Luke Read online

  “You thought wrong.”

  Her gaze dropped from his eyes to his mouth. “Really?”

  “Really.” She licked her bottom lip in an utterly unconsciously hungry gesture that nearly did him in. “Faith…don’t do that unless we’re skipping dinner and going straight to bed.”

  She did it again, sweeping her tongue over her lower lip.

  He stepped close, put his hands on her hips.

  She bit his lower lip.

  “Okay,” he groaned. “So you don’t want dinner.”

  “Dinner means conversation.” She very carefully arched a little closer so that his eyes crossed with lust. “Dinner means getting to know each other, but we’ve agreed, when you’re done at the clinic, we’re done. So getting to know each other will only lead to pain.” Her hips hugged his. “I’m not interested in pain, Luke.” Another subtle glide of those hips. “Not at all.”

  There was a very good reason why her words didn’t make any sense to him, a reason having to do with maybe wanting more than just sex, but that couldn’t be. All he’d ever wanted from a woman was a temporary, hot, good time. He might have tried to think that through, but she kept writhing against him, and with her wrapped around him like plastic wrap, his brain cells were malfunctioning left and right.

  “Luke?” She looked at him with sleepy, sexy eyes. “Are you ready?”

  His hands couldn’t get enough of her, and he dipped down slightly to better align their bodies, which wrenched a groan from each of them. “Oh, yeah, I’m ready.” The material of her tank top was thin enough that her nipples, hardened and pouting, were clearly defined. The sight nearly brought him to his knees. With one reverent finger he reached out and ran a finger over the scooped neckline. “But we’re still going to eat first.”

  He insisted on that, no matter how much she protested. He took them both across the street and fed her while they waited for the tow truck. When she had food inside her and the tow truck had taken her car, he looked at her. “Now, Faith. My place. It’s closer.”

  “Good.” She got into his car. “How fast does this baby go?”

  Somehow he gathered his wits and got them out of the parking lot. At the corner he stopped for a red light and then made the mistake of looking over at her.

  She strained toward him, held back by the seat belt. Her eyes were lit with fire. The pulse at the base of her throat beat erratically. Her mouth was open, just a little, as if she had to have it open to breathe. Wayward strands of hair framed her face, and her nipples still pressed against her top.

  She looked thoroughly tousled and ready for more ravaging. He closed his eyes and groaned. “You keep looking at me like that and we’re not going to make it home.”

  “Luke.”

  He opened his eyes. Big mistake. She was smiling, and it was the very smile of sin. “I turn you on,” she whispered, obviously empowered by the knowledge, which made him all the harder.

  Shifting uncomfortably in his seat, he swore roughly, and when the light didn’t change, he reached for her, held her face, slid his fingers into her glorious hair and lost himself in one of their patented long, wet kisses he could have happily drowned in.

  “Oh,” she breathed in helpless surprise when they came up for air. “Oh my.”

  She was sweet, so damned sweet he wanted to never let her go. “Faith—”

  With a hungry murmur she unhooked her seat belt and plastered herself even closer, and he was lost. Again, he cupped her breast, and they both caught their breath. Her perfect, mouth-watering nipple poked hopefully into his palm, and he tugged gently at it with his fingers, making her whimper in pleasure, making him want to whimper, too. He tugged again and she shifted her thighs restlessly, making him ache to be between them.

  God, she was soft and giving, and under his hands her flesh was warm and curvy. He couldn’t get enough. He was afraid he could never get enough. Even with her hand settled possessively over his heart, her other doing its best to see him bald before he hit middle age, he needed more. Sliding one hand down the material of her skirt until he found smooth, sleek leg, he’d nearly honed in on heaven when a honk from behind them made them both jerk.

  “Green light,” she gasped with a breathless little laugh.

  For a heartbeat he could only stare at her. It was painful, physically painful, to let her go, and for a moment he actually forgot how to drive, but another honk from behind them galvanized him into action and he managed to get them headed in the right direction.

  At the next red light, she let out another breathless laugh and held up her hand when he reached for her. “We’ll kill each other.”

  He slid his palm up her leg. “Yes, but that’s the idea…” Her eyes were huge, her mouth swollen and thoroughly kissed free of any gloss. Her hair had rioted beneath his hungry fingers, clinging to her cheek, jaw and throat in a thick, curly mass that made him want to sink back into her. “My God, you take my breath away.”

  Her eyes lit, and as she had before, she fisted her hands in his shirt and hauled him close, putting her mouth to his. “Drive,” she said when she pulled back. She smiled into his eyes and let out a slow breath. “Drive fast.”

  “Driving fast,” he muttered and put the car in gear. “Driving really fast.”

  CHAPTER 9

  BY SOME MIRACLE they made it to Luke’s house without another red light. He leapt out of the car, came around for Faith, and tugged her out and into his arms.

  After another long, breathless kiss, he pulled back and ran a finger over her wet lower lip. “I love your mouth. I can’t get enough of it.”

  She’d never had a man say such things to her, never. It spun her head, and that, she figured a little recklessly, shamelessly, was okay. For the next month and a half, this man and all the wild sexuality that rolled off him in waves, belonged to her.

  “Come on,” he whispered, and led her to his front door. While he fumbled for the right key, looking adorably flustered and hot and just a little frustrated, she smiled and rimmed his ear with her finger.

  He dropped his keys, swore, then bent for them. When he straightened, he snagged an arm snug around her, pinning her arms to her sides so he could get them into his house.

  She leaned in and sucked on the lobe of his ear.

  “Stop that,” he gasped. Kicking the door shut behind them, he planted her against the wood and let out a groaning laugh at her feigned docile expression. “Okay, don’t stop anything, but I can’t be held responsible if you drive me so crazy we don’t make it to the bed.”

  Her heart was drumming so fast and loud it was a miracle it didn’t burst right out of her chest. Holding his gaze, she leaned over and slowly, purposely, bit his lower lip.

  With a groan, he captured her mouth in a kiss so carnal and fierce, Faith thought she might spontaneously combust right there on the spot. He had her pressed up against the door, his mouth on hers, kissing her as if he was a man dying of thirst.

  She’d once wondered what would happen when he lost control, and she was about to find out. Knowing that she’d done that to him, driven him over the edge, swamped her. Power and need swept through her, power and a need so crippling her legs buckled.

  He caught her, his mouth still on hers, his hands running wildly over her body. Then, holding her head, he raised his mouth from hers a fraction and stared down, his eyes blazing. He stared into her eyes, then down at her lips, before changing the angle of her head and settling his mouth over hers again. When she danced her tongue to his, he groaned deep in his throat, the sound fueling the fire within her.

  “Oh, my… Luke—”

  “Yeah.” His fingers left her hair, sweeping down her body, over her breasts, and she nearly cried. Now, she thought, now he’d give her relief from the wild, desperate need flooding through her. “Luke…please.”

  “I know. I know.” His thumbs rasped over her nipples and she did cry out, covering his hands with hers, holding them over her aching breasts. He groaned again, but managed to dis
engage his fingers from her, leaving her nearly sobbing in frustration.

  But those talented, greedy hands didn’t leave her entirely. They slid down, down her body until his rough fingertips got to about mid-thigh. Then, holding her gaze, he started bunching up the hem of her skirt, crushing it in the palm of his hands until his fingers brushed against bare skin. Still looking into her eyes, he slid his hands beneath her panties and cupped her bottom. His fingers squeezed, dug in, and then he hauled her up so she could wrap her legs around his hips.

  That left the hottest, wettest, neediest part of her nudging the most impressive erection she’d ever imagined. With a moan low in her throat, she slid her fingers into his hair and thunked her head back against the door as he slowly rocked against her in a rhythm as old as time.

  Leaning in, he kissed her throat, her collarbone, her breast through her tank top. “Lift it,” he demanded hoarsely, and groaned when she did just that, watching her fingers intently as she brushed them over her own flesh.

  “Like this?” She exposed her pale pink bra, gasping as he continued to slowly thrust his sex against the damp, hot place at the apex of her thighs.

  “Oh, yeah, like that.” Another aching thrust. “Open your bra, Faith.”

  Obeying, she unhooked the latch in front and looked into his fiery eyes.

  “More,” he said, “all of it,” and she slowly peeled it open.

  There was something incredibly erotic, astonishingly intimate about having his hands holding her thighs open to his, having his hips moving against her in a slow, tight, rocking motion, in a perfect imitation of what she really wanted him to be doing to her, all while she undressed herself to his hungry, hot gaze.

  Bending his head, he reverently stroked his cheek against her bared breast, then opened his mouth and captured it, taking a gentle bite that he promptly soothed with a stroke of his tongue before he sucked her into his mouth, hard.

  Her world spun out of control, centered on the sensation bombarding her between her legs and what he was doing to her now with his mouth. Then abruptly, he let her go, wrenching a whimper from her.

  “Yeah, it’s good isn’t it…?” He slowly blew out a breath over her tight, wet nipple, coaxing the bud into an even tighter peak.

  “Oh, please,” she whispered, arching against him, helping him by meeting him thrust for thrust. Her toes curled, her fingers fisted tighter in his hair as she arched into him, so close, so desperately close, she saw stars, she heard bells, she—

  “Faith? Your skirt is ringing.”

  She stared at him, dazed, as the truth sank in. Her phone really was ringing and with a look of searing frustration, he slowly let her legs slide down his body so she could stand.

  “No.” She wanted to stomp her foot, scream in frustration. “Shelby’s supposed to be on call.”

  “It looks like maybe that got changed.”

  “Do you believe Fate’s laughing at us?”

  “No, I don’t believe in fate, not like that. We make our own destiny, and Faith? We will do this.”

  “Just not now.”

  He sighed and put his forehead to hers. “Just not now.”

  * * *

  LUKE WAS FIT TO be tied as he glared at Carmen, who sat on a cot in one of the patient rooms at Faith’s clinic. “You did what to pop your stitches?”

  They’d driven over here after talking to Shelby, who had gotten stuck at home with a sick mom and couldn’t come in.

  Which meant Luke had been forced to take his hands out of Faith’s very lovely pink panties and his mouth off her heart-stopping nipples, and be grown up about yet another interruption keeping him from what he knew would be an explosive orgasm with Faith.

  He still couldn’t walk straight.

  Lifting her chin in the air, Carmen sniffed.

  “Don’t yell at my patient.” Faith came back into the room with a tray of equipment. “I’m sure she didn’t mean to rip the stitches.”

  Carmen erupted into a tirade in Spanish, complete with wild hand gestures.

  “English!” Luke demanded.

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “I unwrapped the bandages to scratch, then forgot to wrap it back up. I accidentally reached out to grab a cup that was falling and stretched too far. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Faith said gently, stepping between them. “But you ripped open the wound. You need to be re-stitched.”

  Luke sighed. Faith’s mouth still looked full and puffy from all the kissing they’d done. She was all straightened and refastened now, but he couldn’t look at her without remembering how she’d looked peeling her bra away from her breasts.

  “I want her to do it.” She jerked her bleeding thumb at Faith.

  “That’s fine,” Faith said soothingly. “And this time, you’ll be more careful. Sí?”

  Carmen’s lips twitched. “You speak Spanish now?”

  “Un poca.”

  “Poco,” Carmen corrected and smiled. “I like you.”

  Luke tossed up his hands and turned in a slow frustrated circle.

  “I must have interrupted something good, eh? I’m sorry.”

  Luke sighed again, loudly.

  “Whoa—” Carmen blanched when Faith lifted a suturing needle, “Not again.”

  “Trust me,” Luke said grimly. “You’re going to have to drug her.”

  “Yes, drugs,” Carmen agreed.

  “It’s not going to be that bad,” Faith said, but no matter how she coaxed and cajoled, Carmen insisted on meds.

  Within five minutes she was high as a kite. “Ooh, I feel good.” Carmen eyed Luke. “Bet you wish you didn’t have to take me home again.” She cackled and laid back, beaming drunkenly at the ceiling. “Just remember, kiddies, abstinence makes the heart grow fonder.”

  Luke just groaned.

  * * *

  “I WAS JUST kidding about the abstinence thing,” Carmen whispered groggily, her head lolling on Luke’s head as he carried her from his car to inside his house. “I mean, sometimes I like to bring you down a peg or two, but I really do love you and want you to be happy.”

  He set her down on one of his spare beds and sighed. “I know.”

  “And I was just kidding about not liking you,” she murmured, snuggling into the covers.

  “I know.” He tossed a blanket over her. “And you didn’t know you’d be allergic to the pain meds I gave you.”

  “That’s right.” She opened her sleepy eyes briefly. “It’s all your fault. Faith didn’t think I needed any drugs.”

  Luke sighed, shook his head. “Go to sleep, damn it, before I strangle you.”

  “I’m sorry my sister wasn’t here to watch me.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.” He made it to the door before she called him again. “What now?”

  “She’s really wonderful, you know. I couldn’t have wished for anyone better than her for you.” She narrowed her eyes and lifted her bandaged hand to point at him. “So don’t blow it. Got it?”

  “Say good night, Carmen.”

  “Good night, Carmen.” Still grinning, she closed her eyes.

  * * *

  ALONE IN HER BED, more than a little hot and bothered, Faith let out a careful breath and stared at the shadows on the wall.

  She could have gone with Luke and Carmen.

  If she had, she’d be in his great, big, warm bed right this very minute.

  With Carmen just down the hall.

  Not sure about her ability to remain quiet if Luke touched her again—after all, he’d had her sobbing his name with only his mouth on her breast—she figured she’d have to wait for another opportunity. An opportunity without an audience or chance of interruption.

  Waiting shouldn’t be so hard, but at the clinic tonight, watching them leave, she’d thought it just might kill her.

  She could admit now, most of that had been pure lust. It’d taken over her every movement, her thoughts and especially her senses.

  She’d already decided there was nothing wrong with tha
t once in a while. Nothing wrong with a good bout of mutually satisfying sex.

  So now why did she ache at the thought of it being just sex and nothing more? Why did she suddenly worry about being with a man who didn’t love her, and might never love her?

  Because she was starting to fall, that’s why. She’d really started to fall.

  And she was just old-fashioned enough to feel that if she had to fall, then damn it, so did he.

  CHAPTER 10

  THE WEEK FLEW BY. Faith had a meeting one night with her staff—okay, it was pizza night, not a meeting. Another night, she and Shelby caught a movie. She spent one night alone at the library reading for pleasure, something she told herself she didn’t get enough of, and one night doing her least favorite chore of food shopping, which, given her new status as borderline diabetic, had become a bigger chore than usual since she had to completely avoid the candy aisle.

  Managing her blood sugar level was more time-consuming and far more difficult than she’d have ever imagined. And even with all the time she devoted to it, there were still times she couldn’t get it right and had to deal with the annoying bouts of dizziness and tiredness in spite of her best efforts.

  The flu would have been far more preferable.

  As to why she avoided Luke—and she was avoiding him—bottom line, a morbid sense of impending pain. Not physical, but the kind that was worse. Heartache kind of pain.

  On Saturday, Luke showed up at the clinic, and if he’d noticed she’d made herself scarce, he didn’t say a word. He worked hard and long beside her and her staff, but didn’t attempt to get her into the storage closet, didn’t even attempt to seek her out in any way at all.

  Had he changed his mind, too? And why was that not okay with her?

  Later that night, long after everyone had left, she climbed into her bathtub piled high with steaming water and jasmine-scented bubbles. Probably the sensual scent hadn’t been the wisest choice, but she sank deeply and sighed deeply.

  Right now there was only one thing that could possibly improve the night—well, two. Chocolate.