence with muffled sobs and quivering chins as their beloved friend was laid to rest.
And though the two had never met and were as opposite from each other as the North and South Poles, they had more in common than just their burial dates.
Lucas Baxter stood in stoic silence and watched as his closest friend was lowered into the ground. Rain fell unnoticed, the cold and wet that soaked his clothes barely registered past the crushing grief and guilt. Crazy old mule had no business on that ladder. He told Wally he'd be there before dark to take care of it. But, true to form, the geezer hadn't waited and had gone and gotten himself killed. Luke sucked in a shuddering breath and tried to shake the image of his friend's crumpled body from his head. It seemed to be imprinted on his psyche and was there, in glorious Technicolor, with every blink of his eyes. Wally’s death carried with it the weight of guilt and regret and a sorrow he feared he'd never shake.
"Dad," Logan, his nineteen-year-old son, nudged him with a shoulder. "Who's that?"
Luke looked to where his son indicated and saw a plump blonde with a black floppy hat. Thing looked like it belonged on a runway in some big city, not in this humble little churchyard. "I don't know. She probably came for the other funeral." But as she drew closer, there was something in the curve of her figure and the way she moved that tugged at his memory.
"Yeah," Logan agreed with a sad sniffle, "she looks lost."
"C'mon, son." After a last wretched look toward the grave, Luke clamped a hand on his boy's neck and led him away. "Chores are waiting, even on days like this."
He didn't get two steps before he heard the yelp that had him turning back just in time to watch the show. The soggy ground was too much for the mile-high stilettos she was wearing, and the unfortunate griever was sinking. One shoe completely sunk well past the heel, with mud oozing over the bare top of her foot, while the other leg as well as her arms pinwheeled in an effort to maintain balance. Luke bit back the curse—he was at a church, after all—and lunged, even though he knew he was too far away to stop the inevitable. With a pitiful squeak, she tumbled onto her ample backside with a soggy plop while her fancy hat caught a strong breeze and rolled away.
That honeyed hair, that enchanting face, hit him like a lightning bolt and froze him in his tracks.
"Andie? You all right?" Luke crouched down next to her. Uncovered, her artfully styled streaky hair quickly plastered to her head, transforming it to a dark burnished gold, and when she turned to look up at him as she replied, he had a heck of a time keeping a straight face. She looked pitiful as a drowned kitten with her pale cheeks and smudged eye makeup. Plump lips quivered, and there was a wobble in her softly pointed chin as she tried unsuccessfully to hold it together.
"Luke? How? Why are you here?” The dismay and misery on her face were as clear to read as desire had been, and Luke knew right then that God must surely hate him. It had been two days since he’d seen her, and he could still taste her on his tongue.
That night with Andie had been the best sex of his life. Immediately followed by a truckload of self-directed horror. How in the hell had he forgotten a condom? He only had to look at his son to know what happens when you forgo safe sex. He loved his son more than he loved anything on this planet, but he’d been a teen dad and it had been hell.
There were movies about how rough teen pregnancy was on girls, but no one seemed to care what it did to the guys. Maybe that was because guys could walk away if they were conscienceless assholes, which he wasn’t. So, he’d panicked. Even now, the memory of his actions with Andie caused an unwelcome knot of misery in his gut that he didn’t have the energy or heart to deal with at his best friend’s funeral.
“Wally is the family you were going to take time to come see?” he asked rather than answer her questions. When she nodded miserably, he had to fight to keep from pulling her into his arms to comfort her, knowing his right to touch her had been permanently revoked. “That sucks, honey. I’m sorry. He was a good man. A good friend. C’mon.” Then he extended a hand to help her up, with his eyebrows raised in question for permission.
“This is the worst day ever." Her voice was barely discernible over the rain and commotion. And Luke took her lack of negative response as all the permission he was going to get.
"Yup," he agreed wholeheartedly.
"I fell." She said it like she was having trouble believing it.
"Yup." She looked close to hysterics, so Luke looped one arm around her waist and got her moving before she could give in to the urge. "You sure did. Let's get you up out of the mud now." As soon as she was on her feet, she tilted backwar
d as those ridiculous shoes sank again. With another bitten-off curse, Luke dragged her upright before she could fall a second time then just hauled her into his arms like she was a delicate damsel and started toward the row of parked cars.
"Oh. You don't have to do this." Her words were watery and slightly guttural with her tears. "I'm too heavy. You're going to hurt your back. Besides, I'm all muddy, and I'm ruining your suit."
"My back is fine. And clothes wash," he replied as he hiked her up a little farther on his chest. "You're going to break your leg trying to walk in those stilts you got on. I can't believe you made it as far as you did."
He could tell she was going to argue with him at first, but instead, she looked over his shoulder at the graveyard, shrugged, and said simply, "You know what? Neither can I." Then she laid her head on his chest and cried.
Andie couldn't believe this rotten day. She was wet and miserable, and everything hurt. Not just from her fall either. Life was not supposed to be this hard. She wasn't supposed to hate her job or her friends—who all seemed so shallow and callous with only one exception—and most definitely not herself. But she did. That last one most of all. She hated the way the night had ended with Luke. Hated that she had opened herself to him and shared not just her body but her heart, only to have it come crashing down so horribly afterward. And now Luke was here. Like a giant slap in the face from life, telling her that everything she did was wrong.
Uncle Wally had been the best part of growing up. Her parents had moved like nomads, bouncing her from one low-income neighborhood to the next without warning. Her uncle's farm had been the only constant in her inconsistent life.
Not just the farm either, but the man himself as well. With the never-ending fights and the biannual “we love you, but your mom and I have decided to go our separate ways” speech she got from her folks, Wally had been as dependable and steady as the land he lived on. Always calm and stoic. Never mean or volatile, he had been the one person in her life who she knew would never let her down. The only person in her life she knew loved her unconditionally and without strings attached.
