Chapter 18 #3
Yeah, but that wasn’t what was eating at me. Well, no, I supposed the secret didn’t bother me much. Would I have liked to have stood a little closer to Luke today? Yes. Maybe even copped a feel behind a car? Definitely. Was it the end of the world that I couldn’t? No.
I waved over my shoulder in the general direction of those men I’d spoken with. “Some assholes rubbed me the wrong way.”
Luke glanced around me. “Who?”
“I dunno. They were just pissed their car didn’t win. They said you only won ’cause of the money you have at your disposal.”
Luke sighed. “I get that a lot, and I understand their point. Try not to let it bother you.” He turned for the parking lot. “Come on.”
We were silent until we got among the thinning rows of normal cars and trucks.
The wind had picked up with the dying sun.
I shivered into my hoodie, the colder breeze adding to my gloom.
I should get over it, but I didn’t like what those guys had said, and I didn’t like how I couldn’t defend Luke with full force as I’d wanted to.
Luke waved a check in front of my downturned face. “Want to choose the charity this goes to?”
I snatched the paper out of his hand, then lifted my gaze to his. He had a cute grin in place and bright pink in his cheeks.
“You always donate your winnin’s.”
It wasn’t a question, but he nodded anyway.
“I don’t enter these shows often. For one, I don’t always have the time, and also for reasons like what you found out.
People would rather cheer for the average person who put his own sweat and tears into the restoration.
For me, it’s simply fun when I enter the shows.
I don’t need this”—he waved at the check I still held—“so it goes straight to someone or something that does.”
I snorted. “Did you just call yourself above average?”
“Uh, I only meant …”
I laughed and punched his shoulder, feeling more like myself. “I’m just messin’.” I handed the check back to him. “That’s a very nice thing you do.”
Luke walked with me to my Civic. The date was ending before I wanted it to.
“Where will you take me next?” I asked.
He kept his hands in his pockets, same as me. “I didn’t exactly take you here.” He darted his eyes to my car.
“Oh, right.” I chuckled, bit the corner of my lower lip, and took a huge inhale. “Are we doing this right?”
“Maybe?”
“If we were alone, I’d kiss you.”
Luke clamped his lips together, not helping my fixation on them at all, then said, “I’ve been thinking about kissing you all damn day.”
“All day?”
“Do you have any idea how hard it was to keep all those car facts straight when most of my brain was thinking how soft the skin of your neck was against my lips?”
I swallowed and discreetly—at least discreetly for anyone potentially close by—adjusted my growing erection. “How hard?” I breathed and stepped closer.
Luke’s height advantage had him towering over me physically, but also with his growing confidence when we were alone like this.
A far cry from the stuttering man he’d been on his date with Ashley.
It had to be hard living so long without letting his desires out.
Then to be a virgin for so long too. I couldn’t imagine the struggles he faced, but I did enjoy him getting comfortable with this thing between us.
His lips twitched into a split-second grin. “Breakfast in the morning?”
I slumped my shoulders. “Ugh. You and early mornings.”
He laughed. “My mistake. I forget you’re a college kid, sleeping until noon and wearing your pajamas to class.”
“And we both know that’s a lie for two reasons. One, I text you my coffee order at the ass-crack of dawn. You’ve yet to have it ready for me.” The habit of getting up early to help with my siblings had never changed. Didn’t mean I wanted to people that early, though.
Luke snorted and rolled his eyes. “Thanks for telling me the area I need to work on. And the second reason?”
“I don’t wear pajamas. The professors would kick me out of class for showing up naked.”
That got him. He’d been about to take a step back, away from me, but froze in his tracks. He licked his lips, then glanced around us. “You sleep naked?”
“Picturing it?”
“Of course.”
We stared in silence. Hopefully, his thoughts were straying as filthy as my own. Him naked, under sheets, getting the blow job alarm he deserved.
“Text me your aunt’s address, and I’ll pick you up this time.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. It’s the least I can do for my bo—”
I barked a laugh. “Come on, you can say it.”
Luke cleared his throat. “Boyfriend.”
“Damn straight.” I nodded and spun on my heels before the limits of my restraint met their match.
The trip to Aunt Penny’s was frustrating, considering the hard-on that wouldn’t stop pulsing.
When I got in, I beelined for the shower and jerked off to wild fantasies of Luke, whispering his name as I unloaded.
Before joining everyone for supper, I took a selfie of my relaxed grin and sent it to Luke.
The face of the man who just got off to thoughts of his boyfriend.
His reply was an image of his hand with stripes of jizz covering it.
Luke
To great men who think alike.