Pretend You're Mine: A Small Town Love Story (9 page)

“I don’t know about
that
. Sometimes you have to save yourself or someone else. But I wouldn’t mind riding off into the sunset with someone.”

“You women and your desire for grand romantic gestures.”

Harper laughed. “Please, the only time a woman needs a grand romantic gesture is when she doesn’t know she’s loved.”

“I’m not buying that. What about the girls who pick out their own $15,000 engagement ring and demand a wedding for 400 guests?”

“Apples to oranges. There’s a difference between being on the receiving end of a grand romantic gesture and demanding to be the very expensive center of attention. On one hand, you have someone who wants to make sure that you know beyond a shadow of a doubt how they feel about you. On the other hand, some poor schmuck is just buying a gimmie girl off with sparkly presents and lots of attention.”

“A gimmie girl? Now that paints a picture.” Luke laughed and Harper warmed at the sight of his dimple.

The waitress returned with their food and the subject was dropped while they dug in. They enjoyed their meal and made small talk about work, food, and Benevolence. She felt relaxed, remarkably, considering that most of her time with Luke was spent wavering between extremes of nervousness and lust.

It was a constant battle that she hoped would dull soon. It was embarrassing that every time she saw him shirtless, she had to stop herself from licking her lips.

The band in the other room switched to a slower tune. Harper gasped as the first few chords of the Jeff Healey Band’s “Angel Eyes” echoed through the room. “I love this song, Luke! This is my all-time favorite romantic fantasy song. Dance with me?”

“Romantic fantasy?”

“There are all kinds of fantasies, Luke. Romantic, orgasmic ...”

“No one else is dancing.”

“Who cares? We don’t know anyone here. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Is that how you make decisions? ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’” he mimicked, tossing imaginary long hair.

Harper ignored his question and tugged him out of the booth towards the floor in front of the band. He was right. No one else was dancing, but someone always had to be first.

Luke’s grip stopped her where she was and he pulled her back into his arms. Her breasts flattened against his warm, solid chest, their mouths an inch apart. Luke’s hands splayed across her back holding her to him.

“You’re not dancing,” he whispered.

She could almost taste his words.

Harper bit her lip to keep from biting his and wound her arms around his neck. She didn’t have to pull him closer. He came willingly.

He led and she followed. Her attention was on every sensation that touching him ignited. One hand slid higher to rest gently over her bruised ribs. His palm and thumb intimately hugging the curve of her breast.

She knew he could feel her heart pounding, knew he could hear her short breaths.

They swayed together, oblivious to anything but the music and each other. Luke pulled her closer. She could feel the length of him hardening against her.

“Stop looking at me like that,” he growled.

“Like what?” Her voice was breathless.

“Like you want me to take your clothes off and taste every inch of your body.”

She felt the dull ache at her core increase to a steady, hollow throb. He was a freaking mind reader.

“I wasn’t thinking that,” she lied. “I was thinking about ... dessert.”

“Liar.” His hand skimmed the swell of her breast on its way up to gently brush her hair back from her face. He grinned when she gave a breathy gasp. His erection twitched against her and she knew she wasn’t the only one thinking about ... dessert.

She didn’t notice when the song ended, but Luke did.

Hands on her shoulders, he pushed her back a step, breaking the spell. Harper’s cheeks flushed. She had completely lost track of their surroundings. She hadn’t even noticed that other couples had joined them on the floor.

Luke kept her hand and led her back to the table.

“Well, that was some fantasy,” she sighed, sliding back into the booth, her cheeks flushed.

“We should probably head back. I have an early day tomorrow.”

His tone was flat, but his voice was rough. There was something going on beneath the surface, but Harper couldn’t tell what it was.

The check was waiting for them, and when Harper reached for it, Luke snatched it out of her grip. “Not gonna happen, sweetheart.”

“I asked you to dinner. This is my treat,” Harper said, reaching across the table.

“No.” It was a refusal more solid than the stone walls surrounding them.

“Luke —” she tried again.

“Harper. No. Now finish your beer.”

She frowned at him. One little physical reaction and he turned into a statue.

***

L
uke kept Harper’s hand in his and half dragged her to the parking lot where the sound of crickets was carried on cool air. He pulled her towards the Beetle’s passenger door. “I’ll drive.” He stopped her before she opened the door by putting his hand on it. “Look, I have to set something straight here.”

Harper leaned back against the car and Luke shoved his hands in his pockets. “This can’t happen.”

“What exactly can’t happen?” She looked amused.

He glared at her. She was going to make him say it. “We can’t complicate things with sex.”

“What’s so complicated about sex?”

“Harper,” he growled.

“Sorry. Please continue.” She smiled, and he wanted to throttle her.

“I don’t want you to get the wrong idea and think that we’re going to start some romantic affair —”

Her eyes widened. “Who said anything about an affair or a relationship, which I’m sure is your bigger concern? You’re leaving. I’m leaving. That doesn’t mean that I don’t like how I feel when you touch me. Because I really do. It makes me wonder.”

“Wonder what?” He knew he was stepping onto very unsteady ground. He was already standing too close to her. He couldn’t ever seem to make himself put distance between them.

Harper put her arms around his neck, pulling him closer until her breasts rubbed against him. “I wonder what it would feel like if we kissed.” Her voice was whisper soft, full lips parted. Inviting him in.

He stopped breathing. He could have pushed her back, told her to knock it off. He should have. But he stood his ground and let her rise up on her toes to bring those soft lips to his. Because there wasn’t anything in that moment that he wanted more.

Her eyes fluttered closed and she gave a sexy little sigh.

That was all it took for him to stop fighting it. He brought his hand to her hair and yanked it back to get better access to that sweet mouth. His tongue boldly stroked past her parted lips, finding hers eager for him. Tasting her did nothing to mellow the kiss. His mouth crushed down on hers and he used his tongue to thrust in over and over again, mimicking the strokes with his hips.

Harpers arms tightened around his neck and he growled. His hands streaked up her sides under her tight little sweater and his fingertips felt lace.

He felt it before he saw it. The slight wince as his hand cruised over her sore ribs.

He pulled back immediately. Cursing himself and maybe her, too, he yanked the passenger door open and manhandled her into the seat.

Ten minutes down the road his cock was still painfully hard. He had almost mauled her in the parking lot. Had he not seen that wince of pain when he pressed too hard against her side he would have found a way to fuck her right there in the parking lot. His lack of control was humiliating. He forgot that she was hurt. Forgot the rules that he had carefully laid out, the plan that he had been following for years. All of it out the window because he couldn’t stop touching her.

He shouldn’t be having this physical of a reaction to her. And yet, here he was walking around with a hard-on every time he saw her.

Leaning over the counter in the kitchen in her little shorts? Hard. Prancing around in his white t-shirt that she still slept in? The white t-shirt that did nothing to hide her perfect tits that begged for his hands? And every pair of sexy little underwear she wore underneath? Raging hard. He was afraid that she’d never start sleeping in something he couldn’t see through, or worse, that she would.

If he was within three feet of her, he was fucking hard. How was he supposed to survive a month-long erection? Maybe he should see a doctor.

He was a ticking time bomb. If he did fuck her, there was a good chance he might kill her. He wanted to believe that his reaction to her was because it had been so long. But he knew that was a lie. There was something about Harper that drew him in and tied him up.

“Are you mad?” Harper, her lips still full and flushed from his assault, asked from the passenger seat.

He didn’t answer her, but gripped the gearshift a little harder.

“I’m sorry for coming on so strong, Luke. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just wanted to see what it would be like to kiss you. I promise to be more respectful of your feelings.”

She
was promising to be more respectful of
his
feelings? He was the one who mauled her like a rabid teenager.

“Harper —”

“I’m really sorry.” Those big gray eyes were staring at him contritely.

“What exactly are you sorry for?”

“For making you kiss me when you didn’t want to. I thought that you were attracted to me like I am you. It didn’t occur to me that you weren’t and then I practically ate your face with my tongue. I don’t usually try to devour men like that.”

“You think I’m not attracted to you?”

“Isn’t that why you gave me the whole ‘no sex’ talk?”

Luke pulled the clunking Beetle over abruptly and came to a stop on the side of the road. “Harper, it’s not possible for me to be more physically attracted to you than I am. It’s a constant battle of self control to not rip your clothes off and slam my dick into you just to feel you come on me.”

Harper’s jaw fell open.

“See? Those are the kinds of thoughts that go through my head when I’m around you. You make me hard and stupid and I don’t like it.”

“But if you want me and I want you, then why —”

“Baby, I just can’t. I’m not ... ready. And if I were, you would be the first to know it. But I just can’t take my focus off of work and deploying. I know that if I were inside you, I’d lose complete fucking control and that can’t happen. I just don’t have room in my life for you.”

Harper finally closed her mouth and looked down at her hands clasped in her lap.

Luke reached over and took one of her hands. “You are a beautiful, sweet, sexy girl and someone is going to be very lucky to be devoured by you. It just can’t be me. So I’d appreciate it if you’d start wearing parkas and shit around me so I don’t keep fantasizing about your hot body.”

“So you do want me, and I am offering myself to you with no strings attached, but you want your order and focus more?”

He squeezed her hand. “When you put it that way it sounds really stupid.”

“You’re a complicated man, Luke.”

Three weeks...

––––––––

L
uke kept his distance from her at work, and that was fine with Harper. She felt guilty for pushing him, and disappointed that Luke wasn’t willing to explore the attraction that they both felt.

She was surprised to see his truck in the driveway when she got home. She felt like she was unintentionally chasing him out of his own house so maybe this was a good sign.

Harper let herself in and took the grocery bags back the hall to the kitchen. There was no sign of Luke in the house, but she heard voices coming from the somewhere.

She let herself out the back door onto the porch and spotted Luke at the far end of the yard. He was standing in a loose triangle with two boys. They all had baseball gloves.

“You’ve got to tighten up on that grip when you throw it, Robbie,” Luke instructed the taller boy with sandy, shaggy hair. “Here, let me show you.”

She watched him demonstrate the grip and hand the ball over. “Give it a shot.” Luke jogged back to his spot. “Let ’er rip.”

The boy wound up and released a perfect curving pitch that smacked into Luke’s glove.

“Yeah, baby! Did you see that?” The boy hooted and sprinted to Luke.

“Now that’s a curve,” Luke laughed. They fist bumped and Luke tossed the ball back to him. “Try it again. Make sure it’s not a fluke.”

Robbie hustled back to his spot and adjusted his hold on the ball. He fired another pitch into Luke’s glove.

“Me next! Me next!” The smaller boy threw his glove in air. “Mr. Luke, I want to throw.”

Luke repeated the process with the younger brother. He didn’t quite get it, but seemed proud of his effort. “Mr. Luke, there’s a lady on your porch.” Robbie said, pointing at Harper.

Harper waved and walked down the steps to the patio. Luke met her with the boys, Robbie at his side and the younger one tossed over his shoulder.

God, he looked good. He was wearing worn jeans, a white fitted t-shirt, and a baseball cap. But nothing was sexier than the grin on his face.

“Hey,” he said, dropping the boy at her feet.

“Hey,” she laughed when he scrambled to his feet in a fit of giggles.

“Harper, these are my friends Robbie and Henry. They’re brothers and they live two houses down with Mrs. Agosta.

Mrs. Agosta was closing in on 70 and Dominican. Harper was pretty sure she wasn’t the boys’ mother.

“Guys, this is my friend, Harper.”

“Hi,” Robbie said, holding out a hand. He had earnest green eyes and a smattering of freckles across his nose.

“Nice to meet you, Robbie,” Harper took his hand. “Hi, Henry.”

Henry, a miniature version of his brother, waved cheerfully, and his smile showed that he was missing a front tooth.

“Robbie and Henry are hanging out while Mrs. Agosta takes their sister to the doctor.”

“Her snot’s green. It’s gross,” Henry announced, tossing his glove in the air.

“Wow, that is gross,” Harper agreed. “Do you guys want to stay for dinner?”

“What are you having?” Robbie asked.