She frowned, looking down at her gloved-hands resting in her lap. “Well … there was this one incident. The door was cracked to my parents’ bathroom. I thought it was my mom, but upon closer inspection I noticed my father standing in front of the mirror in a pink lace bra and matching panties. Beneath the tough guy uniformed exterior, he liked wearing lingerie. I think that day a little piece of me died. The man I looked up to was no longer truly a man.”
“Jess …” Luke whispered, touching his hand to her cheek.
She looked up and grinned. “Just fucking with you. God … you’re so gullible.” She hopped out, letting Jones out as well.
“What the hell?” Luke chased after them as they made their way to the elevator. “You were joking? About your father?”
The disbelief in his voice cracked her up. Ruffling Luke’s feathers was her favorite past-time.
“Yes, joking about my dad and my imaginary uncle. Joking about all of it.”
The second the doors opened, he shoved her to the back of the elevator, pinning her against it with his body. Her heart pounded, certain he would give her a pounding of her favorite kind very soon as well.
“You made the whole story up?” He pinched her sides.
It tickled and hurt at the same time.
Jessica giggled. “The look … oh my gosh, the look on your face was …”
He clenched her ass with an iron grip, yanking her body to his. She felt the evidence of his angry desire hard against her belly.
“Payback’s a bitch, sweetheart.” He sucked at her neck just short of leaving a mark.
Out-of-control Luke made Jessica all kinds of crazy. Their bed was too far. She wanted him right then, not a second longer to wait.
“Tell me I’ve been a bad girl, daddy.”
Luke froze, lips still pressed to her neck. “What did you just say?”
“I’ve been a really naughty girl, big daddy, you need to spank me.”
He released his grip on her ass so fast she could barely remember the feel of it.
The elevator doors opened. His long strides took him to the door twice as fast as hers did.
“You’ve ruined the moment. We may never have sex again.”
She felt like a masochist. Her actions left her turned on, yet she couldn’t resist. Cold feet over marrying Luke? Not in a million years.
*
“Luke?” Jessica mumbled.
His sexy, naked fiancée often talked in her sleep.
“Dammit, Jones! Answer your phone.”
She wasn’t asleep.
“You’re on top of me.”
She nuzzled her face into his neck. “You love it.”
He did. They started their love affair in separate beds then separated by the great wall which came down, leaving an empty gap of complete trust, but one night she fell asleep on his chest. He risked life and limb for a night of her naked body against his. His lips on her head and hands on her perfect ass awoke her the next morning. She didn’t flinch. He proposed to her three days later.
“I do love it, but it’s 2:00 a.m. and you’re demanding I get my phone.”
She rolled to the side and he lumbered from the bed to grab his vibrating phone that danced along the dresser.
“Hello?”
“Luke?”
“Who’s this?”
“Deborah.”
“What is it, Deb?”
Why was his ex-fiancée’s mom calling him?
“It’s Fran.”
He held the phone to his ear with one hand and rubbed the sleep from his eyes with the other.
“Yeah?”
“She died an hour ago.” Her voice cracked. Painful sobs bled through his phone.
“I’m sorry, Deb. I really am.”
“Y-you loved … her … r-ri-right?”
Luke grabbed the back of his neck, looking at the woman sprawled out on his bed—the woman who would be his wife in five days. He never went to see Fran, even when Jessica told him to go. They found a match and she received the heart transplant she needed, but it was never a guarantee and he’d heard from mutual friends that she wasn’t doing well.
“Yes. Of course I did.”
“The … the f-funeral is Sat-Saturday. You’ll b-be there?”
“I’m sorry, Deb. I can’t. I have other plans.”
She sobbed harder. “What can be m-more important … than F-Fran’s funeral?”
“I’m getting married. Give Matt my condolences.”
Luke pressed End. After slipping into his pajama bottoms, he headed to the kitchen. He grabbed a glass of water and stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the hazy lights of San Francisco.
Arms swimming in his stolen red hoodie wrapped around his waist. A warm cheek rested on his bare back.
“Fran died?”
“Yes.”
“Sometimes life sucks.”
Luke loved, with his entire being, the woman who clung to him. He loved that every single one of her imperfections made her absolutely perfect for him.
“Yes.” He turned, using his free hand to cup the back of her head, pulling her into his chest. “And sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes we weather the storm, mourn the casualties, and find the sun on the horizon has never been brighter. I’m blinded by mine, and I’m certain for the rest of my life it—she—will leave me breathless.”