Staying For Good (A Most Likely To Novel Book 2)

by Catherine Bybee

  She placed her hands on her hips. “Why are we talking about the room?”

  Luke reached out, grabbed her around the waist, and backed her against the slightly blue bed in the middle of the room. “We’re not.” He kissed her and started to laugh. “It’s white.”

  Zoe turned him around and pushed him onto the bed.

  He fell with a grin, caught himself on his elbows. “Forceful . . . I like it.”

  “I don’t remember you being into that kind of thing.” Zoe moved between his legs and stood over him.

  “A lot can change in ten years.”

  Oh, boy, did she know that. She reached her arms around her back and tugged on the zipper to unbind herself from her dress.

  Luke stared and started to lose his grin. His blue eyes smoldered.

  She managed about half the length and the zipper caught.

  She tugged, willing the binding free.

  It didn’t move.

  The smoldering behind Luke’s gaze turned back into a grin.

  So much for my sexy moment.

  “Something stuck?”

  “And here I wanted to give you a show.” Zoe dropped her arms to her sides and started to back away.

  Luke leaned forward, and placed a possessive hand on her hip before turning her around.

  She grabbed the length of her hair and collected it over her shoulder to give him room.

  Instead of reaching for her zipper, she felt Luke’s fingers trace the edge of her hip to the top of her knee through her dress. He lingered there, using both hands as he moved back up to her waist.

  She closed her eyes and enjoyed his slow awakening of her senses.

  His hands felt massive as they spanned her back, his thumbs tracing the edges of the stubborn zipper.

  Instead of removing her dress, he used the backs of his fingers and stroked the edge of the fabric before dipping inside to touch.

  He was only touching her back, and just barely, but the rest of her body began to hum like a circuit of electricity taking a charge.

  Zoe heard Luke lift from the bed, his hands on her arms.

  He lifted the strap of her dress and slid it over one shoulder. His touch left a path of tingling skin soothed only by the featherlight touch of his lips when he kissed where he touched. She tilted her head while dropping her hair.

  Luke ran his tongue along the side of her neck, his teeth scraping a path to her ear.

  She shivered. Memories of their past mixed with the new. They’d watched those vampire movies their senior year, and Luke had vowed to be her personal neck sucker for life.

  “Such a sexy neck,” he whispered in her ear.

  She smiled and bit her lip, waiting . . .

  When he caught her lobe with his teeth, her knees started to wobble.

  Luke wrapped an arm around her waist to steady her while he rediscovered the places that made her weak.

  Zoe gripped the arm that held her close and rolled her head back on his shoulder.

  “I missed this spot.” He tasted her right behind the ear and kissed his way around the back of her neck to the other side. “And this one.”

  “Just those?” she asked, breathless.

  “There are others . . . but right now . . . just these two.” He tugged her hair to the side and bit a little harder. He kissed and licked his way over her shoulder.

  Somewhere in all his attention to her neck, he’d managed to tug her zipper free and helped her dress drop to her feet.

  She stood in her lacy black bra and barely there panties and wondered what Luke saw. Like him, she’d filled out since they’d last been together. Her hips a little bigger, her breasts a bit larger.

  Luke turned her around and scanned her body while holding her hips. “You’re so beautiful.”

  Okay . . . she no longer thought about her rounder parts. “Show me,” she told him.

  He reached for the buttons on his shirt and fumbled. On his third button, she grew impatient and batted his hand away to take over. Once his shirt was open, she fanned her hands over his sculpted chest. The man looked much better than the high school sweetheart she’d left behind.

  She touched her lips to his collarbone and returned the favor of tasting his neck. She liked his late night growth of beard as it scraped against her cheek.

  His hand found her breast over her bra and squeezed as she licked the edges of his lips. When they finally kissed, there was nothing light in their touch. It was hot and hungry open-mouthed kisses she’d dreamed about for more years than she cared to admit.

  Luke struggled out of his shirt, one arm at a time, without letting her go.

  Zoe reached for the clasp on his belt and became distracted by the bulge competing for space inside Luke’s slacks. She ran her hand over his length and heard him cuss under his breath.

  She gripped him harder and he had to stop kissing her. With slack lips hovering over hers, he released a long-suffering moan. “You’re destroying me.”

  “Is that a good thing?”

  The answer lay in a kiss that brought them both to bed in a tangle of limbs.

  As soon as his pants met the floor, Zoe draped one long leg over his hip and pressed close.

  They kissed with swollen mouths and shattered breaths.

  Zoe squeezed his ass and pulled his boxer shorts away. The length of him sprang into her hand with a mind of its own. The silky feel was hot and heavy and everything she remembered. She wanted a taste . . . something she’d been shy about in their time before. That was the old Zoe, the young, inexperienced girl. This was the woman, and she planned on making sure Luke knew she’d grown up.

  She pushed him onto his back and kissed a path down his chest. Her teeth lingered over a taut nipple, her tongue made it harder. She moved lower and felt Luke’s abdomen flex the moment he figured out where she was going.

  Fingernails scraped over his hip and down his leg as she made her way to what she wanted.

  Luke squirmed, his hips pushed forward.

  She kissed his navel, felt his erection against her chin. The tip of her tongue darted out to taste, and Luke’s hand found the back of her head. He didn’t push her closer, didn’t pull her away. When she looked up, she found him watching her with a lidded gaze.

  With eyes locked, she pulled him into the warmth of her mouth. She wasn’t sure who moaned louder . . . him or her. Probably him, but she loved his response and took him deeper.

  “Jesus, Zoe.”

  She hummed and kept moving, letting her hands grip what she couldn’t take.

  Both of his hands were in her hair . . . she felt him tug her away, then push her back for more. Finally, he stopped her pursuit. “Another time,” he moaned, pulling her higher on the bed and rolling her onto her back. “Finish that another time.”

  “I plan to,” she told him.

  He wiped her lower lip with his thumb and kissed her.

  When he pulled at her lace panties, she lifted her hips to help them leave her body. His fingers fanned her belly and buried into the heated folds of her sex.

  She whimpered, ready for whatever Luke wanted to do with her. “I want you inside of me, Luke.”

  He wiggled his fingers. “I am.”

  She hit his chest with her fist. “Not that part.”

  “Impatient minx.”

  “Luke,” she warned.

  He kissed her snarl before reaching over the bed to find his pants. He unearthed a condom from his wallet and handed it to her.

  With his erection in her hand, she covered him quickly and lay back down.

  Luke nudged her legs apart and settled between them.

  Their eyes locked as he sank into her one inch at a time. He stretched her sex and filled her. They both stilled, alone in their thoughts, but one with their bodies. Luke gave a slow, knowing smile and started to move. And when he reached down to kiss her, emotion clogged Zoe’s throat.

  He whispered sweet words as he claimed her body as his. The slow, fiery build drew tiny squeaks from
the bed. Soon she could only hear the thump of her heart and their quick breaths as they moved closer to release. When her muscles tightened, ready to explode, she wrapped her legs around Luke’s waist and willed him closer. She shuddered in her orgasm, his name on her lips, and knew her life was never going to be the same again.

  Chapter Ten

  Luke walked into his bedroom right as the sun was starting to peek in the window.

  Leaving Zoe’s side was one of the hardest things he’d done in years. The glow of her smile and weak push as she told him to leave were evidence she was just as affected as he was.

  His wallet was empty of condoms and the muscles under his skin were sated.

  They’d managed about two hours of sleep before making love one final time.

  He had promised himself sometime in the night not to overanalyze what was happening between them. Never once did he think it was just sex. With Zoe, it had never been all about the sex. Yeah, when he was a teenager getting anything had been a priority. If he were being honest with himself, the first time he really noticed Zoe, it had been his dick that stood to attention first. He’d been gone most of the summer, shipped off to his grandparents on his mother’s side, just outside of Seattle. He hadn’t wanted to go, but as the summer wore on, his parents probably had to book his ticket for their own sanity. That was the year he’d really discovered girls, and much to his delight, they discovered him, too. Those months in Seattle had proven one of the best summers ever. Mainly because of the girls who flirted and then some with the kid who wasn’t going to be around to tell their steady boyfriends once school started in the fall. Luke enjoyed the then some with the girls most likely to put out. When he returned to River Bend, his ego had grown along with his confidence he’d get what he wanted.

  He distinctly remembered a hot August day when he’d heard that Jo and her posse were going to hook up at the river with a fifth of whatever liquor she could get her hands on and go swimming. There was only one real swimming hole on the river, and all the kids knew about it.

  Luke rounded up Baily and Mike and headed to the river to spy on the girls.

  They’d parked far from the swimming hole and walked the long way around to stay hidden, hoping the whole time that one of the girls had forgotten her bathing suit.

  They hadn’t.

  But watching girls in bikinis was almost as much fun as watching them naked. Especially Zoe. Luke had done a double take when his eyes rested on her. She’d always kept herself hidden under big sweatshirts and heavy sweaters. Ugly clothes that didn’t fit and only called out negative attention. Even the bathing suit she’d worn that day hadn’t suited her well. It had been way too small. Her breasts spilled out from the edges of the fabric and the bottoms did a crappy job of hiding her ass.

  Luke was bewitched.

  They’d sat in the trees watching the girls swim for half an hour before he accidentally on purpose rolled a half-empty can of beer down the bank and gave their location away.

  Jo had been the first to notice and start cussing.

  Mel ducked under the water.

  And Zoe . . . Zoe placed both hands on her hips and stared them down.

  By the time they left the river that day, they’d polished off the fifth and the six-pack, they’d sat around a campfire counting stars, and Luke had gone so far as to hold Zoe’s hand.

  Yeah . . . it was that big a deal.

  He’d gone from getting it to hand holding for the better part of the next year. He’d never looked back.

  Luke looked at his bachelor home and small kitchen. Zoe had never cooked there, but he could picture her demanding fresh basil or thyme—whatever the hell that was—while he scrambled over to his parents’ to raid his mother’s garden. Or maybe he should plant one for Zoe.

  What was he thinking?

  They’d just hooked up for the first time since before he was old enough to drink in a bar.

  He smiled at the memory and decided he needed a shower more than a few more hours of sleep. He had some planning to do.

  “You do know the blue room is right above mine, right?”

  Zoe blinked several times, her mind scrambling for an explanation . . . then decided a lie now would be heartache later. “Luke said it’s the white room.”

  Mel rolled her eyes. “The bedspread is blue.”

  “I know, right?”

  Mel grinned. “So is there something you need to tell us?”

  Zoe, Jo, and Mel sat on the back porch of Miss Gina’s inn, looking over bridal magazines and picking out all the crazy crap one picked when planning a wedding.

  “What is she getting at?” Jo asked, oblivious to what was obvious.

  Zoe picked up her iced tea and said over the rim of the glass, “Luke spent the night with me last night.”

  Jo’s eyes drifted from the satin and lace gown on the page. “Spent the night.”

  “Platonically slept in the same space?” Mel asked, knowing full well that wasn’t the case.

  Zoe started to nod, then slowly shook her head. “We screwed like bunnies until about two, fell asleep . . . and he left around six.”

  “Five thirty,” Mel corrected. “After another round.”

  “Jesus, Zoe . . . what does this mean?” Jo asked.

  Zoe dropped her hands in her lap. “How the hell do I know what it means? It means we like sex and we’re good at it.”

  “It’s Luke.”

  Zoe found Jo’s eyes. “I know.”

  “It’s more than sex if it’s Luke,” Mel chimed in.

  Jo’s eyes stared in judgment.

  “He came to me in Texas. Talked with one of my neighbors to find the bar we were at that night.”

  “This can only end badly,” Jo stated Zoe’s deepest fear.

  “Who said it needs to end at all?” Mel asked. “Luke and Zoe belong together.”

  “I live in Texas, Mel.”

  Little Miss Optimism with her shiny new engagement ring and wedding bells ringing wasn’t thinking about a probable breakup and fallout.

  Jo obviously was.

  “Did you guys talk about this before it happened? Or did it just happen?”

  “A little of both.”

  Jo ran a hand through her hair. “I almost had to arrest him last year when you left after the class reunion, Zoe. He has a weak spot when it comes to you.”

  This was not something she wanted coming between her and Jo, but she needed to solicit her BFF’s support. “I know you worry, Jo. I’m more than a little confused myself. But ever since Luke showed up in Dallas, I haven’t been able to get him out of my head. Being here makes it even harder to think about anything else other than how it once was with us.”

  “You leave in the morning,” Jo argued.

  Jo was torn. How could she not be when she had been the one here to pick up the pieces after Zoe had left?

  “But you’re going to come back . . . a lot.” Mel was playing middle child, mediating.

  “And Luke can get on a plane to visit me.”

  “Did he say that?” Jo asked.

  “He alluded to it.”

  Mel waved a hand between the two of them. “Oh, my God. Stop it, you two . . . this is awesome stuff. Zoe and Luke getting back together is like Sandy and Danny from Grease. It’s epic and wonderful.”

  “I think Jo’s concerned about a Romeo and Juliet outcome.”

  Jo nodded. “Not the perfect ending.”

  “So melodramatic. No one is going to kill themselves.” Mel shoved Jo’s knee and broke the tension. “So how was it?”

  A slight lift to Jo’s lips told Zoe she wanted details.

  “Is it possible his dick grew over the last decade?”

  Mel squealed and Jo glanced at the sky as if contemplating the question.

  For the next hour, they talked about makeup sex. Engagement party sex . . . and sex with a nameless man Jo had while in Dallas. Nameless only because she refused to gather the details and save herself the effort of looking the m
an up in her database. A byproduct of her job, she told them. His tats alone told her he had a history, but damn, the man had been good in bed.

  According to Jo in any event.

  The conversation switched only when Wyatt and Hope returned to the inn with Wyatt’s parents around lunchtime.

  Zoe’s phone buzzed in her pocket while she baked homemade snickerdoodles for Miss Gina and her guests.

  Luke’s number popped up on her screen.

  I don’t know the last time I felt the need to nap on a Sunday afternoon.

  I’m shot, myself.

  Did anyone see me leave?

  Zoe settled against the counter and enjoyed this new way of communicating with Luke. When they’d dated in high school, she couldn’t afford a cell phone. They were probably the only kid couple who hadn’t shared naked pictures when they were young. Zoe suddenly felt fortunate that there weren’t those kinds of recorded pieces of crap out there for someone to exploit.

  No, but Mel and Wyatt took notes from the room below us.

  Oh, boy . . . twenty questions?

  She set her phone down when the oven timer rang. After pulling her cookies from the oven, she returned to her text.

  Luke had placed an impatient question mark in its own text when she hadn’t returned fast enough.

  Sorry, baking. Yes 20 Q’s. Jo is worried. Mel is excited.

  It was Zoe’s turn to lose patience when a dot, dot, dot didn’t turn into words quickly enough. Finally his text came. Listen to Mel. I’ll talk to Jo.

  Zoe stared at her screen for a full minute. Are we doing the right thing?

  His reply was instant. It doesn’t feel wrong.

  No, it didn’t.

  He told her he’d be by after dinner to take her out to R&B’s for drinks or whatever she wanted.

  Zoe counted the hours and decided a nap might be the perfect way to pass the time while waiting for Luke to pick her up.

  Chapter Eleven

  Zoe stood over the stove with the dinner rush in full swing.

  The fewer shifts she took at Nahana, the busier her nights were. The owners announced when she was in the kitchen and the reservations poured in. With only two weekends a month on the calendar, Zoe thought she’d have it easier. It didn’t feel that way at the end of a shift.