Luke Read online

  else. But when he touches me, it's like electricity floods my body, sending shockwaves of arousal through me. When he touches me, I picture his hands caressing me, his mouth on mine.

  With one touch, one brush of his finger against my skin, I can feel him inside me.

  I want him inside me.

  The feeling is stronger than anything I’ve ever known.

  “Well?” he asks.

  “No,” I say, my voice wavering, drenched with arousal.

  “Good,” he whispers, leaning closer. “I’d hate to think you’d forgotten me so quickly.”

  As if I could forget. The memory of his touch is imprinted on my skin.

  “Wait, you think I’m the paranoid type?” I ask, deliberately changing the subject. The last thing I need is to be a puddle of goo, a bundle of need and want, right out here in the yard when my employees show up for work. The nanny should be here soon, and I know she already suspects something by the way I look at Luke. I can only imagine how the old ladies in the town would gossip about a scandal involving Luke Saint and I.

  Luke shrugs. “If the shoe fits,” he says. “I didn’t mean it as an insult, though. You should be paranoid when it comes to your kid. I respect you for it.”

  “Oh, you respect me?” I ask, laughing. “Somehow I get the impression that Luke Saint doesn’t respect anyone.”

  A strange look crosses his face, and I think for a second that I’ve hurt him again. “I might be flippant about a lot of things, but there are some things – some people – I do respect.” He looks at me meaningfully, and I swallow hard.

  Suddenly, I think that maybe I’ve been wrong about him, that I’ve written him off as a stereotypical younger guy – immature, thrill-seeking, whoring around – but that there’s more to Luke Saint than I’d thought.

  Then I catch where his gaze lingers. “Eyes up,” I say, rolling mine.

  Luke grins. “I can’t help it,” he says.

  Yep, totally underestimated his maturity.

  “And you were saying something about respecting me?” I ask, as we follow Olivia and Lucy toward the house.

  “I respect you. I also happen to want to throw you over my shoulder, carry you into your house, and rip those damn clothes of yours off.” I’m walking in front of him, but he grabs my hand and pulls me back against him, his mouth near my ear. “In fact, feeling you come on me is one of the only things I can think about.”

  I shake his hand off, trying to step away from him, but he holds me tighter. “People are going to be here any minute,” I protest. “Greta will get here in a second. Mary will be here to open the cidery.”

  “Tell me you haven’t been thinking about my mouth between your legs,” he whispers.

  A thrill rushes through me as the image of Luke in the hallway, kneeling at my feet, his tongue buried inside me flashes in my mind.

  Of course I’ve been thinking about it, I want to say. I’ve touched myself thinking about it. I can’t stop thinking about it, to an unhealthy degree.

  But the sound of tires along the road makes me jump, and Luke lets go of me. “And that’s the nanny,” I say, walking toward the driveway, following Olivia as she meanders up to the wrap-around front porch, crawling up the stairs instead of walking, the way she always does.

  “I want to see you again,” Luke says.

  I laugh. “You’re seeing me right now.”

  “You know what I mean,” he says.

  “Sure, I know.”

  I know exactly what he means. It means sweaty limbs entwined together, the taste of Luke on my tongue…his cock inside me, bringing me to the brink, hands interlaced with mine, until I can’t hold out any longer.

  But he doesn’t say that. He doesn’t say what I expect, innuendo and promises of ecstasy.

  “A date,” he says.

  “Excuse me?” I ask. “Olivia, don’t pull on Lucy’s ears.” Olivia looks up at me, her hand paused, mid-stretch, near Lucy’s head, and Lucy licks her hand, then runs away.

  “You heard me,” he says.

  “Yes,” I say. “Isn’t dating not really your thing?”

  “It hasn’t been,” he says. “But I’ve changed my mind.”

  “I – don’t know what to say to that,” I say, my eyes on Greta as she gets out of the car. I wave, stepping away from Luke, consciously trying to put some distance between us.

  Both literally and figuratively.

  “Well, since your nanny is about to walk up here, you should probably say yes,” Luke says. “That way, I don’t have to do something dramatic, like get down on my knees and serenade you.”

  “That would be dramatic,” I say.

  “Well, shoot, if you want me to sing, I'll do it right here,” Luke says, starting to kneel. “I’ve been told I have a voice that sounds a lot like a cat in heat.”

  “Stop, stop.” I can’t help but laugh. “Before she sees you.”

  “So that’s a yes, then.”

  “Do you always blackmail women into going out with you?”

  Luke shrugs. “I’ve never asked a woman to go out with me.”

  “Oh.”

  “So it’s settled,” he says. “Tonight.”

  “I don’t have a babysitter or –“

  “I’m coming here,” he says, over his shoulder as he starts down the step. “I’ll cook. Not a crappy dinner, either. I'm going to impress the pants off you."

  He’s walking off, out toward the orchard, whistling to himself, before I can even protest. But I can't get the words out of my head – impress the pants off you.

  When Greta walks up, she smiles. “Luke is here early,” she says.

  I hold up my coffee. “Way too early.”

  I try to sound annoyed that Luke was on my front porch, but fail miserably. Greta gives me a sideways glance as she takes Olivia’s hand and leads her inside the house, and I do my best to hide the corny-as-hell growing smile on my face.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Luke

  What the hell am I doing here, anyway?

  That’s the thought going through my head as I stand here on her front porch, about to knock on the door, a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach like I haven’t ever felt before. For a split second, I even consider turning around.

  The rational part of me says that’s exactly what I should do. The old Luke – the Luke from, shit, a couple weeks ago, would be itching to get out of here.

  Of course, the old Luke wouldn’t have stuck around in the first place. Hell, he would never have tried to get in Autumn’s pants to begin with.

  I broke my first cardinal rule. No moms.

  Then I went and broke the second rule. No sticking around after sex.

  Now, I’m standing here about to knock on the front door of her house, so I can break another rule. I’m going on a date with her? And, a million times worse, I’m coming to her house to cook dinner for her and her kid?

  I’m in way over my fucking head.

  She’s messing with my head, making me want to break all the rules I have. I don’t know what it is about her, but I should be running and I’m not. Instead, I’m here, armed with supplies like I’m Joe Regular, coming home from a normal nine-to-five to my house in the goddamned suburbs.

  I knock on the door, and she pulls it open, her cheeks flushed, hair falling in messy wet tendrils down her shoulders. She's dressed in a thin cotton bathrobe that’s worn so well that it's nearly sheer, knotted loosely at the side but falling open to reveal her cleavage. “Sorry,” she says, breathless. “I was working, and Greta left early, and Olivia – I think she’s teething and she’s been a hot mess the past couple of hours and I just barely got out of the shower.”

  “You look –“

  Autumn interrupts me. “Trust me, I know. I’m almost as much of a mess as Olivia,” she says, pointing to Olivia, who’s standing in the middle of the hallway, her eyes rimmed red. Lucy immediately bounds down the hall, and Olivia squeals with delight, her entire attitude suddenly chan