by Maria Luis
Only her parents, Shaelyn, Julian, and Brady knew about Anna’s ex-boyfriend. Brady, because he’d been the one to arrest Tony last year. And it wasn’t as though she could convince Julian to sit down and have a conversation about his father. His method of recovery was to ignore the problem’s very existence.
“It just left a bad taste in my mouth, is all,” she explained. “I’m sure I’m just overreacting.”
He didn’t look like he believed her. “Is there anything I can do for you before the party?”
“No, I think everything—wait! I have your present here. Don’t move.”
Luke lifted his hands. “Not going anywhere.”
Anna went to her desk and opened the bottom drawer. The package sat nestled at the bottom and she grabbed the two corners with each hand. With her shin, she edged the drawer shut and twisted around to face Luke.
“If you don’t like it, I still have the receipt.”
“I’m sure I’ll love it,” he said in that husky baritone she enjoyed listening to so much. “Should I be sitting down for this?”
Anna slid the gift onto her desk. “If you want.”
Luke’s butt came off the desk as he wrapped his hands around the present, dragging it close. His green eyes were a vibrant peridot and were wide with curiosity. Tearing at the clear tape, he unraveled the present.
“There are three gifts here.” His large hands traced the line of the hardcover edge of a book, then encircled the two DVD sets.
“I thought, maybe, the book might come in handy with your mom’s shop.”
Luke traced the bold typography: Hacking Your Way to Best Small-Business Success. “Thank you. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be there for. You could say I was a temporary employee at best.”
“Really?” Anna’s brows lowered in confusion. “She mentioned to Shaelyn and I during Thanksgiving dinner that she was thinking about naming you co-owner.”
His mouth gaped open. “Co-owner? I don’t think so. Surprisingly, I like it there. It’s relaxing, probably thanks to that New Age shit my mom plays on the radio all day. But I’m not there on a permanent basis.”
“Maybe you should take it up with your mom, then?”
Luke stared down at the book, silent. “I think you’re right.” He switched his attention to the wrapped DVD sets. “Dare I hope this is something scandalous?”
Anna grinned, crossing one leg in front of the other as she watched him with amusement. “I think ‘scandalous’ might be a good word for it.”
His mouth twitched. “Please don’t say that you got me porn.”
“Just open it,” she urged with an impatient flap of her arm.
He did so without further prompting, ripping open the packaging like he was a kid on Christmas morning. His hands stilled at the first glimpse of the DVDs and within seconds his hands were on the desk, his head falling forward as he roared with laughter.
“You didn’t,” he said, reaching up to swipe under one eye with his thumb.
Somewhat smugly, Anna saluted him. “I did.”
Lifting his head to meet her gaze, he announced, “I need to kiss you.”
She barely reined in a surprised squeak. “Right now?”
“Yes. You got me the Dr. Phil and Judge Judy DVD sets. I’m not sure whether to feel pleased or embarrassed. If I’m being honest, probably the former.”
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“You’re right,” he murmured, cutting around the desk and moving toward her with uneven but purposeful strides, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to kiss the hell out of you.”
Anna pretended to put up a fuss, but the honest-to-God truth was that she wanted to kiss him, too.
His hands came up to cup her face, his thumbs fanning out over the crest of her cheeks. Her knees softened and she tipped her head back. “We shouldn’t be doing this,” she whispered, one hand wrapping around his thick wrist. “We agreed to make this just a one-time thing.”
“Sweetheart, we threw that rule out the window when we did it in the courtyard. And in the shower, and on the—”
She covered his mouth with her hand, and she felt his lips widen into a grin beneath her palm. “What are you proposing?”
With a soft grip, he tugged her hand away from his face. He didn’t let her go. Instead he pressed a gentle kiss to her inner wrist. “The last time I was in this office, I wondered what it would be like to fuck you on your desk.”
“That’s your proposal?”
His wide shoulders lifted in a shrug. “It was either the desk or the bench. The desk option fulfills a few more of the fantasies I’ve had about you.”
“You’ve had fantasies about me?” Anna shouldn’t let those words please her as much as they did. “What did these fantasies include?”
He nudged her backward until the back of her thighs hit the desk and her hands came down to grip the edge. His green eyes glittered with desire, and that potent desire had her clenching her thighs together. They should not be doing this again. She needed to tell him that she’d called—
“I’d rather show you,” he said, interrupting her thought process as he unknotted his tie and slid it from his collar. “C’mere, Blondie.”
Anna eyed the necktie like it was a foreign object. “What do you plan on doing with that?”
“Fulfilling a fantasy.”
Shaking her head, she said, “Don’t think it’s quite my color. Now if it was pink . . .”
He motioned for her to give him her hands, and pathetic creature that she was, she held out her hands even as she vocally protested. “Luke, I’m not sure . . . We have guests coming soon.”
“What time is it?”
Her gaze found the clock on the wall. “Just before six.”
“I have thirty minutes. Long enough to do this, sweetheart.” He wrapped the tie around her wrists, and then gently pushed her until her back softly collided with the desk. “We’ve got to talk about these stockings.”
“They’re warm and it’s cold out,” she protested.
“You also look beautiful in them,” he returned evenly. “Doesn’t mean I don’t hate them. Guys bitch about bra clasps. You know what I say? Bra clasps have nothing on stockings.”
He sounded so completely frustrated that Anna couldn’t stop the bubble of laughter that eased out of her. With narrowed eyes, Luke brushed a hard kiss over her mouth before moving down and hiking her dress up. After a moment of struggle, he managed to slide the stockings down and over her feet. He held the offending item up like a conceding white flag and then threw them over his shoulder.
“Next time,” he murmured against her neck, “I’ll be faster.”
Then he fused their mouths together and Anna didn’t have time to ponder what “next time” really meant. She lost herself in his arms, which had slipped behind her shoulders to cradle her back. For a man who reputedly hated anything that spoke to softness, Luke O’Connor certainly had a way of making her feel uniquely individual anytime he pressed his lips to her.
“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 fin
gers 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 down 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 thi
nk 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.