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He laughed. “Are you fucking kidding me? After what you just did to me, I need the whole box.”
She snickered. “Was it good for you too?”
“Yes, Miss My-Seduction-Skills-Are-Kinda-Lacking, that was very good for me.”
She handed him the box of tissues with a pleased smirk. “I’m glad. I liked it too.”
Wiping the mess from his stomach and chest, Luke rolled from the bed, dumped the wad of tissues into a wastebasket, and padded over to the patio door. After a moment of standing in the breeze, he glanced back to see Andy’s eyelids shuttering.
“Luke?” she whispered tiredly.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. You’re a really good teacher.”
Yeah, right. Luke had the distinct impression his promiscuous ass had just been schooled by a woman who was practically a virgin. Snorting, he turned back to the breeze. “Go to sleep, Bird.”
“Okay.”
Not more than a minute later — as though flipping some internal switch — she was out.
Securing the door, Luke killed the lights and joined Andy in the bed. It was a long time, however, before he joined her in sleep. His body might have been relaxed from their seduction “lesson,” but his mind was anything but.
Thoughts about his relationship with Andy kept him awake. Doubts as to whether he could continue this charade of being her friend-slash-teacher-slash-sex coach when a growing part of him was screaming that he wanted to be her every-fucking-thing were so damn loud in his head, he almost resented the woman for not hearing them.
Then, of course, there were the insecurities about her continued infatuation with Kyle. Was it just an infatuation? Would she lose interest after one or two dates with the man? Dates that might or might not involve the kind of sexual shenanigans Luke had just shared with her?
And what if shedidn’tlose interest in Kyle?
As soon as this particular thought entered his head, Luke banished it. Rolling to his side in the same direction Andy was facing, he tugged her sleeping form into the wall of his chest and wrapped his arms around her from behind. Deep in sleep, she didn’t much register the movement, save for one small thing.
When he slipped his hand into hers, her fingers instinctively closed around his. Tightly, of course, because that was this woman’s MO. But maybe a little possessively as well.
At least, that’s what Luke chose to believe before sleep finally claimed him.
The dreams came as they usually did. Only this time, they played less like an old family movie and more like a kaleidoscope.
A kaleidoscope of hands.
It started with fragments of a soft, slender one. Luke was lucid enough to realize this was Andy’s still clutched in his as he slept.
Then the pieces shifted, and the hand was older, masculine. Holding a tattoo gun. Luke felt the sting of the sun being etched into his skin as if it were happening in real time rather than years ago.
Another shift, and the darkness settled in. Shards of grabby hands he couldn’t identify. Slivers of others he did know the shape of. Colette’s, bony and grasping. His father’s, cruel and cutting.
Another shift and all the fractals crystallized into one sharp image: The back of a child’s hand dripping blood onto a braided area rug.
Luke woke with a jolt, hand flying to his temple. Andy gave a soft whimper beside him but otherwise didn’t stir. Sitting up, he cast a quick glance at her phone on the nightstand. It was just past five in the morning. He’d been asleep for three hours. It felt like only a few minutes.
Heart pounding and bladder needing release, Luke rose from the bed and padded towards Andy’s door. Catching sight of the eyes staring at him from the back of it, Luke’s adrenaline spiked, and he nearly splintered the wood with his fist before he realized he was looking at a sketch.
A very lifelike one of Henry Cavill decked out as Geralt fromThe Witcher. Whoever had drawn it was as skilled an artist as either him or Dylan. Probably more so. Snorting at his close call with a poster, Luke cocked his head as he considered it.
Suddenly, Andy’s gaming handle was making a lot more sense. Also her attraction to Kyle. Not thatthathadn’t made sense before, but yeah, this shit explained a lot. Therewasa certain resemblance between his model-worthy friend and the movie star.
Luke had always been something of a Cavill fan himself, but at the moment, he wouldn’t have minded clocking the dude square in the face because…
Well, just because.
