The NOLA Heart Novels (Complete Series)

by Maria Luis

  “Is this for the Dr. Phil and Judge Judy DVDs?” she whispered on a pant when he tore his mouth from hers to kiss her neck.

  He stilled, dragging his mouth up to her ear and rasped, “I do owe you for the greatest gift to mankind.”

  “I owe you.”

  “Yeah?”

  “For the orchid.”

  She felt him shake his head. “You don’t owe me anything, sweetheart. You’ve given me more than I could have ever asked for.”

  Why did it sound so final? Slamming her eyes shut against the sudden stinging in her heart, Anna wrapped her legs around his waist and tugged him close. “Kiss me again, Luke.”

  And he did. He kissed her until the only word she remembered was his name, until her hips lifted over and over again, seeking what only he could give her, until she was a mess on her own office desk and she didn’t care if anyone stumbled in on them.

  Her dress was shoved up to just below her breasts, as Luke’s fingers danced their way down her belly until he pressed his full palm between her thighs. “You’re wet,” he uttered on a groan. “Jesus, I want to taste you.”

  Anna lifted her hips again, a silent move that he took correctly as a signal for get on with it then. Flashing her a sexy grin, he hooked a finger around her panties and pulled them to the side. He leaned down, blew a warm breath against the most sensitive part of her, and then, upon hearing her whimper of pleasure, got down to business.

  His tongue flicked against her clit, softly at first and then with growing pressure. It was heady the way that he gripped her thighs and held her still under his mouth. And oh, oh, she had never felt more wanted than she did in this moment. He lapped at her core like she was his final meal on earth, alternatively thrusting his tongue inside her body, taunting her with what was to come, and sucking hard on her clit, driving her absolutely mad with desire.

  It was good. Too good. But Anna wanted more. She planted her foot against his shoulder and pushed him back. “I want the main course.”

  “I’m enjoying the main course,” he countered, already moving back between her legs.

  “Luke.”

  His green gaze fixed on her face, unrelenting. “Anna.”

  “Untie my hands.”

  “Why?”

  “So that I can touch you.”

  He rose up and over her, stretching his big body across her smaller frame. When he kissed her, she could taste her own essence on his lips. “Are you trying to say that you want me inside of you?”

  “Isn’t that your fantasy?”

  The corner of his mouth kicked up in a grin. “One of them. But who am I to tell you no?”

  “Exactly.” Anna pointedly dropped her gaze to his zipped-up slacks. “Strip,” she ordered, secretly delighted when he did as she demanded. The sound of the zipper’s teeth unhitching was loud in the otherwise quiet room, and Anna bit her lip when she realized that he was naked under the pants.

  “Now, Luke,” she said when he paused long enough that she swore she aged five years. “this is my fantasy.”

  “That I take you hard and fast on your desk?” He pulled a condom from his wallet and then dropped his pants to the floor. “Or that I make you come so hard you’ll see stars bursting like fireworks in your vision for the next twenty minutes?”

  “All of the above,” she said, and then gasped when he entered her in one hard thrust. With her hands positioned above her head, Anna had no choice but to accept the pace he set. Which, true to his word, was both hard and fast.

  It was hot.

  It was spine-tingling.

  It was everything she’d never had with a previous sexual partner, and feared she’d never find again after their two-time fling came to a close.

  Each time they came together, it was new and exciting and mouth-wateringly delicious. Anna didn’t think she’d ever tire of having sex with Luke. And, sure, it was partly because she was too far too deep with her emotions into their non-relationship. With each thrust of his hips, the urge to tell him how she really felt almost spilled from her lips.

  Don’t.

  It wouldn’t be smart.

  This was all he wanted. Just sex.

  Anna could do that. She was thirty-two, still young. Young enough that if she wanted to invest herself in a casual fling, she certainly could. Young enough—

  She moaned when he changed his angle. “Yes,” she whispered, “oh, please, Luke.”

  “Please what?” he said through gritted teeth. “What do you want? More of this?” He ducked his head to plant a kiss on her mouth, nipping her lower lip when he pulled out of her and thrust back in tightly. Raggedly, he demanded, “More of me?”

  Her heart froze, twisted, and her fingers curled into her restraints, powerless. She heard her answer over the blood pounding furiously in her head—an equally ragged yes that shook her with emotion—and then there was nothing but movement.

  His hand drifted over her breasts, down, down, down to her right thigh. He hooked her leg around his hip with a promise to make her feel amazing. She already felt amazing. It wasn’t possible to feel even more amazing. Except that he proved her wrong, again.

  Blunt fingers found her clit as he continued to thrust, circling in electrifying strokes that arched her back and slammed her eyes shut. Another tight circle against her clit, another pump of his hips, and Anna came with stars bursting behind her eyelids and fireworks crackling all around her.

  The jerk hadn’t been lying.

  Abruptly he ripped off the tie from her wrists. “Put your arms around me,” he said. When she did, his head dropped to her shoulder and his hips moved in wild abandon against her. Churning, churning, until he completely stilled and then shuddered under the force of his orgasm.

  Anna’s head thumped against the desk. “That was . . .”

  “Amazing,” he filled in. “The best sex you’ve ever had.”

  She reached up to run her hand through his messy hair. “How did you know?”

  “Because it was the best sex I’ve ever had, and it seems unfair to learn that the feeling was one-sided.”

  Chuckling, she let her hand drift to his forehead which she traced with the tip of her finger. “You’ve earned your participation ribbon today, that’s for sure.”

  “No trophy?”

  At his peeved tone, Anna laughed joyfully. “Maybe a small trophy. Third place.”

  Grumbling something about ungrateful women, Luke straightened and disposed of the condom in her office trashcan. He set himself to rights, tucking in his button down, and, with a subtle gleam in his eyes, redid the tie around his neck. “Want me to leave you here to get ready? I’ll go pretend that I didn’t just make the owner’s day with an orgasm she’ll remember for the rest of her life.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Be happy if I remember it for another week.”

  He cupped her chin and kissed her square in the center of her forehead. A forehead kiss. Was he trying to make her fall hopelessly in love with him?

  “Forever,” he reiterated as he gathered his presents off the desk. “You’ll be old and gray and think back to this day and still feel me between your legs.”

  Good Lord, she was having a hard time forgetting him now. She’d be lucky if she forgot this encounter when she was in her grave. She slid off the desk and let her dress fall in place. “Two days!” she shouted at his back, then kicked her abandoned stockings beneath the desk.

  There was a knock on the door. Probably Shaelyn, who would never let Anna live this down if she realized Anna had fallen into bed (figuratively) with Luke again. Leaping around the edge of the desk, she scurried to the door. “I’ve got this,” she told Luke.

  She swung the door open and felt her stomach drop to her feet.

  Her next-door neighbor lifted a hand full of roses, in greeting, awkwardly. “Sorry if I interrupted something?”

  Anna wanted to die in a hole where she stood. She could feel Luke’s questions radiating off him like a physical ball of energy. Shame slithered d
own her spine and she ducked her head to avoid making eye contact with him. “We were just talking,” she said, just as awkwardly.

  The men didn’t speak.

  Oh, hell. Luke may have told her to get out there and date, but perhaps calling her neighbor for a first date re-do hadn’t been her best plan. Neither was sleeping with Luke, for that matter.

  “Sumner,” she interjected weakly, “this is Luke O’Connor, a friend of mine. Luke”—do not look at him, girl, don’t you do it—“this is my neighbor, Sumner Ajax.”

  “The vet,” Luke said with no amount of joviality in his voice. “I heard you belong on a naked calendar spread with a goat.”

  As if this situation could get any worse, Luke had clearly been talking with Julian. Anna forced a smile and pressed a hand to her chest. All the better to keep her heart still beating in its organ cage. “Ha-ha, that’s funny! So funny.” Oh God, it was so not funny. Why hadn’t the floor swallowed her up yet? “I don’t think that Sumner looks after farm animals, though.”

  Ajax didn’t spare her a glance. “You’ve heard of me,” he drawled slowly to Luke, “but I’ve never heard of you.”

  In a deceptively soft voice, Luke replied, “Somehow, I’m not surprised by that at all.”

  Before Anna had the chance to say anything, Luke had limped his way down the hallway and into the main area of the boutique, taking her heart right along with him.

  “He an ex-boyfriend?”

  Anna startled and glanced over at the handsome vet. “No, no he isn’t. We’re just friends.”

  “Friends, my ass. I think we both know you asked me out for another date because you wanted to get over this Luke fella.”

  Under the weight of Ajax’s scrutiny, Anna deflated. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t have done that. It’s just that you were so nice and Julian adores you, and I guess there was a little part of me that thought . . .”

  “That we’d be an easy setup?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s possible. But I still think you’d rather take complex with that guy who just walked over there than easy with a guy like me.”

  It was true, which really didn’t alleviate Anna’s guilt one bit. “I’m sorry.”

  “No hard feelings. Let’s just tell the boys that we tried to give it a go and realized we’re better off as friends. Sound good?”

  Anna glanced up at Ajax. “You’re a really good man, do you know that?”

  “Tell that to my ex-wife,” he said with a throaty chuckle.

  “I thought you said your wife passed away?”

  With a half-grin and a wink, Ajax fit the roses in her hand and stepped back. “Let’s just say that a bad divorce and death are pretty much the same thing. Have a good night, Anna. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around very soon.”

  Except that a good night was not in her cards. By the time she scrambled to find her shoes and dart into the chaos of the ensuing party, Luke was gone. And when she texted him to let him know that he’d left his suit jacket behind on her desk, he never answered.

  27

  He had no right to be angry. None.

  Even so, Luke was in a shit mood. Had been since he’d left Anna at the boutique three hours ago. One minute he’d been high off the feeling of Anna’s body beneath his, and in the next he’d felt like he’d been kicked in the nuts. Seeing her hotshot neighbor had been, cliché or not, the salt in the fucking wound.

  Wrapping a hand around his Abita bottle, he took a pull of the beer. He shouldn’t have come to Tuck’s, to his and Anna’s bar. Or what he considered as their bar, even though they’d never come on a date here together.

  No, you’ve just been helping her date every other asshat in the city.

  Jesus, he was all kinds of screwed up.

  Rationally, he understood that he was overreacting. He and Anna didn’t have a relationship because he was holding back. Sure, she said that she wanted children, but he hadn’t even given her the option of listening to what he had to say.

  And what do you have to say?

  Luke drew on his beer. Yeah, what did he have to say? That he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted another woman; that he wanted a future with her and Julian, despite the fact that only weeks ago he’d been the most solitary motherfucker to walk New Orleans’ streets; that he was open to adoption, if she’d consider it, if only she would be his.

  Head pounding like the devil, he leaned back against the cushioned booth. He was thirty-one years old, and had no idea how to tell a woman that he wanted to be more than a hookup. It’d be pathetic, if he didn’t think about all his brothers in the army who had similar emotional baggage.

  Emotional baggage or not, Luke was the kind of guy who liked problem-solving. And, as easy as it would be to let himself succumb to a continuous pity party, that’d get him nowhere. Anna didn’t belong with the vet—the man was too fucking good-looking, and honestly? He looked like the sort of dude who wasn’t above a little infidelity. Anna deserved a hell of a lot more than a guy like that.

  The way Luke saw it, he had two options. Go after Anna and explain everything, even if it made his skin itch with the possibility of her gaze turning pitying. Or, he could—

  “Is this seat taken?”

  The soft, feminine voice was all too familiar, and Luke’s heart squeezed when he lifted his gaze to Anna’s gorgeous body and up to her beautiful face. Damn, but he wanted to yank her onto his lap and claim her mouth. Except that he wanted more than that—he wanted to claim her, so she knew as well as everyone else that they were a team, a pack.

  “What are you doing here?” His voice sounded rough, even to his own ears.

  Her nervousness showed when she wrung her hands and then shoved them behind her back. “I figured you might be here after I called . . . you didn’t answer.”

  She had? Reaching into his back pocket, he withdrew his cell phone and flipped it over so he could see its face. Fuck. Two missed calls, along with a text message. Feeling like a complete dick, he shoved the phone back into his pocket. “I didn’t realize that I’d set it to silent this morning when I was helping my mom at the shop.”

  “Oh.” Her blue eyes danced over his face. “That makes sense.”

  There were so many things he wanted to say, and none of them sounded right. The words were there, waiting, and yet his mind was blank aside from one pulsating word: mine.

  “Are you dating your neighbor?” Apparently, he had more words waiting than he’d expected. Luke grabbed the neck of the beer bottle and lifted it to his mouth, wanting to avoid her gaze. He was screwing this up and he had no idea what to do.

  Anna slid into the booth across from him, her hands clasping her elbows. “No. Yes.” She dipped her chin, avoiding his gaze. “I went on a date with him a week back—you know that. But after our talk the other day, when we’d decided that we were limiting ourselves to one night, I asked him out again.” Her blue eyes bounced up to meet his. “It wasn’t my plan to upset you, Luke. I mean, honestly, I didn’t think you’d be upset.”

  Because he’d given her no reason to think otherwise. He drained his beer, wishing that he could just as easily drain his fears and her hurt. Since that wasn’t a possibility . . . “I shouldn’t be upset,” he muttered, his voice audibly gruff. “I said that I wanted one night with you. If anything, I encouraged you to date other people.”

  “You did.” Color warmed her cheeks, and he realized that she was just as ticked-off as he was. “You told me to date other people and that’s what I did. You can’t—” She broke off, her shoulders squaring, her eyes blazing. “You know what I want, Luke. I mean, we were sitting right here a month ago when I pretty much asked you to take me home. You said no. You’ve been saying no. I don’t want to play this cat and mouse game with you anymore. Either you want me or you don’t; either you want to date me or—”

  “I can’t have children.”

  If it weren’t so painful to admit, Luke would have laughed at the way her expressi
on quite literally shifted to one of shock. Her pretty blue eyes went wide and her full lips, lips he was dying to see wrapped around him again, parted. “I don’t . . .” She visibly swallowed. “What do you mean, you can’t have children?”

  Maybe he shouldn’t have blurted out that information, in the middle of a bar, no less, but it didn’t change one fact: if she wanted him, she had to understand what that meant all the way around.

  He’d done some pretty fucked-up things in his past, but lying to her about something as momentous as this . . . yeah, that wasn’t a line he would cross.

  “Do you want a drink?” he asked, nodding his head toward the bar. “You look like you might need it.”

  Without hesitation, she reached for his bottle. Much as it warmed him to know that she had no qualms about sharing his beer, fact was . . . “It’s empty,” he told her. “Do you want something? I’ll get it for you.”

  Her hand pulled back. “No, it’s fine. I’m okay. I’m good.” He wondered if she was trying to convince herself more than she was him. “I don’t understand. How do you know you’re . . . sterile?”

  A deep inhale inflated his chest as he struggled with the how’s of telling her he’d been a punk-ass kid. God, this was hard, harder than he’d anticipated. For the first time since landing in the hospital some months back, Luke wished that he had his cane, if for no other reason than it provided a useful distraction from the topic at hand.

  “Luke,” Anna murmured, “just tell me.”

  He blew out the air he’d been holding captive. “I hooked up with this girl, Mariah, just after finishing basic training and being stationed in New York. I don’t want to get too much into the details with you, but it was very casual. She didn’t talk about dating and neither did I. Then, the condom broke.”

  He wondered if Anna made the comparison to her own circumstances, in which her own ex had knocked her up at the age of eighteen. But there was a key difference between their experiences, mostly because the kid hadn’t been his. “Like any asshole teen, I asked for a paternity test. The idea of having a child terrified me, and I doubted it was actually mine, broken condom or not.”