16
LUKA WON’T STOP glaring at me.
Well, more specifically, Luka won’t stop glaring at Caleb. He’s saving his special brand of annoyed looks for me, a narrow-eyed glance every minute or so. He thinks he’s being sneaky about it, but Beckett has rolled his eyes no less than fourteen times since they came back into the house inexplicably caked with mud, my pink bat as pristine as when they left. No one has even started to explain what happened out in the fields, distracted by baked goods and warm coffee.
I prop my hands on my hips. “So? Anyone want to step away from breakfast for a second and tell me what’s going on?”
Caleb beams at me from where he’s lording over a brioche bun stuffed with maple walnut cream. “I told you”—he chews, oblivious to the man glaring at him from next to the refrigerator—“they’re the best.”
Okay, clearly Caleb needs a moment alone with his pastries. And Luka isn’t feeling very talkative at the moment. I turn to Dane and raise both eyebrows. He takes his time working through a mouthful of cinnamon apple Danish.
“Didn’t find the trespasser,” he offers, succinct as ever. “Did find these two mud wrestling though.”
Beckett sighs, weary. The early morning antics have been too much for him. He scoops up Comet from where she’s dozing and drops her lightly back into his front pocket. “I’m going home,” he announces, swiping a cinnamon roll off the quickly diminishing pile of baked goods. “I’ll catch up with you later, Stella.”
He disappears out the front, the quiet snick of the door behind him. My
gaze trips over to Luka.
“Mud wrestling?”
Luka huffs, a bit of his frustration easing with the smile that winks to life in his eyes. It’s a relief. I’m not used to grumpy Luka. “Beckett fell while we were running. And then I fell over Beckett.”
I imagine it, the pair of them tangled up in a muddy heap. I roll my lips to
contain my smile.
“That’s when Dane found us.”
“Did you get a look at who you were chasing?”
Luka shakes his head, disappointment clear in the harsh slant of his brows. He slouches back against the kitchen counter, legs crossed at the ankles. He leaves a smudge of mud at the baseboard of my cabinets that he’ll probably scrub out by this time tomorrow. “Just a glimpse. They had too much of a lead on us, and we were both wearing boots.”
“But they had to get out here somehow, right?” I turn to look at Caleb and Dane. “Was there a car parked along the road when you guys came in?”
They both shake their heads. “We’ll do some poking around on our way back into town. But Stella, I’d like it if you filled out a formal report. List all the things we talked through the other day.”
I twist my hands together in my lap with a frown. “You think that’s necessary?”
Dane nods. “I do. This person was obviously planning on doing something more, on account of breaking the camera. You probably interrupted them before they could get started.”
“Best to be overly cautious,” Caleb agrees, and Luka is back to scowling over his coffee. I shoot him a questioning glance that he ignores. “We’ll make a note of it as well, but it’s best if the complaint comes from you directly.”
“All right,” I say. It’s all a bit overwhelming. Evelyn arrives in a couple of days, and it feels like all my carefully laid plans are spinning out of control.
It’s hard enough maintaining the charade of a fake relationship, now I have some mystery trespasser wreaking havoc. Sensing my unease, Luka catches
my hand in his and brushes a kiss on my knuckles. I squeeze his hand gratefully. I look to Dane. “I’ll stop by later today.”
I walk Dane and Caleb out to the driveway, waving from the front porch as they rumble back down the road. The sun is just starting to rise over the horizon, a dull glow from behind the clouds. I sigh and scratch between my eyebrows, pull my phone from my pocket and flick the switch off. All of the lights blink out at once.
Is this what instant Karma feels like? Is this what I get for lying about Luka?
Luka is rummaging through the cabinets when I step back into the kitchen, his shoulders tense. I’d ask what’s bothering him, but frankly, I’m too tired. I sit and wait, picking at the remnants of my blueberry muffin, the silence strained and awkward between us. I want to go back to when we were curled together on the couch, Luka’s arms tight around me.
“Why didn’t you ask Caleb to be your fake boyfriend?”
“Um, what?”
“Caleb.” Luka slams a cabinet door shut and opens another. “You two looked cozy. Why didn’t you ask him?”
If by cozy he means we were sitting at the table talking cordially like normal adults, then yes, we were cozy, I guess. I stare at him across the kitchen. The grumpy glares, the tense line of his body, the way he’s practically ripping my cabinet doors off the hinges. Luka’s jealous. He walked in, saw us at the table laughing, and got jealous.
It’s amazing. I rest my chin in my hand, amused.
“I hadn’t thought about it,” I reply slowly. It’s not the answer Luka is looking for, his frown deepening until little lines are bracketing the sides of his mouth. I want to press my thumb into them, smooth them out. “Isn’t there a rule about police officers lying or something?”
He doesn’t laugh at my joke.
I sigh and reach for honesty instead. “Luka,” I say. He mutters something about missing biscotti and ignores me. “I didn’t ask Caleb because there was only one person I wanted.”
Luka glances at me from over his shoulder, and I feel it again, the heavy thump of my heart banging around in my chest. It’s both wonderful and terrible to feel like this every time he looks at me. I don’t know how I’ve
managed to survive it this long.
“It was Clint, wasn’t it?”
I bark a laugh and lift myself from my chair. “You know I love a man
who appreciates a hoagie.”
“Jesse?”
“I’d probably get a discount at the bar.”
Luka sighs and tilts his head back to the ceiling, eyes closed in agony. “It was Billy, I know it.”
Billy works part time at the funeral home two towns over. It’s honorable work, sure, but I think he’s a little too enthusiastic about his job. He started sleeping during the day. He calls himself a nightwalker. I saw him in a black leather trench coat in August.
I step between Luka’s legs and wrap my arms around his waist. He tilts his head back down until we’re nose to nose. His smile is devastating, honest in its own way.
“It was not Billy,” I tell him. “It was you, you great big moron.”
He sobers, his smile settling into something gentle and warm. He traces the curve of my cheek, the sharp angle of my chin, my chapped bottom lip.
He brushes over it once, twice, and then curls his hand around the nape of my neck. His thumb rubs at the top of my spine, and I shiver, forehead against his chin. I tighten my arms around him.
“I’m glad you wanted me to be your fake boyfriend.”
“Me too,” I agree. “Were you jealous, fake boyfriend?”
He scoffs, hand spreading wide to trace between my shoulder blades. He works out a particularly stubborn knot on my left side, and I melt into him. I expect him to deny it, to change the subject, but he surprises me again.
“Of course I was. You were holding a plate of donuts. And you’re wearing your sleep shorts that have dancing nutcrackers on them.” We both snicker and look down at my shorts. “And you looked happy, Stella. You
were laughing when we came in.” He tips my chin up with his hand, eyes searching. “That was—” He swallows roughly. “That was my smile.”
It’s a heady feeling, to know that I’m not the only one who wants to possess every moment of happiness. Collect every laugh and pocket it, hoard them like tiny treasures. I beam at him. His greed has me bursting at the seams.
“Okay,” I say. I take a half step back and reach around him to the flour jar, move it to the left and hand him the box of leftover biscotti behind it.
He blinks down at the box and then back to me. “Okay?”
“Okay, you can have them.” I nod at the cookies in his hands. “My cookies and my smiles.”
He swallows again, a heavy bob of his throat that has me wanting to press myself back against him, drag my teeth up the length of his neck. Instead, I take another step back. And then another.
“Careful.” He’s looking at me like I’m a peppermint mocha bear claw with extra walnut cream cheese frosting. “You can’t take that back.”
“There’s nothing to take back,” I promise him, but I don’t tell him the other things. That my smiles have always belonged to him. A big chunk of my heart too. All my best memories.
And the toaster oven I stole from his apartment six years ago and have hidden in the pantry beneath two leather jackets and a tennis racket.
I rub my fingers over my lips. My best kiss now too. Luka has pretty much everything cupped in his hands, and he doesn’t even know it. The thought makes me sad.
“I don’t think I can go back to sleep,” I say. The hope of that disappeared as soon as I woke up and saw someone slinging rocks at my camera. I glance out the window, up the foothills. “I think I’m going to go out and get a tree for the living room. I want it to be festive here too.”
I could use the fresh air and distance from flat surfaces. I see Luka nod out of the corner of my eye, cookie tin tucked under his arm.
“I’ll join you.”
“ YOU NEED TO relax,” says Luka.
Let it be known that telling a woman to relax has never once resulted in said relaxation. I suck in a lungful of air and press it out again through clenched teeth. Like a dragon. Luka laughs from his relaxed position in the corner of the couch. I pull the tinsel down from around the tree and start again. I can’t get the damn thing to hang right.
“I am relaxed,” I mutter. “You relax.”
“As you can see, I am very relaxed.”
I look over at Luka. His hands are tucked behind his head and his eyes are half-lidded, a smirk at the corners of his lips. He’s got his little duckling socks on tonight, one foot propped on the arm of the couch, the other flat on the floor with his knee bent. There’s a book folded open across his chest, some ancient science fiction novel he found in my TV stand.
He looks obscene.
I roll my eyes and go back to the tree, attempting to thread the gold tinsel through the bottom branches at exactly the right angle. How is Evelyn going to take me seriously as a Christmas expert if my tinsel is a mess? She won’t.
She’ll see the crooked tinsel, she’ll know I’m a fraud, and we’ll lose the contest. I’ll have to shut this place down and work late nights at the funeral home with Billy.
Luka sighs from the couch. “You’re spiraling.”
“I am not spiraling,” I reply, absolutely spiraling.
“Come here, please.”
I throw the tinsel into a heap and shuffle over to him. He shifts his head to look at me and pats his leg once. I arch an eyebrow.
“What?”
“What do you mean, what? Come here.”
I look down at him dubiously. He’s taking up all the space on the couch.
The only place to go would be on top of him. He pats his leg again.
“I’m not a dog,” I grumble. I press one knee on the couch and swing the other over his hips. My hands find his shoulders. I sit there, awkwardly perched, my body hovering over his. I frown. “You were right, this is great. I am so relaxed,” I monotone.
“Sit,” Luka says with a laugh. His hands find my hips and he pulls once, a sharp tug that sends me off-balance and has me tumbling into him. “Stay.”
My chest smashes into his, my legs fan out until our hips are flush and my nose digs into his collarbone. He sighs, happy, and wiggles down farther into the couch, both of his arms wrapping around me like a boa constrictor.
“That’s better.”
I huff and rearrange my legs so they still receive circulation. I tuck my elbows under me and rest my palms flat on his chest. I tell myself to relax, but my brain can’t let go of the thousand things I still have to do before Evelyn arrives.
Typically during the holiday season, I’m either in my office or out on the farm from dawn to dusk. But Luka had appeared in my office doorway two hours ago with a candy cane hanging out of his mouth and a promise of homemade Bolognese, and I trailed after him without a backward glance. We spent way too long in the fields debating the proper tree, then hauling it back.
Now I feel all my responsibilities piling up. My shoulders pull tight with it, my breathing shallow. Now isn’t the time for me to get distracted with whatever it is Luka and I are doing. I have to be focused. I have to be flawless.
After I went to the police station to file my report about the weekend’s excitement, I stopped by the bed-and-breakfast to make sure everything was in order for Evelyn’s arrival. Cozy flannel sheets, a wreath from Mabel on the door, daily coffee delivered—even a box of Layla’s sugar cookies to go with her key upon check-in. I felt some of my anxiety settle after that. At the very least, she’d be comfortable.
And fully in the holiday spirit, judging by the decorations covering every square inch of our little downtown. Thick rows of garland wrapped in twinkling lights twisting around the streetlights. Heavy wreaths anchored with cherry red bows on every door. Over the fountain, a handwritten sign wishing everyone a happy holiday season, a shimmering snowflake hanging like magic from the center. A giant Christmas tree decorated with handmade ornaments from the school, a small wooden plaque declaring it homegrown at Inglewild’s own Lovelight Farms.
A heavy palm sweeps up my back to that magic spot on my neck, Luka’s fingertips grazing instead of pressing. I still shiver into it, burrowing myself farther into his chest. “What do you need?”
I sigh into the warm skin of his neck. He smells delicious here. Like peppermint and basil and the fancy grapefruit body scrub he keeps stealing from my shower. “For everything to go perfect,” I whisper. I curl my hands into his T-shirt and then relax them again. “For my brain to slow down.”
“The first is a given,” he says, and now his thumb presses deep. My legs go completely limp on either side of him, and he makes a pleased sound deep in his chest. I feel it rumble beneath me. “The second I can help with.”
I make a vaguely inquisitive sound, still focused on that perfect bit of pressure at the nape of my neck. He slides his hand down between my shoulder blades and then back up.
“What do you know about causal analysis?”
It’s safe to say I know absolutely nothing about causal analysis. I grumble something into his collarbone and focus on his hand on my neck instead, his palm cupping gently under all my hair. He combs it to one side and wraps it around his fist. Releases and lets it slip through his fingers.
“It’s used to determine cause and effect.” He brushes a kiss under my ear and my whole body shivers. “There are four elements you need to establish, but the most important ones are correlation and sequence in time. Does that make sense?”
“Sure.” It makes no sense. I’m more interested in his gentle touch guiding my head farther to the side, his teeth grazing my neck. I curl my fingers into his hair and grip tight.
He laughs into my skin. “Hold on, this is important. I’m teaching you something. Sit up for a sec.”
I groan but do as he asks, sitting up on his lap. He laughs when he sees my pout, shuffling up on his elbows and fanning his hands out on top of my thighs, fingers drumming. “To determine the effect of a specific cause,” his hands glide up and then back down again, thumbs against the inseam of my comfy pants. “You need to correlate two actions with sequencing. The cause has to come before the effect.”
“Okay.” I’m frankly too focused on his hands on my thighs to further contribute to this conversation.
No wonder he’s always the one to present to clients. I have no idea what he’s talking about, but he’s hot when he talks about data. I want to ask him to pull up an Excel sheet, maybe sort by ascending value. He leans up farther against me until his hands are gripping my hips, our chests pressed together.
With one quick move, he flips me backward, flat against the couch.
“Good distraction so far,” I say, eyes wide. He loosens his grip at my waist and slips his hands up over my ribs, palms teasing at the sides of my breasts. He urges my arms up and gathers my wrists in his hands, holding them lightly against the arm of the couch.
“For instance,” his eyes are dark, his tongue at the corner of his mouth, “if I kiss you here—” He ducks his head down and presses his lips gently to the line of my collarbone. My legs shift beneath him, my ankle curling over the back of his knee. He pulls back and holds my arm out, pulling my sleeve up to my elbow. “You get goose bumps here.”
There’s a sharp stillness between us, the both of us watching to see what the other will do. He studies me with my arms above my head, the way my sweater has tugged down low on one side. He trails his fingers back up my arms in a sweet caress, thumb hooking in the collar of my shirt. He pulls it down low until he can see the cut of my plain white cotton bra, his eyes darkening further, his teeth holding his bottom lip. My breath catches and then releases, Luka’s thumb grazing my ribs “If I do this,” his voice is smoke and spice as he leans forward, teeth gripping the edge of my bra, pulling back and snapping it against my skin. He whispers a laugh into me when my fingers curl into the couch. “That happens.”
He pushes up on both hands and smiles down at me, bright and boyish.
I’m panting, an ache low in my belly and between my thighs. He pats the top
of my legs and I almost growl.
“These are good data points, Stella.”
Frustrated, I arch up beneath him and reach my hand behind my back.
With a twist of my fingers, my bra unhooks, the snap of it wiping the smug
look right off his face. The material slips a bit under his thumb until I’m barely covered by soft cotton and a cozy knit. Judging by the way his jaw has gone a little slack, I think Luka likes that more than bare skin. The hint of something more. The tease of what’s beneath.
“We should probably find some more,” I breathe. “You know. For science.”
He kisses me then, his hand threading through my hair and angling my mouth to his until our lips meet. Our little game has officially turned from a tease to an ultimatum. It’s possession in a kiss, Luka braced on his elbows above me, his mouth aggressive, hungry. It feels like all of our almost moments are balanced on the tip of my tongue, and he’s coaxing them free, his teeth lightly nipping. When I almost reached for his hand at the bar, because I liked the way his fingers felt between mine. When I almost kissed him at the jam festival, because I wanted to see if he tasted like strawberries.
When I almost told him I loved him every single time he answered his door and his amber eyes lit up at the sight of me.
A million little almost moments spilling free.
“When I do this—” He pulls his mouth from mine with a gasp and starts to press deep, sucking kisses to my neck. I shift my legs wider around him and wrap my hands around his shoulders. “When I do this, do you get wet here?”
He presses his hand between my legs over my leggings, and black spots appear at the edges of my vision. I grab his forearm and hold his hand there, rolling my hips, seeking friction. It’s a delicious frustration to keep finding ourselves here. We keep working ourselves up with no relief, and I feel the pull of it everywhere. My skin is too tight, the place between my legs aching.
I strain up into Luka, and he drops his forehead to my shoulder, hand moving with me between my legs.
“Can I—” He swallows around the rest of his question, voice rough, distracted with the length of my collarbone and his teeth against it. “Can I touch you?”
I’m nodding before the last word leaves his lips. I don’t care that it makes me seem eager. This is Luka. He’s already seen all the messy parts of me.
Except for this one. This piece of myself that is flushed and panting as his big hands find the waistband of my leggings. He noses between my breasts as he slips his hands down inside the stretchy soft fabric, cupping the curve of my ass. He squeezes once with a pained moan, like this is hurting him, like this is torture. I laugh into his hair and tilt my head, brushing a kiss to his temple, the shell of his ear. I pull it between my teeth and bite, and the length of his body pushes me deeper into the couch, his hips against my thigh. I feel him there, hard beneath his jeans.
“Fuck,” he whispers. One hand moves, slipping around my hip and dipping down, the movement clumsy with his wrist trapped by the fabric of my pants. But where I expected hesitation, there is none. His fingers fan out over my skin like a brand, his thumb brushing once at the soft skin below my belly button. I exhale into his neck. It’s barely a touch, a glance of his fingertips, and I’m shivering beneath him, body strung tight.
“When I touch you here—” He moves his hand lower and hooks his thumb just right, a single firm touch where I need him the most. I make a gasping sound, a whimper caught in the back of my throat. He nods into me and makes a rough circle that has me holding on to him for dear life. “Yeah, you make that sound.”
I don’t know what sounds I’m making. I don’t know where I am. All I know is Luka’s hand grinding into me, my hips chasing his touch, his bottom lip caught between his teeth as he watches me with heavy eyes. I don’t think I’ve ever been touched so carefully. I don’t think I’ve ever been so close to the edge with all my clothes still on.
The thought has me huffing a disbelieving laugh into Luka’s warm skin, my forehead tucked against his shoulder so I can look between us. He starts a smooth rhythm, a rolling motion with his palm and fingers that spins the tension in my belly tighter. I chase it with my hips and watch as we move together, his hand beneath my leggings, his hips pressing into my thigh.
Every time I thrust up, he pushes into me, his forehead against my chest. I want his touch there too. His mouth warm and teeth biting.
Luka nudges at my chin with his nose, his fingers playing me higher. He slips two inside me, and my hands close into fists against his shirt, trying to
rip the soft material from his body. It’s a wonder I don’t strangle him.
“What’s so funny?” he breathes, and it sounds like he’s in the middle of a marathon. Mile marker twenty-three. He’s started to move his hips against me, tiny stilted movements that are almost unconscious, his body chasing friction. It’s a comfort to know he feels it too. This pull. This need.
“Nothing, just—” I flex my hips down into his touch, and he answers with a sharp thrust that has my head falling back against the couch, eyes closed.
Everything within me sharpens until I’m balanced on the very precipice. “Oh, god.”
He stops the motion of his hand, and I make a desperate noise, embarrassing if this were anyone but him. I have half a mind to slip my hand next to his and finish the job myself, but I want to see where he takes me. I peek open one eye to glare down at him. He’s grinning at me, cheeks flushed, hair a mess from my hands. “What’s so funny?” he repeats.
I roll my hips, forcing his touch, and he gets a glazed look in his pretty amber eyes.
“It’s never felt like this,” I whisper, feeling those sparks start up again.
“It’s just—it’s never felt this good.”
That does it for him. My confession has him frantic, the hand that’s been squeezing my ass and guiding me against him suddenly up and out of my leggings. He pulls at the collar of my sweater, dragging it down over my shoulder until the cotton of my bra is the only thing keeping him from my skin. He groans at the sight of it, muttering something under his breath, the hand between my legs pressing, shifting, rolling with me. It’s overwhelming, the sudden change in pace and pressure, especially when he licks the soft skin just above my bra, catches it in his teeth and drags it down.
His mouth finds the tip of my breast at the same moment his fingers speed up against me, thumb rubbing hard perfect circles, and that’s it. It’s a fracture low in my belly that rolls hot through the rest of me, spreading slow and sweet like honey. He holds me tight and guides me through it as I shake and unspool beneath him, one hand clenched tight in his shirt, the other frantically pulling it up until I find bare skin. He’s sticky with sweat—but
then, so am I. Delicious heat unfurls from between my legs and sings through my blood until I’m limp below him, panting against his neck.
If he’s at mile marker twenty-three, I’m collapsed at the finish line, begging for electrolytes. He shifts against me and grins, slipping his hand from between us.
“That was nice.” His voice scratches against the edges of the words, a huskiness to match the heat in his eyes. His hips press into me once. “You look pretty when you come.”
My stomach swoops like I’ve just walked off the side of a building. I blink twice. He’s said it like That’s a nice sweater or You make a great cup of coffee. I don’t know what to say.
Instead, I reach between us, my thumb tracing the button of his jeans. He makes a pained grunt and catches my wrist in his hand. His fingers are still wet and I blush. His mouth hitches up in a grin, a secret dirty smile that has that blush spreading lower. He watches its progress with fascination, nose chasing it down over the breast that’s still exposed by my twisted bra.
“I’m okay,” he rasps somewhere into my skin. He nudges at my breast with his nose and exhales a shaky sigh when I arch into him.
The tent in his pants would disagree. I twist my hand in his grip and stroke my palm over the length of him beneath denim, and he drops his head against the arm of the couch with a groan. “Doesn’t feel like it,” I reply.
“I don’t want to—”
I pause my motion at that. I don’t ever want to make him do something he doesn’t want to do. Our agreement is a week where we chase what feels right.
And if this doesn’t feel right to him, then I don’t want it either. I pull my hand back and wait, patient.
He picks his head up, the smile tugging at his mouth sheepish. “It won’t take much,” he explains, twin spots of pink blooming on his cheeks.
Like the idea that he got close from doing that to me, watching me, is something he needs to be embarrassed about. Like the thought of him getting pleasure from giving me pleasure isn’t—isn’t enough to have heat tugging low in my belly again.
“Hold on, I want to see if I understood the lesson.” I bite at my bottom lip and slip open the button of his jeans. “If I do this—” I drag down his fly and curl my palm around him. He’s heavy and hot in my hand, a wiggle in his hips when I try to pull his jeans lower. Impatient, I stroke him once, and he braces his hands on the armrest above me. I stroke again and he groans out my name, a broken “Stella” that I want to record and set as my ringtone. I’ve never seen him so disheveled, so perfectly undone. “Then you say my name like that,” I smile with my hand around him. “Am I getting it right?”
He doesn’t answer. He tips his head back, the long line of his throat and the sharp line of his jaw laid out like a buffet. I start at his collarbone and kiss there once, the motion of my wrist smooth and easy over him.
“You’re gonna kill me,” he whispers with a breathless little laugh, and I think I like that best, even more than the way he moves above me, greedy for my touch. I like how easy it is to laugh with him, even as we do this. I don’t think I’ve ever smiled during sex, ever done anything more than close my eyes and try to get myself there. But with Luka, it’s easy. The way we touch each other, the way we breathe and move together. It’s so easy.
I lick and bite my way up his neck until my teeth catch the lobe of his ear.
He groans then, long and loud, and I smile into his skin.
“You’re pretty, too,” I whisper. I grin and twist my wrist, earning a catch in his breath. I hum with approval and bite at the place where his shoulder meets his neck, his skin warm.
He lets loose a steady stream of curses, his hand curling around my wrist and holding me tight against him as he rocks his hips, fast and messy. His orgasm is quiet—body shaking, brow furrowed, warmth across my stomach as he chases his high. I wait until his hips stop moving before I pull my hand back and rest it on his stomach, scratching once with my nails at the trail of dark hair below his belly button. His hips jump and I grin.
He blinks at me, gaze heavy, shirt half pulled up on his torso from my frantic hands, and jeans low on his hips. He has a dark line of hair down the center of his abdomen, a stack of surprising muscle that I trace with my fingers, walking my fingers up until I can press my palms to his chest. There are freckles here too, dotted across his skin in clusters and bursts. I’m never
going to be able to sit on this couch again without thinking of exactly this moment. His smile says he knows it.
“And that”—he whistles a breath through his teeth and collapses at my side, wedged between me and the back of the couch—“is everything you need to know about causal analysis.”
