I was there, right there when I heard him say, his voice hoarse, “Ava.”

I dropped my head back and tried to focus on him but couldn’t because it hit me. I came and it was toe-curling, world-tilting amazing.

I didn’t know it but when I came, I gasped Luke’s name and, shortly after, I smiled.

And he watched the whole thing.

* * * * *

Luke rolled to his side, taking me with him, still inside me, his hand behind my knee to keep my leg wrapped around his hip.

I’d just done the nasty with Lucas Stark.

I’d played the scenario in my head dozens of times, hundreds of times and never, not once, was it as good as what just happened.

Shit.

I was so screwed.

Luke gently slid out of me, tugged at the bottom of the comforter and pulled it over my body. Then he rolled over on his back, bucked his h*ps pulling up his cargoes. Then he moved away and I watched as he silently sat at the edge of the bed. He put his elbows to his knees, forehead in the heels of his hands in a masculine position of defeated reflection.

I stared and felt my throat close as if in slow motion.

Of course. Fatty, Fatty Four-Eyes Ava Barlow had just done the nasty with ultra hot, tough guy, macho man Lucas Stark which meant Lucas Stark just gave the business to Fatty, Fatty Four-Eyes.

He must be mortified.

I rolled taking the comforter with me. All I could think of was escape. I had to get out of there, get away from him. Wyoming wasn’t far enough. I had to buy myself onto one of those spaceships that they let rich people take a ride on and never, ever come back to earth.

I neared the end of the bed, I was still wearing my pointy-toed, pencil-heeled sling backs and they kept catching on the covers hampering my movement. I was just about to crawl over the footboard when he tagged me with an arm around my waist and I landed on my back. He pinned one side of my body with his and looked at my face. I saw, somewhat surprised, that his eyes were still ink.

“Where you goin’?” he asked, voice soft, slightly husky and very sexy.

“I’m going to spend the night with Sissy and her Dad,” I told him voice quiet, slightly husky and very scared.

I watched in total shock as he gave me a sexy half-grin then touched my mouth with his. His mouth moved away but his face didn’t and he kept looking in my eyes.

“You missed it again, babe,” he said in his gentle, affectionate voice.

“What?” I whispered, transfixed by his inky eyes and caught up in The Voice.

He lifted his head a bit and shook it, his hand came up and he sifted his fingers through my hair at my temple. He watched his hand’s movement then his eyes came back to mine.

“I’m not gonna clue you in this time, Ava. This time, you’re gonna have to figure it out for yourself. One thing I’m gonna tell you is that you’re not goin’ anywhere.”

The way he said it, I knew he didn’t just mean tonight.

Guess he wasn’t mortified by giving the business to Fatty, Fatty Four-Eyes.

Seriously, I was screwed.

Chapter Fifteen

Together in A Way You Can’t Deny

In the dead of the night, Luke tugged me over the top of him to his other side. I started to settle into him face-to-face but, with pressure at my hip, he rolled me so my back was to him and he leaned in so we were bent at the waist.

I didn’t say a word. I didn’t mind this new position, it was nice.

And anyway, I was tired.

I started to fall asleep again when his arms wrapped around me; one of his hands went north and one went south.

I sucked in breath and came awake when one of his fingers hit the target between my legs and the thumb and finger on his other hand did a delicious nipple roll.

Um… wow.

“Luke?” my voice sounded sleepy and quiet.

“Quiet, Ava,” Luke murmured into the back of my neck and then I felt his lips there.

For some reason, I snuggled my ass into his crotch, feeling him hard against me. He did another roll at the target and I made a small noise in my throat as heat shot through me.

Then his body shifted and, I kid you not, he slid inside me.

Oh… my… God.

None of my lovers had been adventurous (weirdly, not even Dave, the sex maniac, he might have been a perv but he wasn’t imaginative). I’d never been cuffed to a bed and I’d never done it in any position but the two top sellers (him on top, me on top).

This was nice, very nice, ultra nice, moaning, panting with mouth open nice. His hands kept at me as he moved inside me and I pressed into him, wanting more.

“Luke,” I breathed, nearly there and his hand went away from my nipple, came to my jaw, his thumb slid across my opened lower lip and I came. Hard.

Minutes later his arms tensed, he drove into me one last time, his mouth in the crook of my neck where I heard (with deep satisfaction, I had to admit) his low groan.

Moments after he finished, his arms came around me tight, one at my waist, the other one slashed diagonally across my torso. He stayed inside me and his mouth moved up my neck.

“Wow,” I whispered, somehow moved by the experience, feeling for some strange reason it was the most intimate moment with another human being I’d had in my life.

I felt a movement of his lips at my neck and I was pretty certain he smiled. Then I snuggled my behind into him and I heard him groan again. I smiled to myself in the dark and believe it or not, wrapped tight in Luke’s arms, Luke still inside me, I immediately fell back to sleep.

* * * * *

I was in my usual morning position, tucked into Luke’s side, arm around his abs, leg thrown over his thighs when Luke woke me by tilting up my chin and kissing me.

Then he rolled me to my back. Then his mouth moved down my body. Then it was between my legs.

After he made me finish, he came up over me and he finished.

All of this was done without a word.

When it was over, Luke stayed where he was, his bodyweight pressing me into the bed. One of my legs was bent, foot on the bed, inside thigh pressed against his hip. The other leg wrapped around his thigh, my arms around him, hands idly sliding across his skin and muscle.

His face was buried in my neck, his mouth moving there with no purpose or intent, just a post doing the nasty affectionate touch, a sexy post doing the nasty affectionate touch.

My hands slid up his back. “I have to brush my teeth,” I whispered.

His head came up and he looked down at me, eyes ink, and he stared at me one beat, two then three then more. I didn’t know why he kept looking at me. What I did know was that his face looked less hard than normal, partly with satisfaction, partly with something else I couldn’t decipher.