by Jan Irving
“I’m okay,” she whispered.
Oh, shit yeah, she’d been crying.
“Before he asked me out, he just didn’t notice my—”
She waved her hand, the one that had been burned in a car accident when her teenage boyfriend had blown through a red light.
“Who is he?”
He’d find the asshole and beat the holy shit out of him.
“It’s…probably better I never tell you that,” she’d said.
“Yeah, it is.” He’d had to agree.
So he’d driven her home and then she’d made them vanilla bean sorbetto from scratch and she’d been his again, back in their kitchen.
Thinking of that kitchen brought him back to telling her he was moving out of the house they shared. Without her, he was like the jumble of a jigsaw puzzle kids had used—full of missing pieces. He needed her as much as she needed him. How was he going to live stuck inside his own head?
Matt studied him. “You look like a guy who’s seriously hit the mat. In a fight, I’d know it was over from the look in your eyes.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, can I trust you to chill out here? I have a client coming by and it’s something I need to be around for.”
Work. Jesus, Luke had to get back to work. He nodded and Matt lifted a hand. “Later.”
“Later.”
It was better when he was alone again. His eyes stung, but he kept sucking in deep breaths. He didn’t know where he was going to move to, but it didn’t matter.
There was only one place where he was home.
* * * *
Sian managed to get through the work day without calling Luke. She didn’t know what she’d say to him. She felt like they’d both decided to jump onto a moving train without any idea of where it would take them.
I’m scared.
Two words. If she told him that, he’d stay. Luke had always been ridiculously protective, doing his best to vet the men she dated even though she tried not to share. His interest had always seemed on the possessive side, but she’d put it down to him not wanting her to get hurt again.
So she knew she could use those magic words to get him to stay, but it would be for all the wrong reasons.
Now, as she watered the cement flowerpots outside the front door, she racked her brain for something, some kind of reason that wouldn’t give her away. Hey, why rent some place when you own half this house? Right, like Luke had ever cared about money. Luke cared about people, which was why he’d become a fireman.
Okay, how about excuse number two, one she was loathe to pull out of the drawer, but if it worked… I get that we’re adults now and you probably want to live with someone. So you can just bring her here. It’s a big place and we’re both adults.
Yeah right. Except the thought of Luke with another woman made her want to puke. She remembered a date a couple of years ago that had taken her to an exclusive hotel. She’d seen Luke with one of his women, a beautiful stacked blonde. They’d been swimming in the pool and when the woman had pulled herself from the water, there had been no doubt she had everything Sian was lacking. She was curvaceous, not twig-boned, and she was…perfect. No mangled hand. No freezing when a guy got close to her.
Luke had had his hand between their bodies and she couldn’t see exactly what he was doing, but suddenly she realised he was touching the woman intimately. Teasing her.
At once Sian had tingled at the idea of what that would feel like. Jesus, Luke’s hand on her. She’d also wanted to tear the woman away from him and shove her back in the water.
Mine.
Seeing him with another woman had led to a lot of hot, angry dreams. Luke touching her, then Luke with another woman. Sian had been so zapped and emotionally strained she’d been grateful Luke had always taken such care to keep his women out of sight. She didn’t want to meet them. She didn’t want to pretend to be nice.
When Luke’s familiar red SUV pulled up, Sian froze with the watering can hanging from her good hand. He stared at her through the windshield, his own expression hidden by his mirrored sunglasses.
Finally he got out of the truck, moving slowly as if he were exhausted.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
Okay, next she’d talk about how hot it was, which was stupid since it was always hot in July. Duh. “Luke, about you moving out…”
“It won’t take long. I don’t have much shit.”
Sian’s body seemed to take over. So she blocked his path into the house.
Luke stood there, looming over her, smelling fresh from his after-work shower, his wide shoulders straining his simple T-shirt. He still had those damned sunglasses on so she couldn’t read his eyes. She wondered if it was deliberate.
“You don’t collect stuff like I do,” she joked, trying to pull them onto familiar, lighter ground. “Though you’ve always been patient about driving me to all those flea markets I love.”
Sian loved the whole shabby chic thing. When their parents were gone, she’d dragged Luke to a ton of open markets to pick up the recycled Italian gilt chandeliers she’d painted white or the furniture she’d slip-covered in creamy denim. Now she wondered if the frankly feminine look of the house had ever bothered him, but he’d never said anything.
“We could redo the house!” she blurted.
Luke frowned. “Sian…what the hell? You love how the house looks. And I’m not driving to another out-of-state flea market this year. Anymore seashells and gilt and we’ll have to talk intervention.”
He was teasing her the way he always did. Maybe it would be all right. Everything she was feeling spilled out in a messy ball of words. “Last night… If you need sex, I’m willing.”
Luke froze, staring at her.
Oh God, oh God, she knew she was saying this all wrong. But she’d do anything. He couldn’t leave. Luke, her Luke.
“You’re probably between girlfriends and I’m not seeing anyone.” Wow, wasn’t that an offer he couldn’t refuse.
“Are you offering me sex so I’ll stay here with you?” Luke asked.
And whoa, didn’t it sound even more pathetic when he spelt it out baldly.
“I…we’re adults.”
“You’re my sister.”
“Stepsister.”
“You said it was sick…what happened between us, me wanting you.” He looked sharply away.
“No, oh no, Luke…”
“This isn’t about you and me. This is about Mr Henry.” Sian knew whatever Luke said next was going to hurt. He knew all her vulnerabilities. He stepped over them lightly, but he knew where they were. “He kept leaving you all the time while you were growing up, but I was always around. You rely on that.”
“Luke—”
“I was always around because I was a kid, Sian. Not because I had any more choice than you did. Now it’s time we make choices as adults.”
But I want you here. The metal watering can scraped against the porch as Sian stepped back to let Luke walk past her.
Only he didn’t leave the way she’d expected. He yanked off his sunglasses as if they were a sudden impediment to reading her. Blazing blue eyes devoured her face. “You want sex with me for all the wrong reasons but you know what?” He laughed again. “I don’t give a fuck.”
Wrong? Right? Just words. Her body was closer to his. She reached out and gripped his arm. His skin was hot to the touch.
“Those guys you go out with don’t make you come. That’s why last night you needed it.”
“They never make me come,” she admitted. Was that dreamy voice hers?
“But I can.”
“Yes.” His hand was under her short skirt. He held her gaze as he went to the heart of her body, no waiting, no foreplay or pretty path of words.
He yanked on her panties, tearing them aside.
Sian gasped.
“Spread your legs,” he ordered, his face hard. He was giving her what she’d said she wanted, but everything was still so warped between them.
; Sian widened her stance and was rewarded by Luke’s callused fingertips brushing against her. She whimpered.
“You’re wet for me.” A note of wonder in his voice.
Oh, God, how could she not be wet for him?
They were standing outside. The house and drive were secluded, but anyone could drive up, see them like this. Somehow it only added to Sian’s excitement. Luke had touched that other woman in public. This was Sian getting upfront and personal with his edgy side.
Chapter Six
Luke crowded her against one of the white pillars. The watering can fell from her hand, ringing on impact. The loud clatter was lost in the hot drum of her blood.
Luke pushed a finger inside her and she screamed, her nails digging into his arms.
“Surprise,” he whispered. “No one’s ever done you like that.”
She whispered, “Last night…”
“When I was first inside you I know you weren’t ready for me, but turned out you liked it that way, hard and fast.” His pupils were huge. She was looking into Luke’s dark heart. Her breath came in and out in a frantic pump, hot against his face. She focused on the whiskers, heavier now than when he’d come to see her in the late morning. Against her sensitive skin they would feel like sandpaper. Muscles clenched in her lower belly at the thought of him nuzzling her inner thighs with his face, deliberately marking her with beard burn.
“You like a little bit of pain. Who would have guessed the princess would like that?”
She’d always hated it when he called her the princess, but she knew, coming from his background, that’s how he saw her. Besides, Luke never meant it in a mean way. He used it to tease her, to remind her he came from grease and desperation, not porcelain and canopy beds.
And the truth was his street background turned her on.
As if he read her, Luke said, “Careful. You have no idea what these dirty hands would like to do to you.” His finger kept up its frantic rhythm. He added two more.
She couldn’t think…he forced her to a level where all she could do was spread her legs for him and sag against the pillar, taking what he gave her.
His fingers made smacking sounds, loud in the still air, emphasising how wet she was for him.
He loomed over her, his body close enough to kiss but kept separate from hers. The only place he made contact was her pussy.
“This isn’t like my dates.” He was servicing her and it felt… God, she lived for this. But she ached to share more.
“No,” he agreed. “I don’t date, not like you do.” His eyes flashed, as if he didn’t like the idea of her dates, even though he’d told her a while back he couldn’t figure out why she bothered to go out at all. But how could she admit to him, never mind herself, that dating was all about the distraction factor? There was always the hope she’d meet someone who could take her mind off things she shouldn’t think about. Like how Luke looked coming out of the pool every morning with his trunks sodden and fitting to his taut skin.
“Tell me…tell me what you did on your last date.” She wasn’t going to let this be nothing but his fingers inside her, working her, even though her slutty body rose into his touch, masturbating herself on his touch. And it was masturbation, because this was not remotely about them being together. Not the way he carefully kept his distance.
He flushed. “You don’t want to know what I do to my women.”
“You’ve got your fingers inside me,” she said and she looked down, seeing the tanned hand pounding between her legs.
“Fuck, yeah.” His gaze followed hers. “Lift your leg and put it around my hip.” When she didn’t immediately obey him, he said, “Do it.”
Sian lifted her leg. He speared into her even more intensely, filling her to the point of pain, just like last night.
“Say my name.”
“Luke.”
“It’s your little brother doing this to you, princess. I’ve got you all wet for me.”
It was as if he needed to rub her face in it. He was angry, he was still so angry. Her eyes pricked with tears. “Luke…”
“I don’t care if it makes you cry. Right now you want it and that’s all I care about.” But it wasn’t, because his gaze fell from hers.
“Don’t make it be this way.” She was pleading with him. It was all she could do since physically she was helpless, in his thrall, and he knew it.
Blue eyes seared hers. “You want to know about my last date? I shared a woman with Taz, my best friend. Taz handcuffed her to his bed and then we both went at her, fucking her, coming on her tits. She loved it, especially the end game.
“See, Taz has this thing about smoking a cigar after sex. So we were sitting in his study in his leather club chairs, jeans still open, and we made her crawl from me to Taz, sucking us off one last time.”
“Oh, my—” She was shocked. She couldn’t hide it.
Luke’s lips twisted. “It disgusts you, doesn’t it? But when I give you a taste of the rough, you can’t keep your legs closed.” He added a fourth finger inside her and just like that, on the slide and the too full feeling she came, crying out, reaching out to touch him at last, clutching his forearms.
“Look at me when I make you come,” he growled, a nasty tone in his voice she almost didn’t recognise. He’d used it with other people, but never her.
She looked in his eyes, unable to hide the way she rode his hand. He didn’t give her a moment to compose herself, to rationalise. His wicked fingers worked her so she burst again, shattering around him like petals from one of the heavy flowers on the porch.
His gaze stayed locked on hers, defiant as he pulled his fingers from between her legs and lifted them to his mouth. She watched him tasting her, her body chilling even though her hairline was damp with sweat.
He looked at her breasts and she saw her T-shirt was plastered to her chest, her nipples hard points. She wondered if he was imagining spreading his spend over her the way he had that unknown woman.
“Yeah, I want that,” he said, as if he had been reading her thoughts. He knew her so well. “I want my jizz on your skin like that body lotion you slather on yourself.” He pushed down her skirt and it hit her that she’d let him pleasure her again and this time it hadn’t been an accident.
“So how was it?” he asked, as if he was driven to ask, despite the tough guy act.
“Like getting mauled by a lion,” she said. They had to talk. The train they were on together hadn’t just taken off for destination unknown, it had crashed. And she missed him, missed her best friend. This angry stranger… She didn’t want him so angry at her anymore. She didn’t want to have hurt him enough to be this angry.
“This is who I really am,” Luke said. “I’m not shy. I’m not sweet.”
Sian swallowed, because yes, she’d thought he was both those things, even though she’d also known he had an edge.
“Time out,” Luke said.
A black Hummer swung into their elegant, palm-tree-lined drive. Thank God it hadn’t headed up here any sooner. “Don’t worry, it’s just Taz,” Luke said.
“The man you…” She was supposed to relax when the friend he’d shared a woman with, including making her crawl on her knees in order to suck their cocks, was parking in the driveway?
“Yeah.” Luke shrugged as if to say he wasn’t going to pretty things up for her anymore. No kidding, she got that.
The wide shoulders stretching his shirt, the dark, rumpled hair and killer green eyes that dismissed Sian were familiar. He was one of her customers in Coffee Dreams. Usually Dharma served him.
Taz gave her an icy look. Wow. Just what had Luke told him about her?
As she always did with attractive men, she tensed in a way her yoga instructor would scold her for. She could hear the Danish-accented instructor now, ‘Shoulders down from the ears. You will flow’.
Yeah, right. She felt as flowing as discarded newspaper.
“Hey Taz,” Luke called. “So we won’t need to take everything to
your place. Not that I have much shit.”
Sian stared at Luke and everything faded, even the hostile Taz.
“I don’t want you to leave,” she said.
Luke looked at her and she saw a flash of her friend—caring, protective—before he seemed to deliberately shut himself down. “I’ll make a deal with you,” Luke said. He swallowed and the calculating light in his eyes made her belly knot.
He took her arm and herded her to the end of the porch. She saw Taz watching them, still giving off that unfriendly vibe. She raised her chin, giving Taz a defiant look in return. Whatever Luke might have said about her, she and Luke had been friends long before Mr Shares-his-women.
“What do you want from me?” she asked.
“Like you said, I want sex.” Luke put his hands on his hips. “I can’t go on living with you and not have you.” He wasn’t standing close, but she felt dominated.
Didn’t he know all he had to do was touch her and she couldn’t say no?
“I’m not going back to pretending being your friend is all I want.”
That hurt. “I thought you liked being my friend.”
His eyes softened. “Yes.”
“Then why can’t we just go back to the way we were? Luke, let’s just forget what happened.”
“I don’t want to.” His jaw tightened. “Don’t you understand? I don’t want to.”
And there it was, his gauntlet.
“I know you think there’s something wrong with you and me being together, but I’ll live here only if you let me do you once a night.”
The breath left her body like beans spilling from a bean bag. “Are you nuts?”
Luke laughed. “Probably. I’ve been wanting you hard for years.”
“Luke, I’d be bartering my body to you. Is that really how you want it?” Even though she’d made the insane offer, she couldn’t see how it wouldn’t cut her.
“If you want to look at it that way. You aren’t gettin’ it elsewhere.”
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll sleep with you. Once…once a night.”
His eyes burned. Now he moved in for the kill, shifting so his arms caged her against the side of the house. “It’ll only be the once, so you won’t have to put up with more than that. I’ve got a strong sex drive, but you’re just about a virgin. I know you can’t take it like I want to give it to you.”