Wicked Sexy Liar (Wild Seasons #4)(64)

“Luke.”

“Fuck,” I growl, bending and pressing my mouth to her neck as I start to rock against her.

I nearly come at the sound she makes, that soft, restrained cry, and I’m f*cking her through my clothes, through hers, sucking and licking her skin, just insane to be with her like this.

My need for her ratchets up, climbing from this heated infatuation to something more, something that traps my lungs, threatens to break me.

“I missed this,” I say into her skin. “Fuck, I missed this. The feel of you . . .”

Three rough grinds in and her hands are on my chest, sliding down and over my pecs to the hem of my shirt, where she makes fists in the cotton again.

She could pull it up and off me in a single tug.

I can feel her reaching the fork in the road, and then she hesitates, going still under me. “Luke. Wait. Wait.”

I stop moving, closing my eyes where my face is pressed into her neck.

No. Please.

She pushes at my hips with her fists still around my shirt, pushing me away from her. More than the desperate tension in my body, my heart feels like it might tie itself into a knot.

“We can’t,” she says through a tight exhale. “We shouldn’t.”

I push up off her, sitting back on my heels and watching her scramble to her feet.

“Sorry,” I say. I f*cking mean it, too. I know she’s not into me that way, and I keep pushing.

“No, I’m sorry,” she says. “It was me.”

Her hand comes out, gesturing for mine, and I wave it away, pushing myself to stand.

“Ugh, this is awkward,” I say in a quiet growl.

Laughing, she says, “No . . .” in a way that totally means yes.

I don’t really know what to do with myself now. I look to the side, feeling her discomfort and drowning in it.

We look back at each other at the same time. “Do you think we should talk about . . . ?” I ask, trailing off.

“Um, no,” she says, horrified. “I had a moment of weakness, it won’t happen again.”

A moment of weakness? As in, she sort of wants this? “But what if I want to talk?”

“What’s there to say?” she says, shrugging helplessly.

“Just . . .” I pull my thoughts together, sitting down on the couch. “Okay, look. Even when we’re just friends, the fact that we’ve slept together is always hanging between us. I feel it in every second we’re together, and I’m lying if I say I don’t.”

“I figured of anyone you’d be good at pretending it didn’t happen,” she jokes, but it falls flat.

This totally f*cking stings, and I let her see it on my face. “Well, I’m not.”

Nodding, she says, “Okay. Sorry.”

“And I know you think I’m a total player—and maybe I deserve that—but I’ve only been with one person since you and—”

“That’s, like, one month, Luke.”

I laugh. “I know, but someday maybe I’ll tell you about how comically horrible it was.” She starts to ask, but I cut her off. “The point is, I’m trying to turn over a new leaf. And it requires reflection, which is sort of new for me . . .” I trail off, feeling like I owe her the chance to make a smart remark, but I’m actually relieved when she doesn’t.

She sits down next to me on the couch, listening.

“But here’s the thing,” I continue, “four years ago, I was really in love with Mia. I thought we were going to be together forever, and I know now that I was young, and it was unrealistic, but when it ended it was hard. I mean, we had been calling each other boyfriend-girlfriend since middle school. I didn’t want to give that kind of energy to just anyone. At first it felt like I’d be”—I look around, searching for words—“I don’t know, cheating, or something, to let myself feel things for someone else, even though Mia and I weren’t together. And then, being with girls in a more casual way was just such a relief. It meant that endings would be easier. It became how I operated. It was an evolution, okay, and I’m not saying that I hate myself for it, because I would be lying, but I have a little bit of hindsight now, and it isn’t how I want to do things anymore.”

She nods, listening with her wide, blue eyes trained on my face. “Okay.”

“So I just wanted you to know.” I lean back, lacing my hands behind my head and staring at the ceiling. “I know your last boyfriend hurt you, and I don’t want you to think all guys are like that. I don’t want you to think I’m like that.”

She nods again, faster now, leaning forward and rubbing her palms together between her knees. She seems a little agitated. I’m inclined to tell her she doesn’t have to talk to me if she doesn’t want to, but the truth is that I don’t really want to let her off the hook if we’re doing the sharing thing right now. London is one of the sweetest girls I’ve ever met, but there’s a shell there and I don’t have the sense that she talks to people very often about what’s going on in her head.

The silence feels like it extends for miles, and in a surreal way it seems like the couch elongates between us, making me feel farther away from her the longer she’s quiet. I close my eyes, pushing through it. At some point one of us has to speak, and I swear it will not be me.