Just the fact that Luke had plans for me made me feel a new twinge in my core. I liked round one. Round one was epic. Round one made me a new woman.
“This is my version of fuck-the-brand therapy.”
I looked at him quizzically.
“You know. The brands that define us. The ones that caused this bullshit fight between us.”
I nodded. “I do know.”
“So, let’s do what we want to do. No brands. No labels. No managers. Just you and me fucking each other until tomorrow.”
I swallowed hard. Oh God.
“But I have to get on a plane,” I argued. “I told Jake I’d be there.” Jake would kill me if I missed that flight to Nashville. He was standing in the middle of a media firestorm. A hellish blazing tornado that revolved around my bad decisions.
Luke tossed me on the center of the bed and shed his clothes. He crawled toward me. Naked. His cock wide and throbbing for me. His body rigid and athletic. Beautiful in a masculine way that made me want to touch every square inch of muscle until I had him completely memorized.
“There are no brands allowed in this bed, baby. Do you want to get on a plane, Alexa or do you want me to fuck you?”
14
Luke
I loved that sated glow on her body. I knew I had satisfied her on the couch. I’d never seen a woman come like that. It was fucking art the way she did it. She wasn’t going to suddenly roll over and bolt out of here. Not with the sounds she made. Not with the way her body reacted to my every move. I held some kind of power over Alexa and we both knew it.
“If I stay, it’s going to make things worse,” she argued.
“And if you go, we don’t get to do this.” I waggled my eyebrows.
“If I’m seen in Austin another day, the press is going to report we’re together. It’s more than a kiss if I stay. It’s a headline.”
“So let them.” I leaned down, flicking my tongue over her nipple. It puckered into a hard peak, begging for my teeth to toy with it some more. Fuck, she drove me crazy. I wondered how many different ways I could make her come. Was there anything she wouldn’t do?
“And this? What is it if I stay? Do you want another headline with me? Is this more press for you?”
I looked in her eyes.
“This is what you want it to be.”
I couldn’t resist her tit any longer. My teeth latched on it, sucking with possessiveness.
“God, Luke,” she groaned. Her hands urged my head closer before trying to shove me off. “Is this part of the plan? Part of the great PR campaign for redemption?” she asked through panted breaths. “You need my good girl name?”
The planning meeting never got past the hospital ambush. That was all Charlie had outlined for me. She wanted Austin to start to make the connection that underneath the playboy act it was possible I had a heart of gold, buried under the scowl and the tattoos. Life had made me tough, and all it took was the influence of a good woman to make me some kind of loveable teddy bear. It was fucking laughable. I didn’t have a hard life. I was born and raised in a small Texas town. Great parents who raised two football-loving sons. One a people pleaser. The other a hard-headed prick.
Alexa writhed under my touch. “You have everything to gain and I have everything to lose.”
She was fucking right. This girl could save me. And I could destroy her.
Getting lost in her. Burying myself in her was the first time I thought salvation was something I wanted. Her eyes on me stoked a new desire. A desire for something bigger than myself.
I didn’t want to be the Luke Canton that everyone else saw me as. I wanted to be the Luke Canton that Alexa saw me as. The man she relied on to protect her when we were in the parking garage. The quarterback who would pay his last penny for a private concert with her. The man she needed to unlock the secrets of her body. She fucking needed me.
“Then don’t tell anyone.” I didn’t need her because Charlie dictated it. I needed her for me. She was my perfect dirty secret.
“What?” She tried to prop herself on her elbows, but I was making my way down the silky skin surrounding her navel. She flattened on the mattress with a soft sigh.
“I don’t care about using your image. That was never my shitty idea. It won’t happen again.”