“I love kissing you,” Luke rasps against my lips. “Do you know how hard it was to sit there and not kiss you just now?”
I can’t help myself. “How hard?”
“This hard.” He takes my hand, molding it to the thickness of his arousal through his jeans. When I stroke him, he groans, pressing himself against my palm, and lust rockets through me. I grab his hand and drag him into the bedroom.
“I need you now,” I say, climbing onto his mattress like I own the damn place. I don’t know who I become when I’m in bed with him, but I like it. I like not over-thinking, just letting my body take over. I like that he likes this version of me.
“Fuck yes,” he says, watching me yank my dress over my head, then whip off my bra and panties. I should have brought more than one pair of underwear, because these are ruined. He hasn’t even touched me and I’mbeyondready for him. As he urgently strips off his clothes, I realize I’m not the only one who needs this. He rolls on a condom, but when he goes to climb on top, I shake my head. I nudge him back onto the bed, straddling him. Then I ride him until I see stars.
* * *
After,we sit side-by-side against the headboard, the room lit only by the tiny lights on the ceiling above us. Luke slides his arm around my back and pulls me close to him. I lean my head into his shoulder, still recovering.
That was amazing. It’s like every time we have sex it gets better. And now, as he presses his lips to my temple, I find myself wishing I didn’t have to go home tonight. Or any night.
I push the thought away and look up at the ceiling. “I love these little lights.”
I feel Luke smile beside me. “Yeah. I’m a total space nerd, as you probably guessed, so I wanted to have the stars over my bed.”
I turn to him, mock-surprised. “You’re a space nerd? Wow, I had no idea. All theStar Warsstuff, the sci-fi books, your video game… I really should have seen this coming.”
He surveys my face in the dim light, as if trying to read something I’m not saying, and I kiss his shoulder.
“It’s just who you are, Luke. It’s my favorite thing about you.”
With a rueful laugh, he lets his gaze fall. I notice the slight downturn in his mouth, wondering if I said something wrong.
“You okay?”
He nods. “You’re just… I think you’re the first person to say that. You like me not in spite of all that, but because of it.”
I shrug. “It’s the same with me. Most people see the things I love as a nerdy side to me that they have to put up with. But you… you like that side to me.”
“Yeah. I think it’s fucking cool. I thinkyou’recool.” He kisses the tip of my nose and I grin.
“I’ve never been called cool before, but I’ll take it.”
He laughs. “I’ve never been called cool either, if that helps.”
“Oh, you’re definitely cool. And you have the coolest job.”
Luke snorts. “Tell that to my father.”
I twist to face him properly. “He doesn’t like your job?”
“He doesn’t care much for anything I do.”
I frown, thinking back to the phone call he took when we were at the board game cafe. “What do you mean?”
“Dad is… not an easy man to please. Never has been. Growing up, he was always on my case about something. I didn’t play enough sports, I didn’t get good enough grades, I spent too much time playing video games or reading about space. It was like, no matter what I did, he was always disappointed.”
“What about now? You’re so successful, how can he be disappointed with that?”
Luke lifts a shoulder, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “I think for a while he was starting to come around. I worked hard in my previous job, and yeah, I was pretty successful. I had a wife, and a great apartment…” he trails off and lies there quietly for some time. I’m bursting with questions but I force myself to be quiet, to wait for him to say more, because I know that’s not the end of the story.
“I was really unhappy at work,” he says at last. “For a while it was okay and I could handle it, but it got worse. Every time I had to get up and go to the office, a little part of me died. I felt like I was living someone else’s life. I was, of course—I was doing what I thought would make my father proud, not what I actually wanted to do. But then something happened. I modified a really popular game and my mod went viral. The creators of the game contacted me and asked if I wanted to collaborate with them on something new, and it was like a dream come true. I had more than enough money so I decided to go for it. But Dad…” Luke rubs a hand over his chin, his eyes narrowing. “He just thought I was throwing everything away. He told me he was so disappointed in me for ‘giving up’ on my job. He never saw it as me following my dream.”
“That sucks.” Sympathy weaves through me and I touch his arm. “I know another Luke who had a complicated relationship with his father.”
