CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
APPARENTLY, CHOOSING LINGERIE was harder than choosing an outfit the whole world was going to see.
It had always been a whole production to choose an outfit to go out with Bennett, but at least she hadn’t had to worry about what she was wearing underneath her clothes, too.
Now she felt supremely worried about it. Did she need sexier lingerie? Should it match? What cut did Luke prefer?
These were questions that she felt she needed answers to. But she also didn’t want to ask the questions.
Truly, it was concerning.
But she had a few hours to deal with it. At least, that was what she thought. Until there was a knock on her door.
Her mom? Bennett?
She didn’t really want to deal with either of them.
No, it couldn’t be her mother because her mother had just been texting her from the doctor, while she was waiting for her routine physical, and there was no way that she would be done with that so quickly.
That was a whole thing. Texting her mother while pondering the underwear she was going to wear to seduce her...
What was Luke to her?
He wasn’t her boyfriend. He was...
Her lover. She supposed. Which sounded very mature and worldly. Descriptors she did not tend to apply to herself.
She didn’t want it to be Bennett, either. She didn’t want to have another fight with him. Luke had mentioned that Bennett had been irritated earlier that day. But as difficult as it had been to face him down prior to her sleeping with Luke, it would be almost impossible today.
She crossed her fingers before she jerked the door open.
Luke.
It was Luke. Relief, excitement and just a bit of apprehension wound through her.
Did he expect to have sex in the middle of the day? That seemed indulgent. Like a cinnamon roll. A cinnamon roll that you ate when you weren’t even hungry.
Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.
She let out a slow breath, trying to dispel the tension in her stomach. “I didn’t expect to see you,” she said.
“I just went and talked to your dad.”
Just like that, any remaining air in her body rushed out, leaving her deflated. “You did?”
“He sold me the land. He’s going to draw up an agreement. He accepted my offer.”
“Luke!” She flung her arms around his neck. “That’s great.”
Then she took a step back, but he grabbed her arm and held her steady, kissed her on the lips. Then he released his hold on her.
“It is,” he said. “He knows that we’re...seeing each other.”
Olivia went warm all over, little pinpricks dotting the back of her neck. “Does he?”
“Well, I should say that he knows we were seen together the other night, and I told him that was true. I just don’t want him getting the wrong idea.”
Her mind raced, as she tried to figure out what the wrong idea might be. “Right,” she said, not willing to admit that she didn’t quite understand. She was tired of feeling like she didn’t understand everything.
“He was excited, I think. Because, with me buying the land he imagines it might give you roots close. In many ways, I feel like he might have thought he was selling it to me as a gift to you.”
Suddenly, it hit her. Her father was now starting to imagine she might marry Luke.
The idea flooded her with a kind of crazy, reckless adrenaline that sent her blood pressure shooting sky-high. Made her hands shake.
She didn’t hate the idea. That was the thing. The idea of spending the rest of forever with Luke Hollister. The man who made her feel safe, but not overprotected, all at the same time. The man who made her feel like she was something precious and special, to be treasured, but also to be lavished with passion.
Luke seemed to understand that she was a controlling, controlled, crazy person. And he seemed to not mind it so much.
She blinked, trying to get those thoughts out of her head. She really, really needed to not entertain things like that. It was her default setting. Wanting security. Wanting forever. Because she didn’t want to face the prospect of heartbreak. Of the aftermath of something like that.
Of loss.
Losing another person that she could never have back.
This thing with Luke wasn’t a marriage thing. She knew it. She obviously had a problem with wanting commitment immediately from any man she could find.
Resolutely, she pushed any warm fuzzy feelings away.
“I see,” she said.
“That kind of didn’t become clear until after. After we had agreed. And I just wanted you to know that I don’t want you to talk to him for me. I don’t want you to say anything.” He cleared his throat. “I see the merit now in not flaunting the relationship,” he continued.
“Right,” she said, hollow.
“Because what are people going to say? When I end up with that land that your father was notoriously reluctant to sell and then...”
“And then we’re done,” she said, “I get it. Fox. Sad little hen.”
“You know it’s what they’ll say.”
She nodded. And she wished that she could tell him she didn’t care. Right now, she felt like she didn’t, but maybe she would. And anyway, he wouldn’t believe it. Not when appearances had always been important enough to her, because of what Vanessa had put her parents through.
“Okay,” she said. “But I want you to know that I don’t think that,” she said. “I know that all of this... It doesn’t have anything to do with the land. I mean, I know we made a deal. About Bennett. And that I would help you. But I also know that the real stuff... I know you’re not using me, Luke,” she said. “I do.” A strange expression crossed his face and her stomach tightened.
“I appreciate that.”
“Take me to the ranch,” she said, feeling impulsive. “I want to see it now. Now that it’s yours.”
“Okay,” he said slowly.
He honestly looked like he had expected things to go a different way. “Luke, did you really think that I would be afraid that you were using me for the land?”
“It’s been said to me more than once over the past couple of weeks that I’m difficult to know.”
“I suppose that could be considered true in some ways,” she said. Because it wasn’t like she knew a whole lot about Luke’s past or anything, but she knew him. She had seen him naked, after all. She hadn’t seen anyone else naked. And no one else had seen her naked.
“But I feel like I know you,” she said. She took a step forward, placing her hand flat on his chest. “I trust you.”
“That feels a little bit misplaced.”
“We’re both getting what we want.” She did her best to look at him, to make eye contact. “I know this isn’t forever, Luke. I know that we are not headed toward a great big happy ending. I’m okay with that. Whatever anyone else thinks... We can’t control that. I’m tired of trying to control everything all the time. Myself. Everyone. So let’s just have this. And not think about the future. That sounds nice to me.”
He nodded slowly. “Okay.”
“Now, take me to your ranch, cowboy.”
* * *
THERE WAS A strange feeling of pride swelling in Olivia’s chest as they drove down the road to the ranch that now belonged to Luke. Or would soon. It was a curious thing.
She had never felt that way for someone before. It struck her then how much her relationship with Bennett had been about her. About what she wanted. About her plans.
She hadn’t really considered Bennett in them much at all. If she had, she wouldn’t have been badgering him mercilessly about getting engaged as if his timeline didn’t exist or matter.
And yes, this relationship with Luke, this relationship that was about sex and satisfaction, that had started to make someone else jealous... It felt different. She cared so much about this ranch that seemed to mean the world to him. Cared so much that it worked out for him.
And she didn’t want to do anything to get in the way of it or to compromise it. Or to ruin the moment.
She had wanted so badly to reassure him, to have nothing spoil that moment of triumph for him.
And she had wanted to share it with him.
This ranch that wouldn’t be for her. That would maybe be for another woman someday. Whatever woman he decided to marry. He said he didn’t want to get married, but with a place like this, and plans and a future ahead of him... That would change. She was sure of it.
They were going down the driveway, toward a home that had nothing to do with her goals. And she just... Her chest felt full with her need for him to be happy. Her need for him to feel satisfied. To have good things.
Unconsciously she reached across the space between them in that old truck of his that was starting to feel familiar, and she rested her hand on his leg.
Feeling a little bit possessive, perhaps because she had just been thinking about some other woman being in his life.
They didn’t speak as he pulled the truck up to the house and they both got out.
They stood in front of the place, and she put her arm around his waist, leaning her head against his shoulder. “It’s yours.”
“I’ve got the keys to the house,” he said.
“Let’s go in,” she said, feeling excited.
“I was warned it was rough,” he said. “I’m probably going to get a new construction going.”
She looked at him. “You can still afford to get a new house built?”
He laughed. “Yes.”
Olivia scrunched up her face as she regarded his completely cool expression. “Did you... Are you a hit man or something?”
“No,” he said, laughing.
She squinted. “A male prostitute?”
That made him laugh again. “No.”
“Luke, I just realized I don’t know that much about you.”
His expression turned irritated. “Didn’t we just talk about this?”
“Yes. But that isn’t what I mean. I don’t mean about who you are. I know who you are. You seem like you don’t care, but you do. You care about every square inch of dirt in this county, I think. You care most of all about the land that’s Get Out of Dodge. And you care a lot about this place. You’re going to make it yours. And you’re going to work it with everything you have, because that’s what you do. You paste a smile on your face and make it look like you’re not trying at all while you throw your heart and soul into whatever you do. Even if it’s making Bennett Dodge jealous. I know what kind of man you are. But I don’t know the details about your life. And I’ve seen you naked. I want something that’s more than naked.”
He frowned. “What’s the point of that, Liv? When we know that it’s not forever?”
Those words stabbed her in the chest, but she kept on going. “Maybe that’s the best reason. I spent a really long time keeping everything to myself. Because control was very important to me. And not letting anyone see the cracks in who I am. I didn’t want my parents to see me as vulnerable. I didn’t want to worry anyone. But... I’ll worry you. That’s fine. This has been my safe space. This thing that’s just you and me. There’s never been anything like it for me. Not even close.” She felt silly saying that, because she knew that he wouldn’t be able to answer in kind. But it didn’t matter. “So, I just want to know. I want to feel like I know you that way, too.”
“Not a gigolo,” he said. “Haven’t killed anyone. No secret government contract work, either.”
“Darn,” she said.
The wind rustled through the pines, the cold air stinging her cheeks. And she waited. Waited for him to say something. Anything.
“It’s an insurance settlement,” he said.
“What kind?”
He sighed heavily. “Let’s go in.”
He took the keys out of his pocket, and the two of them walked up the rickety front porch and inside the little country house. The screen door swung shut behind them with a resounding crash.
It was a rough house. But it was cute.
They walked past the little living room, which still had some blue-and-white flowered couches and a knotty pine floor, into the kitchen, which was all yellow and white details. From the two-tone cabinets to the little flowers on the linoleum floor. There were lace curtains in the windows that were very cheery even though they were full of dust and probably a few spiderwebs.
The lace made them seem like fancy spiderwebs, at least.
There was a little breakfast nook with a Shaker-style table and chairs that looked out over the field. She imagined in summer the flowers in that field were yellow, too.
It made her think that a little farm family could come home at any moment.
It was like her dollhouse. This perfect, simple little place that had inhabited a part of her dreams since she was a child. So much more her than the cottage she lived in now.
She could imagine a life here far too well. Children, a couple who spent their time working on the lands together. Who invested in something together.
Her chest felt tight.
Her dream wasn’t here. Her dream had been Get Out of Dodge and Bennett. Now it would have to be something new, but it couldn’t be this.
She was a grown woman. She didn’t need to move into a place that reminded her of a dollhouse. Couldn’t afford to entertain fantasies of a life spent with a man who claimed not to want that.
“This isn’t so bad,” she said, looking around. They walked through the kitchen and into the hall, which had real wood floors, and a narrow staircase with a yellow-and-white banister up the side.
“It’s definitely not modern,” he said.
“It’s not,” Olivia agreed. “It’s like a little snapshot of another time. Perfect.” Oh, so very perfect.
“I promise that if I build a new house I won’t get rid of this one,” he said, his gaze suddenly intense on hers. “Promise.”
She didn’t know why it mattered so much that he’d made that promise to her, all sincerity and seriousness. But it did.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
He walked through and rested his hand on the stair rail. “I grew up in a house that was nothing like this one. A little place in Eugene. Tract housing from the sixties.” He looked around the room. “I dreamed about places like this. Those places that seem simple, but you don’t realize at the time actually are very expensive. I dreamed of the kind of life where I could work with my hands and fix my situation.” He turned to look at her. “Nobody knows this, Olivia.” And she could hear the unspoken question in the statement that told her she needed to stay the only person that knew.
She nodded slowly.
“I never knew my dad. My mom was single always, as far as I know. Maybe she didn’t even know who my dad was. She never talked about him. But it didn’t take me long to start realizing that my mom wasn’t quite like other kids’ moms. She didn’t have a lot of energy, and it was difficult for her to see to everyday tasks sometimes. Some days she didn’t get out of bed at all. And on those days, I just expected that I would have to feed us both. I learned how to make pancakes when I was six. We ate a lot of pancakes. I loved my mom. I really didn’t mind taking care of her. And it was easy enough to get myself to school most days. I could ride my bike, so that was simple. By the time I got old enough, I just started forging her signature on school documents so that I didn’t have to miss out on field trips and things. Because keeping track of all that paperwork was too difficult for her.”
Olivia thought of her own family. Of the way that her mother and father had always been so involved in her life. Her mother had volunteered in her class always. Her father such a presence that she couldn’t imagine simply not having a father at all. It hurt her just to think about it.
Luke hadn’t just been without one parent, he had been the caregiver for the one he had.
And he talked about it with a strange kind of affection that she could hardly understand. Maybe it hadn’t been her fault in some ways, but she’d left a little boy to his own devices. It made Olivia want to shelter him. Protect him.
But he didn’t seem upset.
He cleared his throat. “It was a combination of permanent disability and government housing that paid for where we lived. Food stamps. I took a lot of charity. Coats for Kids, that kind of thing. It all worked. It worked fine enough. But I definitely dreamed of bigger things. I watched a lot of Westerns.” He looked around the room. “I loved everything about them. The idea you could forge your own way. Like you said. I wanted to be a cowboy.”
“Yeah,” she said, her stomach tightening with dread, because she could sense that this wasn’t going to a happy place.
“When I was sixteen I went into my mother’s room and I found her unresponsive. She had taken an entire bottle of sleeping pills. It wasn’t accidental.”
“Luke,” she said, the word coming out in a breath of horror.
“Don’t do that,” he said, “don’t give me sad eyes and sorries. I’ve never told anyone this.” He reiterated that part, and Olivia went silent. “I just need to say it. My mother killed herself. She killed herself two days after she and I got in a big fight and I asked what the hell she was doing. What the hell she was doing with her life. With our lives. That she couldn’t ever be there for me.”
He took a deep breath and looked across the room. “I understand that I didn’t make her do it. Because fighting with your mom...that’s normal,” he said, resolute. “That’s normal life stuff. It’s normal teenage stuff. But our lives were never normal. I lied about my age when the police came by, but I knew it wouldn’t take long for them to figure out I was a minor. I dodged a social worker after that, called the office and said I was looking for relatives. Then I found out about the insurance money.”
Olivia bit her lip, trying to do what he had asked her to do. Trying to keep silent so that he could just tell his story.
“She’d taken out a policy a few years before. Which is interesting to note because there’s a time frame, often, with suicide. If you take the policy out and kill yourself within a couple of years, your remaining family doesn’t get the money. And all I can think sometimes... Is that she thought I would be better off with the money than with her. I got so angry at her, and I yelled at her. And I told her how messed up our lives were. And how she didn’t do anything for me. So I think she figured I could have money instead.”
“You can’t know that,” she said, the words rushing from her mouth before she could stop them. He hadn’t wanted her to say anything, but she couldn’t just let him stand there and say that. Not when it hurt so much. Not when it was hurting them both. “She’s not here, so you can’t ask her.”
“I know,” he said, his words scratchy, his green eyes pained. “That’s why it’s so damned hard. That’s why I have to wonder. Because she’s not here. Because she left the money instead. Because whatever the reasoning was, if she had any reasoning at all, or if it was just another dark moment in a lifetime filled with them, and this time the darkness won... I don’t know. All I know is that I was left with money. A hell of a lot of money. And no mother.”
Her heart felt like lead. Pounding against her chest. Pounding so hard she couldn’t breathe. Could hardly speak. She wanted so badly to fix it. To go back in time and take care of the boy that he’d been.
So much of her life she’d been about control. About fixing. But she couldn’t fix this.
She hated it. Imagining this man, this gorgeous, strong, laid-back man, alone and vulnerable, made her ache all the way down.
“Why didn’t you end up in foster care?” she asked.
“Because I disappeared. And nobody really looked that hard for me. I’m not a missing person or anything. I just left that house. Quinn had that ad in the paper... Hiring a ranch hand. In Gold Valley. It was the place I’d dreamed about. I needed to go. I needed to...to see if it was what I hoped it would be. There was nothing behind me, nothing around me. There was only going forward.” Luke shook his head. “I thought maybe it was my chance to have that life. That life that I’d seen in those movies. But I never wanted to use my mother’s money. I was much happier working my ass off, much happier getting no more than what I had earned off my own back. But the problem with money like that is that it sits there. It just sits there. And if you do nothing with it... Well, what if that was why she killed herself? What’s worse than using it to make a better life? Not using it, right? Not honoring that twisted sacrifice. But I don’t even like to think of it that way. I don’t know how to think of it. That’s why for twenty years that money has just been there. Until this place.”
This place. This ranch. The thing that was the ultimate realization of his dream. He had put that off; he had buried it deep, just as he had done with everything else. She could see that now. He had always seemed to her like a man who didn’t worry much about what anyone thought. A man who seemed supremely unbothered in general by life. But she knew now that wasn’t the case. He cared. He cared so much about so many things.
But it was painful. And that was why he chose to smile instead.
She had felt like she had known him before he had told her this, but it was different now. It truly was. Because now all those separate little pieces of him had come together. This one thread weaving into the complete picture of Luke Hollister. Just another mystery about the man solved. But it had opened up so much more.
Her image of him had shifted. She didn’t just see the man standing in front of her, but the boy he’d been. Grieving. Guilty. Alone. Moving hours away, taking a chance on a job. Leaving his home. It made all that ease he possessed seem so much stronger. So much deeper. Because she knew now that it had come from hardship, from pain she’d never even imagined.
“You came to Gold Valley all alone,” she said. “And you were sixteen.”
“Yes. I lied about my age, but I think Quinn suspected it. And obviously I don’t claim to be older than I am now, so he’s certainly figured it out at this point. He let me stay on the property... He never asked me why I came there. But I think he recognized the loss in me. Because he experienced loss himself. Sometimes I think you see that in each other.”
“Do you?”
His eyes connected with hers. “I think we see it in each other, don’t you?”
The words landed precisely in her heart, made it throb. “You can hardly compare my loss to yours.”
“Yes I can,” he said. “I can’t imagine having a twin sister pull away from you like that. Hell, I don’t have any siblings. When my mother died, it left just me. So I went and I made another family. But the loss is still there. You have friends, you have a life, you have a close relationship with your parents, but it doesn’t mean the loss of Vanessa isn’t still there.”
She looked away, twisting her hands together. “I suppose so.”
“We have a lot of things in us that are different,” he said, reaching out, his thumb brushing against her cheek. “But I think we have some of that same pain.”
She reached up and placed her hand over his, encouraged him to flatten his palm over her cheek. “We make each other feel some of the same pleasure, too,” she said softly.
She was entranced by that thought. That for all their differences—his age, his experience, his seemingly easygoing attitude compared to her—that at their core there was something that the other recognized. And maybe that was where they ignited. All those other things struck the sparks, but that right there was the fuel. It was what made it undeniable. It was what made it endless.
“I think that might be so.”
“Look at this place,” she said, turning around in a circle, looking around the room. “I bet you anything that your mother would be so happy to know that you have it.”
He took a deep breath, and she could see that it was cutting into him. That it was painful. “I think she would. I think if there had been a time when she could have figured out a way to get on top of that demon that was always on her back, this is the kind of place she would’ve wanted. I think it’s the right place.”
“For your roots,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” he responded.
He took hold of her hand and the two of them walked out of the house, back out to the driveway. It was starting to get dark now, twilight settling over the tops of the mountains, the inky black at the center of the sky bleeding down to the tops of the pines.
She didn’t want tonight to end. Didn’t want this time to end. She wanted to be here with him, on the verge of this new step he was taking. Now that she knew how big this was for him. How much it meant.
More selfishly, she wanted him to remember her being in that house. Wanted him to remember her standing in the driveway. Wanted him to remember her down by the river, and in every other piece of the land.
“Can you show me the barn?” she asked.
He looked over at her, his expression inscrutable in the dim light. “Sure.”
He opened up his truck, retrieved a battery-powered lantern from the back, twisting the knob and illuminating the gravel around them, a shaft of light on part of his face. He was so beautiful she ached.
She wanted him. Suddenly, so very much, that she felt desperate for it. For him.
He took her hand and started to lead her toward the field. “Wait,” she said. “I’m cold.”
“I have a blanket in the truck,” he said.
She nodded and he reached in and grabbed it, handing it to her. She wrapped it around her shoulders, a plan and a shiver winding through her as he gripped her hand and led her through the field, toward the edge of the trees where the old barn stood.
It was old and rickety, probably past the point of repair. This would most likely have to be demolished to make room for a new structure. One that didn’t have large gaps in the siding that let in the cold night air, and the same gaps in the ceiling that revealed a smattering of stars coming forward, a light in the darkness.
The ground was dusty, but dry, and there was a small amount of hay spread out around them. There was a pile of it in the corner, too, and she had a feeling that it was probably worse for wear from the weather that no doubt got in through the cracks.
“I think this will do,” he said.
Olivia’s heart was pounding hard. And she tightened her hold on the blanket and looked from Luke to the floor of the barn. Yes. It would do perfectly. For tonight. Tonight with him.
She felt... It was an amazing thing. Feeling like she knew him like this. In the house, he had laid bare his soul to her. He had told her things about himself that nobody knew. They had traded that information, as she had given hers to him. Luke Hollister was the only man on earth who knew how she felt about Vanessa. Who knew the guilt she carried and knew the burden that she felt to be the good one. To be the one that never caused any trouble. To be the one that her parents could count on. She knew that his smile was a mask for loss. For pain. That the man who seemed like he didn’t care much about anything, cared hell of a lot about everything. That his loyalty to the Dodge family came from a place of knowing what family meant. Of how painful losing family could be.
And it was too cold to skinny-dip. Otherwise, she had half a mind to drag him down to the creek, so that she could do something to express the ways in which she felt changed. By him. By this. So that she could strip off her clothes in front of the whole world and declare that connection. Those feelings.
Feelings that were raw, tender and frightening. The kinds of feelings that she had always tried to choke out.
And it might be a little cold in this barn, too, but she knew what she wanted. Knew that after their conversation, after the confession that he had given to her, that no one else on earth had, she wanted to give him something that no one else had ever had of her.
She unwrapped the blanket from her shoulders and laid it across the floor. He turned away from where he was looking in the barn and gave her a questioning glance.
Heart thundering heavily, she kicked off her boots, and then undid the buttons on her coat.
“Olivia?”
“Let me,” she said.
She pulled her top up over her head and threw it down onto the floor, goose bumps breaking out over her skin as the cold washed over her. Then she undid her jeans, pushed them down her legs before she could lose her nerve. And in one quick breath she did the same to her panties, leaving herself standing there naked in the dimness, a bit of the lantern light shining over her.
She could see a hungry glittering in Luke’s eyes and it didn’t shock her. It made her feel good. Made her feel excited.
“I want you,” she said.
“You said you were cold.”
“Not anymore.”
And it was like a clap of thunder had sounded. Like the truth of it all was suddenly so bright, so clear.
She loved him. She loved him with everything she was. With everything she ever would be.
She had spent a lot of years trying not to. She had spent a lot of years making sure he never got close enough for those feelings inside of her to have a chance to turn into this. Somehow, some part of her must have known that all it would ever take was the slightest bit of water on that seed, and it would grow into a tree that would be so large and so strong it could never be shaken, could never be uprooted.
That part of her had been wise. Wise and intuitive.
Because here she was, having slept with him once, and totally and permanently in love with him.
She wasn’t going to say that though. She was just going to show him.
“You want me now?” he asked, a hint of that amused smile on his face, but not the whole thing. As if he couldn’t quite force it out.
Always. “Right here,” she said. “Right now.”
She almost smiled because that very confident, sex kitten voice didn’t feel like her. But it did, too. In some ways. Because he made her feel like she could reach new parts of herself. Like she was stretching out inside of herself for the first time and taking up all the space she could, instead of shoving herself into one corner.
She closed the distance between them and placed her palm on his cheek, stretching up on her toes, pressing her naked body against his entirely clothed one as she kissed him.
It was so strange, kissing him while she knew she loved him. While she knew she was in love with Luke Hollister with everything in her.
It made her want to cry. But she was going to try to keep it all together.
She’d never been in love before. That thought went through her like a lance through her stomach. That this was a first for her in so many ways, regardless of what she had imagined before.
This was love. This was hope for the future, a pain in her heart, her chest, her lungs, coming together with desires in her body. This was honesty. It was two people who connected on every level. Skin to skin, soul to soul.
She had thought that she could have a relationship that cherry-picked those things, that she could care and call it love, that she could hold on to secrets and call it love. That she could keep her control and call it love. But Luke had shown her that for her at least, for them, that wasn’t enough. She wanted to be closer. She wanted to strip everything that was between them away so that they could connect. This thing that had frightened her for so long... Suddenly, it wasn’t enough. Suddenly, it wasn’t scary. It was necessary.
The buttons on his shirt abraded her nipples as she arched against him. His large, rough hand moved to cup her butt as he drew her up against him.
When she pulled away, she examined his expression. It was raw, almost uncivilized. She liked him like that. Liked that she—Olivia Logan, the consummate civilized lady—could reduce him to this.
And that he could reduce her, too. To a creature of need and desire rather than one of logic and control.
But then, that was the beauty of this. This all-encompassing feeling that she was choosing it over control. That she chose it above everything. Because it was everything and so was he. Because it was better. Because the risk was worth the potential reward.
The present was so blindingly beautiful she didn’t have to live for a hypothetical future. The journey was so amazing she didn’t have to obsess about the destination.
She unbuttoned the top two buttons on his shirt, kissed his throat, down lower. Then she undid the next button and the next. Slowly, she pressed her hand beneath the fabric of his shirt, feeling his hot skin, his chest hair, his muscles. He was so beautiful. So undeniably, incredibly masculine.
From the solidity of his frame to the deep, rumbling sound he made when she kissed him at the hollow of his throat.
She finished unbuttoning his shirt, lowering herself down with each button as she went, and then finally came to kneel in front of him. Butterflies jostled around in her stomach as she reached up and undid the button on his jeans. She could see that most masculine part of him outlined to perfection there beneath the denim. She knew what he looked like already, had already had him inside of her once. But not like this. She was afraid she would do it wrong. That she wouldn’t be anywhere near as good as the girl he’d been with in the bathroom at the saloon. That she wouldn’t be as good as any of the women he’d been with at all.
But none of those women knew about his past. None of them knew where he had come from. She did. On some level, that had to matter.
She lowered the zipper slowly, her heart pounding in her throat as she drew the fabric down, revealing his arousal to her gaze.
“Olivia...” His name on her lips was a warning, but it was one that she wasn’t going to heed. After all, she was intending exactly what he suspected she was.
She had a feeling he didn’t realize that. But she was.
She curved her fingers around his length, and then leaned forward, tasting him tentatively.
She had never imagined herself doing this. Had never imagined wanting to. But with him it hadn’t even been much of a consideration. She just wanted to make him feel good. And she wanted...
She wanted him to remember her, to remember this. However many women came after her, she wanted him to remember her most of all.
This wasn’t a loss of control. It never really had been. This was her, a woman of supreme control, deciding to surrender to something wholeheartedly.
Olivia was the kind of person who got exactly what she set her mind to. And this would be no different.
She shifted, tightening her hold on him, and taking more of him into her mouth. And then she was lost. In the feral sounds that he made as she pleasured him with her mouth, in the flavor of him on her tongue, in the fact that she felt so connected to him. But nothing felt shocking or dirty about what was happening between them. It felt good. It felt right.
And it turned her on. That she could make him feel like this. She could make a man like him shake.
He bucked his hips and a wave of pleasure washed over her. When she realized just how close he was to losing his control. When she realized just how efficiently she had brought him to the brink. It reminded her of the way he had done the same to her in his truck that first night. When a kiss and a little bit of intimate contact had made her lose herself completely. Because the pull between them was so strong. Because the chemistry was so real.
“Olivia,” he rasped, his voice completely frayed.
“Shhh,” she said, “I’m enjoying myself.” She took him in deeper, pleasure bursting through her like a firework, popping along her veins. Her breasts felt heavy, an ache growing, deepening inside of her.
“This has to stop now.” He grabbed hold of her shoulders and lifted her up, and no amount of protest could stop him. “I need you. Not just this. You. All of you. I need to be in you, Liv. So deep. So deep I can’t see straight. So deep I can’t think anymore.” Then he picked her up, grabbing hold of both thighs and wrapping her legs around his waist as he brought her down on the blanket, settling himself between her thighs. He kissed her deeply, rocking his slick erection against that place where she was wet and needy for him.
She gasped, those simple motions nearly bringing her to the brink.
“Gotta get a condom,” he said, pressing his lips against her neck as he contorted, reaching into his back pocket and producing his wallet. “I was hoping,” he said, his tone apologetic as he pulled out the condom. “Just so you know this is in there because I was hoping this would happen with you. Not anyone else.”
A smile curved her lips upward. “I know,” she said, lacing her fingers through his hair and kissing his chin, loving the way it prickled beneath her lips.
“Do you?”
She did. She really did. Because if there was one thing she was confident in now it was that she had him. Right now, she had all of him.
“I do.”
She took the packet from him and tore it open, her fingers shaking as she struggled to figure out which side of the protection went up, and once she figured it out she placed it over the head of his arousal and began to roll it down over his length.
She wanted to do this. Wanted to be an active participant in all of it. She might not have experience, but she had desire in spades.
She was going to make sure it counted for something.
He rocked his hips backward, then pressed the head of him against the entrance to her body, teasing her with a slight push forward and a pull away.
It shocked her how different it felt this time. How ready she was for him. How it didn’t hurt.
No, this time, she thought she would die if she didn’t have him.
When he finally did join himself to her, there was none of the tearing pain that she had felt the first time. It was just... Perfect. Like being home. It might not be being good, but whatever it was it was what she wanted to be. This woman who had Luke Hollister, at least for now, body and soul.
That was the woman she wanted to be. Hers. His.
This wasn’t about anyone else. Not about performing or pleasing anyone but each other.
She closed her eyes and rode on a wave of satisfaction as her orgasm crashed through her, as he followed closely behind. She clung to him after, shaking and sweating, feeling absolutely and completely undone by what had passed between them.
When it was over, Luke rolled to his side and pulled her up against him, and she laid her head on his chest, taking in the feeling of his heart beating against her cheek, his skin beaded with sweat beneath where she had rested her palm. She liked that, too, and she would have said she didn’t.
She would have said that a lot of this couldn’t have possibly excited her before Luke. That the absolute possession of his body, the sweat and heavy breathing, wasn’t appealing at all.
Except with him it was more than appealing. It was a craving.
“You’re probably cold,” he said, curving his arm around her and rubbing his hand over her arm.
“Not really,” she said.
The moment he said that, she became more conscious of the chill in the air, but before that she hadn’t noticed it at all.
“Still, I’d better get you home,” he said.
Those words sat funny in her chest, all while she got dressed, and while he adjusted his clothes. Then when they got back into the car she realized why.
“Are you... You’re taking me to my home?”
“Yeah,” he responded. “I have to be up early tomorrow. And it was great to bring you out to look around here, but I expect you’ll want some time to yourself.”
He hadn’t asked her if she wanted time to herself. He was just assuming. Well, that made her wonder some things. If he was just giving her time, or if he had got sex so didn’t need anything else from her.
She didn’t want to beg, though. Well, she did want to beg. But she also didn’t want to make it all about her. Because this reaction had something to do with him. Him and his emotions. And the woman that she had been with Bennett, the woman who had wanted a very specific relationship that served her very specific needs, would have badgered him. She would have tried as hard as she could to get her way. To finagle a sleepover invitation so that she wouldn’t have to be uncomfortable.
The way she had done with Bennett and the marriage proposals.
She wasn’t going to do that now. Even though it hurt her feelings a bit to have him put her off, she also wanted very much to make sure that he got what he needed.
She wished that what he needed was her, holding him all night. Talking to him. Being with him.
Clearly it wasn’t what he needed right now. So there was no point making an issue.
“Okay,” she said, “that’s fine with me.”
They were silent the rest of the way, and when he dropped her off he kissed her, which made her feel slightly more at ease. Just slightly.
“See you tomorrow, Liv,” he said.
That confidence filled her with a sense of happiness. That he figured he would see her tomorrow. That he hoped to. Maybe things weren’t so dire after all. Maybe it really was just a matter of giving him his space. After all, the conversation they’d had about his mother had been quite intense, and he probably needed a chance to deal with it. She didn’t have the right to be upset about that.
He had given her what she had asked for, and now she needed to give him that unspoken thing.
“See you tomorrow, Luke,” she said, getting out of the truck.
Luke walked her up the porch steps and stopped her at the door, leaning in and kissing her again. Chaste. Sweet compared to the other times they’d kissed. And then he tipped his hat, like he hadn’t just ravished her silly on the floor of a barn.
Like he was a real, old-fashioned gentleman and she was a lady.
She sighed, trying to ignore the tender feeling in her chest. Just tender. That was all. It wasn’t painful. Not really.
Well, it was a little bit painful. Being in love was a little bit painful all around.
She walked into the house, closing and locking the door behind her. Then she walked to the window, pushed one of the lace curtains to the side and watched Luke drive away. Watched until she couldn’t see his truck anymore.
She fought the urge to text him. Right away. To make sure he was okay and everything was okay and he still liked her and wanted to make love with her again.
Instead, she sent a text to her mother to let her know that she was home, and then gave her a call and chatted with her idly, trying not to let her mind stray back to the intimate few hours she had spent with Luke at his property.
She would love to talk to her mother about Luke, but right now she didn’t really know what to say. Because she couldn’t find a middle ground between keeping it all to herself and wanting to shout that she was in love from the mountaintops.
Being in love was strange. And a whole lot different than she had thought. She had been completely rational when it came to her feelings for Bennett. Completely able to talk about them to people.
With Luke, it felt so important it seemed like something she needed to keep to herself. And so big she wasn’t sure that she could, not without exploding.
There was nothing simple about love. There was nothing controlled about love.
As she got into the shower, the words that had struck her yesterday after she and Luke had made love for the first time rolled through her head on repeat.
She had been right to be afraid of this. But she was pretty sure she was going to embrace it anyway.