Chapter Sixteen
Meredith
Idrove to Luke’s place after work, not bothering to go home and get cleaned up first. If this was as real as I hoped it was, he wouldn’t care if I wasn’t wearing eyeliner and a cute dress.
He would just be happy to see me, and hopefully feed me.
It had been way too many hours since lunch and I was ready to gnaw my arm off.
I pulled up in front of his place, memories of the first time we were together flooding my mind again. I looked forward to a repeat. Our time together at the shop had been amazing but we were both tired, in a rush and we didn’t have a bed to get comfy in.
A smile spread over Luke’s face when he opened the door. “Come on in.”
I clutched my purse in my hand, feeling oddly shy. But as memories of my time here with him over the summer combined with the words he’d said to me earlier today, my shoulders relaxed.
“Now, I’ve been cooking for hours to make you a gourmet dinner. I hope you like it.”
I followed him into the kitchen to find takeout pizza boxes on the table. I laughed. “It’s perfect.” We’d both worked all day and working for the Huxleys, I’d had enough fancy events to last a lifetime.
Once we had decimated a whole pepperoni pizza and the better part of a deluxe, I leaned back in my chair. I was tired and content with a full stomach and the crisis at Think Ink behind us.
“I stink from working in the paint booth. Can I interest you in a shower? I’ll scrub your back if you scrub mine.” Luke wiggled his eyebrows.
I cocked mine at him in return. “Ooh, trapped in an enclosed space with a stinky person. Sign me up.”
He grinned. “I’m a blue-collar man, Mer. You’ll have to like me even when I’m stinky.” He stood up from the table, held out his arms and came towards me.
I jumped up from my chair and backed up. “Get your stinky body away.”
He lunged for me and I ran, giggling all the way. “Come on, it’s not that bad. My manly pheromones should be making you want to ride me, not run away.”
I had forgotten the exact layout of his house and ended up cornered in the bathroom.
He pulled me into a hug, wrapping his arms around me so my face was buried in his chest. He really didn’t smell like anything but hard-working Luke, but I still had to give him a hard time.
“Great, now my clothes stink as much as yours do.”
He kissed the top of my head. “I like you better naked anyway.”
We separated and stripped, stepping under the warm spray of the water with barely enough room to turn around.
“This is cozy,” I deadpanned.
“I wish you were always this close.” He brought his lips down and gave me a soft kiss. It was so unexpectedly touching from the big goof that I melted a little inside.
I was going to end up falling in love with this guy. Maybe I knew that even when we only had one night together back in the summer. Now at least the circumstances made sense.
He took his time washing my body and my hair, before switching to washing his own while I rinsed the soap off.
Once he was clean, he brought his arms around me and squeezed my ass, his mouth landing on mine in a hungry, desperate kiss.
I kissed him back with the same ferocity, wanting to feel the steel length of his cock in my hand and the gentle heat of his mouth on my skin.
Instead, I pulled away.
The shower was pretty small, and I didn’t want another rushed, frantic orgasm. If he was mine and I was his, then we had all the time in the world.
He gave me a questioning look.
“No need to rush anymore. This thing between us isn’t a dirty little secret.”
“Not even at work?”
I shook my head. “Roxy is fine with it. I think she knew before we did.”
He laughed. “That tracks. Come on, let’s get dry.”
When we got out of the shower, Luke pulled one of his t-shirts from his drawer and handed it to me to wear. “I can lend you shorts too if you like, but I plan to be the big spoon and the less clothes between my cock and your ass the better.”
“Such a gentleman,” I teased. In all honesty, I loved it and he knew that.
Maybe roses and jewelry would be the more acceptable way to show you cared about a woman but having him be so forward about the fact that I made him horny worked for me.
I wasn’t twenty anymore. I was thirty-two.
Not old, but not on a magazine cover, either.
At my old job, I had been required to be available but not seen most of the time.
Blend into the background in the eyes of the media and the people who mattered.
Well, someone who mattered to me saw me.
He looked past the rich and the famous and he reached for me.
Fuck, I needed to get some sleep before I started writing poetry about the man in my head.
True to his word as soon as my head hit the pillow, Luke was pulling me back against his chest. I wiggled my hips a little, partly to get comfy but mostly to torture him, before taking his hand in mine.
He had paint stains under his nails, grease from the shop in the whorls of his finger prints. His hands were big and rough. Callused from honest work, stained from the pursuit of his passion. I squeezed his hand against my chest and shut my eyes.
This felt right.