Frisk Me(66)

Again. The flash of guilt.

Luc ran a hand over his face, hoping to God he was misunderstanding their silence.

“Pops.” His voice was rough. “What the hell did you do?”





CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX



Can you come over?

Ava was about to head down the steps into the subway station when she got Luc’s text. She’d had a rather epic shopping day with Beth, and was fully intending to head home, unpack her merchandise, and try desperately to forget the major damage she’d just done to her credit card.

When, exactly, had bra and panty sets gotten so expensive?

And why had she let Beth talk her into a half dozen sets of ridiculously unpractical lacy, strappy numbers?

Luc texted again: Please.

Ah, that’s why. Because after months of indifferent celibacy, she was finally getting some.

Getting the best she ever had, actually.

Still, instinct told her that Luc’s message was no ordinary booty call. For starters, it was Father’s Day, and he’d told her that he and his brothers were taking their dad out for a day at the pub to watch the US Open.

And second, there was something wrong with the tone of this message. It lacked the flirty coyness of their usual exchanges.

Ava started to respond, telling him she’d be there after she swung by her place to drop off her shopping bags.

But instead she found herself crossing the street to get on a northbound train to Luc’s place as she replied, be right there.

Fifteen minutes later, she was at his front door. For a half second she was paranoid about the fact that Nonna might open the door while Ava held two huge, magenta Victoria’s Secret bags. Then she remembered that this was the eighty-something-year-old woman who’d told Ava in excruciating detail how to use bronzer to “fake” cleavage.

If anything, Nonna would likely try to borrow the new purchases.

It wasn’t Luc’s feisty grandmother who opened the door.

But neither was it the relaxed, quick-to-smile Luc who just yesterday she’d watched charm the pants off an irritable cabdriver, even as Luc wrote him a hefty ticket for blowing through a red light and blocking the intersection.

This was a Luc she hadn’t seen before, even when he’d been good and pissed about being trapped into being the NYPD’s golden boy.

Tension radiated off him in taut waves, and his usually friendly eyes were guarded and pained.

This Luc was hurting.

Wordlessly she stepped inside.

“Is Anthony or Nonna here?”

He shook his head, closing the door before turning to face her. She itched to touch him, but instinct held her back. Instead she set her purse and shopping bags by the door and moved into the kitchen, giving him plenty of space. Plenty of room to talk about it, if he wanted.

It was pretty clear from the way he stalked toward her that he didn’t want to talk, and the way his hands possessively found her hips as he pinned her against the kitchen counter made it plenty clear that he had called her here for a very different reason.

His kiss was hard and angry, his lips slanting over hers with a fierceness that went beyond sexual hunger.

Luc was mad.

At her?

Her hands found his shoulders, and she started to push him back…to figure out what the hell was going on, but his hands moved up her back, tangling in her hair.

He tipped her hair back, his tormented eyes locking on hers. “I need you.”

Ava felt something unfamiliar unfold in her chest. Luc Moretti needed her.

Nobody had ever needed her.

She’d never let herself be needed.

But tonight…tonight she wanted to be here for this complex man with hidden secrets.

Ava responded the only way she knew how. She lifted to her toes, wrapped her arms around his neck, and returned his hot, angry kiss.

He groaned, lifting her roughly to the counter, his hands finding her ass and scooting her forward until he was nestled between her thighs.

Wrapping her legs around his waist was the most natural thing in the world, and his hips tilted forward, and even with his jeans and her shorts separating them, the contact was electric.

Luc’s hands ran up her sides, moving over her breasts, lifting their small weight in his hands as his tongue flicked at her upper lip.

There was no slow, patient seduction this time. He yanked the sleeveless blue sweater up and over her head, leaving her only in her pale pink demi-cup bra.

“Pretty,” he said, running this thumbs along the upper slopes of her breasts.

“I bought some prettier things today,” she said, catching his lower lip between her teeth.

His hands stilled. “Show me.”

She laughed a little. “You want me to take off one bra to put on another.”

His lips followed the path of his fingers, his tongue tracking the edge of her bra. “Did you buy them for me?”

She sucked in a breath. It was a crucial moment—buying lingerie was hardly the equivalent of his and hers towels, but telling him that she’d bought it with him in mind would give away the fact that she’d made plans when they’d promised each other they’d had none.

His teeth rasped gently against her skin. “Sims. You bought them for me.”

She let out a little laugh at his familiar cocky arrogance. “Yeah. I bought them for you.”