by Maria Luis
“You were hungry,” he replied, tossing a pepperoni over to Sassy, who caught it mid-air like a champ. “I could hear your stomach grumbling from a mile away.”
Her pretty blue eyes looked to the ceiling. “Such a gentleman to point out my faults.”
“Hey, a woman who scarfs down an entire pizza by herself? I need to meet this girl.”
Luke watched in pleasure as a blush stained her cheeks.
“You’ve already met this girl,” she muttered.
“Then obviously I need to keep her around. See what else I can do to convince her to get naked again with me.” He winked, just to show that he was kidding, even though he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want to have sex with her again. Sex with Anna had been the best damn experience of his life. And it wasn’t just that she was beautiful. No, it had been her honesty that had stolen his breath, and the vivacious glint in her blue eyes that had got him, hook, line, and sinker.
He wanted her again, this time stretched out beneath him. He wanted to discover what turned her on and to return to those secret places that no one but him knew existed. He wanted—well, fuck. Luke blinked down at his pizza. He wanted way too much, most of it which he knew was unlikely to become a reality.
Her voice broke the silence. “Having regrets?”
The only regret circulating in his brain was that he had no regrets. He ripped his crust in thirds and tossed up the smallest piece for Sassy to catch. “Nah,” he said, hoping that she didn’t dare peer closer, “no regrets. You?”
His gaze cut to her face, and he didn’t miss the way she hesitated in bringing the pizza up for a bite. Then, she primly lowered the pizza to her plate and said, “Why would I regret a one-time thing?”
Hold on now. A one-time thing?
Without giving him time to jump in, Anna added, “I know you don’t do relationships. You’ve said so yourself about a thousand and one times—”
Annoyance tightened his muscles. “Now I wouldn’t say a thousand and one times exactly.”
“Okay,” she amended with a flick of her hand, “just a thousand times. At least. Anyway, I knew what I was getting into when I pulled my dress over my head. You don’t want a relationship and I do. Thus, a one-time deal. I’m okay with that.”
But was she really? After listening to her spell it all out so cut and dry, Luke wasn’t even sure he was okay with the situation. Here he’d been, planning out his strategy to get her onto a bed this time, and she’d already wrapped up their relationship with a bow and put it on a shelf like a goddamned picture frame. A picture frame that maybe she’d pick up in twenty years, glance at fondly, and then never look at it again.
Luke was not okay with the hottest sex of his life being relegated to a memory. That was the very last thing he wanted.
In the face of his silence, Anna shifted uncomfortably on the couch, tugging at the T-shirt’s hem so that it covered more of her legs. “You said you didn’t regret us having sex,” she said slowly, still tugging on his shirt. “And you bought me pizza.”
Shit. Luke put his plate on the coffee table, pointed a warning do not touch finger at Sassy and did the same with Anna’s. She put up a small protest when he had to practically tear the plate from her hands, which made him grin like an idiot.
“I don’t regret us having sex,” he finally said. “And I bought you pizza because you like pizza and you were hungry.”
“I sense a ‘but’ on its way . . .”
“But,” Luke interjected, proving her right, “I hate that I gave you the impression that I don’t want a relationship.”
“Except that you don’t.” She said this bluntly, but without any underlying heat.
If someone had asked him three months ago if he saw himself in a relationship anytime soon, the answer would have been fuck no. But this thing with Anna—this whatever it was that had been growing since she’d literally collided into him—had swooped in from left field and taken a sledgehammer to his heart. He didn’t know what the hell he wanted. Luke just knew that he couldn’t let her walk away.
Reaching out, Anna placed a hand on his right knee and squeezed. Her voice was gentle, and frustratingly understanding, when she said, “Again, Luke, it’s okay. You made it abundantly clear that you aren’t the marrying kind of guy. And it’s not like we’ve talked kids, but I get the sense that you aren’t the stroller kind of guy either.”
Luke froze. Every thought slammed to a halt, and he would have sworn that his heart stopped beating had it not been for the thundering pulsing in his head.
She doesn’t know.
How could she? Still, the fact that she hadn’t meant to take a knife and jab it into his heart didn’t mean that he didn’t now feel the phantom twist of the handle. And what the fuck was wrong with him anyway? Luke had known since the age of twenty that he couldn’t have kids. That was eleven long years of looking at babies in car seats or toddlers in strollers and rationally comprehending that the baby-diaper days and the let’s-play-house-dad days were not his future.
Rationally, he knew all of that.
For the most part, Luke had never felt a sense of loss over his inability to father children. The army had swallowed up his focus for over a decade, limiting the possibility of actual relationships—aside from random flings here and there while on leave—and any real desire to do anything but be a soldier.
He shouldn’t care. He didn’t care.
But that didn’t stop the sensation that he was drowning.
He opened his mouth. Clamped it shut. Swallowed a healthy dose of dread and roughly asked, “Is that what you want? Another kid?”
Anna recommenced with the shirt tugging. Double shit. He’d made her nervous. Her blue eyes shot toward Sassy, who’d opted to sprawl on his back on the floor, his naughty bits exposed for all who cared to take notice. Laughing nervously, she said, “Yes. I mean, I’ve always sort of wanted the family package, you know?”
He didn’t, but he nodded anyway for the sake of her continuing. It was necessary that he hear this. Get it through his thick skull that he and Anna Bryce did not belong together.
Taking encouragement from his slight response, she settled in to the couch, folding her legs beneath her and wrapping her arms around her knees. She wasn’t wearing any panties, and though he was mightily tempted to sneak a peek, he kept his gaze above her shoulders. On her face, so that he could hear as well as see why this one-time thing was all it would ever be between them.
“You know that I gave birth to Jules when I was eighteen,” she was saying, her cheeks flushed pink with nervousness, “but I don’t think I explained how everything played out.”
Despite himself, Luke murmured, “Tell me now, sweetheart.”
She shot him a surprised look. “I didn’t think you’d care.”
He deserved that, especially after the way their initial meetings had gone down. “I don’t,” he said by way of maintaining the image of devil-may-care playboy, “but tell me anyway.”
Luke reached for her plate off the table, handing it back to her with a fresh slice from the cardboard box. She accepted the offer with a half-smile, dropping her knees to sit in a cross-legged position as she plucked off a piece of pepperoni and popped it into her mouth.
“Tony—that’s what he went by—was all eighteen-year-old me could think about when I got into Tulane. He wasn’t anything special, I guess, but I’d spent high school dating mama’s boys and Tony was the complete opposite. Tattoos down his arm, a devilish grin that made my heart flutter. You know the drill.”
He nodded again, reaching for his own pizza plate though his stomach was on edge. Listening to her wax poetic about a different guy was now on his Official Things He Never Wanted To Hear Again list. Right next to that scarring time he’d heard Amy get it on with her high school boyfriend in their childhood home.
“We started dating within weeks of school starting. Or, I guess, dated in the way that only college kids date. Went out to the bars together, always with a
group. Ate together in the dining hall—I always felt so lucky when he came back to the table with an extra slice of pizza for me. Pathetic, right?”
Luke glared at the pizza box. Apparently, her vices weren’t the kind that changed every seven years, then. No longer hungry, he set his plate down and dropped his hands between his knees, elbows on his thighs.
“We had sex a few times. It, uh, honestly wasn’t that good but I liked him too much to say anything about it. I think it was about two months into everything that he convinced me to let him do it without a condom.”
“And you let him?” He tried to say it without sounding like a crotchety old man. Maybe because he’d seen what had happened with his mother, Luke had never foregone wearing a condom. Even though he was sterile, and even though the military doctors had told him he had zero chance of ever impregnating a woman. Certain things were sacred—going bareback was one of them, and Luke had never considered himself worthy enough for that honor.
To say nothing of the practicalities of the situation, like transmitted diseases. One wrong move and Luke would have found himself out of the military so fast his dick would have still been hard.
Anna’s blush deepened as she averted her gaze. “Trust me, I questioned myself even then. My only excuse, and it’s not really one, is that I wanted him to love me badly. So, I let him go without using a condom. You know that saying about how it only takes one time? I might as well be the poster child. Figured out I was pregnant two months later after two missed periods. When I told Tony that he was going to be a father, he turned tail so fast I think I may have suffered whiplash.”
Taking the last bite of her slice, she chewed slowly and then swallowed. “It’s always been me and Julian. I’ve dated over the years here and there, but nothing has ever really come out of it. I want to have a family, to have a husband who supports me emotionally and who adores his kids, those of his own blood and the one who isn’t. I just want to be part of a pack.”
I just want to be part of a pack.
Until he’d heard those words, Luke had never realized how much he wanted the same thing. Except that his version of a “pack” would be decidedly different than hers. His would include a loving wife and a son that wasn’t his, but Luke didn’t give a damn about blood. He’d spent most of his adult life surrounded by brothers who didn’t share his blood, name, or face.
Fuck, even Trinket was family. Albeit the black sheep.
But that wasn’t what she wanted. His dream and hers were not the same, and he’d be a selfish prick to lead her on and pretend he could give her what she wanted.
“So, what’s the plan now?” he asked, hoping to God that she didn’t detect the hollow note in his voice. He felt barren, literally and figuratively. The same as he had when he’d woken up in that hospital bed in Iraq with a bundled leg and the good Doc staring down at him with pity straining his expression. “You gonna hop on the dating wagon again? Take another crack at it and see if you hit gold this time?”
What looked like disappointment flashed across her face before disappearing behind a blinding smile. “I guess I don’t have another option, do I?”
She was giving him a chance to claim her as his, right here, right now. The desire to do just that was overwhelmingly powerful.
Do not lead her on.
Luke’s eyes slammed shut. Don’t be a prick, he instructed himself. “I guess we could give the whole challenge thing another go. If you wanted.”
This time, he didn’t miss the flinch that jolted her body, and Luke felt like the worst sort of person. Just tell her! he hollered at himself. In the end, though, what would that do? Put off the inevitable when she left him for another man who could give her children? Luke wasn’t one for dramatics, but he was pretty damn sure watching that scenario go down would be the death of him.
Delicately, Anna rearranged his T-shirt around her legs and made a move to stand up. “I think I’ll be okay on my own this time. Thank you, though.”
“Are you thanking me for my participation in the original dare, for tonight’s escapades, or for my offer to help you find your soul mate?”
At the sour note in his voice, she twisted around to face him with her hands planted on her hips. “None of it. All of it.” She shook her head and threw up her hands in frustration. “Does it really matter, Luke?” She turned away sharply. “I’ve got to go. I’m sure Brady and Shae are wondering where I am, and how much longer they’ve got to house Julian for.”
“They took him to the movies.”
Slowly, she glanced over her shoulder at him. “What?”
“The movies,” Luke muttered, rubbing a hand along the back of his neck. “When I made the call for pizza, I texted Brady because I wanted more time with you. The five of them are currently enjoying the latest action flick on my dime.”
“You wanted more time with me?”
“Yes.”
She picked her way back toward him, her hips swaying enticingly beneath the thin fabric of his shirt. “To do what?” she demanded, just as she reached his side. “For more sex?”
His cock perked up at the word “sex” and Luke internally cursed his body. Now was not the time to get randy over something that was probably never going to happen again.
“Hmm, Luke?” she prodded, dropping a hand to the waistband of his boxers.
Yep. Total hard-on now. It wasn’t even his fault. There was only so much one man could take. “Honestly, I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give me.”
“Is that so?” Her fingers dipped below the waistband and with a quick tug sent them down to his ankles. His erection thrust up unapologetically, and Luke forced himself to hold still.
In a voice cut from steel, he ground out, “If you’re going to walk away, sweetheart, do it now.”
“No.”
Her small hand curled around his cock and the sight of it nearly sent Luke to his knees. “No?”
“No.” Then, she dropped to her knees and flicked out her tongue across the head of his cock. Holy hell. “I have one more dare for you, Luke.”
His “go for it” came out on warble.
Blue eyes glanced up, past his throbbing cock, past his abs and chest, to his face. With her lips hovering just above his hard-on, she whispered, “I dare you to make love to me.”
Then she wrapped those luscious lips around him and sent him to a place as close to Heaven as he’d ever get. And then, following that, he made do on her challenge. On the bed, in the shower, and even in his small-ass courtyard that resembled more of a shed than anything passably romantic.
It was, hands down, the best night of his life.
And it would never happen again.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Are you going to touch that champagne? Because if not, girl, I can think of a way better place for it to go.”
Anna didn’t want to give up her celebratory glass of the bubbly, not even to her favorite cousin. Who just so happened to be her only cousin. She stiffed Shaelyn, drawing the glass up to her mouth, and took a hearty swig.
Her red lipstick left a stain on the crystal.
She didn’t bother to swipe it clean.
“Good Lord, she’s moping,” Shaelyn announced to the empty boutique. “We’re celebrating and she looks like I just kicked her puppy.”
Since she couldn’t really dispute the moping thing, Anna testily replied, “I don’t have a puppy.”
“If you did have a puppy, then. Where’s your imagination?”
Probably in the same place where she’d left her heart—with Luke. Anna tipped back the rest of the champagne, swallowing it in one go. Tears sprung to her eyes. “It took a vacation,” she told her cousin, “a much-needed vacation.”
Shaelyn rolled her eyes and then refilled their glasses. “Yeah, well, you need to pull yourself together. We’ve got the news people coming by to do a segment on us in twenty minutes and then a party to host right after that. I need you on your A-game.”
The local news
station had recently caught wind that La Parisienne had once again made national headlines, this time as the supplier for Thick of the Woods, and demanded to put them live on air.
Which was why both Anna and Shaelyn had stuck around after the boutique had locked up for the day, waiting for their five minutes of TV fame to sweep them down an imaginary red carpet. On any other day, Anna would have been over the moon that all of their hard work was paying off. Today, she just felt . . . disappointed. And stupid—mustn’t forget that one.
Shaelyn blew out a big sigh and made an out-with-it-already gesture. “Okay, let’s do this. Why do you look like I kicked the puppy you don’t actually have?”
Anna bit her lower lip, torn between keeping the whole thing to herself and opening up to her cousin and best friend. The secret-keeping had been eating her alive these last few days, and she just had to come out with it.
“I had sex with Luke.”
Shaelyn’s champagne glass clattered to the marble-topped table where they kept the register. “You did what?”
“I had sex with Luke.” She held up four fingers, and added, “Four times.”
“Holy crap. I need to sit down for this.” Sweeping a hasty glance around the boutique, Shaelyn snagged a stool and planted her butt on it. She held up a hand, palm facing out. “Okay. I’m going to need you to repeat this again to me. You had sex with Luke O’Connor. The Luke O’Connor.”
“Yes.”
“Four times?” Shaelyn murmured in what could only have been awe. She wiggled four fingers in the air. “Are you sure you counted correctly? How many fingers am I holding up right now?”
“I’m not blind, Shae. And, yes, I counted correctly.”
Her cousin still didn’t seem inclined to believe her. “In one night?”
“No, in eight nights. Yes, in one night.”
“Wow.” Shaelyn dragged her champagne to her mouth and took an unladylike gulp. “Guess you decided to end your five-year re-virginity streak with a bang. Pun unintended, by the way.”