He padded out to the living room and thought about watching TV but changed his mind. On the way back to his bedroom, he hesitated briefly in front of Sarah’s door. Maybe she was still awake but probably not. It was quiet as the dead in there. Besides, it didn’t matter if she was awake or not. She’d made it clear today that she wasn’t interested.
He opened the door to his bedroom and flipped on the light. Sarah sat in his bed, the thin, cotton sheet tucked nearly all the way up to her chin. Her long, blond hair fell in damp waves around her shoulders like she’d just gotten out of the shower.
The first thing that hit his brain was that his instincts hadn’t been wrong after all. The second thing was that although she was here, waiting for him in his bed, she looked nervous as hell. One wrong word or move on his part and he could completely blow it. If he made too big a deal of this she might bolt, and the thought of her walking away now…
His heart began to pound so fast he could practically hear it.
“Please tell me you’re naked under that sheet,” he said trying to infuse humor in the situation.
She gave him a shaky smile. “Naked and afraid,” she said, referencing the TV show he liked. Although, he wasn’t sure if he enjoyed it as much as he liked seeing her reaction to it. The show took two completely unclothed strangers and dumped them in a primitive setting for twenty-one days with nothing but a machete to test their wilderness skills. The faces Sarah made to some of the situations they encountered were priceless.
“Afraid of what?” he asked. “Me? I’m not so scary.”
She still looked uncertain.
“Here, I’ll prove it to you.” He dropped his towel. She leaned forward and began to study him with the kind of interest that sent all the blood in his body rushing straight to his groin. Okay, so maybe in his current physical state he might be a little scary. He didn’t think he’d ever been this hard before.
“That looks…painful.”
“It’s your fault, you know. I was thinking about you in the shower.”
She swallowed hard and a rush of something unfamiliar hit him in the chest. This wasn’t the confident, smart-mouthed Sarah he’d grown to know and genuinely like over the past few weeks. Instead, this was a vulnerable side of her he hadn’t seen before. He wished he could protect her from whatever it was that frightened her. Him? All men in general?
Of getting too involved and ending up hurt?
There was only one way he could guarantee that she wouldn’t get hurt and that was to leave her alone. To go back to pretending that they were just friends and nothing more. God help him. This was going to be the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life.
Nice Guy Luke reached for his discarded towel. “It’s okay. We don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, yes, we do,” she rushed. “Because if we don’t, I think…I’ll die.”
He straightened up and gave a strained laugh. “Sweetheart, I think it’s pretty obvious that should be my line.”
“Just this one time. So that we’ll both know,” she said, mimicking his exact words the night he kissed her.
“Sarah,” he said, trying to inject as much tenderness into his voice as possible while still standing in front of her buck naked with a raging hard-on. “As much as we both might want this, I think we also know it’s probably a pretty bad idea.”
And just like that, the old Sarah was back. Her green eyes hardened. “Why? Because you think I’m going to fall in love with you or something? Don’t flatter yourself, old man. The thing is, I don’t think I’ve ever had really good sex. So, if you think you’re up to it,” she added, then flushed, “which, obviously, you are, I’d like to find out what the big deal is.”
Then, as if to prove she meant it, she slowly pulled back the sheet, exposing her breasts and pretty much everything else to him. He’d seen it
before. The first time he’d come home to find her in his bed. But that time he’d only gotten a few quick glimpses. This time there was nothing left to the imagination.
He wasn’t a saint. Far from it.
She wanted really good sex? Then he’d die trying to give it to her.
Without another word, he slid into the bed next to her.
“Um, can you turn out the light?” she asked which was kind of funny considering that she’d just shown him all her goodies in living color.
He could tell her that she had nothing to be embarrassed about. The woman was gorgeous, and before the night was over he’d make sure she knew just how sexy she was.
“You want some really good sex? Well, so do I, and for me, that means keeping the lights on right now.”
Before she could protest he drew her against him. She felt warm and soft and her hair smelled like raspberries. He nuzzled the skin beneath her ear and began to place soft kisses up and down her neck until he could feel her relax, then he kissed her for real. She wrapped her arms around him, kissed him back, and it was on.
He covered her with his body, careful not to put too much weight on her as he slowly brought his mouth down to her breasts and over the smooth skin of her stomach. He liked everything about her. The way she smelled, the way she tasted, the little noises she made in the back of her throat when his tongue finally settled between her thighs. He even liked the impatient way she tugged on his hair to get his attention, even though he ignored her and continued working her with his mouth until she screamed her pleasure.