For the rest of the night, he’s all mine.
“I don’t want you to think that this means I have expectations.” Luke slides the keycard into the door and the lock turns green. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. Hell, we can just hold hands beneath the blankets for all I care. I just—”
“Shut up, Luke.” I shove him into the room and pull his head down to mine the second the door latches behind us. I don’t want to talk anymore. I don’t want to pretend. I don’t want to think about what tomorrow will bring … or what it won’t.
I just want this, right now, with this man.
“You’re overdressed,” I tell him as my fingers fly over his tux with desperate precision, loosening his tie and unbuttoning his shirt. I need to feel his skin and to burn every moment of it into memory as quickly as humanly possible.
He chuckles as he watches me. “Slow down, beautiful. We’ve got all night.”
No, we have twelve hours. Twelve hours and this all ends.
“I don’t want to go slow,” I murmur before I press my lips to the wide expanse of toned chest I find beneath the panels of his shirt. “All this pretending … It’s made me crazy.”
A low moan rolls up from his stomach when my tongue flicks across his nipple. I take it as permission to move my attention to his fly and hope he follows suit.
“Baby …” Instead of helping, his fingers circle around my wrist.
“I didn’t ask you to come here for this. Tell me you know that.”
“I know.” But, my God, if he doesn’t let me touch him … If he doesn’t touch me, I might very well implode. “I didn’t expect this. I know you didn’t either. And I’m okay with that. I just …” I pinch my eyes shut and bite back a sob. “Just give me tonight. I don’t care about tomorrow.”
His hand flutters against the side of my face and I venture a tentative glance up at him. His eyes are dark and stormy, but beneath the questions lies an undeniable hunger. A desire.
“Please,” I beg him and his grip on my wrist tightens.
“I can’t make any promises, Mia. If I could, we wouldn’t be here right now.”
I nod, run the tip of my tongue over my lips, and realize I’m shaking. “I understand.”
“You’re sure?” he asks, his tone as vulnerable as I feel.
“I haven’t wanted anything as badly as—” The words die on my tongue as he slides an arm around my ass and lifts me off the ground, his greedy mouth already on mine.
In less than a minute, we’re both naked and writhing on the bed, kissing and touching and teasing until I’m so dizzy with wanting him, I worry I might pass out.
“Please, Luke …” I’m not ashamed to beg. Not when I know he needs me as badly as I need him. “Please.”
“Please what, beautiful?” He sucks my nipple between his lips and I swear there’s an invisible cord of pleasure running from that point, straight to my sex.
“God,” I moan, my hips lifting of their own accord, seeking out the fingers he’d only moments ago tormented me with. “I need more.”
“My mouth?” His teeth graze against my beaded flesh and that delicious friction paired with the image of his dark head between my legs is almost enough to push me over the edge. Almost, but not quite.
“You,” I whisper, and my hand glides down between our bodies to grasp his cock. He’s thick and heavy, and the moment I touch him, he hisses. “Come inside, Luke. You’re what I need.”
He takes my mouth in another heady kiss and rocks his shaft against my hip just long enough to make me pant, before he climbs out of bed to grab a condom.
“You’re so fucking pretty like that,” he growls as he takes care of business. “You don’t know how many times I imagined you just like this. Spread out for me. Ready.”
Good. Lord. “Too much talking,” I tell him and he laughs.
A second later, he’s between my legs, braced up on his arms and staring down at me. “You’re so much more than I expected,” he whispers, his shaft teasing just shy of where I need him. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Everything, Mia. Fucking everything.” Then he slides inside and stars light up behind my eyelids.
Luke thinks I did him a favor this weekend, but what he doesn’t realize—what I didn’t either until this very moment—is that I needed him just as much as he needed me.
LUKE
I feel like such an asshole.
I can tell that something is on Mia’s mind this morning and I don’t know what to say. How to approach the inevitably awkward conversation we need to have.
I know we were both willing parties last night, but our hook up went against everything we had talked about on the way to Chicago. Mia was only supposed to be my pretend girlfriend. Nothing more. I’m not looking for a relationship. And I certainly wasn’t expecting to end up caring about her like I do. But fuck … The way she looked up at me on the dance floor. The way she kissed me the other night on the Ferris wheel. All of it just kept layering up until it made me want her more than I’ve ever wanted another woman.
Last night, I got greedy. I saw an opportunity and I took it. I never fully considered how she would feel the next day, despite what she said, and here we are.
In just six short hours, she’ll be back in her rundown apartment and I’ll go home to an empty house with cold granite countertops and a king-sized bed for two.
It doesn’t have to be like that. We could have last night, over and over again, but I’m not even sure if that’s what she wants.
This is exactly what I’d been hoping to avoid. Sex is amazing, but it brings with it all these fucking questions and expectations. Questions I don’t have the answers to and expectations I’m not sure I can fulfill. I’d like to try, but …
“Are you coming in?” I ask when we pull into my parents’ driveway.
“Of course I’m coming in, Luke. I’d like to say goodbye and thank your parents for their hospitality,” she says sadly, then she’s out the door and making her way toward the porch.
I jerk the handle and chase after her. “Mia! Wait up!” I reach for her hand but she pulls back, avoiding my touch.
Ouch.
Her eyes pool with unshed tears as she chews the side of her cheek. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
Fuck. This is exactly why I avoid relationships. I don’t know how to deal with this shit. I hate tears and I especially hate that, right now, they’re Mia’s.
“You need to come clean with your parents. I don’t feel right lying to them. Not after last night.”
I don’t either, but …”Mia, we don’t have to lie to them.”
“Everything about us is a lie, Luke.”
“Last night wasn’t.”
Color fills her cheeks and her tiny nostrils flare as she tries to keep it together. “You told me you don’t make promises.”
“And I haven’t.”
She scoffs and glances away, out over my parents’ yard with tears still shining in her eyes.
“But I’m not so much of a dick that I don’t know things have changed with us. I was there last night too. I felt it. Hell, I feel it now, but we’re both freaking out because we don’t know what to do or say.” I throw a hand in the air in frustration. “Just because we made rules doesn’t mean we have to follow them. Not if tearing them up is something we both want.”
“Is it?” she asks timidly. “Something you want, I mean.”
“I—”
“Come in already, you love birds! It’s chilly out there!”
“Okay, Mom. Be right there,” I reply, never taking my eyes off Mia. Placing a hand on the small of her back, I guide her through the door and into the kitchen where Mom and Dad are both waiting. Mom looks from me to Mia and then back again.
“What’s going on, Luke? Why does it look like Mia’s been crying?”
Shit. “Uh …” I don’t want to lie anymore, but I’m not sure Mia wants me airing our dirty laundry over mornin
g coffee with my folks. Then I remember that two minutes ago, Mia asked me what I wanted.
Well, I want her.
“Mom, Dad … there’s something I need to tell you.”
Beside me, Mia’s shoulders go a little straighter and I squeeze her hand tight.
“Mia’s not my girlfriend. I asked her to come with me this weekend, because I didn’t want be harassed for not settling down.” I’m not even looking at my parents right now. In fact, I’m not even saying this for them. “The truth is, I’ve known Mia for a few months now. She’s a great girl and I’ve put on ten pounds with all the diner food I’ve eaten, just to get the chance to spend a few minutes with her a few times a week.”
Mia’s eyes meet mine and there’s a fresh sheen of emotion shimmering in them.
“Mia, I’m so fucking sorry for not being straight with you from the start. I asked you to come this weekend because I was too fucking scared to just ask you out and see if maybe you were interested, too.”
My mother shifts closer to my father, both of them just listening and, while privacy would be nice, I’m kind of glad they get to see this too. All this time, they’ve been worried about me finding someone and I think maybe I finally have.
“I’m pretty sure you’re interested,” I say with a light chuckle, thinking about how it felt to be inside of her last night. How she’d responded to everything and made me feel more alive than I have in years.
A small smile twitches at her lips and she sniffs. “I might be a little.”
To the side of us, my dad snorts and Mom swats his arm.
“We’re going to go back to Brighton today and those rules we talked about? I want to throw them in Lake Michigan and start over. I want to come into the diner and kiss you hello. Shit, I want to kiss you nonstop, but I think I should probably take you out first. On a real date. That is, if you’re into that kind of thing.”
Her smirk turns into a full-fledged grin. “You want to kiss me for keeps, is that what you’re saying?”
“Every king needs his queen, does he not?”
Mia throws her head back and the sound of her laughter fills me with more hope than I’ve had in a long time. “That’s mighty brave of you to take this step. Romantic even.”
“Well, a wise woman once told me that nothing bad would happen when the right woman is there to catch you.”
“I see. And you think I could be that woman?”
“You caught me this weekend, didn’t you?”
Mia slides her arms around my waist and I swear to God my heart skips a beat. “I’ll always catch you, King Arthur. Just be careful with your sword. Wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt.”
Yep. This is my girl.
My real girl.
Molly McLain lives in a tiny Wisconsin town with her husband, three kids, and a sassy dog. She loves fountain soda, jellybeans, Luke Bryan and Avenged Sevenfold, thunderstorms, and camping at quiet lakes. She’s been scribbling down love stories since she was old enough to dream about happily ever afters, and now she writes sexy, small town romance for real.
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Rhonda James is an International Amazon bestselling author who loves a good HEA, believes nice guys don’t finish last, and strives to create a book boyfriend for all her readers. Rhonda is married and lives in Michigan with her family. When not writing, some of her guilty pleasures include kissing, diving into a good book, and wasting time on Facebook, though she may do one more than the others.
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Hitch by S.M. West
Hitch—verb: to become entangled, made fast, or linked.
Pansy Dobson, perpetual student and dreamer, can’t catch a break. Homeless and adrift, she hits the road in search of a new beginning.
Silas Palmer, sexy lead singer and rock star, is a prisoner of his own making. In a moment of desperation, he missteps and finds himself stranded on the side of the road.
A chance encounter and a series of misadventures finds Pansy and Silas entangled in a tug of war. It takes everything in them to fight their undeniable pull, only to discover, their only way out is together.
Stupid
“Why are you so stupid? I could’ve told you Cody would cheat on you. Really, Pansy, don’t be so stupid.”
Ivy’s condescending, nasally voice plays on an endless loop in my head from our conversation last night. Stupid—that’s what they all say I am.
Running my hand over the smooth leather steering wheel of my sister’s Mercedes-Benz, I snicker. Who’s stupid now, huh? Okay, it’s maybe not the smartest thing I’ve ever done, but it is well deserved. She wouldn’t help me. She told me I could only stay the night, said I was on my own after that. My own sister.
She refused to let me crash until I got back on my feet, so she has no one to blame but herself. She keeps telling me to take matters into my own hands and get my life in order. Well, I’ve taken the first step.
She’ll say it’s classic Pansy, flying by the seat of my pants—and truthfully, it’s the only way I roll. I’m sure I’ll pay for my latest plan—I always do—but for now, I don’t care. I had no choice, other than sleeping in a shelter, and that would be rock bottom.
Not that I’m better than anyone who needs to use a shelter; I’m not above that. At this point, though, a shelter would break me. I’m already at my lowest with Cody cheating and throwing me out of his place, and now, my sister too. It’s difficult to accept that I’m alone.
My mother is probably rolling over in her grave. She believed in family and being there for each other, though Ivy obviously missed that lesson.
Instead, the fact that she’s successful makes her think she’s better than me. I’m shit on her shoe, something disgusting she needs to get rid of. My heart pangs as I’m unable to remember a time when we were close.
If Poppy were here, I would have gone to her for help. She’d take me in no matter what. Sure, she’d call me naïve and stupid, but she’d let me lick my wounds and rebuild my pride rather than kicking me when I’m down.
I’m justifying my actions because deep down I’ll regret it once Ivy gets a hold of me. She’s at a medical conference for the day and won’t discover that I borrowed her car until tonight, giving me a nice head start.
Shaking off my guilt, I glance around the top-of-the-line sports car. It is one sweet ride. Though it’s decked out with satellite radio, I want my own jam. Rummaging through my purse with one eye on the road, I find my phone. Syncing it with the Bluetooth while driving will be tricky, but I’m up for it. Pretty soon my tunes will be blaring out of this wicked stereo system.
Juggling driving and unlocking my phone, I enter my password as the car hits what could only be a pothole. For a moment, the bounce causes my butt to lift off the seat and I release an oof as my abdomen connects with the steering wheel. Ouch.
The jostling causes my foot to push on the accelerator, and the car charges forth and swerves as I lose my grip on the wheel. In those seconds, everything slows. I’m veering for the side of the road where there’s a hitchhiker walking, and like a missile, the car’s locked on its target. Where the hell did he come from?
He glances over his shoulder and our eyes meet. I’m heading straight for him. Without hesitation, he dives into the thick brush.
Grabbing the wheel, I slam on the brakes, and the piercing screech of grinding metal reverberates throughout my body as the car comes to a stop. Throwing it into park, I run toward the man now extracting himself from the thick thorns and brambles.
“Why the fuck are you trying to kill me?”
His long, sandy blond hair is in disarray, strands falling from his bun, and leaves and debris cl
ing to his short, dark blond beard. With his hands on his hips and his defined chest heaving, livid blue eyes pin me to the spot.
“I’m so sorry. It was an accident. I was …” I trail off. This is all my fault; if only I’d been paying attention. “I was stupid and I’m so sorry.” Great, now I’m calling myself the one word I detest. I am not stupid.
He starts to brush the dirt from his clothes and I lunge to help him, but he bats my hand away. “Stupid—that’s for sure! Stay the hell away from me.”
I should be used to being called stupid by now, but I rear back from the sting of his bitter words. He has a right to be angry, scared, or even in shock—it did seem like I was gunning for him. Marching past me, his death glare is another jab to my usually impenetrable armor. He’s intent on getting away from me.
“Uh, do you want a ride?” I call after him, wanting to make this right.
“Fuck no.”
Crazy
Fucking crazy woman. I can’t get away from her fast enough. Running is an option, but it’s hot as hell out here. I wish I’d had my phone on me when those idiots threw me off the bus, and I also have no water. Shit. In this desert heat, I’m parched.
Glancing over my shoulder every so often, I check in case the maniac appears. Sure enough, about fifteen minutes later, the silver Mercedes slows to a crawl beside me. The redhead rolls down the window.
“You need a ride?” She smiles like she didn’t almost run me down. She’s crazy.
“No. Get away and leave me alone.”
She stops the car—in the middle of the road. Lunatic. Shaking my head in disbelief, I keep walking, ignoring her, hoping she’ll go away. Getting out of the vehicle, she runs to catch up.
“I’m really sorry. Come on, you need a ride and I’m going your way. I took my eyes off the road for two seconds and I’m sorry. I promise to drive within the speed limit, keep my eyes on the road, and obey all traffic signs. Please let me make it up to you.”
Damn, I do need a lift. I’ve been trying to hitch a ride for the past two hours with no luck. Who knew world-famous rock stars could strike out while hitchhiking? I thought cars would be lining up, turns out I was wrong. Now, do I chance it with psycho woman or keep trekking along this hot, desert highway?
Love Happens Page 38