Chapter Six
Mia
Vodka had always made me reckless. I tightened my hold on Luke even as every instinct I had told me to run a bloody mile. “I don’t like this town.”
“Okay.”
“And I don’t like you.”
He snorted. His slow gaze told me that he was at least a little tipsy, but otherwise his handsome face gave nothing away. “Why are you telling me shit I already know?”
I hadno idea. The last words I’d spoken to Gus had been a promise to go straight home, and I’d barely made it out of the car park, but Luke in all his slightly dishevelled glory had cast a brand new spell on me, and I couldn’t seem to make myself leave.
“Walk with me.” I tugged on his arm. “But don’t speak.”
“Why not?”
“Because you have nothing to say that I want to hear.”
Another snort.He fell into step beside me. “Whatdoyou want from me then?”
As if I knew. I ignored him, and it took me until the next street to realise that I was still clutching his arm.
Severing our physical connection felt like sacrilege, but I did it anyway, and I didn’t look at him to gauge his reaction. My thoughts were having a rave in my brain, but one stood out more than anything:God, I wishI’d just met him.
I let the notion develop and grow into the fantasy that we’d met at the pub, and were stumbling home for a drunken hook-up. A few hours of glorious, uncomplicated sex before one of us crept away before dawn. I’d wake up stiff and sore from exertion, but sated...not craving his touch, his love, or even the simple brush of his lips over mine.
My pulse quickened. This wasthe other reason I never drank vodka. It made me horny as well.I wonder if he remembers.Not that it mattered. Luke hadn’t so much as glanced my way in the pub, and I’d spent all night wondering if he’d even known I was there.
Gus’s house came into view. Luke’s steps slowed, like he was preparing to ditch me. A humourless giggle escaped me, and I glanced up to find him watching me, his toffee-colouredeyes almost as dark as Gus’s under the gloomy night sky. “What?”
He shrugged. “You’re the one laughing like a maniac.”
I couldn’t deny it, and the urge to pick up the pace and walk away from him was strong, but I didn’t. I slowed to match him, then stopped altogether when we reached Gus’s house. “I’m laughing because us walking together through Rushmere is ridiculous. It’s a million milesaway from where I pictured myself a year ago.”
“Where did you picture yourself?”
“Like you care.”
“Asked, didn’t I?”
He wasn’t about to trick me into believing he gave a shit about me just because we were having a conversation. I leaned on Gus’s wall, fisting my keys in my pocket. “Whatever. Put it this way, I haven’t ever pictured myself wandering around with you, half cut andhorny, and not doing anything about it.”
The words fell out of me before I could stop them, or consider how true they were. On the rare moments I had imagined myself with Luke over the years, when I wasn’t bashing him over the head for being such a selfish prick, I certainly wasn’t saying a chaste goodnight and sleeping alone.
Mortification stung my cheeks, making me glad of the shadowsaround Gus’s front door. I didn’t look at Luke, and he didn’t speak. My imagination had him drifting closer, and I blamed the vodka until his warm grip closed around my wrists again, both of them this time, and he tugged me gently upright. My chest pressed to his, my breasts squeezed in all the right ways.
“If things were different,” he whispered, “whatwouldyou do about it?”
“About what?You being a dick? Or me being horny?”
“The second one.” He crushed up against me even tighter, the hardness in his Levi’s more than a match for the thin maxi skirt I’d tugged on in place of my dirty jeans. “If you were to do something about being drunk and horny...with me, what would you do?”
Heat pooled between my legs. Fuck, I hated him. The Luke switch in my brain had been dormant solong I’d forgotten about it. Never imagined a time when he’d reach for it again, flip it with his deep, rumbling voice, and I’d be powerless to resist.
I licked my lips. “Don’t you dare kiss me.”
“I’m not going to.”
