Southern Player (Charleston Heat 2)

I stay down for another half second.

I make my choice.

And then I pop back up, gasping for air.

“Jesus Christ, Gracie, I thought you went under!” Luke says.

I turn around, making the water swirl around my waist.

There he is.

Just the sight of him fills me up. He’s up to his hips in the water. Bare chested, no hat. Hair flying up in the breeze.

I can’t help it. I lunge at him, wrapping my arms around his neck. His hands move up my sides, slow and soft, like he’s checking for injuries.

“I’m all right,” I breathe.

He curls his arms around me. Pulls me so tight against him that he lifts me out of the water.

“You scared me, baby,” he murmurs in my ear.

You scare me too. But I’m going to love you anyway.Chapter Twenty-SixGracieI wake up in Luke’s bed.

The biggest, coziest bed in existence.

How can this be the first time? I think as I blink open my eyes. I feel like I’ve been in love with Luke forever. Whole lifetimes. How is this the first time I am waking up in his bed?

It’s been years, right? Years, not days, since that night at The Spotted Wolf when we talked about truth and love and sex?

I smile. Hard enough to hurt.

Even harder when I think about everything that went down last night.

I can love you like that, he said.

How did we cover so much ground in the space of one night?

How is all of this happening so quickly?

Maybe it’s been happening all along—for years now—and I just didn’t recognize it. Too wrapped up in my own shit to ever consider the idea of Luke making me happy.

Funny how the things we think will make us happy usually don’t. While the things we don’t even consider—the people we don’t consider—send our hearts soaring.

I glance at the bed beside me. The covers are pushed back. Luke is nowhere in sight.

I listen for running water. The sound of a shower, of heavy footsteps downstairs.

Nothing but the quiet.

So, so quiet. The kind you don’t get living downtown.

It’s strange. But nice.

Sunlight pours through the windows on the opposite side of the room. The light is ardent but thin. It’s early.

Welcome to your thirties. When you wake up at the ass crack of dawn despite staying up all night fucking and drinking and laughing.

I stretch, feeling a pulse of arousal at my nakedness.

I am sore. Everywhere. My face. I can only imagine that’s from so much smiling and laughing. Between my legs and along the sides of my back. My hip flexers ache—yep, I’m definitely thirty-one—and so do my hamstrings.

Doesn’t mean I don’t want to do it all over again. I have a meeting with my contractor at 12, and another with my staff at 2:30. A million errands to run and an infinite number of details to arrange. Emails to answer. Calls to make.

With the re-opening in less than a week, my plate is full.

But I’m gonna find a way to squeeze Luke into my schedule if it kills me. Maybe he can sleep over at my place again tonight. I can probably swing a late dinner, or at least a drink…

We’ll make something work.

In the meantime, I just hope there’s time for one more round this morning.

“Ow,” I say when I get out of bed. My legs are wobbly. Weak.

Somehow I manage to grab my underwear off the floor. Along with Luke’s t-shirt. I take a big inhale as I slide it over my head.

The nubby, worn fabric smells like him.

Another hit of arousal. Walking to the bathroom, I realize that I am wet.

Is this how life with Luke is going to be? Walking around in a state of constant arousal and post-fuck exhaustion?

It’s almost too much.

Almost.

I freshen up in the bathroom and head downstairs. Smile when I see a shiny new coffee pot and mug on the counter. The carafe filled with coffee that, from the smell of it, was just brewed.

Luke doesn’t drink coffee. He must’ve bought this—the coffee maker, the mug, the unopened quart of half and half I find in the fridge—just for me.

My heart, already full, spills over.

Cupping the mug in my hands, I poke around for Luke. He’s nowhere to be found, so I head outside. Maybe he had to go check on something. Or maybe he went for a little early morning naked tractor ride, just because he can.

The morning is already warm. Humid. Quiet. I pad out onto the lawn, the grass still wet with dew and soft beneath my feet. Then I hear a noise—a splash—somewhere in the distance.

Maybe Luke is on the dock he showed me yesterday.

I head that way. Careful to stay on the strip of grass between the sandy grooves no doubt worn by Luke’s tractor. Sipping my coffee slowly. Savoring it.

For Luke’s first effort, it’s pretty damn good.