“We can make that happen,” Luke said, kissing along my collarbone. “I plan to warm you from the inside out, darling.”
My breath hitched as his hand went under my dress again, this time his fingers slipping into my underwear. “Luke,” his name left my lips as a moan.
“Em, are you sure you want to do this?” he asked, lifting his head to look into my eyes.
“I want you, Luke.” I pushed purposefully against his hand. “Just go slow, okay? It’s been a while since I’ve done this.”
“We’ve got all night,” Luke said, touching my cheek with his other hand. “I plan to take my time with you, darling. I’m going to enjoy every second of this and so are you.” He gave me a long kiss that made every part of my body tingle.
To say that Luke was an attentive and considerate lover was underselling his considerable sexual prowess. I was putty in his hands, my body was responsive to every kiss and touch. I’d never experienced anything like it and during one of our breaks, I admitted so out loud.
“You’re the best I’ve ever had, Luke,” I said, kissing his chest.
“No offense, Em, but I don’t think your list of conquests is very long.” He stroked my hair all the way down my back.
“You don’t think I’m a sex goddess?” I asked with mock indignation.
“I didn’t say that.” Luke’s hand snaked down to my backside. “You are the best I’ve ever had, too.”
I hesitated. “How long is your list of conquests?”
“Do you really want to know?” Luke asked hesitantly.
“No, actually.” I lifted my head. “I don’t want to spend a single moment of our time together talking about other women.”
Luke smiled. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re the only woman in the world.”
“You’re only saying that because my naked body is wrapped around yours,” I said, trailing my fingers down his chest.
“Can I ask you something?” Luke asked.
“Sure.”
“When you said it’s been a while since you’ve done this, you didn’t just mean since Eric died, did you?”
I sucked in a breath. I hadn’t expected Luke to remember that let alone be so astute in his observation. “Eric and I had a lot of problems,” I said, rolling away from Luke. It felt strange to be touching him so intimately while talking about my dead fiancé. “He wasn’t very interested in having sex with me. I always thought he just had a low sex drive, but now that I know about his affair, I guess he was just getting his fix outside of our bed.”
“Eric was a fucking idiot,” Luke said with a surprising amount of venom.
I sat up and turned to face him. “He’s dead, Luke.”
“He treated you like shit, Em. I’m sorry. I know I’m being callous and inconsiderate, but I don’t care. That guy was an idiot for not treating you like you were the greatest thing in his world because you definitely were.” Luke sat up, too, and brushed my hair to one side, kissing my shoulder. “I would know because you’re the greatest thing in my world.”
The intensity with which he said it was impossible to ignore. “Luke, I’ve only been back in your world for a week.”
“You never really left my world, Em.” His lips were still pressed to my skin. “You were always in my heart.”
“You stopped talking to me,” I said softly. “If I was so important to you, why did you stop responding to my texts?”
Luke exhaled hard, his breath warm on my skin. “You got engaged. When you were just dating Eric, I always assumed it was just a matter of time before you’d realize you deserved better and you’d break up with him. But when you agreed to marry him...” Luke was quiet for almost a minute. “It was like a knife in my heart, Em. I realized that I had to bow out and let you try to be happy, even if it wasn’t the life I wanted for you.”
“If you couldn’t have me, you didn’t want to be in my life anymore?” I asked, feeling a little angry.
“I deserved a chance to be happy, too, didn’t I?” Luke asked quietly. “I had to try to move on, Em. That was going to be impossible as long as I was still picking up the phone and calling you every time I wanted to hear your voice.”
Deep down, I knew he was right. He had done the best thing for both of us, even if it had been hard for me. “I really missed you, Luke.”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” Luke put an arm around my waist and I leaned back against him. “I’m here now, darling. I’ll stay here for as long as you let me.”
“Are we really doing this?” I asked.
“Uh, Em, we already did it.” He ran a hand suggestively down my body. “Please don’t tell me you missed it. That was some of my best work.”
“Haha.” I squeezed his leg. “I mean, are we dating? Are we going to risk our friendship? What do you want from me?”
Luke chuckled. “I think we’ve already done that. The things I just did with you aren’t things I’ve ever done with a friend.”
“Are you saying I’m not your friend now?” I teased.
“You’re more than a friend. You always have been.” Luke was back to kissing my neck. “I want whatever you’re willing to give me, Em.”
“I didn’t ask what you’re willing to settle for, Luke. I asked what you want.” I turned to look him in the eye. “Do you really want to pursue something with me right now? I’m a mess.”
“You’re not going to scare me away that easily.” Luke looked into my eyes. “I’m not him, Em. I’m not intimidated by your intelligence or threatened by your insane beauty. I’m never going to cheat on you and I swear to god I will never not want to have sex with you. I love you completely, right now, just as you are.”
I knew that he was hoping I would tell him the same thing. Honestly, I wished that I could tell him I felt the same. I knew that I loved Luke, but I didn’t trust my judgment anymore, not after what I’d learned about Eric. “I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint you, Luke. It feels like you’ve built this image of me from who I was in the past and I’m just not that Emery anymore.”
“You could never disappoint me, Em.” Luke brushed his fingers over my cheek. “I’ve seen who you are this past week and you are even better than the Emery I remember.”
“You have to say that because I just had sex with you. Many times.” I smiled even though my stomach was still twisted in a knot.
“Do you remember how I waited for you after work on Monday even though you stayed late to reorganize the inventory shelves?” he asked. I nodded. “Do you remember how I called you Tuesday night well after we both should’ve been sleeping just to see how your day went?” Again, I nodded. “And then Wednesday, when I brought you that piece of pumpkin pie from my favorite bakery because you told me that you were craving pumpkin pie?” Another nod. “I could keep going, Em, but pretty much every single thing I’ve done for the last week had nothing to with being your friend and everything to do with being completely in love with you. And all of those things happened long before I even had an inkling that you might have sex with me.”
The knot in my stomach was quickly unraveling. I smiled and touched his cheek. “You like me,” I said playfully. “Like, really like me.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Luke smiled shyly. I put a hand flat against his chest, pushing him gently onto his back. As I straddled him and leaned down, he pushed my hair over my shoulder and said, “What are you doing?”
I bit my lip as I looked into his eyes, completely undone by the love I found in them. “I’m going to show you just how much I like you, Lucas Cooper. All you have to do is lie there and look pretty.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
My first blizzard in Starlight did not disappoint. Because of the blizzard, the resort was shut down for at least the next 24 hours. When Luke and I finally rolled out of bed around noon, we found almost two feet of snow blocking the front door. The power had turned on sometime overnight, so at least we had electricity to make coffee, but the rest of the house was cold.
&
nbsp; Luke shooed me back upstairs where he’d kept the fire going overnight and brought me breakfast in bed twenty minutes later.
“You’re spoiling me,” I said.
“It’s just an omelet, Em.” He settled on the bed next to me and picked up the second fork.
“No one’s ever made me breakfast like this,” I said quietly. I didn’t have to say it, but Luke knew what I was really saying was that Eric had never done something like this for me.
“You need to stop comparing me to him,” Luke said. “That’s not fair to me and it’s not fair to Eric’s memory either.”
I sighed and reached for the coffee. “I know. I don’t want to do it, my brain just automatically makes the comparison.” I glanced at him. “If it helps at all, you always win.”
“That helps a little.” Luke stroked my hair and let his hand linger on my lower back. “My shirt looks good on you, by the way. Maybe you should keep it.”
“50% of our relationship so far is just me stealing your clothes,” I said.
“The other 50% is you being naked. I think I like the second half better.” Luke nuzzled my neck and then kissed my cheek. “What do you want to do today?”
“Anything that doesn’t involve leaving this bed.” Something horrifying occurred to me and I gave Luke and alarmed look. “Is this... your grandparents’ bed?”
Luke laughed loudly. “God no. I would be in therapy for the rest of my life if it was. I remodeled this entire floor when I took over the house and all the furniture is new. It’s almost like I knew I was going to need a sex fortress in this house.”
“A sex fortress?” I laughed so hard I nearly knocked over the tray of food. “Oh, this was a bad idea. Do we need a no food in the sex fortress rule?”
“I hope not.” Luke waggled his eyebrows. “The right food could really heighten the sex fortress experience.”
“Yes, but my landlord probably won’t like the aftermath,” I teased.
“You’ll just have to sleep with him.” Luke picked up the tray and moved it to the floor.
I froze. “Wow. I’m sleeping with my boss and my landlord. Living in Starlight has turned me into a tramp.”
“I’ve enjoyed being the beneficiary of your trampiness.” Luke settled back against the pillows, yawning. Neither of us had gotten any sleep last night. “And I can be prepared to enjoy it again if you’re feeling the urge to act on it right now.”
“Let’s just put on a movie or something and spend a few hours recovering, okay?” I glanced over at my phone. I’d had three missed calls already this morning, but I was trying to ignore the urge to check. Being wrapped up in the moment with Luke had been a wonderful detour from reality and I wasn’t ready to leave that detour yet.
“What’s wrong? You look like you are in pain.” Luke’s fingers tickled my back.
I smiled. “It’s a fine line between pleasure and pain.”
“Did I hurt you?” he asked seriously.
“No,” I said quickly. “It’s not that kind of pain.”
“Tell me about it,” Luke said.
I shook my head. “I don’t want to talk about it. I’m tired of talking about it.”
“I don’t like seeing you in pain,” Luke said. “It feels like I’m failing you by not being able to take the pain away.”
“It’s not something that’s going to just go away overnight, Luke. Trust me.” I was suddenly feeling very antsy and I climbed out of bed and went to the window. “The snow is still falling. Is this a common occurrence in Starlight?”
“We get a lot of snow, but not usually all at once like this.” Luke yawned again. “When it slows down, it’s going to make for some amazing skiing.”
I hugged my arms around myself as I stared out the window. “I wouldn’t know anything about that. I’ve never been skiing.”
“What?” Luke was suddenly wide awake. “You’ve never been skiing? And you work at a ski resort? We can’t have that. When you told me that you didn’t ski, I just assumed you meant that you were bad at it, not that you’d never been skiing.”
“I mean, technically I did go skiing one time. I went with Eric and some of his friends. He mostly just screamed instructions at me and then I twisted my knee and spent the rest of the trip in pain.” I frowned and turned away from the window.
Luke was being surprisingly quiet. I expected him to say how much he hated Eric and how I had been stupid to put up with him for so long. I walked over to the couch in front of the fireplace and took a seat and leaned back, closing my eyes. After a long moment, I heard Luke walking toward me.
“You can go ahead and say it,” I told him.
“Say what?”
I opened my eyes and watched as Luke bent down to add more wood to the fire. He was still dressed only in his boxers and I liked being able to appreciate the movement of his body. He’d gotten his chiseled form from hard work, unlike most men I encountered.
“You can tell me how stupid I was for loving such a big asshole,” I said.
Luke glanced over his shoulder. “I’m not going to tell you that, Em. I should never have said anything to you about Eric. Berating you for loving him makes me just as big of an asshole.”
“I was an idiot, though.” I curled my legs up and hugged my knees to my chest. “We fought constantly. Eric had a terrible temper and I didn’t have the patience to put up with his insecurities. He wanted me to quit my job. He was convinced that I was sleeping with my boss, which is hilarious considering that he was cheating on me the entire time we were together.”
Luke said nothing as he joined me on the couch. He pulled my feet into his lap and slowly massaged them in his hands.
“I knew that we weren’t good for each other. He only proposed because he knew I was getting ready to break up with him and I only said yes because I didn’t know how to say no.” I closed my eyes again. “When he died, I felt so guilty. I forgot about all the bad stuff in our relationship because it felt wrong to remember those things. I convinced myself that we’d had this perfect relationship, but it was all a lie.”
“You loved him,” Luke said simply. “There’s nothing wrong with that, Em. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to remember the good things about him.”
“I just keep thinking that there must be something seriously wrong with me that I was willing to be so unhappy for so long because I wasn’t strong enough to be alone.” I opened my eyes and laughed. “And then I was alone for six months and it proved everything I had suspected about myself. Without Eric, I was lost.”
“You don’t look lost to me, Em.” Luke scooted closer and stroked my cheek with his thumb. “You look like you’re finally where you were always meant to be.”
I turned my head and kissed the palm of his hand. “I feel like I’m finally home.”
Luke and I stayed on the couch for the rest of the day. We snuggled under a blanket in front of the fire and eventually turned on some terrible movie that had us both laughing. Luke finally extricated himself just before dinnertime to try to clear a path out of the house.
I started making dinner and was lost in my thoughts when Luke returned. He had stripped out of his winter layers and was standing in just jeans and a t-shirt. It was still too many clothes for my liking, but his hair was damp from sweat and curling in an adorable way and his cheeks were flushed from the cold. When he smiled at me, my heart fluttered happily. I wasn’t sure I’d ever been more attracted to anyone in my life.
“I’m officially exhausted,” Luke said. “It’s probably a good thing that I’ll be back in my own bed tonight or I’d never get any sleep.”
“You’re leaving?” I said, surprised. “Why?”
“I don’t live here,” Luke said with a laugh. “Besides, you only invited me to stay one night. I can respect boundaries.”
“But I don’t want you to leave,” I said, pouting a little. “I’ve only just gotten you into my bed, Lucas Cooper. I don’t want to let you go so soon.”
Luke came over
and touched my cheek gently as he kissed me on the lips. “All you have to do is ask me to stay, darling.”
“Stay. Please.” I put my arms around his waist and nuzzled my face into his neck.
“Okay.” Luke’s arms went around me and I almost couldn’t believe that we’d only been holding each other like that for a few hours. I felt so comfortable in his arms. “We do have to go back to work tomorrow, though. No more sex fortress.”
I laughed and kissed his neck. “We’ll just have to make the most of it while we can, Cooper.”
We ate dinner at the table, forcing ourselves to behave like normal human beings. Luke was impressed by my cooking skills and I was impressed by his appetite. It was almost as big as his sexual appetite.
“Keeping you satisfied is going to be quite a challenge, Mr. Cooper,” I said after he’d cleaned his plate for the second time.
“I’m sure you’re up for the challenge,” he said with a seductive wink. “What? What’s that look you’re giving me?”
“It’s called a smile,” I said.
“No, there’s something behind that smile,” he said.
I sighed. “I told you I was going to stop doing this.”
“Comparing me?” Luke guessed.
“Yep.” I nodded. “Eric never made it home in time to eat with me and he refused to eat leftovers. I don’t even remember the last time he ate something I made. It’s nice to have someone to cook for that appreciates it.”
“You’re saying that I win again?” Luke asked with a sexy crooked smile. “Em, if you want to cook for me every night, I promise I’d be more than happy to eat dinner with you. I’ll even do the dishes.”
“I guess I should finish working on that Perfect Man award,” I teased. “Since we’re kind of already talking about him, I could use your advice on something.”
Luke looked a little apprehensive, but he said, “Alright. Fire away.”
“Eric listed me as the beneficiary on his life insurance policy and retirement plan. It’s not an insane amount of money, but it’s enough that I can’t just let it sit around in a savings account.” I reached for Luke’s beer and took a swig. “I don’t feel right keeping the money.”
Home with You (Starlight Valley Book 3) Page 6