Chapter 16Hailey
CHAPTER 16
HAILEY
The color drains from Luke’s face. He wobbles back and forth, and for a second I think he’s about to fall.
“What do you mean, you were in a coma?” he asks, the anger extinguished. He’s a little dazed, and a lot confused. “When? How? What happened?”
I force myself not to take a step towards him for the comfort I know his arms could provide. I hate talking about this. Hate thinking about it. It was the day my entire life changed.
“On the way home from dropping you off at the airport,” I tell him, my voice just above a whisper. I watch as his eyes close, and a pang of pain hits me in the chest from seeing anguish on his face. “I was coming back over the mountain from San José. I came around a curve in the road, and there was a car coming the other direction. He came around too fast, and I didn’t see him until it was too late. We hit head on.”
There’s a gurgle of sound from Luke that leaves no doubt in my mind he had no idea what happened, which opens up a slew of new questions.
“I was in a coma for three weeks. When I woke up, you were the first thing I thought of,” I tell him honestly, tears welling in my eyes at the memory. “I didn’t ask what happened, I didn’t ask where I was. I asked for you.”
Luke’s watching me, his head shaking in disbelief, agony written deep in the crinkle of his eyes and lines bunching in his forehead. I can’t imagine what he’s thinking hearing this for the first time, ten years after the fact.
“My mom…” I trail off, a tear sliding down my cheek.
“Your mom finally answered the phone almost a month after I left,” he snarls, but his voice isn’t as loud as it was before. There’s no mistaking the anger is back, but it’s not directed at me. “I was about to get on a plane to come back here and find out what the hell was going on. She told me I needed to stop calling. That I had to let you go and move on, because you didn’t want anything to do with me anymore.”
My eyes close as my heart breaks for different reasons. Tears are silently moving down my cheeks as the weight of Luke’s words rest heavily on my shoulders.
“She told me you didn’t call. I thought she meant after you’d found out about the accident. I thought you didn’t want me anymore because I was damaged.” My eyes open to look at him. “I thought you didn’t love me anymore, or maybe you’d never loved me to begin with. I spent months wishing that stupid car had killed me.”
“Oh, hell. Hailey.”
He’s down the rest of the steps in the blink of an eye, grabbing my face with one hand, hauling me to him with the other. My arms are around his neck as his lips slam into mine in a bruising, punishing kiss that we both need. He tastes like soda and mint, and I moan into the kiss as his tongue slides across my lips, seeking access, which I grant.
Luke’s hand slides through my hair to the back of my head, holding me firmly to him, while I try to pull him towards me. When his arm around me squeezes in an effort to get our bodies closer, which isn’t going to happen in the middle of his front yard, I whimper from the pain that shoots through my upper body.
Instantly he releases his grip on me, effectively ruining the kiss. His forehead comes to rest against mine, both of us breathing harder than before. “Shit. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
I run my tongue across my lips then tilt my head to find his again, murmuring, “Don’t stop.”
He indulges me for a few moments, then finally pulls away. “Inside,” he says quietly, finding my hand.
For once, I’m not inclined to argue with him, following him up the steps where he picks my bag up and leads me into the house.
The scent of Luke is all around me as I step over the threshold, making me feel dizzy in the best way. It’s warm and appealing, much like the outside of his home, which is mirrored within the interior as well.
Inside the entryway is a set of stairs that leads to the second level. Beyond that, the house gives way to a living room on the right, kitchen on the left, everything open and inviting. A large island in the kitchen separates the cooking area from a nook adorned with a round, light oak table with dark brown chairs that compliments the darker wood of the walls and lightens up the entire room. A dark leather couch and loveseat in the living room look welcoming and cozy, the room lit up with a light-colored shag carpet in the middle.
For a bachelor who hasn’t been here that long, he’s certainly made his house into a home. I love everything about it. It speaks of Luke. A man who has always known what he wants and goes after it. He was like that ten years ago, and everything I’ve seen of him up until this point tells me it hasn’t changed.
In my perusal to check the place out, I must have taken a few steps further inside without realizing it because he comes up behind me, strong arms circling my waist. I lean my head back to his shoulder, eyes falling closed when his lips touch the shell of my ear.
This is what I need. Him. Ten years between us, and so much to talk about, but the only thing I can think about in this moment is him.
“Hungry?” he murmurs.
“Only for you,” I reply, turning my head as he groans.
I find his lips easily, though I know he has something to do with that. A wave of heat washes over me, starting from the crown of my head until it hits the tips of my toes. My center throbs as his erection presses against my ass, yet there’s no hurry for either of us.
We stay like that for a few minutes, kissing languidly, enjoying the way each other tastes, refamiliarizing ourselves with how the other feels. When I sigh against his lips, it seems to prompt him into action.
My feet are shuffling along the floor, but I don’t look where we’re going. Even when we stop again, and he turns me to face him without breaking our kiss, I don’t bother to look. I trust him completely.
Slipping my arms around his neck, I know it’s coming before it happens. Though I’m softer and rounder than ten years ago, he lifts me into his arms like I’m nothing, even though I know that’s untrue. My legs circle his waist, locking behind him, then we’re moving up the stairs, our lips never ceasing their slow dance. They don’t part as we move to his bedroom, nor when he puts a knee on the bed and lowers me to it, following me down as I cling to him.
This kiss might last the entire night, and I would be entirely okay with it.
I moan when his hands push up beneath my sweatshirt, my stomach clenching from the sensation of his fingertips running across my skin. It’s then that he pauses our kiss, his head lifting from mine. When I open my eyes, I see him gazing down at me, heat blazing in his eyes along with concern.
Concern?
“What’s wrong?” I whisper, afraid to use anything more for fear it will break this trance we’ve found ourselves in.
“You’re still freezing,” he tells me, shifting his crewneck I’m wearing further up my body. His hands run all over my stomach and sides, fingertips dancing along my ribcage, easy access to every inch of my skin since my shirt and bra are in the back of his Jeep, sopping wet. “How are you this cold?”
I smile at him, enjoying the way his hands move. “I assure you I’m not cold.”
Luke’s head disappears beneath the sweatshirt and when I feel his nose running from my sternum all the way up through the valley of my breasts, I gasp from the direct heat it causes in my core.
“Your skin is frozen,” he mumbles, his head rising enough that when I look down, I can see him through the head of the crewneck which he’s now stretching. It would make me laugh if I couldn’t see the seriousness in his eyes. “Don’t move.”
I want to protest when he pops out from the sweatshirt and leaves me on the bed by myself, but I don’t bother. There’s no point when I know he won’t listen to me. Twisting my head so I can watch him, he heads through a door that leads into a master bathroom. A second later, the shower turns on, making me smile to myself. I’ll trade him getting up and leaving me for a naked shower with him any day.
“Dang,” he drawls with appreciation, reappearing in the bathroom doorway. His shirt is off, and I feast my eyes on ridges and indents all along his upper body, unable to help my eyes as they slide along the treasure trail of hair that disappears into his jeans. “You’re such a good girl. You hardly moved. The only thing that would make me harder right now is if you were naked.”
Pushing myself up, I ignore the ache in my chest as I move, getting to my feet as Luke saunters back to me, working the button and fly on his pants. Wetness pools between my thighs when his cock, still contained by his boxer briefs, bulges from the restriction of his jeans. He lets them drop, kicking out of them as he steps up to me, his hands quickly working to free me of his sweatshirt.
I shiver as the air hits my skin. Maybe I am cold, though I feel anything but.
“Gonna get you warm,” he tells me, and I know he saw my body’s reaction to being topless.
Putting a hand at the small of my back, he directs me in front of him towards the bathroom. I comply easily, the bathroom ten degrees warmer than his bedroom as I step inside. When he closes the door, I know it’ll get even warmer.
Luke’s hands are at my hips, moving me in front of the vanity. The bathroom itself is as gorgeous as the downstairs. Double sinks line one wall, a stand-alone bathtub, that has a frosted window above it, along another. What really catches my eye, however, is the large, glass-enclosed, walk-in shower big enough for more than just the two of us. A bench runs along the width of it where one of two showerheads is pointing.
“That shower?—”
“We’ll get there,” he cuts me off.
The words force my eyes to the mirror where they meet his. From here they look deep blue, swimming with arousal and need. Where he’s positioned me, I can see myself from the knees up, which means I can see what he’s doing as well.
With the look he’s giving me, a shiver that has nothing to do with being cold runs down my spine. I’m tingling all over as his hands slide from my hips to the front of the sweatpants I’m wearing. A pair I also borrowed from Luke, clothes that were in his Jeep in place of my wet ones. He pulls the string on them and they fall to the ground without any assistance.
I hear his sharp intake as he peers at me through the mirror. He may have guessed I didn’t have a bra on, but he couldn’t have known that my underwear were gone as well. They were soaked from the rain and all I wanted was to be dry. If I was wearing them now, they’d be soaked for a different reason.
“Prettiest thing I’ve ever seen,” he murmurs, more to himself than me.
It warms me from the inside out. He doesn’t need to say the words. The way he looks at me tells me how he feels. His eyes don’t stop roaming over my body, drinking in every inch of it. When Luke looks at me like this, all I see is a man who can’t believe what’s in front of him is his. There’s such devotion in his eyes that I want to melt into a puddle on the bathroom floor.
I start to turn towards him, but he catches my hips to still me, his attention moving to meet my eyes. There’s a flash of heat, maybe even a tinge of annoyance that I would dare move while he was devouring me. “Don’t move.”
“Okay,” I whisper, standing with my arms at my sides.
His eyes start to rove again, then stop when they catch sight of the necklace hanging around my neck. Recognition flashes across his face, his eyes flicking to mine before he takes the pendant in his hand and moves it around the chain so he can see it over my shoulder. A shuddery breath breaks free of him, and he lays his forehead against my neck, holding the delicate accessory between his fingers.
“You kept it.” His voice shakes with thick emotion.
“I could never get over you, Luke. Never-ending is just that.”
When he lifts his head, he smiles at me, disbelief swimming in his eyes. “I want you to watch. Don’t close your eyes for a second.”
His words send a thrill shooting through me. I watch in the mirror as he releases the necklace and slowly slides his hand down my body. My nipples are hard peaks, but he doesn’t touch them, and for now I don’t care. I don’t know how I could when his fingers slide straight to my center, dancing along the delicate skin there. Electricity bursts through me, my body jerking in reaction to him. I manage to force my eyes to stay open instead of rolling into the back of my head from that one little touch.
“Do you know how many times I’ve thought about this pussy in the last ten years?” he murmurs in my ear, his finger brushing, barely, over my clit. “How many times I’ve jerked off to the thought of you?”
My hips dip, seeking him out, seeking more of his touch. Seeking him. I’m breathless as I whisper, “How many?”
“Countless, Freckles. So many fucking times.”
His nose runs along the column of my neck, creating a shiver that races deliciously down my spine. It’s erotic as hell to watch him in the mirror, to see his fingers move lower, disappearing from my view. One slides between the lips of my pussy, and I groan as I feel him at my entrance, slowly pushing inside of me. When he twirls his finger around, I rock back against his body, my head dropping to his shoulder as he pulls back out. His fingers reappear, making another slow roll across my clit, my hips pushing forward, again looking for more.
I can hardly breathe when he swipes across the little bundle of nerves over and over, making me feel weak in the knees.
“Grab your nipples, baby,” he whispers in my ear.
Luke telling me what to do has a rush of heat spreading through me. Our time might have been short together, but he figured out rather quickly that I melted every time he told me to do something. Nothing has changed, except the years between us.
Doing as I’m told, I take hold of my nipples, and because I know what he wants me to do, I pull and twist. I’m rewarded when he groans and slides his hand back between my legs. Using his free hand, he presses it against my belly, pulling me tight to his body. His erection pulses against the top of my ass, which adds to the arousal dripping from my center.
Two thick fingers plunge deep into me then, and I cry out at the sudden intrusion, but he gives me no time to adjust before he curls them and starts working them in and out. Pleasure erupts within me, and I writhe against him, his name dancing on my tongue. The difference between his slow, languid movements, to what he’s doing now, makes my head spin, my body burn, and I know I’m about to break apart at the seams.
But I can’t. Not yet. Not until…
“That’s it. That’s my girl. Pull your nipples again, baby,” he mumbles into my ear, and I know he knows I’m right there.
My body tightening, the room narrowing, my pulse pounding. I can’t hold onto the building orgasm much longer, don’t want to hold onto it, not when it’s something I’ve only dreamed of for years. But I can’t—won’t—let go until he tells me.
Without warning, his fingers withdraw from inside of me, and he’s back at my clit, like he knows it’s the thing I need to go over the edge. His lips are at my ear, his teeth nipping as he grants the permission I’ve needed.
“Come for me.”
Those magic words have me shattering into a million pieces. My hands disregard my breasts, dropping to his hand still on my belly, grabbing onto his forearm as my orgasm roars through me with a viciousness that has me seeing stars, clouding the image in the mirror that I haven’t been able to stop watching. My legs shake, my breath catching and holding as I ride out the waves of bliss.
“God damn,” Luke groans, pressing his dick hard into my ass cheek. “Think I could get off just watching you come.”
It takes a minute, but when I start the descent back to earth, I feel spineless, my body weight being held up by trembling legs and him. I’ve had orgasms in my life since Luke, but nothing that has rocked my world like that. I’m not sure how my legs are supposed to work, but it’s not something I need to concern myself with according to him.
I haven’t even caught my breath when he starts guiding me to the shower, holding most of my weight against him. Stepping inside, I grab the wall, turning around to find him removing his boxer briefs before joining me. My eyes gravitate to his cock standing at the ready, waiting for attention of its own.
I remember how scared I was when I saw it for the first time. Years, and a few more lovers later, I think I’m still scared of it. If Luke hadn’t taken such good care of getting me ready, it would have torn me apart, though I suppose there’s still potential.
They aren’t lying when they say everything is bigger in Texas.
I’m halfway down to my knees to get reacquainted when Luke grabs my arm and hauls me back up. He shakes his head. “No, Freckles. Not yet.”
I don’t have the mirror to watch anymore, but it doesn’t make it any less sensual when he fills his hand with shower gel and starts lathering it all over my body. He takes his time, getting every inch of my body from the neck down, and when he’s satisfied, he places me under the water and washes it all away.
Once I’m fully clean, he sits me down on the bench, gently pushing my upper body back until it hits the wall. Then he pulls my butt to the edge of the seat, directs a foot up onto the far side of the bench and goes down to his knees between my legs. When he’s level to my pussy, he glances up at me and with the tone of a starving man says, “Don’t stop watching.”
Then he devours me while I watch, until I’m making his name echo in the shower and he’s demanding I come again.
Boneless, mindless, and shaking all over, I don’t know if I can handle any more by the time he’s finished with me in the shower, and walks me to the bed after drying me off. Ten years ago, with zero experience, I thought he was good, but it’s nothing compared to the talent he has now. We haven’t even had sex and I can hardly walk.
Sitting on the edge of the bed with the towel wrapped around me, Luke drops the one from around his waist. If he tells me no now, I might tell him to stuff it, but when I reach out and take him into my hand, he does nothing but watch. My hand moves up and down his length, rubbing over the tip when I get there, causing him to groan. The look on his face is one of absolute pleasure. He’s denied himself until now, but I want him to feel as good as me.
He only lets me stroke him a few times before he’s stilling my hand around him.
“I need to be inside of you,” he tells me, his voice thick with arousal.
Leaning over, he opens a drawer in his nightstand and pulls out a condom. It doesn’t take him long to roll the rubber over his length, and then he’s pushing me back on the bed. I slide higher to make room for our entire bodies, his coming to rest over mine, my legs on either side of him. Without even guiding himself to my entrance, his cock is there, like it knew exactly what to do, and where to go.
He hovers over me, not allowing any of his weight to rest on top of me. I know why. He doesn’t want to hurt me.
I move my hands over his sides to the front of him, sliding them along his chest, his body still wet with droplets from the shower. It’s the first he’s allowed me to truly touch him, and I savor the moment, watching my hands dance along his skin. I can feel him trembling above me, and when I look back to his eyes, there’s only need waiting for me there.
Lifting my hips, he presses against my entrance. My eyes are soft, full of trust, and I give him a small nod. Tilting my head, I capture his mouth as my hands slip around his neck, pulling him closer to me. At first, he resists, but then he gives in, and as he does, he pushes forward, his cock gliding into me with a slow tenderness that melts me from the inside out.
Nothing but the utmost care from him now that he’s on top of me. My body takes him, adjusting to accommodate his size until he’s seated deeply within me.
Breaking the kiss, he gazes down at me, reaching a hand to brush a piece of hair from my eyes. I expected to see the lust and passion in the green-blue orbs that stare down at me, the awe and wonder hit me square in the chest, though. It’s silly because he’s been looking at me like this since we came upstairs; I just didn’t expect to see it when he was inside of me. It fills my soul, and I know it’s reflected back to him as he begins to move, our eyes locked with each other’s.
He's slow and deliberate, relishing each stroke into my body. I know he’s cherishing this as much as I am because there’s a glisten in his eyes, and a shakiness in his breath as he moves.
I don’t know how he does it. He’s made me come twice already; he’s got to be dying for his own release. Yet he takes his time, loving every inch of me like he did in front of the mirror and in the shower. And without a word, which is so unlike him.
Then it hits me. I think I understand why he’s taking his time, ensuring to get his fill. It isn’t just the fact that I could have died today. It might contribute, but it isn’t the driving force behind his need to satisfy me, relish me, or appreciate us. I think he’s scared that this isn’t going to continue. That this is too good to be true, and that it’s going to slip away just like it once did.
“Luke,” I whisper, bringing my hands to his face. “I’m not going anywhere. This isn’t a one-time thing.”
I watch the emotions filter through his eyes. Surprise, fear, pain. I know I’m right when his eyes fall from mine only to come back a second later, like he realizes he can’t hide from me.
“Let go, Dimples.”
There’s a moment of hesitation, his hips stumbling in their even thrusts, but then he gives in to me. Acceptance fills his eyes and I feel the change in his body. Pushing a hand between us, his thumb moves across my clit, causing my hips to buck towards his at the sudden contact while my walls clamp down around him. That movement is all it takes to get him going, his hips changing pace, his cock suddenly pummeling into me in a way I expected when he first laid me down.
It takes two more strokes of his thumb over my clit before my orgasm is crashing into me once more, but this time I’m not alone. Luke lets out a roar, and then we’re both lost. Together.