CHAPTER NINE #3
Emma was too busy waving back at Luke to pay April any attention. “Gosh, is it that late already? You must have been at it for a while.” Somehow she made the words sound dirty. “You should come in for a cold drink. April just made iced tea—it’s to die for.”
What the hell was she doing?
Emma nudged April and she jolted, looking over at Luke and then quickly away when their eyes caught and held. “Um, yeah. I have … tea.”
“Sounds good. I’ll be over in a sec.” He grinned again, the smile undoubtedly smug as he lifted his tee up and over his head, dabbing at the sweat glistening on his hairline and then farther down across his chest. Someone whimpered, and April couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t her.
Luke disappeared inside and Emma fanned herself while even Izzy looked a little dazed.
“I mean, I knew he was hot. But I didn’t know he was hot.”
April rolled her eyes, grumbling under her breath about how ridiculous it was for him to remove his shirt. “It’s not even that warm out,” she muttered and Emma smirked.
“I think the lady doth protest a little too much,” she said in an over-the-top British accent. “Wouldn’t you say, Lady Izzy?”
“Quite, quite,” Izzy replied before they dissolved into laughter while April scowled.
“Did I miss the joke?” The voice sounded far too close to April and she narrowed her eyes as she turned to find Luke a few steps away.
Still shirtless. She kept her eyes on his, determined not to let them fall below his shoulders, but the heat in his gaze said he knew how good he looked and he knew that she knew it too.
“Where’s your shirt?” she ground out and Luke blinked slowly.
“Inside,” he said, nodding back toward the house across the street.
“It was a little … wet.” Was he doing this deliberately?
Baiting her with double entendres, throwing their kiss in her face because she’d told him to pretend it hadn’t happened?
“I didn’t think it would be a problem,” he murmured, voice pitched low enough that only she could hear him.
“No shirt, no service,” she snapped, and her scowl only deepened when Emma rolled her eyes and slid her arm through Luke’s, directing him into the house.
“Ignore her. The paint fumes have gone to her head.”
“Oh? You redecorating?”
April followed them inside and set four glasses on the counter with a grumpy thud before walking to the fridge to retrieve the iced tea. “No.”
“We had our nails done!” Emma wiggled her fingers in front of Luke’s face and he smiled, but his attention immediately snapped to April when she thrust out his drink.
His hand wrapped around hers, warm, the heat a complete contrast to the cold glass in her palm, and he ran the pad of his thumb over the top of her subtle shimmery design.
“Nice. I like that—this, I mean,” he corrected, but she’d seen the way his eyes had darkened and how his gaze fell to her mouth when she licked her suddenly dry lips.
So pretty nails were a turn-on for him? Interesting.
No! It’s not interesting at all. This is Luke; that kiss was a moment of madness. Nothing more. Stop. Looking. At. His. Chest.
April dragged her eyes up, cursing herself, and turned away quickly when Luke began to drink the iced tea, the strong column of his throat working effortlessly as he swallowed.
“Hello? April?” Emma snapped her fingers in April’s face, looking smug. “I said, are these drinks for us?”
“What? Yes. Sorry.” April waved a hand and decided she couldn’t trust herself to look at Luke while his shirt remained off, so she’d have to avoid looking at him at all.
But worse than the satisfied look on Luke’s face? The smug ones on her best friends’.
Even the sweet freshness of her iced tea couldn’t clear her head, not while Luke was watching her intently.
The memory of their kiss was written all over his face, there in the challenging crook of his brows, the slight smirk on his mouth, the way he cocked his head to one side as if to ask, Want some more?
“What?” she snapped and ignored the way Em and Izzy dipped their faces to hide in their drinks. “You keep staring at me, Pointer. So spit it out.”
That cocky smirk emerged, now full-blown, and she set her drink down with a thump on the countertop. “How would you know I’m staring at you, unless you’re staring back?”
Her mouth dropped open. “I am not staring back. What would I be staring at? Your sweaty … abs?” She huffed a laugh that sounded more flustered than condescending. “Get a grip, Pointer.”
He set his glass down too and raised his hands, palms out. “Sure, Jones. Where do you want me?”
Temper ratcheting up, April’s jaw clenched as he laughed, the sound conjuring up the memory of how his voice had felt vibrating against her chest while they’d kissed. “Where do I want you? How about out of my house? Don’t you have a lawn to poorly mow?”
“Oh, totally. You want me to do your mom’s too while I’m at it? I mean, it’s not like you’ve been keeping it in check. Or do you just like the jungle vibe?” Luke feigned concern, bending slightly to peer into her eyes like he was nothing more than the son of a worried neighbor.
“You know, I think we’re going to go …” Two thunks sounded as Emma’s and Izzy’s glasses were placed on the counter.
“Yeah, actually, I’ve got that thing …” Izzy trailed off as she and Emma hurried from the kitchen, but April barely noticed as she glared at Luke. The click of the front door closing a moment later hardly registered either as April bit out a retort.
“Maybe I do like the overgrown look,” she hissed. “But if I wanted to mow the lawn, which I don’t, I could do it better than you. Faster too, I bet.”
Luke laughed, not bothering to hold it back. “You must be so fun at parties.”
She took a step closer, nostrils flaring as she glared at him. “You wouldn’t know, because I’d never invite you.”
“Oh? Just like you’d never kiss me?” Luke bit his bottom lip and leaned in to whisper in her ear, “Or are you lying to yourself about that, too?”
Heat flashed through her, curling her toes as her breaths grew shallow.
She looked up at him, hating that his height meant she only came up to his chest. “If you’re trying to seduce the bar out of me, you’re too late.
Noah and I have already made the arrangements.
We’re whiteboxing the place as we speak and opening a flower shop.
So you can go now—you won’t change my mind. ”
“Luckily for you, I have no intention of trying to change your mind. But,” he added, moving nearer until her back was pressed against the edge of the kitchen counter, “if I wanted to, I could. I can be very, very persuasive, Jones.”
Suddenly, it occurred to her how close they were standing. The heat from his chest raising the hairs on her arms, his breath lightly ghosting across her mouth, and when his eyes dropped to her lips she knew he was thinking the same thing.
“Don’t.” She placed a hand on his chest, intending to restrain him, push him away, but instead it was like the contact rooted her in place, a live wire coursing through her. “What happened before meant nothing. I felt nothing. I said it never happened and I meant it.”
“Jones …”
“You think you can just walk in here with your … your blue eyes and muscles and that”—she gulped—“that happy trail, and think I’ll—what? Fall to my knees in the hopes of another kiss?” She laughed but the sound was too high, too breathy.
“If you’d rather that I was the one who kneeled, I can make that happen,” he murmured, the low rumble of his voice making her nerves stand to attention and her inner walls clench.
Slowly, as if giving her the chance to run away, to berate him some more, Luke’s mouth pressed against hers, feather-light.
Barely a kiss. “How about it, Jones? You say this means nothing, that our kiss never happened, that it didn’t affect you. ”
“Yes.” The word was firm, the stubborn tilt to her jaw part of an expression she was sure she only used around him.
His eyes darkened and his grin made her knees weak. “Prove it.”
There was no more hesitation, no more teasing.
Luke kissed her like he’d been starved ever since their last encounter.
His mouth was demanding, coaxing, against her own, and her defenses crumbled easily for him.
Her lips parted and his tongue was there, claiming her, the taste of his moan caught in her throat as two large hands pushed into her hair, tugging lightly, before those same hands lifted her up and onto the counter.
April made space for him between her thighs, locking her ankles behind him as Luke nibbled on her lip until she was gasping.
“Are you ready to admit defeat?”
She whimpered and he laughed. His lips found hers once more, their teeth clicking together from the force of the kiss, and she realized this was different than before.
In the car, their kiss had been desperate, their movements frantic.
Now, there was a languid heat, like anger but deeper, roiling between them as Luke brushed one hand down her spine.
“It’s OK, Jones. You can admit it. Right now, you’d do anything I asked you to.”
The shocked sound he made when she bit his lip made her smirk as she pulled back, intending to put a stop to this right then and there. “Good try, Pointer. But you’re just not that good.”
Luke’s eyes narrowed and a thrill went through her when a muscle in his jaw ticked. “Oh yeah?” He reached for the hem of her skirt and slowly slid it up her thighs. “I think I could have you begging for me in less than five minutes.”
She glanced over his shoulder to the clock on the wall and did her best to keep her face blank. “So cocky. I bet when it comes to putting your money where your mouth is, you’re nothing but a disappointment,” she said with mock pity, patting his cheek.