“Do you need more time?” I asked him.
He shook his head hard enough that my favorite dark lock fell across his forehead. Now that I was allowed to, I pushed it back. “No. I was already there, that morning before you told me about the interview, I wondered if I could make it through three hours in the car without telling her. But then when you mentioned the job I had to come to terms with the possibility of us not just rolling right into this family lifestyle I’d pictured…and finally allowed myself to want.” He gave me an earnest look. “You’re sure it’s what you want? It’s not easy, taking on a kid. I should know.”
I nodded. My hands reached for his biceps, squeezing for emphasis. “Yes. I want to shower every latent maternal instinct I’ve ever had right on her. You know that feeling when you love someone so much you want to squeeze them so hard you fear you might hurt them, but the love has to release somehow? That’s how I feel.”
He laughed. A true, instinctual, infectious Luke laugh. I mirrored his joy and relief in my smile.
“I know that feeling. Come here.” He pulled me into his chest, wrapping me up. “We’ll tell her today, together, when she gets home from school, okay?”
A sob of relief ripped out of me, and I buried my face in his shirt. Pine and sawdust filled my nose, and that feeling like something was off, that there was some wedge between us, evaporated. “I’d like that,” I said finally.
He guided us to the couch, placing me on the end, facing him and leaning on the armrest. He sat next to me, as close as possible, and lifted my legs to rest across his lap.
I ran my thumb over his cheek. He grabbed my hand and kissed my palm.
“I missed you,” I murmured, not really sure what I meant. He hadn’t gone anywhere. We hadn’t spent more than twenty-four hours apart.
He reached his arm under my shoulder blades and lifted me onto his lap. I wrapped my arms behind his neck to hold myself up. Hands bracketing my face, he kissed my lips. “I missed you, too.”
Maybe we’d been feeling the same thing—that longing to get back to the emotional and physical connection we’d had before we got off course. BeforeIgot us off course.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured into his lips, unable to meet his eyes as I said it.
“You have nothing to be sorry for, baby,” Luke whispered, palms running down my back, pressing me into him. Using my hands to push myself up from his shoulders, I shifted one leg over his lap so I was straddling him, needing to look straight into my favorite brown eyes.
We studied each other, breaths mingling. I recognized the fire and longing flickering in those brown pools.
“Luke.” It was a breath, a plea.
The hyperemotionality of everything we just discussed was quickly replaced with hyperawareness of how my inner thighs felt straddling his legs, and of everything we did on this couch the lasttime we were here. His large hands found my hips and pressed me into him.
When our lips met this time, it was frantic. I needed to be as close to him as possible, part of him. Our tongues savored, our hands explored—mine plunging into his hair, his raking down my bare back under my sundress. He used one hand to pull my head back slightly, moving his lips from my mouth to my collarbone, the skin where my shoulder sloped up to my neck, the sensitive area under my jaw. Featherlight kisses of his soft lips and brushes of coarse facial hair were followed by swipes of his tongue and grazes of his teeth. Desire filled my veins in an uncontrollable wave, drowning out everything that wasn’t me and him and this moment. I loved how he knew exactly what these kisses would do to me—take my longing and amplify it tenfold so quickly my brain bordered on delirium.
His tongue swirled around mine in my mouth and a soft moan escaped me. I had no more thoughts except the taste of his tongue and the want building inside my body. I rolled my hips over his lap, needing the friction to start relieving the impossible ache in between my legs. He sucked in a breath through his teeth, and the hardness I felt pressing against the zipper of his shorts told me why. A few more needy, instinctual revolutions of my hips and I had to have more. It would never be enough. I’d never get sick of his calloused hands on my body, his strong arms around my back. I’d never tire of running my fingers through his thick, dark hair.
I need more, I thought again. More of him, less of the fabric separating us where our need pooled. My hands plunged down between us. I sat back on my heels to undo his belt, and then the button and zipper of his shorts.
His mouth claimed mine again, tongue delving so deep I whimpered, which only encouraged him more. His hands skated from my waist to the band of my underwear, giving it an aggressive tug. He pushed me up to stand in front of him and pulled them down to my ankles. Straddling but hovering over him, we worked his shorts and boxer briefs down enough to free his erectionbefore I sank back down on him, rubbing my wet core over the length of his smooth, hard shaft. I nearly cried out, pressing my mouth into his shoulder to muffle the noise. It felt so good. The hisses and sharp breaths escaping Luke’s perfect lips told me it felt good for him, too.
I covered his mouth with mine for a heady, breathless kiss as I slid against him carefully, his head hitting my clit in a bolt of ecstasy each time. But my heart longed for more.
“I need you inside me,” I whispered into his ear, pulling the lobe between my lips. His hands squeezed my hips even harder. Hard enough to bruise me, and I lived for it, wanted my body marked by him as permanently as my soul.
“I want you so bad, baby, but I don’t have anything here.”
“I don’t care,” my body answered for me.
“I’m tested and clear,” he said.
“Me too.” I hadn’t let Max near me without a condom, and I’d gotten tested after our breakup anyway to be sure.
Needing no more encouragement, he used those strong, addictive hands to lift me up, positioned himself at my entrance, and then pressed me back down over him, gliding himself inside.
We stared at each other as I moved myself up and down on top of him, mouths parted, our faces betraying the lust and ecstasy of our first joining like this—bare. I leaned back further, holding his gaze. His eyes were so dark they were almost black instead of brown, his dark hair tousled. Those sensual lips remained parted as he watched me. I was sure my desire mirrored his own as I braced myself on his knees while he shoved into me again and again. With one hand gripping my shoulder so I wouldn’t fall back too far, the other lifted the skirt of my dress so his thumb could work circles over the most sensitive bundle of nerves between my legs.
“Luke,” I whimpered, shifting forward again. Overwhelmed, I pushed a hand into his hair and kissed him like his mouth was sustenance and I hadn’t eaten in weeks. His lips and tongue and teeth met mine with equal enthusiasm.
I relished that this was the first time we’d done this, been this close, nothing between us.
