Hell no.
“Mia, wait.”
No.
“Mia.”
Stop saying my name.
Luke reached over my shoulder and shut my car door. “Wait. I’m sorry, you just caught me off guard.”
“Surprise,” I muttered sarcastically.
Luke chuckled and I wanted to punch him. “Don’t start.”
“Start what?” I spun around. “I brought you sustenance so you don’t starve to death for the sake of whatever bullshit you’re sulking about, and now I’m leaving. There’s nothing to start.”
Luke’s hand remained on my car, his strong arm millimetres from resting on my shoulder. “Bullshit?”
I shrugged. “Whatever. I don’t care.”
“Then why not let me starve?”
“What good would you be to me then? We had a deal, remember?”
Oh my God, shut up.
Luke smirked. “Did we? I thought I’d delivered my side.”
He had. And more. But the devil inside me couldn’t let go. Couldn’t admit that I’d rocked up on his doorstep for the simple inexplicable reason that I needed to know he was okay. “Who said it was a one-time thing?”
“You didn’t say much at all.”
Not with words. We’d both said plenty in other ways. I shivered as his continued closeness worked its way under my skin. “Look, I thought you might be hungry, so I brought food. Eat it and weep, I’m leaving.”
Luke shrugged and let his hand drop. I forced myself to turn away as he drifted back to his house. I was halfway into my car when he called my name.
I glanced around. “What?”
He smiled a little. “Girl, just come eat with me.”
* * *
He’d always been the ultimate gentleman...everywhere except the bedroom. Either way, I ate most of the pizza, and I had no regrets.
Luke watched me demolish the last slice, leaning against the kitchen counter, slowly tipping cold beer down his elegant throat. I could tell he had something to say.
I licked my fingers and shut the pizza box. “Something on your mind?”
“Would it matter if there was?”
I rolled my eyes. At some point in the twenty minutes it had taken us to inhale an extra-large pizza, I’d lost the will to pretend I was entirely dead inside. “Just say it, Daley.”
For a moment, he seemed as though he wouldn’t, then he sighed. “Why are we so bad at this?”
“At what?”
“Having a normal conversation. We’ve always been crap at it.”
“That’s not true. We used to talk for hours when we camped out at the lake to screw all night.”
“We were teenagers, we didn’t have that much to say.”
That wasn’t true either. Our relationship—in the traditional sense—had been on and off since we’d started secondary school, and even in his father’s last few months, when Luke had rarely spent a night away from my bed, we’d never acted like a proper couple. No dates or hand holding in public. No V-day cards or mushy shit. But we’d always had plenty to say, even when the words wouldn’t come.
I reached for my beer. “Since when have you ever wanted to be normal? Has adulthood changed you that much?”
“You tell me.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
He shook his head slightly, as if our childish exchange validated his point. And I couldn’t deny it. We weren’t like other people. Gus had brought a hook-up home the other night. They’d had a drink and a laugh, some noisy sex, and parted with more laughter. So fun. So easy.
Nothing about Luke had ever been easy.
Or maybe it was me.
I drained my bottle and slid it across the counter so it skittered to a stop beside him, teetering dangerously on the edge. The Luke I used to know would’ve caught it, unable to cope with the mess if it fell. This older, wiser version ignored it. Kept his gaze on me, taking me apart without saying a word or moving a glorious muscle. “What do you actually want from me?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
He sighed. “Nothing that we’ve fucked up before.”
“What does that mean?”
“Exactly what I said. I don’t want to fight about shit that happened ten years ago. If you want to talk, I can do that, but I don’t want a fight. I’m done with all that.”
Lucky him, but my temper tripped up as I traced his tired face—the lines the past decade had put there, the subtle smudges shading his beautiful eyes. My fury for him burned bright, but the will to unleash it on him diminished with every second I lingered in his spotless kitchen.
I couldn’t fathom how such a thing was possible. I’d married Laurent to get Luke out of my head once and for all, and when that had failed, I’d been angrier with him than ever, but right now, I just wanted to...be here with him.
The realisation stunned me. I shook my head. “I don’t want to fight either.”
“So what do you want? You made it pretty clear we’re not friends.”
“Do we have to be?” I stepped around his breakfast bar, an inch from invading his personal space. “Friends, I mean? Can’t we be something else?”
His eyes widened. “Like what?”
“Like what Gus has with the guys he hooks up with. I don’t want to fight, I don’t even want to think. I just—”
“Just what?” Suddenly, he was right there, his chest pressed against mine, leaning down, his lips so close if I stuck my tongue out I could taste him.
I closed my eyes and stretched up to meet him, a whisper tumbling out of me a split second before I kissed him. “Baby, I just want to feel.”
* * *
I woke with a start, but without the racing pulse I’d become accustomed to in the last twelve months. My face was pressed into clean cotton, and a softly worn duvet was bunched at my waist. The darkness was punctuated by a familiar glow from the streetlamp outside the wide bay window.
Shit.
I’d knocked out in Luke’s bed.
I sat up, expecting to be alone. The sight of him stretched out beside me caught me off guard. My heart stuttered. He was fast asleep. Peaceful and perfectly still. Angelic. The years fell away and I was drawn to him like a moth to a flame, even as my head screamed at me to cut and run. I trailed a finger over his cheekbone, revelling in the way his quiet breaths hitched, and brushed a stray lock of his hair back from his face. My thumb itched to trace his lips, but I didn’t dare. Luke was a light sleeper.
Besides, touching his lips would remind me of his kiss, and then I’d never leave.
“I should go.”
“Come upstairs with me.”
“No.”
Yet somehow, here I was, naked and sleepy in his bed, my limbs aching in all the right ways.
I gasped. “Harder.”
“Yeah?” Luke’s grip on me tightened, and he slammed into me with more force. “Like that?”
“God, yes. Like that.”
Heat rippled through me. We’d gone from kissing in the kitchen to fucking on his bed in the time it had taken me to compute that kissing him was every bit as dangerous as I’d feared it would be. But it had been hard to care as he’d flipped me onto my stomach and fucked me while I’d lain prone and screaming his name. I’d come so hard I’d clearly fallen into some kind of coma, and I was still in Luke’s bed.
Perspective returned to me like a cold punch to the gut. I let my hand fall from Luke’s face and rolled away, slipping out of bed and creeping from the room, collecting my clothes as I went. My jeans were on the stairs, my bra on the kitchen counter. More flashbacks of the frenzy that had carried us to the bedroom hit me, and I knew I needed to get out before I traipsed back upstairs for another round.
God, I was a fool. Luke had given me exactly what I’d demanded of
him, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted it again and again, but I had nothing to offer in return. Nothing but resentment and mixed messages. Because while the bitterness I’d carried for so long remained, I couldn’t deny the flutter in my heart.
He’d got to me, and I’d let him.
I drove home in a daze, dreaming of being back in Luke’s clean-scented bed. Regrets danced in the periphery of my mind, but they were weak, and so was I. Weak for his kiss, his touch, and the way he commanded my body with gentle hands, even when he’d pinned me so tight I could barely breathe. He was an addiction I’d run all the way to France to escape, a voice in my head I’d married a deceitful bastard to silence. And yet here I was doing the drive of shame at four a.m.
Gus was waiting for me on the doorstep, phone clutched in his big hand, worry etched on his handsome face. “Where the fuck have you been?”
“Out.”
“Out where?”
“None of your business.”
“It is my business when I’m up all night thinking you’re dead.”
I dropped my keys on the counter. “Why on earth would you think that?”
He stared at me like I’d grown horns. “What have you even been doing to be out this late?”
“Same thing as you.” I regretted the words as soon as they were out of my mouth, but that had always been my problem: thinking out loud. Saying the first thing that came into my head, usually the truth, before my conscience had a chance to edit.
Gus’s face screwed up in a bewildered frown. “I doubt you’ve been doing what I’ve been doing.”
“Why’s that?” I turned away.
He grabbed my arm. “Seriously? You went out to hook up?”
“Is that so bad?”
Gus said nothing, but his raised eyebrows said everything.
A toneless laugh bubbled out of me. “Piss off with that look, bro. How come it’s okay for you to go out but not me? It’s not the fifties. If you’re allowed to get laid, so am I.”
“I didn’t say you weren’t allowed. Jesus. Give me some credit.”
“Why should I, when you’re not giving me any? You don’t need to verbalise everything for me to know what you’re thinking.”
“And you don’t need to be staying out all night without at least letting me know you’re okay,” Gus snapped. “What do you think went through my mind when I came home and you weren’t here? Fuck’s sake, your phone was on the table... I thought you’d been abducted or some shit.”
“In Rushmere?”
“Mia.”
The conversation we’d had before he’d gone out forced its way back into my Luke-centric brain, and I relented, kissing his cheek as I brushed past him on my way to the stairs. “Okay, okay, I get your point. And I’m sorry. I forgot my phone, and I didn’t think you’d be home before me. Next time, I’ll text.”
“Next time?” Gus’s eyebrows shot up again. “So this wasn’t a one-off?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Who is it?”
“No one you know.”
“Liar. Unless you drove into Buckingham, I know everyone in this town.”
Damn it. “Do you really need to know?”
“No, but it would stop me worrying if I knew you weren’t shagging some dick bag.”
Irritated, I spun to face him again. “How do I know you’re not doing that every time you waltz out of here with a smile on your face?”
“I’m generally not smiling till I get in, but whatever.”
I blew out a breath. This conversation was going nowhere. “Look, who I’m sleeping with is none of your business, but I can promise you it’s not some idiot, okay? I’m done with arseholes.”
“You’d better be, I—”
“I am,” I cut in before Gus could get all ragey about my virtue. “Now go to bed.”
“Where are you going?”
“To shower, then take my deliveries.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“To the shower? Fuck off, Gus.”
“You fuck off. There’s no point going to bed now, so I might as well help you in the shop till Luke gets up. Stop being a bitch.”
In his own way, he was as stubborn as I was. I gave him the finger and trudged to the bathroom. It was going to be a long day.
Chapter Twelve
Luke
Of course Gus wanted me to pick him up from Mia’s shop. An hour after jumping awake to find her gone from my bed, it was just what I needed...not.
I drove across town, conflict raging in my rested brain. I hadn’t slept that well in months, but waking alone, even though it hadn’t occurred to me for a single second that Mia would spend the night, had unsettled me. I didn’t even remember falling asleep, just collapsing in a heap beside her, clumsily stroking her hair, and wondering if she was even real.
I parked outside, taking advantage of the deserted parking bays, and waited for Gus to emerge. He didn’t, so I rang him and called him a prick when he didn’t answer. There was no way I was getting out of the van to look for him. No way in the fucking world. I people watched for a while, not that there were many about, so I got bored pretty quick.
Irritated, I slid out of the van and approached the shop’s front door. Peering through the glass, I saw no one, and retreated to the back entrance. Gus was in the courtyard Mia’s shop shared with a boutique, staring at the bashed-in back door.
“The fuck happened here?”
He spared me a grim glance. “Someone broke in.”
“Robbed the place?”
“No.”
“What?”
He shook his head. “Nothing’s missing. If it wasn’t for the hole in the door, you wouldn’t know anyone had been here.”
Unease sparked in my gut. “That’s fucking strange.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Why would someone do that?”
“Dunno. Perhaps it was the same person who snuck in and fixed the window.” Gus turned to face me, his expression hard. “I’m really hoping it was you who did that.”
“Did what? Fixed the window or broke into the shop like a creep?”
“Both, to be honest, because I’m pretty sure you’re not a creep, but I’d settle for the window.”
Busted. “It was me, but to be fair, I didn’t sneak in. There was no need when it fell out of the frame with a quick tug.”
“Why did you do it?”
“To save you a job, and to stop something like this happening.” I gestured to the door. “I thought you knew it was me.”
Gus sighed. “I thought I did too, even if I’ve no clue why you’d do something like that, but this morning freaked me out. This is some stalker shit.”
“Is it?”
Gus flushed, like he’d said too much, and shook his head. “Never mind. Listen, is it okay if I stick around until the police come back? I want to get this fixed up as soon as possible, but I can’t do anything until the idiots who turned out earlier come back and take photos.”
Rushmere’s police station had closed down years ago, leaving the town at the mercy of whatever officers were free from neighbouring towns. I didn’t hold out much hope of them being back anytime soon, but there was zero part of me that objected to Gus sticking around to take care of Mia. My only concern was finding a way to see her for myself before I left. “Um—”
“If it’s a problem, I’ll work the weekend.”
“Don’t be daft, mate. It’s not that, I’m just—” Fuck it. “Is Mia okay?”
Gus didn’t seem surprised by the question. He shrugged and moved away from the broken door. “She says she is, but you know what she’s like. Wouldn’t tell me she’d broken her leg until it had fallen off.”
“Can I do anything?”
“Thanks, but I reckon you hanging around will probabl
y piss her off.”
It would’ve hurt less if he’d hit me with the strip of wood he was holding, but I took his point, and he was likely right. Just because she’d taken a fancy to sharing my bed again didn’t mean she’d take kindly to me being all up in her business.
I fetched Gus some tools from the van and left him to it, trying to ignore the creeping anxiety spreading through my veins. Gus was an open kind of guy, and I knew when he wasn’t telling me everything. Christ, in the weeks before Mia had reappeared in my life, I’d fucking known he was hiding something.
This time, it wasn’t hiding so much as it being none of my damn business, but fuck, I wanted to know. Needed to know, for my own damn sanity.
I spent the rest of the day replaying my conversation with Gus and trying to match it with the rare moments Mia had spoken to me like I was anything more than a convenient dick. By six o’clock I was none the wiser, and the temptation to again work into the night was so strong I had to force myself to pack up and go home.
My bed smelled of her, but I didn’t strip the sheets. I took a shower and decamped downstairs until fatigue caught up with me. Her scent tormented me. I lay in bed brimming with a heady mix of concern, frustration and plain old horniness until one a.m. found me reaching for my phone.
Luke: are u okay?
* * *
I parked up a little way down the road from Gus’s house, near enough that I’d be heard, but not so close that someone peeping out the window would see me.
Mia opened the passenger door a moment later.
I gave her a look. “Please tell me you weren’t waiting on the street?”
“So what if I was?” She glared with a defiance I knew all too well. “Weren’t going to keep me waiting, were you?”
As if. I’d scrambled out of bed like a madman, but she didn’t need to know that.
Lacking any better ideas, I put the van in gear and moved off, rolling slowly down the hill. She didn’t ask where we were going, and I didn’t tell her, because I didn’t know, in any sense of the words.
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