I make a sound of protest and tighten my hold as he starts to come against my tongue. Up to this point he’s been so careful not to go too far but I hear him smack the wall overhead, grunting and swearing as I swallow around him.
He’s shaking when he finally falls to my side, hands greedy as he pulls me to him and kissing my chin, my mouth, and my nose. I look up to see that his eyes are closed, lashes curled against flushed cheeks. My jaw aches and my heart is pounding so hard he has to be able to feel it.
I want him to tell me he loves me again, but am also terrified of hearing it and being unable to believe him. I hold my breath as he shifts, leaning into my neck and exhaling a shaky breath. I already know it’s coming, though, and my heart seems to swell in my chest.
His voice is scratchy: “I really do love you.”
I anticipate the sensation of overflowing, of relief . . . but it doesn’t come, and I don’t know what to say.
So I tease Luke about practically collapsing after he comes, and he kisses me with sleepy lips and arms that seem to barely hold him up. He’s happy, and boneless, and falls back asleep within minutes.
* * *
I’M IN THE middle of a pretty big order when I hear someone yell his name. It’s only around eight o’clock, and a handful of his friends have been playing pool in the back for the last hour, but it’s like some group alarm has been tripped as soon as he steps into the bar and comes into view, and a bunch of them look up, shouting at him. There are a few girls I recognize now, a couple of guys I’m sure I’ve seen him with before, but only Not-Joe who I really know.
Luke waves in their direction but doesn’t stop, looping an arm around Not-Joe’s shoulder as he bypasses his friends completely and makes his way to the bar.
I put two beers on coasters as they take a seat, and line up a few wineglasses for another order. Luke looks happy and rested.
“Did you sleep all day?” I ask. Teasing him seems to be my default, and it calms the butterflies and nervous energy that have erupted since his arrival, brings me back to my baseline. His adorable, sheepish smile doesn’t hurt, either.
Not-Joe doesn’t really seem to get our inside joke, but he laughs just the same, happy to take part in any Operation Give Luke Shit he can find.
“I’m going to assume you tease me for the same reason Dylan here used to snap girls’ bras in gym class,” Luke says.
Not-Joe gives him a puzzled look. “Because she wants to see your boobs?”
Luke brings his beer to his lips and looks at me over the top of the bottle. “Something like that.”
I shake my head, feeling the resurgence of butterflies as I uncork a bottle of wine and fill the glasses. With a nod toward a waiting table, I pick up the tray and deliver the drinks, actually happy for a bit of breathing room away from his flirty smile and meaningful glances.
I don’t get much of a reprieve, however, because on my way out of Fred’s office with a spool of receipt tape only a few minutes later, I find Luke standing in the dark little hallway, waiting for me.
“What are you doing?” I ask, even as he’s moving closer, crowding me into the corner.
“Am I allowed to do this?” he says, leaning in, mouth hovering just over mine.
My stomach does a somersault as I look up at him. “You’re asking?” I breathe, brain scrambled by his proximity.
“I’m not sure what the rules are,” he says, and pulls aside my shirt so he can bend and taste my collarbone. “Whether this is something I can do out there.” He motions back over his shoulder, but I know he means outside his bedroom, out in the real world. “Because I can think of only two things that would make me happier.”
“Two things? What are they?”
“One is falling asleep together in your bed, and the other is what we did this morning.”
Oh. He crowds into my space a little more and the words hang heavy and meaningful between us. I squeeze my thighs together, hoping to take the edge off the little ache I feel just thinking about what we did this morning, but it doesn’t help.
I know what he means but I want to keep him talking, keep him close to me. “You mean like if Fred is aroun—” I start to say, but he’s already shaking his head.
“I don’t mean Fred, I mean what do you want? Am I allowed to tell you you look pretty tonight? Am I allowed to kiss you hello? I really want to.”
I want him to, too, and so I nod with a shaky breath, thankful he’s pressed up against me or I’d probably be on the ground at his feet: a London puddle.
Luke smiles and brushes the end of his nose against mine. “Hi, Logan,” he says.
“Hi.”
His mouth is so close that I can taste his breath. He leans in, closing the space between us. It’s absolutely not a kiss that’s suitable for my place of business, all soft lips and slick tongue and warm hands moving everywhere. I wonder if I could pull him into the bathroom, lean against the wall, and ask him to fuck me all over again.
I’m about to ask when a door slams nearby and Luke pulls away, panting. “Holy shit.”
I can hear the phone ringing at the bar, the sound of customers talking, and calls from a football game playing on one of the overhead screens. I don’t care about any of it.
He takes a deep breath and lets it out. “You need to get back, and I’m going into the men’s room to rub one out.”
I laugh. “Okay,” I say. “But you’re staying?”
He nods, kissing me once more, a tiny, soft peck. “I’m staying.”
It starts to pick up again and Fred stays at the bar to help. Luke’s been back and forth between his group and up here with me, but when someone shouts his name, he points in their direction. “Think I’ll hang out and watch the game since you’re busy. What time are you off tonight?”
I fill up a shaker with ice and look up at him. “Same as always. We close at one.”
“Do you want to come back over? Shorter drive for you . . .”
“In need of another nap?”
He leans an elbow on the bar and looks up at me with wide, brown eyes. “With you? Always,” he says. “What time will you actually be able to cut out of here?”
Goose bumps rise along my skin at the idea of another morning waking up in his bed. “It might be later,” I say. “It depends on the cleanup.”
“Just let me know.” He looks around the bar and leans in a little closer. “I’d like to hear you make those sounds again,” he says, and my arm freezes, the bottle I’m pouring held in midair. “If I leave, you can text me when you head over. I’ll still be up. Okay?”
My brain has basically deserted me and I nod, watching as he smiles and then walks away.
The group Luke is with has grown, practically doubling in size and volume. Fred has handled them for the most part, leaving me to cover the bar and run the register. Luke is standing next to Dylan, hassling him over how he’s going to shoot the seven ball into a corner pocket, when I see a girl slide into the space next to him.
Old habits are hard to break, and I can’t seem to look away, watching every move he makes and comparing it to what I think it means. Old habits are obviously hard for him to break, too, because more than once I see him looking down at his phone, or pulling it out of his pocket to read a text.
It pokes at a bruise inside my chest, some thing that’s still there, lurking under the surface.
I’ve been in sort of a spiral, pretending not to watch Luke, pretending not to care how often he still looks at his damn phone, imagining what’s going on inside it and wondering if it’s even possible for that girl to get any closer without actually sitting on his lap, when Fred tosses a towel on the bar in front of me.
“Why don’t you head out early?” he says. “Luke’s still here and I can handle the rest. Take your boy home and show Miss Tube Top back there that he’s taken.”
I feel irritation flare somewhere deep in my gut. I look back in his direction and see he has his phone out again, reading through a message before he
puts it away again. Does Luke ever contact the women he’s with after he sees them? What’s even the point of giving his number anyway? Is it just a douchey sort of ego boost? I remember Justin’s phone going off on occasion and he’d answer it, slipping out to the garage or backyard to talk, and now I feel vulnerable and gross. Will there ever be a time when that sort of thing doesn’t set me off?
“He’s not taken,” I say.
Fred looks at me, surprised. “Funny, he sure looked taken when he was sitting up here. He follows you around like he’s a puppy and you’ve got his favorite treat in your pocket.”
I ignore him, bending to pull a couple of Coronas out of the beer cooler.
Fred gives me his I’m picking my battles sigh, and then moves to help someone else.
I keep myself busy, restocking the cooler and deciding that staying behind the bar and staying busy is an excellent idea.
At some point I get a message from Luke, Had to rescue Margot. Don’t forget to text when you’re leaving.
I pocket my phone and go back to work, watching as the bar slowly empties.
At one, Fred turns off the outside lights, and I text Luke a quick, Leaving in about ten. You still up?
I check five minutes later. No answer.
When the last glass is washed and the bar lights are turned out, there’s nothing left to do but make my way to my car. Luke still hasn’t answered, and I know that I’m stalling because if I text him again and am met with nothing but silence, I’ll think too much about what it means. I wave to Fred and wait another five minutes before typing, Headed home. Exhausted. Let’s talk tomorrow.
Chapter SIXTEEN
Luke
I WAKE WITH A start, still in last night’s jeans and with the remote resting on my stomach. The room is bright, the other side of the bed is untouched, and there’s no sign of London anywhere. The clock shows it’s almost eight and I sit up, fumbling for my phone and squinting at the screen, wondering why London isn’t here and why she didn’t text when she got off like she said she would. I do a quick scroll through my messages but don’t see the name I’m looking for, and it occurs to me that something could have happened to her, like maybe she didn’t make it out of Fred’s or even to her car.
I’ve never called someone so fast in my life.
It rings three times before London answers, the sound of wind whipping through the line.
“Are you okay?” I practically shout.
“What? Yeah, I’m fine. I’m up at Black’s.” She pauses for a moment before adding, “Are you okay?”
I fall back against my pillow and press my hand to my chest, only now realizing how fast my heart is pounding. “Yeah, I just—you said you’d text when you left and I must have fallen asleep. I woke up and . . .”
London is silent for a moment and I can hear the sound of seagulls overhead. “I did text you—twice, actually—but you didn’t answer,” she says. “You didn’t get them?”
I roll to my side and close my eyes. “Yeah, I didn’t see anything.”
“Did you actually read your messages, Luke?”
“I started to,” I say, putting her on speaker so I can take a closer look. There’s . . . well, there’s a few.
Michelle: Wanna hang out?
Dylan: Did you know that polar bears aren’t actually white?
Call me if ur bored. 619-555-3344? I have no idea who this person even is.
Tonya: Did I leave my bra at your place on Valentine’s? The one with the LED lights?
Leiah: I’m in town next weekend . . .
Scroll . . .
Scroll . . .
CALL ME. Who is Brunette With Great Rack?—And did I really put that as a contact in my phone?
“Still reading?” London asks, and I can hear the hard smile in her voice. “Must have been a busy night.”
“Quiet, you,” I tell her, but wow, she’s sort of right. I get a lot of texts on a normal day, but I don’t think I ever realized how many of them were quite so . . . suggestive. I rarely reply to any, and when I do it’s only the girls I might have somehow managed to become friendly with over time, or hook up with again . . . on occasion.
But this is . . . eye-opening.
I’m about to call it quits and give London the big I told you so, when I see her name in the middle of a few others.
Leaving in about ten. You still up? And then about twenty minutes later: Headed home. Exhausted. Let’s talk tomorrow.
“Oh.”
“I guess you found it?” she asks, voice a little tighter now.
I frown. I don’t like that London was right about this, and I don’t like the way I feel right now. I don’t feel proud or like a big swinging dick with girls texting me like this. I feel sort of sleazy.
“Yeah, I didn’t see it, I guess,” I mumble. “Sorry.”
London laughs, but still, it’s a little off. Has this always bothered her? “You’re a popular guy.”
I opt for a subject change. “Well, anyway, I missed you last night.”
There’s a moment of silence before London answers. “I missed you, too.”
I am so fucking crazy for this girl that such a simple admission and my chest is filled with helium. “What are you doing today?”
“I’ll probably finish Lola’s site, maybe run some errands. Right now I’m just hanging out, thinking.”
“Just thinking?”
She pauses. “Yeah . . .”
I don’t like the way all of this makes me feel. “Need some help?”
“Some help thinking?” she says, and I close my eyes, imagining the way her dimples are probably denting her cheeks when she says this.
“Don’t you need to get to work today? Or are you taking another personal day?”
“I’m meeting one of the partners down at the courthouse later this afternoon. I have some time this morning.”
“You want to meet at Black’s? We could work on your pop-up,” she says.
“At Black’s?” I clarify, brows raised.
“Sure, why not?”
“I know next to nothing about surfing, and even I know Black’s does not have a bunny hill, Logan.”
“There’s a section of nude beach here. Maybe I just want to get you naked.”
I press my hand to my dick and close my eyes with a groan. “I’ll be there in twenty.”
* * *
TAKING THE WOODEN stairs that lead down the cliffside, I spot London’s bright orange bikini top almost immediately. She’s amazing, just a neon speck in this massive blue ocean, and surrounded by guys who look almost twice her size. I stop and watch her for a minute, noting how patient she is as she waits for just the right wave, how determined she becomes when she finally finds one. It’s hard not to want to run out and save her when she gets knocked into the surf, but I realized a long time ago, London doesn’t need me to save her from anything.
I continue down to the beach and take a look around. London’s right: for someone who’s lived most of his life near the beach, I’ve spent shockingly little of that time at any of them—this one included. From the sand, Black’s is nothing but ocean and giant cliffs all around, and it’s easy to forget there’s a city just beyond it.
London sees me from the water and I watch as she paddles in, all long arms, strong shoulders, and tan skin. I find a place for my board in the sand—carefully, just like she showed me—and sit down to wait for her. She makes it to the shore and tucks her own board under her arm, crossing the beach and stopping close enough for water droplets to land on my feet.
“Hey,” she says, smiling down at me.
I can’t help but let my eyes skim the curves and lines of her body, before meeting her smile with one of my own. “Hey, yourself.”
She wrings out her hair and then, after a moment of hesitation, straddles my lap.
I let out an intensely feminine high-pitched squeak. “Cold!”
“Oops, sorry.”
I fight halfheartedly against her attempts to press h
er wet, cold chest against my dry, warm one. “You don’t look very sorry.”
“Because I’m not. I like you in your swim trunks, though,” she says, fingers teasing down my sides to tug at the waist of my shorts. “I didn’t get to tell you that last time.”
With my hands bracketing her ribs, I brush my thumbs along the skin just below her breasts . . . because this is a thing I can do now. I think.
“You mean when you tried to feed me to the sharks?” I ask. She nods and I lean in, kissing her chin. “I liked your suit, too. It took superhuman strength not to get hard every time you touched me.”
“I could barely concentrate; I’m surprised you didn’t drown.”
I laugh against her skin, running my nose along the column of her throat. She smells like the ocean and sunblock, and I wonder idly how much convincing it would take to get her to blow off whatever it is she’s thinking about and come home with me.
I tug a little on the string tying her top together and brush her wet hair over her shoulder. “I want to apologize again for not seeing your texts. I really would have liked to have seen you last night.”
“It’s fine. Your phone is crazy, I totally get how you missed it,” she says, and I feel the vibration of her voice against my lips. She scratches my scalp and tugs on my hair and I moan, almost missing it when she says, “Are you a good monster, or a bad monster, Luke Sutter?”
I close my eyes and lean into her touch. “Can’t I be both?”
She runs her finger from my hair to my forehead, down my nose, and over my top lip. Opening my mouth, I take her fingertip between my teeth, and bite it.
“You make me sort of crazy,” she says, eyes a little unfocused, mouth slightly open.
“Crazy is good.”
“You’re like junk food.”
I suck a little, and then smile, speaking around her finger. “Junk food?”
“Yeah,” she says, tongue peeking out to lick her lips. “Pizza. Chips.”
Her words scrape up my spine and my heart falls several inches in my chest. I tilt my head to see her face. “I wasn’t confused about the term ‘junk food,’ Logan. Rather, the choice of metaphor.”