Pretend You're Mine: A Small Town Love Story (15 page)

T
hey eventually made it upstairs. Luke carried her over his shoulder up the stairs, but sleep was not on either’s mind. By the time he had dumped her on the crisp sheets, he was already hard again.

What spell did she have him under? It was breaking the laws of biology that he should want her this fiercely this soon. She was still filled with the proof of the orgasm that had hollowed him out, body and soul, and all he wanted to do was fill her again. And again.

He knew he had hurt her. He’d been too rough with her.

Where was his control? It disgusted him that he had let himself go like that. Harper had no idea that’s what lurked beneath the surface. He had no right to take her like that.

“I can feel you glaring at me,” she murmured, eyes closed, sprawled across the sheets.

He pinched her hip. “I’m not glaring. I’m just thinking.”

Harper opened one of those stormy gray eyes. “You’re a lot more fun when you aren’t thinking.”

“Harper —”

She slapped a hand over his mouth

“Shut up. Don’t ruin this moment for me with your ‘We can’t do this’ lame speech.”

He tugged her hand down. “For your information, it’s not lame. I’ve been working on a PowerPoint.”

Harper giggled and rolled until she was on top of him. Her breasts pressed against his chest, her thighs cuddling his dick. He instantly got harder.

She cocked her head to the side and traced her fingers lazily over his shoulders and chest. “Before you give me any speech, I’m going to live out the fantasy that I’ve been having ever since I woke up and saw your face.”

Luke’s hands slid down and cupped her ass. He told himself he should stop touching her now, but his body wasn’t willing to entertain the idea.

“What fantasy is that?”

“I want to taste every inch of your perfect body.”

He went hard as stone and his hands flexed on her flesh.

She silenced any argument he might have had with a kiss. Her tongue glided into his mouth, a gentle tease. He let her take control. She broke free from his mouth and trailed a delicate path of kisses across his jaw and down his throat. She nipped at the skin of his shoulder and trailed lower still.

Her lips paused over his heart.

Harper slid lower, her tongue tasting his stomach, enjoying the feel of his taut muscles quivering under her assault. 

She rested her face on his thigh and ran her hand up his other leg, pausing just below his heavy sack. He could feel her breath on him and his cock twitched with need.

He didn’t mean for the groan to escape his throat, but it did. And as soon as Harper heard it, she gave him a wicked grin and took him into her mouth. It was heaven and torture. The way her hot mouth wrapped around the head of his dick was enough to send him over the edge.

He fought for control as she took him to the back of her throat, stroking him with her sweet mouth. He felt he was fighting a losing battle.

“Slow down, baby,” he whispered.

She didn’t listen. She gripped him firmly and worked his shaft with mouth and hand pumping him harder and harder.

He was dangerously close, and when she used her other hand to cup his balls, he almost came in her mouth right there.

“Enough.” Yanking her up his body by her hair, he rolled so it was Harper who was pinned. “It’s my turn.”

He took his time on her breasts, suckling and tasting until Harper was grinding against him. He wanted to slam into her, to fill her and feel that slick heat wrap around his cock.

But first he wanted to taste her.

He slid down her body and pressed her knees apart. “Baby.” It was all he could say as she lay beneath him, spread open. Ready to give him anything he wanted.

But it was he who would give. She moaned the second his tongue probed her soft folds. He licked into her and felt her body go tight as a bow. He stroked her sensitive nub with his tongue and slid two fingers into her. She was already — or still — wet and it drove him mad. The way she responded to him was amazing. Like she had been waiting her entire life for his hands on her.

His fingers thrust into her tight channel, faster. He couldn’t get enough. He buried his tongue in her sweet, hot flesh and flexed his fingers deep inside her.

“Luke!” It was a gasp.

He could feel her greedy little muscles tighten around his fingers. “That’s right, baby,” he whispered against her slick folds. “Come on my fingers.”

His tongue stroked over the most sensitive part of her, and Harper’s hips rocked against his mouth. He felt the first tremors of her release clamp down on his fingers. “Beautiful.”

She was still coming when he replaced his fingers with his cock. He slammed into her in a desperate bid to feel it all again. She was so tight it took everything he had not to come. He had to slow it down. Get under control.

Harper lifted her knees higher, changing the angle so that she could take every aching inch of him. He filled her with a calculated thrust and she gave a sexy little whimper.

“Baby, if you keep making noises like that, this is going to be over too soon,” he warned her through gritted teeth.

She either didn’t hear his warning or paid no attention to it because a sweet little moan escaped her lips and it made him lose it. He was pounding into her. Hitting bottom.

“Harper.” Her name was almost a shout as he felt his climax churning in his balls. Her eyes flew open and they locked gazes.

Her lust-glazed eyes widened just as he felt her tighten around him. “Luke,” she whimpered his name.

He drove in to the hilt and came violently in her.

***

“A
re you asleep?” she whispered while tracing the lines on his arm and chest.

“Mmm,” Luke answered without opening his eyes.

“Do you feel like I feel?”

“How do you feel, baby?” He rolled over pulling her back against him and nuzzling her hair.

“I don’t know.” She sighed happily and snuggled deeper. “Like it’s Christmas morning and everything I ever wanted is under the tree.”

“Eh, it was okay. Maybe more like an Easter basket or a nice picnic on Labor Day.”

Her indignant gasp was followed by a sharp elbow to his gut.

He wrapped his arms around her tighter, his laughter soft against her ear. It warmed her heart to hear him laugh. She didn’t hear the sound often.

“There was nothing okay about it! Don’t even pretend you didn’t feel the earth move, jerk.”

He laughed again, a quiet rumble in his chest.

“I want to hear you say it, Luke.”

He had her flat on her back, pinned under him in less than a second

He framed her face in his hands. “Baby, you and I both know that this was something special. But I’m not surprised. I knew from the second I saw you, the moment you opened those beautiful gray eyes and looked up at me, that I needed to be inside you.”

He tugged her hand up to his mouth and placed a kiss on her palm. “I don’t know what’s happening here, but you’re in my head and my blood. There was no way that this was not going to happen.”

“Then why did you fight it?”

He sighed. “You’re not part of the plan. You and your perfect body and that sweet smile. Those sexy little moans you make that get me so hard. You are a beautiful, chaotic distraction. I don’t like being distracted.”

Harper wasn’t sure if she should be flattered or offended, but the warmth flooding her chest made up her mind. “You were pretty good, too,” she said with a satisfied smirk. He pinched her and she yelped. “So, just to be clear, how will we be spending the rest of our month?” she asked.

He lowered himself to her, lips hovering over hers. “Spending as much time as possible exactly like this.”

***

A
s what seemed to be her new habit, Harper woke wrapped in Luke’s embrace. But this time she made no move to wriggle free. Instead, she snuggled deeper, burying her sleepy smile in the crook of his arm. She could tell from the light filtering through the windows that it was still too early to think about getting up. It was going to take something around a code red to drag her out of Luke’s arms.

He stirred, nuzzling her hair. “Morning, sunshine.”

“Mmm, morning.”

Luke brushed her hair back and placed a soft kiss on her neck.

“This has to be the best way ever invented to wake up,” Harper sighed.

His laugh was soft. “I hate to leave this bed, but I’ve got an early meeting and I want to get in a run first.”

“You’re such a grownup,” Harper sighed. “I should probably get up and pay taxes or clean out the gutters or something.”

“You stay here. I need you rested for when I come home this afternoon.”

“I like the sound of that.”

Luke dropped a kiss on her shoulder and slid out of bed. “Get some more sleep, sunshine.”

She rolled over and buried her face in his pillow.

Harper didn’t know how long she had slept before she was jolted awake by something landing on her butt with a solid thwack.

“Mmph.” She rolled over and squinted up at Luke. He dropped a newspaper in front of her.

“Why are you throwing news at me?”

“Because you’re in it.” He stood, hands on hips, next to the bed.

Harper shoved herself into a seated position and opened the paper. It was front-page coverage of the Not-So Polar Plunge. It opened with a very large picture of her being carted out of the water in Linc’s arms.

“Oh, crap.”

“Yeah. That doesn’t happen again.”

“Near drowning? Or me being carried around by a buff firefighter?”

Luke didn’t laugh. He crossed his arms over his sweaty t-shirt-clad chest.

“You really don’t like him, do you?”

“He’s an ass. And I don’t like any man’s hands on you.”

“Are you getting territorial? You’re not going to pee on me, are you? Because I am not into that.”

“When you’re sleeping with me, you’re sleeping with only me.”

Her arm snaked out, and she grabbed a fistful of shirt, yanking him down to her. “It so happens that I have the same rule. So right back at you, Captain.”

He tugged the sheet down and palmed her breast. “Just so we’re on the same page.” His mouth closed over hers, forcing her head back.

When she moaned, he swore and pulled back. “Damnit, Harper. You’re making it very hard to go to work.”

She reached out a hand to cup him through his shorts. “Yes, yes I am.”

S
he forgot about their dinner guests until Gloria texted her Monday morning to see if there was anything besides apple pie she could bring for dinner. Harper slunk into Luke’s office to break the news.

“Hey. You want to get some lunch?” he asked, looking up from his monitor.

“Uh, yeah, sure. But I forgot to tell you that we’re having Gloria and Aldo over for dinner tonight.”

He stared at her for a beat. “When did this happen?” he asked finally.

“Saturday. They both stopped by and I forgot to mention it because you were all naked and distracting and I just now remembered. Anyway, it’ll be fun and Aldo said he’d bring hamburgers and hot dogs to grill and Gloria’s bringing pie so all we have to do is come up with some side dishes —”

Luke sighed and scrubbed his hands over his face.

“Look, I don’t know you well enough to know if you’re mad or not. So if you’re mad and you don’t tell me it’s your own damn fault and I’ll probably keep doing it over and over again secretly pissing you off every day without knowing it,” Harper said, wringing her hands.

“I’m not mad. I’m ... inconvenienced.”

“The way you say that makes me think there’s no difference.”

“Where are we going to put them? There’s no furniture!”

“They’ve both been to your house before, so I don’t think they’re expecting any to magically appear.”

He swore quietly and shoved out of his chair.

“Get your purse and get in the truck.”

“Where are we going?”

“Fucking furniture shopping.”

***

H
is mood hadn’t improved much by the time they got to the store. He had planned to coax Harper into leaving work early to spend the whole evening in bed. Instead, he got ambushed with a stupid dinner party. He was trying to be mad at her, but he knew it was his own damn fault. He was the one who agreed to let her move in. He was the one who had nosey friends. And he was the one who had never gotten around to buying a damn couch or table.

He hated shopping. But it was time to pay the piper.

“Hi, Luke!” A chipper redhead dressed in a royal blue suit crossed the furniture store’s glossy tile floor. “You must be Harper,” she said cheerfully waving.

Luke rolled his eyes and tucked his sunglasses in the neck of his t-shirt. Just once it would be nice to be anonymous.

“Harper, this is Becky. We went to high school together. Becky, this is my girlfriend, Harper.” He knew the last few words came out kind of strangled, but it was the lesser of two evils. His mother had tried to set him up with Becky two years ago, and she had good-naturedly accepted his brush off, but he had felt a little guilty about it. Thankfully, she had since married Bob of Bob’s Fine Furnishings.

“What can I show you two today?”

Harper looked at Luke and smiled.

He sighed. “We need a living room suite and a dining table. Today.”

“Great! Let’s get started.” Becky turned and started to wind her way through leather recliners and end tables.

He grabbed Harper’s hand and dragged her after Becky.

Before it was all said and done, Luke picked out a couch, a loveseat, two accent chairs, a coffee table and matching end tables, an entertainment center, four handmade bookcases that would look pretty great in the second living room that he had planned to turn into his home office, and a dining room table with eight goddamn chairs.

The only enjoyment he got out of the trip was watching Harper get paler and paler every time he told Becky to add something to the bill.

“Luke, are you sure we need all this?” she whispered while Becky discussed the benefits of Scotch Guard.

“You’re the one who invited people over with no place to sit down. Might as well get it all out of the way now.” He draped an arm around her shoulder. “Don’t you want furniture?”