Chapter 10 #3
“And cheek kisses?”
“Sure, forehead as well.” I grin at him. “And hand kisses and caresses. That’s sweet and romantic and not too intimate.”
“Yeah, that’s not intimate at all.”
He grabs my hand and kisses it three times in a row, and I giggle. Then he turns my wrist over and kisses my palm and the soft skin of my wrist lightly as if I’m a delicate figurine. I swallow hard as his eyes don’t leave me. I feel his tongue on my skin for a second before he pulls away.
“Not intimate at all,” he repeats.
I just nod because what on earth was that? And why do I feel so weird inside?
“What about pecks on the lips?” he asks after a few moments.
“We said that’s fine, right? Just no tongue.” I quickly lip my lips. “We established that.”
“What if there comes a time when we need tongue to really prove the point that we’re together?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” I shift on the bed and sigh as the skirt rides up. “Can I borrow your shirt?” I ask him, trying not to stare at his rugged chest. “I can sleep in that. It will be more comfortable than this dress.”
“Sure.” He points to the couch and the stack of folded clothes, and I get off of the bed.
As much as I feel self-conscious, being here, I am also really happy. Luke has always been my closest friend. He knows things about me that I can’t even remember.
“Do you remember the time I came over to your house and forgot my PJs and had to sleep in your Spider-Man suit?”
“I don’t think you had to sleep in it.” His lips twist up in a smirk. “You chose to sleep in it out of all the clothes I had offered. I was so annoyed.”
“I know you were.” I laughed. “You were glaring at me the whole time.”
“I thought you were going to take away my powers.”
“What powers? Climbing up the side of buildings?” I giggle as I grab ahold of his shirt. “Close your eyes. I’m taking my dress off.”
“Close my eyes? Would a boyfriend have to—”
“Luke!”
“They’re closed.” He lies back on the bed. “So, as you change, let’s discuss our backstory. How did we figure out we were in love?”
“One night, we were watching a movie on the phone together, and you said, ‘This love story reminds me of us,’ and I said, ‘What do you mean?’ and you said, ‘It reminds me that I love you and want you and think you’re the best woman in the world.’ ”
“Nope,” he grunts from the bed. “I am not going to sound like a simp. There is no way in hell that I would say any of those words, and my family knows it.”
“I think it sounds so romantic.”
“Mia Bishop, could you ever imagine me saying that?” He laughs loudly. “This love story reminds me of us? Um, no.”
He pretends to throw up, and I can’t help but laugh as I button up his shirt. It’s not super long on me, as it stops mid-thigh, but it is big, loose, and soft. It also smells of Luke, like the ocean and lemon mixed together.
“Maybe not the old Luke, but the new super-romantic Luke, yes.”
“Let’s not get carried away, Mia.” He yawns loudly, and I head back to the bed. “Where is this food?” he asks.
I notice his eyes are wide open. Did he even close them?
Did he see me taking off my dress? His eyes follow me as I walk, and I can see the way he’s looking at my thighs as his shirt lifts up every other step.
Thank God I have on underwear. Never have I been happier about the fact that I am not one of those girls who likes to go commando.
I can’t even imagine what would happen if Luke were to see the jungle growing down there.
He’d probably laugh. Which reminds me that I need to shave or get a wax. Just in case.
Just in case what, Mia? the Goody Two-shoes in my head demands to know.
For swimming at the beach. In a bikini. I don’t want to find myself renamed as Mia, queen of the .
“Earth to Mia.”
“Oh, sorry. I was just thinking that it should be here soon. Anyway, if you don’t like my backstory, what do you suppose we tell people?”
“I was thinking something along the lines of you calling me in the middle of the night with a secret and begging me to call you, even though I was at work and—”
“You’re always at work.”
“Exactly, and I stop in the middle of a meeting and—”
“How would you be in the middle of a meeting in the middle of the night?”
“Touché. Okay, fine, you call me in the middle of the day while I’m in a meeting, begging me to call you.”
“That sounds like a you move, Luke, not a me move.”
“Anyway, Mia. You beg me to call, and I walk out of the meeting, worried that something has happened to you, and you tell me that you can’t hold it in any longer, and you absolutely must tell me what’s on your mind.”
“I absolutely must tell you?” I burst out laughing as I sit on the mattress and grab my phone to see the time. “And what do I tell you?”
“You tell me that you’ve secretly loved me for years and that you can’t live another day without letting me know.” He grins at me. “And then you send a photo of yourself topless to me, and I—”
“Oh, hell no, Luke. I am not telling anyone that story. Are you out of your mind?”
“No, but that would have been kinda fun to receive.”
“You want to see me topless?”
I turn to him and push him back. His skin is warm to the touch, and I can’t help but notice how broad his shoulders are.
His skin, a golden-olive complexion, is smooth and silky-looking.
There’s a light smattering of dark hair across his chest, and he twitches his pecs so they jump back and forth.
Heat radiates from his body to mine, and soon, his thigh is pressed against mine as he shifts closer to me.
“What do you think, Mi-Mi?” he whispers next to my ear, tickling my sensitive eardrum and making me shiver.
“You’re such a perv.” I tuck my legs under me and turn toward him. “I’m not a stripper. You’re not about to see these goodies.”
“Ah. jeez, my lifetime dreams have been shattered. Call the police.”
“Very funny.” I punch him lightly on the shoulder, and he grabs my hand and pushes me back slightly. “You would be so lucky, Mr. Haverbrook.”
“Rex would be so lucky, you mean.” He winks at me and grabs my wrist and holds it up to his lips and lightly kisses it. I quickly pull it down. “Or maybe he still thinks it’s a pity that you didn’t have a date to his wedding.”
“Well, he thought you were a loser as well.” I grab ahold of his arm with my other hand, but he grabs that as well, pushing me back slightly.
“Thus the position we find ourselves in now.” He grins as he reaches down to tickle me. “Two lonely losers who couldn’t get a date to a wedding.”
“Don’t.” I giggle as I fall back on the bed, my hair a tangled mess on either side of my shoulders.
“I’m sure I could have found someone, Luke.
” I attempt to push him back, but he’s much stronger than he was when we were fifteen and constantly engaged in tickling and teasing fights.
“Stop.” I attempt to bring my arms down to prevent him from tickling me.
“I can’t.” I giggle uncontrollably as he continues to tickle me, giving no mercy.
“I suppose you could have found some surfer, and I could have found some socialite who wanted a vacation.” His fingers run down the side of my body toward my legs before caressing the skin on my thigh as he makes his way to my ticklish knees.
“Luke.”
I push him to the side and quickly roll on top of him.
I grab his wrists and push them back toward his head as he falls back onto the mattress, his dazzling ocean eyes laughing at my attempt to get him back.
My shirt rides up slightly, and I shift on top of him to try and bring it back down without letting go of his arms. This just proves to bring the shirt up higher, and as I sit back, I realize I’m straddling his lap.
In fact, I’m now sitting firmly on something very hard.
I swallow as I realize that what I’m feeling is not a rock. Or his knee.
Oh shit, I’m sitting on his cock.
I gaze down at him, my brain suddenly clouded as I feel him pressed up against my panties.
There’s a heady feeling of desire rising through me as his cock suddenly twitches, grinding against me through the thin material of our underwear.
I move forward, attempting to move off of him, when he suddenly grabs me, and I fall back, bouncing down hard on his cock.
I bite down on my lip, trying to ignore the wetness that fills my panties.
I’m really hoping that Luke is too tired to feel what I’m feeling, but as I look down into his eyes, his expression has changed slightly.
His eyes are darker, more intense, and he’s biting down on his lower lip.
An overwhelming feeling of want courses through me.
I want to suck on his lower lip. I want to grab his face.
Get your drunk mind out of the gutter, Mia, you fool.
I quickly avert my gaze and squeeze his wrists, pushing down hard, my hair brushing past his face.
“Can’t touch this, baby,” I tease him as he suddenly shifts, grabs both of my arms, and rolls me onto my back. “Ooh.” I glare up at him. “No fair.”
“You didn’t think you’d really beat me, did you, Mia?” He lowers his face closer to mine, and his lips brush against my cheek softly before lightly kissing my nose.
I am barely breathing now. Is he going to kiss me? And if so, is it for real? Or is this just practice?
I reach up, grab his bicep, and try to shift him off of me, but he’s just too strong. He sits back lightly on my thighs and grins as he looks down at me, licking his lips slowly as he gazes at me.
“Nice bra.”
I look down and notice the top buttons of his shirt have come undone, and he can see the tops of my breasts in my mid-cut bra.
“Perv.”
“Not quite. A perv would take advantage of this situation.”
“And how is that?” I don’t know why I ask him that. Maybe I’m stupid. Maybe I just want to know what he’ll do. Maybe I’ve just lost my mind.
And because Luke is Luke and he doesn’t give a fuck, he grabs the front of the shirt and tugs on it, and half the buttons go flying off as the shirt falls open.
“I’d do that.” He cocks his head to the side and laughs. “That was a two-hundred-dollar shirt as well.”
“Luke!” I see his eyes falling to my exposed bra, stomach, and the top of my panties.
I swallow hard as he stares at my body. I think he’s about to touch me, but instead, he jumps off of the bed and shakes his head.
“Where is this room service? I’m starving.” He walks over to the phone and grabs it. “Let me check and see.”
He turns his back to me, and I take a couple of deep breaths as I close the shirt and grab the remote.
“Tell them to hurry.” I feign a lightness I don’t feel. “Or I’m going to run down and raid the kitchen.”
“Okay.” He turns back to me with a small smile and nods.
The room is tense with sexual chemistry that neither one of us wants to address. I’m still in shock at how quickly the tension has built up between us. It was never like this before. Yet, now, I can barely look at him without thinking of how hot he looks.
The bulge in the front of his briefs wasn’t helping either though.
Luke is my best friend, but I can’t stop thinking about how hard and thick he felt between my legs. Shit! The last thing I need is to fantasize about my best friend.