“Last call,” Luke announced to the room, leaning across the bar to give me a quick kiss before the final rush for drinks before closing. “All joking aside, you look good enough to eat,” he growled in my ear before he pulled away and went back to work.
He placed a Coke in front of me, knowing I didn’t drink anymore then I went and sat on a table not far from him, watching him serve customers with a smile on his face and private glances for me.
The anticipation leading up to this night had me so on edge that I felt I might explode. I begged the gods of good sex to please let him be as good as the tension was promising me. I thought that if this feeling turned into something as disappointing as my previous experiences then I might just go and join a convent and give up sex all together.
When Luke locked up, there was about ten minutes worth of paperwork to do and a dishwasher that needed starting then we were out the door and to his car, hurrying like two school kids. He opened the car door for me. “Is it crazy that I’m shaking with nerves over this?” he asked, resting his forehead against mine as his fingers drifted lazily up the bare flesh of my arm. “I’m excited and nervous and…” He blew out his breath. “It’s been a really long time for me. I’m scared I’ll disappoint you.”
Those simple words meant the world to me. The fact that he actually cared about disappointing me told me that he wanted me to experience just as much pleasure as he did. My stomach skittered with nerves and excitement in response. “If we weren’t nervous, it would mean we didn’t care about each other as much as we do.”
“I love you, Dawn. I wanted to say it now, before…you know.”
Smiling, I nodded, reaching up to touch his check and run my fingers over the short hair on his face. “I love you too.”
He kissed me as he guided me into the passenger seat of his car then clipped me in, still kissing me, as if his life depended on it.
He let out his breath and laughed a little. “God, I love kissing you.”
Closing my door, he ran quickly around the car to the driver’s side and got in. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”
I grinned and reached over to him, running my fingers through his sun bleached hair. “Are you?”
With a nervous laugh he nodded. “Ridiculously ready.”
I wasn’t quite sure what that meant but I laughed anyway and held his hand as we drove the short distance to his house. Sam was with Luke’s mother, so I wasn’t too concerned when the first thing he did when he opened the front door was pin me against the wall and kiss me.
“I have had about five hundred dreams of you like this,” he admitted, his mouth hungrily kissing my mouth, my neck, my chest. “I’m afraid it’s going to be fast the first time. But, I’ll make up for it. I promise you. I’m going to make love to you all night.”
“Promise?”
He grinned. “Have I broken one yet?”
My fingers tightened in his hair as his hands moved down my body, gripping my breasts as his mouth kissed me fiercely. I moaned and pressed myself against him as he squeezed at my skin and rubbed his thumb over my nipple as it pushed through the fabric of my dress.
“Oh, Luke.”
“Dawn.”
Pulling me away from the wall, his hands slid down my thighs as he gripped then lifted me off the floor, sitting me on a pine buffet along the base of the staircase.
He kissed me roughly, just like I needed him to, his hands sliding further under my dress, between my thighs until he hit the lace panties I’d chosen to wear especially for the occasion. His fingers trailed lazily along my centre and as he pressed a little harder, he moaned.
“You’re so wet, Dawn.”
In my limited experience, I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but by the sound of his voice he liked it, and when he slipped his fingers beneath the edge of my panties and pushed them inside me, the shudder in his breathing sounded as blissful as it felt.
“Oh, god,” I moaned. It was the most blissful feeling as his fingers worked in and out, sliding out, up over my most throbbing point before sliding through my juices to push back inside. It was the most amazing thing I’d ever felt happening between my legs, and with his breath on my neck, his lips pressing lightly against my skin, I pulled at his hair and rocked my hips against his hand, my insides coiling tighter, tighter until, “Oh God.” It felt so right to be calling out when he was making me feel so alive, so perfect. I released his hair and my hands flew up to grab the railings on the stairs as I bucked against his hand. He kissed my neck, his fingers still working inside me as he shifted to kiss my mouth, his tongue working in unison with his fingers, making my body feel as though it was going to explode all over again.
This was what sex was supposed to feel like.
“I need to be inside you,” he whispered, his voice thick and gravelly as his hands worked between us.
“I want you inside me, Luke. I want you. Now.” I gasped, surprised again at my boldness, I’d never had this urgent need to be with someone before and it made me vocal. I liked it.
Grinning, he readied himself, making quick work of the condom before pushing inside me. I let out a long moan as my insides seemed to cry out in happiness. “Holy fuck, Dawn. You’re so…Oh my god. This part isn’t going to last very long.”
I wrapped my legs around his waist as he gripped my hips and thrust his hard shaft inside me, back and forth, over and over again.
I moaned and I gasped, the feeling inside me matching the intensity of my feelings for him. It was hard, and it was fast, but it was amazing, and I didn’t want it to end while at the same time I longed for the explosion within me that I felt building.
He reached between us, his thumb slipping into the small space above our joined hips, rubbing at my clit, causing me to moan so loud that it was almost embarrassing. But I didn’t care. It felt so good. So right. “Oh God. Luke.” I came. Hard. Not knowing that I could do that again so fast and so easily. I wanted more.
Luke groaned and shuddered, and I felt him pulsing inside me as he took a hold of my face and kissed me while he spilled himself inside me, taking things down a notch as he held me and made me feel as though I was the most desirable being in the world.
“I’ve never felt that. I…” I breathed when we came up for air. I couldn’t believe how good it was. I knew that Luke and I had an amazing connection but wow. I wasn’t expecting it to be quite like that.
His chest was heaving as he pressed his forehead against mine and caught his breath. “I can do better.”
“Better? Jesus, Luke, that was the most amazing thing I’ve ever felt.”
He grinned. “But it gets better,” he promised. “Let me show you.”
Then he carried me up to his bedroom and he showed me a whole lot of things I’d never known, and I loved every single one.
***
That night was the last night of summer. You could feel it in the cooling air, but more than that, I could feel it inside of myself. I wasn’t the same person I was when the first storm had brought Shea to Hargrave Cove. I wasn’t that same naïve girl who was desperate to run away from all of her problems by leaving town. No. Now, I wanted to stay. I wanted to build my life here.
I’d spend so long taking care of my mother, and being the responsible person in our household, that in my hatred for the position that was forced on me, I’d lost the person who I was. I’d thought I wanted to be accepted by my peers, and I’d hated the Wannabes and the Sunshine Barbies for what seemed to me like a charmed life – the life I’d thought I was supposed to lead but could never really grasp. But when I got a taste of it, their world wasn’t for me either. My old next-door neighbour, Joan, had always called me an ‘old soul’, and I’d come to realise that she was right. My body might have only been eighteen, but my mind certainly didn’t fit there. My mind existed was with the dreamers, the storytellers, and the misfits who looked at life a little differently just like I always had. And finally, I found true happiness and acce
ptance of myself within my heart.
As summer passed, my life had changed. My path had altered. The very core of who I was had softened, and within it, I found love in its purest form. It helped me open my eyes so I could see it. I could see the Paradise in Hargrave Cove. I found it in the early morning sunrise. I found it in the mirror when I stopped wearing my makeup like a mask, and I found in the man who was sitting beside me the whole time with a set of six-pack abs and a quick wit that had me laughing just as much as his wise words had me contemplating.
That summer, I lost myself.
That summer, I found myself.
That summer, I’d found love.
That summer, I’d found Luke.
28
It was the first day of autumn, and along with the changing air, I felt as though I was inhaling happiness. “I love waking up next to you,” Luke murmured as he wrapped me in his warm body, kissing my neck as his hands slid over the skin on my stomach, turning me so I was facing him and my leg was hooked over his waist.
His hardness was on the inside of my thigh as I ran my fingers down the side of his face then pressed a loving kiss against his lips. “I love waking up with you, too. Make love to me, Luke.”
His hands roamed and his arms pulled me closer. I loved the feel if his hard body up against mine, it was as if we melded together.
“Lie back,” he instructed with a soft growl in my ear. I did as he asked, running my fingers through his thick sun streaked hair as he disappeared beneath the sheets. He brushed the coarse hair along his jaw on my inner thighs before he wrapped his arms around them, holding me steady, as he tasted me with a moan. “So sweet, Dawn.”
Lying back, I stretched my arms above my head as my whole body filled with an intense desire that had me moaning as he lapped at my core. He made love to me with his tongue. Then his fingers. Then both his tongue and his fingers. “Oh, Luke,” I cried, my hands going back to his hair as my thighs closed and my body exploded. “Luke!”
He kept going, driving his fingers in and out of my core, kissing me between my thighs, licking gently until I felt the shudders subside and turn into warm satisfaction.
“Mmmm,” he moaned, as he kissed his way back up my body, paying particular attention to my hardened nipples as he caressed my breast and inhaled my scent, as he wrapped his arm around my waist and rolled so he was on his back and I was on top.
He reached over for a condom. “What’s it like without one?” I asked, and he looked up at me with soft eyes, his hand reaching up to wrap lightly around my neck before trailing lazily down my chest.
“It’s…different. A little messier, I guess.”
“Is it better?”
His hand continued to move downward. He nodded.
“I’d like to try it.”
“Are you on birth control?”
I nodded.
“And you’re…?”
“Clean? Yeah. I’m clean. You?”
I nodded, biting at my lip as I took the condom from his hand and placed it on the bedside table. “I want to feel you. Just you,” I whispered, as his hands rested on my hips and I shifted above him, reaching between us to take a hold of his hard rod. “I like the way you feel in my hand. I want to know what you feel like inside me.”
With his eyes locked on mine, he watched as I positioned him at my entrance and slowly lowered myself down his length, my breath coming out in a shaky gasp. “You feel amazing inside me.”
He tilted his hips up to push as deep as he could and let out a light moan. “Dawn.”
I moved above him, pushing through my thighs as my fingers ran over his hard chest, loving the feeling of his muscles beneath my fingertips, and the rise and fall of my fingers as I slid them down his abs. He sucked in his stomach sharply as if ticklish, and I grinned as I rode him then did it again.
Grabbing my wrists, he grinned as he pulled me toward him them caught me in a kiss as we continued to roll our hips. I tasted myself on him, and I didn’t know what I’d been expecting, but it was kind of nice. Especially knowing the way the taste got there.
Flipping us so I was on my back, he hooked his arm beneath my knee and pushed my leg up to my chest as his thrusts deepened to the point where my eyes were rolling in ecstasy. “Oh, God.”
“Feel good?”
“Oh, yes, Luke. Ohhhh.”
My body shook as I came, and I felt him come too, pulsing inside me, his heat filling me as his body shuddered and he leaned down to kiss my mouth.
“I wish I never had to leave this bed. I don’t want to stop making love to you,” he murmured against my mouth. “I don’t want to stop kissing you.”
“I love you,” I gasped, kissing him back, holding him tight.
“I love you.”
A double beep sounded, signalling a text message on Luke’s phone. With a groan, he leaned over and picked it up, checking the read out with a concentrated expression before he dropped the phone on the bed and looked back to me.
“We’d better shower and dress. Mum’s bringing Sam over in about twenty minutes.”
“Oh.” My stomach instantly started churning with nerves. What was she going to think seeing me there first thing in the morning? Was she going to judge me and think I was leading her son astray? I didn’t want her to hate me. “Maybe I should go home.”
Grinning, he shook his head. “Shower with me. Stay. She doesn’t hate you, stop worrying.”
Letting out my breath, I nodded, the idea of showering with Luke far outweighed my worry of his mother’s judgement.
***
“You got to have a sleep over! Why can’t I have a sleep over?” Sam barrelled through the door and skidded to a stop at my feet. I was freshly showered and wearing a pair of shorts and a fitted T-shirt while I drank orange juice and Luke cooked breakfast. “Hi Dawn. Notice anything different about me today?” Sam presented me with an exaggerated smile and I could see that one of his front teeth was missing.
I opened my eyes wide to show my excitement for him. “Did the tooth fairy visit you last night?” I asked as he proudly showed myself and Luke the new gap in his teeth.
“No,” he yelled. “It only came out FIVE minutes ago.”
“Luke, I put his tooth in a…Oh, hello Dawn,” Annie, Luke’s mum said as she arrived in the doorway. She clasped her hands together and looked incredibly awkward as she pressed her lips into a line. “Sleep well?”
“Hi, Annie. Yes thanks,” I answered, glancing at Luke who quickly kissed my forehead then took the eggs off the stove before scooping Sam up and growling like a bear against his neck, causing the five year old to erupt into fits of giggles.
“You’re not going to have any teeth left soon,” he said, before setting Sam down on the floor then asking his mother if they could talk outside. He did it all so fluidly and so calmly that I was incredibly impressed by all he accomplished in such a short time.
Both Annie and Luke went outside where we couldn’t hear them.
Sam turned to me. “I think he forgot to ask granny if he could have a sleepover.”
“I think your dad might be old enough to have sleepovers whenever he wants,” I pointed out kindly. Sam nodded sagely.
“You’re right. It’s just me who has to ask.”
Smiling, I asked him if he’d eaten breakfast while I made some coffee for Luke and took plates out of the cupboard.
“I had cereal. That’s how my tooth fell out. Did you get to stay up late and watch movies? And did you get to eat popcorn on the couch? I’m never allowed to eat popcorn on the couch.”
I set everything on the table and looked down at him with a smile.
“Do you spill it?”
Sam put his hands on his hips and twisted his mouth in thought. “I do. Because it’s very buttery.” He extended the sound of ‘do’ so it was more like ‘doooooooo’. “BUT, I never wipe my fingers on the leather. That’s a BIG no no.”
I gave him a wink. “Thanks for letting me know. I don’t want to get in
trouble off your dad for doing the wrong thing.”
Luke entered the room and gave me a reassuring smile as he picked up Sam and told him they were going outside to find the morning paper. “Mum wants to talk if you can handle that?” he said as he pressed a kiss to my temple.
Taking a deep inhale, I nodded. “Yeah. I can handle that.”
Then I watched him walk back outside as Annie walked in and they exchanged glances. Maybe I couldn’t handle it…
“Good morning, Dawn,” she said before she smiled. “Don’t look so worried. I’m not going to bite your head off. I just wanted to have a chat because from what I understand, things between you and my son are quite serious.”
I nodded. “Very serious, and I know you probably have concerns over my age, but I assure you, it’s not going to be a problem. I’m all in with Luke and I understand this is a relationship with his family as well as him.”
Annie smiled. “I’m glad to hear you say that. As you know, he’s been through a lot with the loss of his wife and raising a son on his own, and he needs someone who understands that and wants to stick around.”
“There’s no where else I want to be, Annie. Luke is my home. I feel lucky to have found him so early in my life.”
Nodding, she looked back to the doorway where Luke and Sam had returned. “All good?” he asked, and Annie turned to him and smiled.
“You’re right, Luke. She’s definitely very special.”
I blushed then thanked her, feeling the last of my worries slip away as we sat down to eat as a family. It felt perfect, and I knew what my answer to Luke was going to be.
***
I stayed again that night. The next morning Luke and I skipped our daily surf again to make love before we had to go to work instead. Every time with him was both satisfying and life affirming, showing me that I was right all along – when two people have a true connection, sex is absolutely wonderful no matter what way it’s done. It didn’t hurt that Luke seemed to know what he was doing, but the way my body reacted when he touched me, wasn’t something you can share with just anyone. It felt like something that could only happen when you found the one. And of that I was sure.
In the Wind Page 23