Luke pulled Elise out the back door of the nightclub and into the alleyway. He pushed her against the wall. He let go of her hand and crossed his arms.

“Nate said you wanted to talk.”

“I do,” Elise said.

“So, talk,” he said rather rudely.

And he instantly winced with guilt. Then, he was mad at himself for feeling bad. This girl had stomped all over his heart.

“I came to tell you, I’m sorry.”

Luke winced. Ouch. So, now, she pitied him. Could this day get any worse? First, his old ex, and now, his new ex.

When Luke had seen who Nate’s date was, his first thought was that he’d been so glad to see Elise. His second thought was to wonder how Nate could do that to him. When Nate had asked him why he’d given up on Elise so easily, he’d told Nate that life was too short to spend it with people who didn’t appreciate him and thought of him as unworthy. And, if you had to change someone’s mind about that, then it wasn’t really worth changing their mind in the first place. Ava had taught him that. Luke knew Elise wasn’t really Nate’s date, but Luke was smart enough to know that Nate had set him up since Luke had been avoiding Elise’s calls and messages.

When Luke didn’t say anything, Elise said, “I’ve done some thinking the last two days, and I’ve talked to Rachel and Kristen.”

As far as apologies went, Elise’s was horrible. Now, her friend and sister pitied him, too.

“I should have let you make your own decisions instead of telling you how you should feel,” Elise continued. “My mom said some pretty horrible things to me and made me doubt myself and our relationship. The worst thing is that, for a while there, I thought she was right.”

Luke dropped his arms. He knew something must have happened at her family dinner, but she had refused to tell him what had happened.

Luke wanted to stay mad at Elise, but he was dying to hear more. “Go on.”

Elise’s demeanor changed, and she suddenly seemed nervous. “This is really hard for me to say, and I know you’re upset with me, but please don’t think badly of me.”

He wanted to refuse, but he still cared about her, so he nodded. “Okay.”

Elise looked down at her hands, over his shoulder, at his shirt—basically anywhere but his eyes. “She said that no guy would ever seriously want me or ever see me beyond being someone they just had sex with. That no one would think of me as marriage and mother material. And that she hoped, one day, some guy would take pity on me and marry me, despite my slutty ways.”

Luke was furious. “What the actual fuck, Elise? Your mom really said that shit to you?”

Elise grimaced. “Yes. It sounds much worse out loud. And, to make matters worse, my father just stood there and said nothing.”

Luke took a deep breath. “I’m going to kill them.”

Elise finally met his eyes. “Please don’t. I don’t want to visit you in prison,” she joked. “They’re really not worth it.”

“They hurt you, Elise. Nobody hurts you and gets away with it.” Luke was too irate to realize he’d just given his feelings away until Elise smiled.

“So, you don’t agree with them?”

“Fuck no.” What kind of guy did she think he was? “I thought you knew me better than that?”

Elise threw herself in his arms. “I do. I was just so confused. I mean, it was my mom. I can’t just ignore what my mom said. But I should have trusted myself to trust you more.”

Luke hesitantly hugged her back. “I’m glad you got it all figured out.” Luke let go and set her away from him. “But this doesn’t solve the reason you broke up with me.”

Elise wrinkled her nose. “Yes, it does.”

So, it was obvious that one of them was clueless.

“Elise, you broke up with me because of my past and because I slept around too much. That hasn’t changed.”

Elise added eye-squinting to her nose-wrinkling, looking even more confused. “No, I didn’t.”

Luke laughed, but it was without any humor. “Elise, I was there. I remember what you said.”

“I was there, too. And, apparently, I wasn’t very clear in my explanation. I broke up with you because I’ve had too many sexual partners, not because you’ve had too many. I broke up with you because we’d started as a one-night stand and because you know how much I like sex, and good girls don’t like sex. At least, that’s what my mother had me believing. I know—”

Luke cut her off, “Wait, wait, wait. I don’t get it.”

“My mom scared me off. I thought you would never really want to be with me because you would always, deep down, see me as some girl you screwed, and you wouldn’t respect me. I didn’t think I was good enough for you. Not that you weren’t good enough for me.” Elise put her head in her hands and moaned. She looked up at Luke. “I’m a horrible person. Luke, I never, ever meant to make you feel bad about yourself. You are the best person I know.”

Luke stood there, stunned.

Elise took a step back. “Why are you grinning like that? It’s kind of scaring me.”

Luke hadn’t realized he had been smiling like a fool. He started to laugh. It was a real laugh, too, not something he had to force for the people around him.

He pulled Elise into his arms and kissed her.

Without any hesitation, Elise kissed him back. She ran her hands up and down him—his arms, his chest, his back, everywhere—as if she was checking to make sure he was real. Luke backed her up against the wall. He rubbed his realness between her legs. She wrapped her legs around him and ground her crotch against his.

Luke pushed her skirt up until he skimmed the seam of her underwear, and she moaned. Her panties were already soaked, and he wanted to pull her underwear off and push inside her. It had been too long since they were together.

Instead, Luke set her down and took a step back to create some distance between the two of them. Both of them were breathing hard, and he hated that they were outside, in the back of a nightclub. No one else was back there, but that didn’t mean someone couldn’t come along, just like the two of them had.

“Elise, I have never thought less of you because we had a one-night stand. I love how free you are”—he pulled her close—“and I love how much you love sex. I love how dirty you are. I love you. Your mother doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about.”

Elise looked like she was going to cry. “Did you just tell me you love me? Or was that love like you love Die Hard movies?”

Luke laughed. “That was an I-love-you I love you. I am completely and utterly in love with you, Elise.”

She pulled his head down and soul-kissed him. When she was finished, she said, “I love you, too. I’m sorry I listened to my crazy mother and broke up with you.”

“I’m sorry you listened to your mother, too. But mostly because she made you feel bad about yourself. You are one of the best people I know. And you are going to make a great wife and mother someday.”

She smiled. “I know. It took me a little while, but I know that now. But thank you for saying it.”

“Let’s go back inside and find Nate.”

Luke took Elise’s hand once again, but instead of dragging her behind him, they walked inside next to each other.

When they reached the restrooms, Elise stopped. “I’m going to go in here for a minute. I’ll meet you back at the table.”

Luke kissed her. “Don’t be long.”

She smiled. “I won’t.”

Luke found his and Nate’s table, and it was blessedly empty. He didn’t want to deal with Ava, but he couldn’t leave without talking to Nate.

Elise slid in next to Luke a minute later and picked up the drink she’d set there earlier. She was about to take a drink, and then she set it down. “I probably shouldn’t drink that, huh? Ava probably spiked it with something.”

Luke laughed and pulled her into his arms. He kissed her again. Elise slipped something into his hand and shifted her hips so that she straddled him. This area of the club was dark, and the booths were only lit with small LED lights that looked like candles. It gave plenty of couples the opportunity to make out in the dim lighting, and they were far from the only ones.

Elise kissed him as she spread the bottom of her dress around them like a mini blanket. Then, she reached underneath and went for his fly. Before he could question her, she had his cock in her hand and started stroking him.

“Holy shit, babe.” He was all for an apologetic hand job in public. He’d rather have sex, but he could wait. But he should have known that Elise didn’t want to wait either.

“Are you ready for more?” she asked in between kisses.

“Yes. No. Yes. I’m afraid this might kill me. I don’t know if I can handle anything more.”

Elise laughed as she shifted her weight and sat down right on his dick. Her laugh turned into a moan as she took him to the hilt.

“Holy fuck, Elise,” he panted. “I can’t believe I almost forgot how incredible you feel.”

She chuckled. “Maybe it’s just one of those heart-grows-fonder sort of things.”

“I don’t think so.”

She kissed him again. “Then, I’d better make sure you never forget.”

She rocked her hips over his to create just enough resistance for it to feel good. To everyone else around them, it probably looked like they were just having a hot make-out session.

“I want to flip you over and pound inside you. I want to put myself so deep inside you that I never really leave,” he told her.

She moaned softly and clenched her pussy around him. She smiled. “Later,” she said breathlessly. “I’m going to hold you to it.”

Elise continued to kiss him and milk him with her inner muscles. There wasn’t a lot of friction because they were trying to be discreet, but it wasn’t long before a tingling in his nuts signaled the beginning of an orgasm.

“Baby,” he said as he clutched her hips in his hands hard enough to leave marks, “I can’t hold off much longer.”

“Tell me you love me again.”

Luke smiled and put his mouth to her ear. “I love you. Always and forever.”

And Elise came. She pushed her face into his neck and tried to make it look like she was relaxing there, but her body shook with her orgasm. Thankfully, Luke seemed to be the only one paying attention. Not that he would really know because he was busy emptying his balls inside her.

After several minutes passed, Elise got up further on her knees so that he slipped out of her. He was immediately disappointed. He missed her pussy already. She didn’t move, so he was still covered, but he didn’t know how he was going to clean himself up from their lovemaking.

Luke looked at the table for napkins.

“Check your hand.”

He’d forgotten she’d put something in his palm before she got on his lap, and he was surprised to find it was still there. He looked at it more closely and laughed.

It was her underwear. The ones she’d worn to his house the first night.

Man, he loved his dirty, dirty woman.

He used them to clean himself up and then slipped them in his pocket. He buttoned up, and Elise slid off his lap to sit beside him, resting her head on his shoulder.

“What about you?” he asked, knowing he’d left quite a mess inside her.

She shifted, so she could look into his eyes. “I’m fine. I like walking around, knowing there is a part of you inside me.”

And Luke was already getting hard again. Damn. How could she ever think he didn’t love this side of her?

Just then, Nate returned to the table with Ava behind him. She scowled when she saw Elise and Luke sitting so close together. What he had ever seen in his ex, he would never truly understand.

Luke nudged Elise to get out of the booth, so he could follow. “We’re going to take off,” he told Nate.

Nate grinned. “I was hoping you’d say that. Everything better now?”

“Yes. Are you going to be okay with that one?” Luke asked, referring to Ava.

Nate nodded, his ice-blue eyes shining. “Don’t worry; I know how to get rid of her. You get out of here.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.” Luke grabbed Elise’s hand. “Come on, Lise.”

Elise let him direct her toward the front door, but she paused to say something in Ava’s ear. When Elise was finished, she smiled knowingly, and Ava looked pissed.

Once they were outside, Elise asked, “Did you know that she slept with Nate? After you were together?”

“Yes.”

She looked surprised. “You did?”

“Yes, Nate doesn’t hide anything from me. After we broke up, he asked me if it was okay, and I gave him the go-ahead. I think I knew it would make it easier for me to cut ties with her. And I think that’s why Nate did it, too. He never really liked her in the first place.”

“Okay. As long as you know and you’re okay with it, then I’m okay with it. How guys can sleep with someone they don’t like makes no sense to me.”

“We’re a different breed, baby.”

“You know you can do much better than her, right?”

“I know. I’m with you after all.”

She smiled. “Good answer.”

“What did you say to her anyway?” Luke asked.

Elise grinned. “I told her that my birthday was this week, and all I wanted was you. And then I told her my wish already came true.”

Luke put his arm around her and pulled her close. “God, I love you.”

She grabbed on to the hand around her neck and linked their fingers, looking up at him. “I love you, too.”