Luke grabs a piece of bruschetta and shoves it in his mouth. He licks his thumb, and I watch with rapt attention as his tongue moves across his skin and then over his bottom lip to catch a crumb. Shit, I’m going to need a lobster bib to handle all this drool if I don’t pull myself together.
“I’m good at it. I like working with my hands. I’ve been doing it since I was eighteen. My dad bought me a welding machine and brought home some metal sheets; I’ve never looked back. Got all my certificates too.”
He pops another piece of bread into his mouth. At this rate, we should have gone to an all-you-can-eat buffet. The bill is going to be enormous, but Luke told me he’d pay for it. He’d leaned into me and said, “I may be a blue-collar worker, Eli, but I do just fine.”
As he’d driven us to this restaurant, I’d looked it up.
Yeah, Luke makes almost as much as me. Fuck, if that doesn’t impress me.
“Are you a journeyman?” I ask.
“Yep. Gonna be an expert welder next year. You know why, Eli?”
The way he says my name has me focusing intently on his mouth. I wonder if he’ll eat me with that mouth. I suddenly get a vivid image of his head between my legs, his stubble rubbing against my thighs….
I swallow thickly and meet his eyes.
“Why?
He leans back, and our legs bump together. “’Cause I’m good at what I do. That’s where we’re alike.”
“I’m not so sure about that. I’m not sure I’m an excellent doctor. Mediocre at best. Good at times.” I pause and see Luke eyeing me. “You look like you disagree.”
“Yeah, Doc, you don’t see what I see.”
I arch an eyebrow at him, trying to contain myself. “And what is that?”
“That you’re a damn good doctor. Amanda told me so. You think she’d put up with your shit if she didn’t like you?”
“She likes how much I pay her.”
“Nope,” he says, hooking his foot around the leg of my chair and pulling me closer to the table. “She told me how good you are. Her eyebrows don’t lie.”
I watch him as I sip my drink and then decide that it’s quite noisy in here. In order to have a decent conversation, I need to sit right next to him. That’s theonlyreason I push myself up from my seat and move my chair right next to his. Luke smirks at me like he knows all of my tricks and then wraps a thick arm around my shoulders, playing with my earlobe as I nibble on my food.
The proximity to him––his size, his warmth, his scent––they’re doing awful things to my insides. Internally, I’m clawing to be set free, to just let go, but I’m trapped inside this fucking cage of civility and principles I’ve meticulously built.
By the time we’re done eating, I’m ravenous and chomping at the bit, nearly frothing at the mouth. My entire body aches for him and I feel crazed.
The moment we step into our hotel room, my leash snaps and I attack him. I don’t even pretend to be composed. I just plaster myself to his chest, clutch onto his shoulders, and devour his strong neck with my lips and tongue. I’m weak, so fucking weak.
Desperate.
“Eager, huh?” Luke chuckles, and I clasp onto the collar of his shirt and walk him back toward the bed. “I’m not judging. I know the feeling. Was feelin’ it all through dinner. What you gonna use on me tonight?”
I can’t even think. I just want to feel. “You’ll see.”
Having Luke in my control––a strong, larger than life man submitting and bending to my will––I’ve never felt more powerful and masculine than I do at this moment. He could so easily turn the tables on me, but he doesn’t. He lets me do what I want. And, fuck,I want everything.
The back of his knees hit the mattress, and he sinks down onto it. I press my fingertips into his chest, and he falls onto his back.
“Oh, I’m going to enjoy this,” I mutter and then work his jeans open.
He lifts his hips as I slide his pants down his long legs, and then I tug off his boxers, tossing them on the floor.
“Take your shirt off,” I tell him, and he leans up, the muscles in his abdomen flexing as he rips the T-shirt over his head and then he’s blessedly naked. I run my fingers across his inner thigh, hearing his breath stutter as I do so.
“You gonna take off all those fancy clothes for me, Eli?” he asks. I pop the top button of my shirt through the hole, watching in awe as Luke’s chest rises and falls frantically as I slowly work each button open. He’s getting off on this, watching me strip for him. So, I do it slower, torturing him the same way he’s tortured me.