I buck. “Please.” And then I’m gasping out directions, and he’s sucking and pulling and licking, his mouth on me talented and electrifying. I don’t worry that he’ll think me bossy, or if it’ll turn him off, because I know it won’t. Joy spreads through me at this freedom, and I gasp. “Harder. Shit. Yeah, right there.”
One of his hands leaves my waist, and he presses his thumb across my now-throbbing nub. I writhe. White hot heat coils tighter and tighter, and then I feel his tongue slip into my core. That new freedom is also coiling through me, and I say, “In me. I want you in me when I come.”
He flies off me and dives for his nightstand. Before I can blink, he’s rolled on a condom. He nudges between my legs, and my whole vision is filled with the beautiful expanse of Luke’s broad, muscular chest, his cock jutting upward, thick and hard, and his face set in hard lines. His lids are at half mast, and he falls toward me, landing on his elbows on either side of my shoulders. God—there’s nothing like being in the shelter of a brawny male body. And to have it be Luke’s body?
I whip my legs around his hips, and on a low growl, he thrusts into me so fast and hard that all sensation—all thought—converges to where we’re joined, and I’m whispering, “This, this, this,” as I feel him, thick and full, inside me.
“Pepper.” His eyes are full with wonder and vulnerability.
“Luke,” I say, smiling.
He gives a low chuckle, which I can feel vibrate within me where he fills me so completely. I cradle his face and brush my lips across his, and we’re languidly exploring with our mouths as he pulls out slowly. I clench around him, protesting the departure, and he rams back into me. I thought I wanted it quick and blinding, because it’d be the only way to fill all the feelings ballooning inside me. However, his movements—a reluctant, slow pull away from me followed by a quick, searing return—are working a different kind of magic, a reward for breaking through to the inside of this man. Now I want to keep having him move inside me in this slow-fast rhythm with his hard length, his odd vulnerability. Forever.
I shudder and cling to him, meeting him stroke for stroke, both of us in sync. But no matter how long I want it to last, I can feel my orgasm inexorably building, so intense and powerful, I want to simultaneously wiggle away from it and wiggle closer. The need to meet it head-on has me shaking all over. Something snaps inside him too, because he grips my face, stares into my eyes, and pistons into me faster and faster, saying my name over and over.
My orgasm bursts through me, but somehow I keep my gaze locked on his. His pupils dilate, his muscles tense, and he thrusts into me one more time. He holds himself still, and I can feel him jerk inside me. Suddenly, I’m hit with a need to protect this man from anything and everything outside of this room. It’s a strange feeling, a scary feeling, but I don’t shy away from it. He shudders and falls against me, and I grip him as firmly as I can, running my hand up and down his back.
I relish the weight of him as we both fight for breath, my heart beating in my ears. He rolls over and snugs me against him, his strong hand cradling my head against his chest.
I feel as if we’ve shattered ourselves in multiple ways tonight. Shattered past our fears. Shattered through our barriers that kept the world at a distance. I grip him tighter as I knit my new reality—a reality which includes Luke—into a new shape. I smile.
Luke
If we didn’t have to deal with biology, I’d still be in bed with Pepper, but there’s no food in my house, and her stomach growled when we woke up this morning tangled in each other’s arms. So, yeah, we’re back at the Mocha Cabana. Where it all started.
We sit at a different table and dig into our respective, overpriced breakfast sandwiches and fruit. It might be where it all started, but I couldn’t feel any more different.
Sure, I still know where everyone is. That’s never gonna change. The red mugs are still stupid, though the color is no longer in my face mocking me.
For the first time, I’m completely comfortable in my own skin. I know that, at least with the person sitting across from me, I’m able to be myself. Actually that’s not quite right. Before, I wasn’t quite…present inside me.
I feel an odd lightness, and I can’t pin it down until I realize it’s the absence of a weight that had always been there. This feeling that I needed to prove myself constantly to be accepted.
I know this isn’t a Get Out of Jail Free card or any kind of bullshit like that. I can’t screw up all over the place with her and expect her to just take it like some doormat.
No. But I’m feeling an odd sense of security that if I do my best, even when I mess up, she’ll be there.
Trust. It’s about trust, which I’d never transferred to a relationship. Before she’d awakened—and her stomach made its presence known—I’d lain in bed holding her, feeling her against me, her sweet scent filling me, and realized that perhaps the pressure for perfection hadn’t allowed me room to feel. She gives me that room.
Which has me thinking further. “Your idea was a good one.”
“Oh, yeah?” She smiles and lifts a cut strawberry, motioning toward my mouth. I part my lips, heart pounding, and she slips it inside. Before her fingers can escape, I give them a quick swipe with my tongue and a wickedly hot spark flares in her eyes.
I clear my throat. “Yeah. Finding a hockey goalie. We were too caught up in wanting to be the best. We let perfection be the enemy of the good. So what if the new guy can’t slot in with the same level of familiarity and trust we’d worked so hard to hone.”
Her smile lights me up. “At least you’ll get to go as a team to the playoffs.”
“Exactly.” We talk about how we can put out the call for a goalie among the ice hockey, field hockey, and lacrosse circuit. The check comes, and I hand over my card. “You know what my nickname for you was back in high school?”
“Oh God, what?” She chuckles.
“Hot Pepper.” And I tell her how I’d fantasized about asking her out.
She wrinkles her nose. “I always hated my name.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t see myself as spicy, or I didn’t want to, I guess. Especially once I got to med school—”
“And became Dr. Pepper…”
She groans and rolls her eyes. “Yes, because that’s the first time anyone’s teased me with that nickname.” She looks down and fiddles with her napkin. “But you know, for the first time I actually…I think I like my name now.”
And going with the instinct I always relied on as a SEAL, I reach across and clasp her hand. She glances up, and a bright, warm grin spreads across her face. I catalog this one right along with all the others. I can’t wait to bring out more. She squeezes my hand back.
I rub a thumb across her hand. “How do you…how do you know if you love someone?” I can’t believe how easily I ask this.
Her eyes go wide, and she sets her napkin down. She puts her hand over mine.
“I’m not sure,” she whispers.
“Have you ever…?”
“Nope. You?”
I shake my head and keep my gaze trained on hers. “I’d like to figure it out, though. With you. If you’re willing.”
There’s a suspicious bit of moisture in her eyes, and she nods. “I’m willing. Very willing.”
“Well, okay then.”
And then I grin, big and wide, and suddenly my heart feels as big as this red café and the city it’s in. We’re going to do this.
Man, I’m one lucky bastard. Deadpool, my new favorite X-man, would have to agree—Pepper is the right girl to bring out the hero in me.
I pull on her hand until she follows with her body, and I caress her face and seal our promise with a café-safe kiss on those beautiful lips.
Thank you for reading Luke and Pepper's story and I hope you enjoyed their journey to love as much as I did writing it! Be sure to check out the next book, Risking It, which follows Aiden and Claire's BFF Jane. To be alerted to its release, be s
ure to join my newsletter. Like a sneak peek? Flip forward for a first chapter excerpt!
Risking It
500-mile road trip! Mission? Get over the guy you kinda-sorta hooked up with. Problem? He's your new road-trip companion.
To Play…
So, yeah. Here’s me heading out on this stupid soul-searching road trip to get over The Turd, and here he is leaning against my car, all easy charm, batting his ridiculously long eyelashes, and asking for a ride. Explaining why he can't come along would be admitting my struggle to purge him from my thoughts. The universe is laughing at me. I can't fall for a short-term playboy. But tell that to my body, which up and goes hey there as soon as his pheromones get within sniffing distance.
Or Not to Play…
My reputation as a player isn’t just smoke and mirrors. I play the field. Constantly. No strings sex? Perfect. But ever since a certain shy book nerd slipped under my skin, I haven't wanted anyone but her. The kicker? She blew me off the next morning. Now that I'm stranded and she's my only ride, maybe I can find out why our awesome night together turned into her ghosting me.
CHAPTER 1
Jane
“A dildo?” The offending object slips from my fingers and plops onto the carpet floor with a hard, rubbery bounce. I slap my hands over my mouth to stifle my shriek. The smell of plastic coats my fingers which—ack—reminds me what my hands were touching, so I shove them away. I may even be flapping them in the air.
A few library patrons stare quizzically.
“Did I shout that out? Please tell me I didn’t shout that out.” The Reference Desk where I work is on the second floor, and those staring are on the far side, but still. The Selby Public Library has a vaulted ceiling capping the center, which rises two stories. Voices carry.
My bestie Claire smirks. “You didn’t shout it out.” She stoops, picks up the…thing, and holds it out as if she’s passing an innocuous baton. But it’s not an innocuous baton. It’s a dang dildo.
A bright red one too.
Jeez-oh-man.
“Put that away,” I whisper fiercely and wipe my hands on my shirt.
I’m not a prude, but this is a family library, for Pete’s sake. Where I work.
Okay, maybe I’m a smidge of a prude, because honestly?—I stare at what she’s holding—that’s the first time I’ve ever touched one. Sure, I’ve read about them in my racier books, but, you know, my fingers get the job done well enough, thank you very much.
She laughs and drops it back into the liquor box she packed so prettily for me. Complete with red metallic paper and a white fabric bow.
The thing lands with a dull thunk.
“Claire, what the hell?” I snatch up The Rules—also pulled from the box—because there’d been no mention of a dildo. Or even getting off. I think I’d remember that. I flip to the second page of the printout. I mean, she’s my bestie and all, but this is ridiculous.
I don’t know why I’m shocked though—Claire’s never held back. She’s tough, and she doesn’t care what anyone thinks. Like right now, she’s wearing her workout clothes, her hair up in a messy ponytail. Because I know her schedule, I know she’s come straight from the Sarasota Sailing Squadron where she works.
“That’s your symbolic prop.” She met me at the end of my shift and presented me with this Box of Doom. Inside, I found a blank journal, a box of colored pens, a map, and a vintage Polaroid camera. There’s even a package of Polaroid film.
“My what?” I lower the pages.
She pushes her fingers onto the top of the The Rules. “Under rule number one. Part b.”
I go back and read that subsection again. And groan.
She leans against the Reference Desk and crosses her arms. “You need to get over him.”
“Who?” I say with as much nonchalance as I can muster. There’s got to be a loophole.
“Don’t play dumb. This whole road trip, with all the stops, has two purposes: one.” She holds up a finger. “To push you out of your shell—”
“My shell?” I toss The Rules into the box.
She waves a hand in front of me, seeming to encompass my cream skirt with ruffles on the hem and sky blue top. “You’re conforming to type.”
“What?”
“The introverted librarian? C’mon, Jane.”
I cross my arms. “There’s a reason we introverted book nerds flock to these jobs.”
“Doesn’t mean you can’t live a little.”
The replacement for my Tuesday half-shift strolls up, and I grab the box. Yes, the embarrassing item’s in there. Whew.
“Yep. So you’re going on this road trip, my friend.”
I crumple the wrapping paper and ribbon and toss it in the trash can. Then I grab my messenger bag and the box and nod to the break room. Claire’s met me enough times at the end of my shift to understand. I have no choice. If I want her to reconcile with her mom, I have to do this. That was the pact.
Made one night after too many cocktails.
Ugh. For my first-ever vacation from my first adult job, I’d pick five days of binge-reading in my porch hammock. Not a road trip from Sarasota to Atlanta. With stops at cheesy tourist spots along the way. Just sayin’.
“And two.” Up goes another finger as we push into the empty break room.
Oh, right. There were two purposes to this trip.
She rounds on me, her finger still up. She points it at me. “To get over The Turd.”
My steps falter. “I’m not hung up on The Turd.” I slide the box onto the counter, pushing aside the new literary posters, and open my locker.
The Turd.
That was our nickname so I wouldn’t have to say his name. Just thinking about that night together has me flushing with heat. And not the good, sexy kind of heat. Nope. This is the heat of unadulterated embarrassment. Though, to be fair, it was Claire who dubbed him The Turd.
Claire gives me her get-real look.
“Look. I’m fine,” I say. “It was one night, that’s all. I wasn’t expecting more.” Liar. “And I don’t need to do all this soul-searching stuff.” I yank the list from the box and wave it to emphasize my point. Yes, I’d been mortified by how much significance I’d given that one night. Even a bit pissed at myself for falling for another charmer. I got over it. Mostly. But… Gawd. The sexual chemistry… I shake off the memories and go back to stuffing some personal items into my bag for this trip she’s determined I take.
Honestly, Claire’s more upset about that night. She’s projecting big time, but I can’t prod her about Conor—that hunky Irishman she’s totally in denial about—without her clamming up.
“Okay.” Claire sits at one of the tables and crosses her legs. “Then I don’t need to do my soul-searching trip.” She clasps her hands and rests them on her knee, her sneaker-clad foot arcing back and forth. Looking smug. Damn her.
I snatch The Rules off the counter. How bad can it be?
The worst parts are the stipulations—be at such-n-such spots on such-n-such days. No speeding through and then curling up with a hunky lord in a historical romance.
Then there’s documenting the trip in the journal. To, quote, find myself. I roll my eyes. “Can’t you pick something different?”
“Hell no.” Her foot’s now jouncing rapidly. “If I’m taking time out of my life to see that woman”—she makes air quotes—“for my own good, then you have to go through hell too. For your own good.”
What she has planned, well, except for 1b, would be no sweat for most people. For me, I’d rather… Well, I’d rather be humiliated by The Turd again.
She’s set this up brilliantly—made this so unlike me that I’ll back out.
But I won’t. She really needs to reconcile with her mom. I glance at 1b again, then curl a finger around the edge of the box and tip it closer. I peer inside at the Red Thing.
“Don’t worry. He won’t be there.”
I look at her over my shoulder. “How do you know?”
“I’m
captain of the women’s team, remember? The men’s team is flying out in about an hour.”
I can just imagine the impact a plane full of hot male athletes will have on the women flying. I loop my messenger bag over my shoulder and lift the box. “I thought their game wasn’t until Saturday?” Dang it. Because that didn’t reveal anything. Stupid, stupid Jane.
Claire, of course, notices my slip, because she smirks and takes the box from me. “It’s not, but they’re heading up early. Something about team-building time with their new goalie.”
Okay. I take a deep breath. The 1b Rule is now closer to the tolerable end of the scale. I open the door and lead the way out.
I can do this.
Aiden
Goddammit.
I open the metal panel housing the condenser motor and stare at the fan. The one that should be turning. How can something so simple fuck up everything? Because right now, it’s not running the glycol pump. Which means—no tap beer. And we open in forty-five minutes.
Yep. Fucked.
I can’t be dealing with this shit right now. I have—I glance at my cell phone on the floor next to the wrench, bolts, and vise grips—less than an hour, tops, before I have to catch a Lyft to the airport. Our hurling team’s first, and possibly only, shot at going to the GAA championship in Chicago has it’s first hurdle this Saturday in Atlanta—the southeastern division playoffs.
My duffel bag’s all packed, sitting in my office, but if I don’t get the beer flowing and the bar in the hands of my brand new manager, Stuart, I’m hosed.
Stuart gives me that kind of grin that’s like yeah, we’re fucked, laced with a wobbly I hope I don’t get canned for this. Even though I think he warned me that the fan was acting wonky.
“Told ya it was making a noise every time it turned off,” he says, and now I want to throat punch him.
Earning It Page 14