CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SHE HAD BEEN right to be afraid of this.
As Olivia lay on Luke’s bed, his large, naked body pressed over the top of her, buried inside of her, the bed soft beneath her and him hard above her, her chest feeling like it would crack in two... That was all she could think of.
That sex was every inch as terrifying as she had been scared it might be.
Everything had been so hot. So bright and real, sweaty and incredibly clear. In her mind, it had always been a foggy thing. Hidden behind the mists of secrecy, shrouded in mystery. Yes, she had known about how sex worked. But there had been a certain measure of fantasy in her thoughts about it. Whenever she had let herself think about having it with Bennett she hadn’t focused on body parts. Hadn’t focused on the physical act itself. But on feelings. On how nice it would be for the two of them to be so close. On what it would symbolize.
She hadn’t thought about skin. Sweaty, close, intimate. Hadn’t thought of what it would be like to have something so hard, so male, inside of her. And how close that really made you with someone.
Hadn’t thought about large, strong hands that would hold her so tight she was afraid she might be bruised, and the kind of strange, overheated pleasure that made that somehow seem like a good idea.
She really hadn’t thought about the possibility of anyone putting their mouth where Luke had. Again, not that she philosophically didn’t understand that happened, it was just that she hadn’t thought about it. She had avoided. Avoided and pushed to the side and covered it all up.
But here she was, uncovered, naked in his arms, a completely different creature to the one that she would say she had been all of her life. Except, this was her. There was no denying it. This was her with no makeup, no clothes and no defenses at all. She had no idea what to do with that.
She wanted to curl up into a ball and disappear, but that was impossible to do with that hard, rangy body still on top of her. Those intense, green eyes burning into hers.
She was about to say something, about to tell him that she needed to get up, but he pressed his palm to her cheek. Then he kissed her. It was tender, in comparison with everything that had come before it. Shockingly, impossibly, it stoked the fire inside of her again. A fire she would have said didn’t exist, then would have said had been extinguished handily by Luke in the past few minutes. But there it was again. All it took was that firm mouth on hers. The slick sweep of his tongue.
Too soon, the kiss stopped, and he pushed himself up and away from her, withdrawing from her body. She gasped. She wasn’t prepared for the way that her heart twisted, for the way that the loss of him felt. As if he had taken part of her with him.
As overwhelming as it had been to be joined, being separated again was worse. She had felt fine before. Now she felt like something was missing.
He turned away from her, and she took that opportunity to study his naked body. She had never seen a naked man in person before. His back was muscular—which she had known already, because she had seen him without a shirt before—but then, the muscle continued, all the way down. To his butt, which was a thing of art, and his thighs, which were sculpted and made her mouth water. Which was weird, because she had never devoted any time to thinking about a man’s thighs before.
He walked out of the room without saying anything and she let out a long breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding in. She looked up at the ceiling, at the unfamiliar wooden slats, then over at his nightstand. The condom box was sitting on the bed in front of it, looking half demolished. The nightstand itself had very little on it. A lamp and what looked like a phone charger.
His whole house was sparse.
It didn’t contain a single thing that she would identify as being Luke. Which fit, really. Because Luke couldn’t be contained in a cabin. Not even pieces of him.
She realized after a breath that she was lying there completely naked, on her back with her legs spread, and her arms flung out to the side. Her clothes were... Well, everywhere. Some in the living room, some in here.
She hadn’t anticipated that, either.
She scurried up to the top of the bed and situated herself beneath the covers, drawing the blankets up to her chin.
A moment later, Luke reappeared in the doorway. Completely naked. Still naked, and not at all ashamed. Not like her.
But then Luke had probably been naked in front of a lot of women. Like the woman in the bathroom at the saloon, for instance.
Thinking about that made her stomach twist, an intense, vile feeling that she didn’t like at all.
But even as she battled that, she took the opportunity to admire him. The man was the mysteries of the universe revealed as far as she was concerned. The answer to the question of what a naked man looked like. The answer to the question of what an orgasm felt like, what sex was actually all about.
So strange that she had associated it with romance.
What had happened between them had not felt romantic. It had felt like willingly throwing herself down on a knife’s edge. Far too sharp. Far too intense.
And yet, somehow, even as it ached from the unfamiliar invasion, her body seemed to want more.
He walked across the room and sat on the edge of the bed, looking over at her. “Something that you want to talk about?” he asked.
“Quite the rainstorm outside,” she said, curling up into a ball and burrowing deeper into the bedding. “Otherwise, it’s been a fairly mild January.”
“Not the weather, little squirrel girl, try again.”
“I’ve never done that before,” she said, the words sticking in her throat. “Sorry I didn’t tell you. I thought that maybe you had guessed.”
“I knew that you were inexperienced. I didn’t think you were lacking in experience entirely. I figured... Bennett.”
She shook her head. “No.”
“He’s a fucking idiot.”
The response was so shocking that Olivia laughed. She would have said that was impossible a split second ago, but the absurdity of all of it gripped her. And she found herself giggling helplessly, naked beneath the covers in Luke’s bed, while he sat on the edge of the mattress with nothing covering him at all, looking at her like she had lost her mind.
Maybe she had.
Well, she definitely had. She had lost her mind the moment she had left her house tonight, intending to go to Luke’s to seduce him.
She’d had something completely different in mind. She was supposed to come in looking confident and sexy. She was supposed to tease him, flirt with him. Take control of everything. She was supposed to destroy that part of her life that was Bennett Dodge, and all the aspirations she had with him with a simple stroke, so to speak.
But that wasn’t how it had gone. Starting with the fact that she had stood out in the rain until she had been dripping wet and had effectively ruined any seductive appeal she might have had.
So already, by the time she had knocked on the door she was not in the space she had hoped to be. But then... Then, it hadn’t gone any closer to plan from there.
She hadn’t seduced anyone. No, Luke had effectively seduced her. He had put any and all claims to control she had ever made to terrible, red-faced shame. He had obliterated all thoughts of Bennett from her mind, had made revenge so low on the list of reasons she had come, she wasn’t sure it was even there anymore.
And by the time he had slid inside of her... There hadn’t been anyone else. There hadn’t been another person on earth as far as she was concerned, much less a man who had driven her into Luke’s arms.
Luke had driven her into Luke’s arms.
That thought hit her fully then. The realization washing over her like a wave. All of this, all of the fictions that she had carefully constructed over the past few weeks... Reasons to spend time with Luke. Reasons they had to touch, reasons that kissing him had been rational.
It had been about Luke. Bennett had been the palatable excuse.
He was right.
She didn’t care. Not really. She had no more passionately loved Bennett than he had loved her. If she had, she would have curled up on the floor of her house and wept all evening, she wouldn’t have run straight to Luke’s cabin.
She was a woman who considered herself reasonable, above all else. Who considered herself controlled and rational and above all the romantic entanglements her friends had had over the past few months. She had judged everyone from a place of imperious superiority. When Clara had started sleeping with her late older brother’s best friend Alex, with no promise of commitment, Olivia had scoffed. When Sabrina had engaged in a physical-only relationship with the man who had once broken her heart, Olivia had been skeptical and not entirely supportive.
Now here she was. Certainly not above the kinds of decisions her friends had made. No different from most other people when confronted with real, serious attraction. Physical need that made cerebral decision making seem like a pointless exercise. Because what could be more important than the next kiss? The next touch?
The next release?
She hadn’t believed she was so fallible.
“Thank you,” she said slowly. “But you know... It wasn’t him. It was me.”
Luke nodded slowly. “He’s still an idiot.”
“How exactly do you figure that?”
“Because I’m here. He’s not. You’re with me. Somewhere along the way he went wrong.”
Luke made a very masculine sound of satisfaction and stretched out on the bed beside her, above the covers, still unconcerned with the fact that he didn’t have anything on. She was a bit concerned by it. Because she couldn’t concentrate with him like that. Not at all.
“I think that’s the sex talking,” she said, her tone crisp.
“You’re an expert now, are you?”
“Just because I hadn’t had sex doesn’t mean I don’t know about it,” she said, feeling a bit prickly and ridiculous even as she said it, because there was no bluffing Luke at this point. He knew exactly what she knew about sex. And what she didn’t know.
“All right, but I’m going to need you to educate me on a few things, Olivia. Because you’re clearly never at a loss.”
He was teasing her, that wicked smile that she was so accustomed to curving his lips upward. It was so strange. Being here with him like this, seeing that familiar expression in this wildly unfamiliar position. With both of them naked, and her body still buzzing with the aftereffects of their recent intimacy.
“I’ll do my best,” she said, craning her neck above the covers.
“Why didn’t you ever sleep with Bennett?” He shifted, and her eyes were drawn to the play of muscles on his chest, the bunch and shift of his abs. “Eyes up here, kiddo. Focus.” She looked up and made eye contact, her stomach hollowing out when she did. “Don’t tell me it’s because you were waiting for marriage. If you had been, you never would have come here tonight, and we both know it. Because if there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that you put your mind to something and you get it. Hell, even if you don’t get it, you’re willing to go down in a blazing, bloodied knuckled glory. So I don’t buy that you were just waiting.”
“I wanted to be engaged to Bennett first,” she said, lowering her head, part of the comforter blocking her mouth, muffling her words.
“Right. But here we are, not engaged.”
“Because I... I was mad when I came over. But that’s not really why this happened. I’m attracted to you.”
The infuriating man had the nerve to laugh at her. “No shit.”
“Luke,” she said, frustrated, pulling her hand out of the covers and slapping him on the shoulder. “Try not to be a jackass.”
“I could try, but I feel like it would give you false expectations.”
“I mean, I’ve been attracted to you.” His green gaze went serious then. His lips pulling down into a line. “All this time... I didn’t like it. Bennett... Bennett was safe.”
“Wow. Did you tell him that?”
“No.”
“Probably for the best. That’s right up there with finding out your dad told somebody to date you.”
“Do you remember my sister? I mean, I know that you know about her. It’s not like the whole town isn’t fully aware that I’m a twin. And it isn’t like there aren’t rumors about Vanessa.”
“Yeah,” he said. “She hasn’t lived in Gold Valley for a long time.”
“No. Do you know why?”
“Why?”
“Because my parents sent her away. They sent her away because she was getting into so much trouble. They thought that it would help. It didn’t. It just... It just made her cut ties with all of us.” Her throat tightened, tears filling her eyes. “It’s because of me. They sent my sister away because of me.”