Luke Read online

  And Luke.

  But neither was going to happen for her.

  When the doorbell rang, her heart jerked. Steeped in bubbles, she went still, but the bell rang again. With water splashing everywhere, and a good amount of bubbles, too, she got out of the tub and wrapped herself in a towel. Dripping her way to the door, she held her towel to her breasts and took a calming breath. Then she flipped on the outside light.

  Luke stood there. At the sight of him, her pulse kicked into overdrive. Surely the people in the next building could hear her heart pumping. Stepping closer to the glass, she put her hand on the wood, as if she could touch him. Wanting snaked through her, wanting, and that terrible ache, all at the same time.

  He was standing close to the door, too, and suddenly she didn’t want that barrier between them, so she pulled it open enough for him to move inside but turned her back to him, head bowed, knowing if she so much as looked at him, he’d see everything she felt, her need, her hope, her confusion—

  From behind her, his fingers brushed the back of her hair, so light she might have imagined it, except he did it again. Then he bent his head, just enough to rub his jaw to hers. “Do you want me to go?”

  So solemn. So quiet. So impossibly sexy.

  “Faith?”

  She closed her eyes, shook her head no. She didn’t want him to go. She just didn’t want him to see what she was thinking, or he’d run like hell.

  He danced a finger down her bare, damp arm, letting out a shaky breath so close to her ear it drew goose bumps to her skin. “I got you out of the bath.”

  Since the air had backed up in her lungs at his touch, at the way his chest spread heat across her back, how the front of his thighs brushed the back of hers, she could only nod.

  “I don’t want to talk you into this,” he whispered, tingling his fingers over her shoulder, playing with the edging of the towel at her shoulder blade.

  Turning to face him, she pressed her hands flat against the door behind her to keep them off him. “It was my idea to begin with.”

  “Yeah.” He smiled, a slightly unsure smile that touched her more than anything else he’d ever done. “So why do I get the feeling you’ve changed your mind?”

  She had changed her mind, she’d deepened it. No longer was wild sex on weekend nights for the time they had left going to be enough for her, but how to admit that to a man who gave commitments only to his patients? She couldn’t explain, it was that simple. It would be her own secret joy…and loss. “I still want you,” she whispered.

  His eyes heated at that, and keeping his eyes on hers, he pulled his pager out of his pocket and tossed it over his shoulder on to her couch.

  She watched it bounce on the cushion, then turned her gaze back to him. He was dangling his cell phone from his fingers. It, too, took a sail across the room, landing next to his pager.

  She took a few steps to where her portable phone sat on its base. She hit the talk button in tune to Luke’s raised brow. Her pager sat next to the phone and she carried both to the couch and slid them beneath the cushion. After a very brief consideration, she slid his pager and cell phone beneath the cushion as well.

  He grinned.

  So did she, grinned as she stepped right into his arms.

  “I’ve never laughed while getting a woman naked before,” he admitted, and nibbled at her throat.

  With a little moan, she tilted her head to give him better access. “You’re not going to have to work very hard to get me naked.”

  He eyed her towel. “No?”

  “No.” She untucked the edge of the towel, and let it fall.

  Luke sucked in a sharp breath, his eyes flaming, his hands shaking slightly as he peeled himself out of his shirt and sent it the way of his pager and phone.

  Wide shoulders, broad chest, ropey arms…did he know how mouth-watering he was? His torso was lightly spattered with dark silky hair, across his tight pectorals, in a line dividing his flat, corded belly, disappearing into the pants that seemed quite strained across an impressive bulge behind his zipper.

  “I’m still ahead of you,” she said softly, standing there completely nude except for the few drops of water left from her bath.

  “Yeah.” His voice sounded strained, rough, and he kicked off his shoes and socks, unfastened his pants, grimacing as he slid them down over his erection.

  “Oh my,” she whispered, unable to tear her gaze away, but she hadn’t seen a man up front and personal in so long, had in fact never seen such a magnificent—

  With a groaning laugh, he surrounded her with his warm, strong arms, lifting her up.

  She licked her lips and studied his mouth. “Are we going to—”

  “Yes.”

  “In my bedroom?”

  “Yes.”

  “All the way to the end this time?”

  “Definitely, yes. Any more questions?”

  “Yes. Could you hurry?”

  “Maybe the first time, but definitely not the second time. Or the third.”

  When her mouth fell open as he walked with her down the hall, he let out another groaning laugh. “I want you in a bed, Faith. Sprawled out so I can touch and kiss and lick every single inch of you.”

  He was going to touch and kiss and lick every inch of her. Thank God. He was going to do that because she’d asked him to, because she’d told him it was what she wanted, and she did want it, so badly she was trembling in anticipation, but she also wanted much, much more—

  Bending, he rubbed his jaw with hers, tenderly, sweetly, and gently laid her down on her bed, making her forget everything but him. With his finger, he leaned over her and smoothed the furrow she got between her eyes when she thought too much. “Uh-oh,” he whispered. “You’re looking tense.” With a knee on the bed and his wide palms on her shins, he ran them up her legs. “Can’t have that.”

  His hands slid over her knees and kept going, and her heart started that heavy drumming again.

  “Cold?” he murmured. He’d reached her thighs. She managed to shake her head.

  “Good.” Sliding his hands around the back of her thighs now, he pulled them open, then looked down at what he’d exposed, and let out a low, rough, serrated breath.

  So did she.

  His hands were on the move again, over her legs, fingers outstretched…until they almost reached…the apex of her thighs. Now it was her turn to suck in a breath, her hips arching toward him, waiting, desperately waiting. Then he touched, and she cried out.

  “You’re so beautiful, so perfect.” Carefully, slowly, he bent his head…

  She felt his warm breath brush over her and went utterly still, suddenly a little unsure. “Um… Luke—”

  “Shh…”

  “But—” At the first touch of his tongue she nearly exploded.

  At the second touch she did.

  Brilliant lights, blood roaring in her ears, skin too tight for her body, heart threatening to burst out of her chest, the whole enchilada as she came wildly, helplessly.

  And came. And came.

  Finally, after what might have been two seconds or two hours, she was flat on her back, blinking at the ceiling, fists in the sheets, legs held open by Luke’s wide shoulders.

  He lifted his head from where he’d been kissing her inner thigh. “You okay?”

  She considered. “I can’t feel my toes.”

  He lifted up a little. “Better?”

  “No.”

  His face fell, and she nearly laughed, but this was not a laughing matter. “Do you want to know what would make it all better?” she whispered.

  He didn’t look sure, and she nearly laughed again because how often did she get to see Dr. Universe look unsure? “What would be better,” she said, “is you inside me.”

  His smile was slow and wide and stopped her heart. Then he gave her what she wanted, he was inside her, and her heart started up again in a slow, heavy beat because nothing, nothing, had ever felt so right.

  “Faith.” He c