arm softened, and he stroked his thumb over it. “But what I’d like to do we can do together.”
Shannon swallowed hard. “You said you weren’t out to seduce me.”
“I lied.”
“You lied about wanting a TV, too. Do you do that a lot?”
“Only when the truth doesn’t get me what I want.”
“No. We’re not going there.”
“Like I told you before,” Luke said, “this doesn’t have to be a big deal. We can keep things real casual, and everything will work out just fine.”
At least he was being truthful about that. He wanted no-strings-attached sex. But the feelings she was starting to have for him scared the hell out of her for exactly that reason. Because there was no future.
“I’m not into casual sex,” she said.
“Then why are you breathing faster?”
“I’m not.”
“And your pupils are the size of quarters.” He trailed his fingertips along her arm. “And would you look at these goose bumps?”
She yanked her arm away. “Will you stop?”
“Shannon? When’s the last time you did something just because it feels good?”
Never. Or if she had, she didn’t remember it. And if he thought she was any other way, he clearly didn’t know her very well.
“I’ll tell you what would feel good,” she said, rising from the sofa. “For you to watch your ball game and me to do something else.”
Anything else. Anything that put her somewhere Luke wasn’t so she could catch her breath. Walking the opposite way around the coffee table to keep him from reaching out for her again, she went into the kitchen, feeling a rush of heat from head to toe. She turned a circle, looking for something to do, anything to release the pent-up energy she suddenly felt. Finally she zeroed in on her dishwasher. She opened the door and started pulling out clean dishes. She put them away with soft clinks and clatters, only to realize she heard nothing from the living room. No blaring baseball announcer. No too-loud commercial.
She stopped. Listened.
Nothing.
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Luke standing at the kitchen door. Judging from the look on his face, he wasn’t through with her yet. She drew in a silent breath of resolve, but temptation washed over her like a tidal wave.
She turned back around and stuck a few bowls into an upper cabinet, then reached back into the dishwasher, her heart beating wildly. “There’s beer in the fridge if you want it,” she said. “Maybe Bud, maybe Miller. I’m not sure. I know you said you like dark beer, but…”
His stocking feet made no noise on the tile floor, but she sensed him moving up behind her. It was as if the air between them compressed with every step he took. Staring straight ahead, she held a coffee cup in one hand and a plate in the other, but suddenly her brain wouldn’t tell her what to do with them.
Luke reached around her, one hand on each side, and took the dishes. He set them down carefully. Then he placed his hands on the counter, one beside each of her hips, trapping her there, the front of his body pressing lightly against the back of hers. Her blood coursed wildly through her veins, echoed inside her ears, making her shiver with the kind of sexual awareness that lit her on fire.
“Luke…”
She meant to say don’t you dare, think again, I told you no already, but then he touched his lips to her neck in a gentle kiss. Did he remember how he’d once kissed her in precisely that spot? Was that why he was doing it again?
When memories came flooding back of that one night they’d been together, any objections she might have had went right out the window. He caressed her thigh with one hand, moving the other one to her abdomen, splaying his fingers and pulling her back against him as his lips brushed her ear. When she felt how hard he was already, every nerve in her body pulsed with excitement.
Then he slid his other hand beneath her shirt. He found the front clasp of her bra and flicked it open, and she gasped softly as the cups fell away. He skimmed his hand beneath her bra, lifting and squeezing one breast, humming his approval against her ear. He plucked and pulled at her nipples, and the pleasure of it was so intense she tried to squirm from beneath his hand because it was too much, too much, at the same time it wasn’t nearly enough.