Wicked Sexy Liar (Wild Seasons #4)(32)

He reaches a weak arm up, brushing my hair out of my face. “Stay over.”

Nothing sounds better than falling into his cool sheets and not having to move again for another eight hours, but awareness pricks the back of my neck, tripping the heavy pounding of my heart: I like Luke.

I hear his phone buzz on the counter in the kitchen, and it’s like he’s opened a window, let in an icy breeze. I register that it’s been buzzing on and off the entire time we’ve been in here, but it just didn’t matter.

I climb off his lap and fall back to the couch, forcing myself to sit and search for my clothes.

“Hey,” he says between breaths. “Did you hear what I said? Stay with me.” He reaches for my arm and even the touch of his fingers against my skin is too much right now. “I’ll even forget those codes and let you kick my ass at Titanfall.”

“Let me.” I grin over at him, but I know it doesn’t look genuine. I am a mass of knots inside. I stand, slipping into my underwear. “Sorry. I really need to go.”

He pushes himself to sit up, and groans. “Oh my God, my abs. How is it that I was on the bottom and I’m this sore? I’m taking ninety-five percent of the credit on this one.”

I stand to face him. “You wish.”

He pauses with one hand dug into his hair. “You know, one of these days I’m going to get my feelings hurt with this little Nail and Bail thing you have going here.”

“‘Nail and Bail’?” I repeat. I reach for my shorts, but Luke stops me, taking my hand.

“I’m serious.” He releases my hand but reaches forward to frame my hips, thumbs stroking the sensitive skin there. “Stay.”

My voice comes out a little shaky when I try to deflect. “I snore. It’s bad.”

A wry smile twists his lips. “Fine.” Then he gives me the real smile again, the one that makes his expression the warmest, sweetest one I think I’ve ever seen, and drops his hands. “I’ll let you go this time,” he says quietly.

He watches as I step into my shorts, stays quiet while I pull on my shirt. I feel his attention on my fingers as I button it from the bottom to the top.

When I’m done, he wipes a hand across his mouth, asking, “Do you want to get together this weekend?”

Fuck. Slowly, slowly he’s chipping away at my shell.

“Let’s just play it by ear, okay?”

Luke closes his eyes, exhaling a tiny, frustrated breath, before pushing to stand. He’s still naked, sweaty . . . perfect. I lean in when he wraps his arms around me, and inhale the mix of sex and sweat and soap on his skin.

“Sounds good, Dallas.” He bends, reaching up to cup my face and kisses me, slow and warm. I can feel his cock stir against me again, already.

But for once, he doesn’t press. He takes a step back, bending to pull on his boxers, and then walks me to the door. He doesn’t say anything else as I walk out, down the steps, along the sidewalk to my car, but I feel his eyes on me the entire way.

“Still fun,” he shouts from behind me. I turn to see him leaning against the doorframe, practically naked. The porch light overhead throws shadows across his body, accentuating the width of his shoulders, the planes of his stomach, the definition of his hips. His boxers hang so low I can see the suggestion of hair, just above his waistband. Lucky neighbors.

“What was?” I ask.

I can see his smile from here when he answers. “You.”





Chapter SIX


Luke

I’M ELBOWS-DEEP IN a legal brief I can barely understand when my phone buzzes on the table at my elbow.

Beeeeeeeeeers, the text from Dylan reads.

I look up at the clock. Shit, how did it get to be six already? Where?

New place, on Island and 10th.

I groan—I f*cking hate going downtown during the week.

Anticipating this, Dylan adds, Most of the team is coming. Jess broke up with Cody. We’re helping him drown.

I blink a few times, staring in shock at my phone. My former water polo teammate, Cody, has been with his girlfriend, Jess, since high school. In the best of moods, Cody will drink until he’s crawling. I can’t imagine how tonight will go down.

Still, weeknight or not, I can’t say no. Cody, Dylan, Andrew, Daniel, and I have been tight since freshman year when the seniors on the team locked the five of us on the pool deck for an entire December weekend in nothing but our Speedos, with a vending machine full of food as our nourishment, though no money. You don’t get through something like that, and go on to win two national championships without sticking together.

Be there by eight, I reply, putting down my phone and packing up my desk.



* * *



THE GUYS HAVE taken over two tables as close to the dance floor as one can get and reasonably remain seated. Not five feet from where Daniel has done a complete one-eighty in his seat is a group of girls dancing suggestively, pretending they don’t notice the six-foot-eight water polo player turned fitness instructor staring at them.

“Sorry I’m late,” I say in greeting, pulling out a chair and sitting down. I’ve never been to this club—it’s new but the décor wants to fool you into thinking it’s been here since the seventies. Looking to Cody, I ask, “You good?”

He puts his empty beer glass down next to another one. “No. But don’t feel sorry for me. I’ve been a dick to her lately. I think she might be doing this to scare me straight.”