B00VQNYV1Y (R) Read Free

She lifted a shoulder in a casual shrug. “Yeah.”
    “No.” He turned and reached out, grabbing the handle on the passenger door of the black muscle car that was parked against the curb, jerking it open. “Get your ass in the car.”
    It was on the tip of her tongue to say ‘make me’ but at this point she figured he just might.
    In all honesty, there weren’t really any guys back in Grey’s that she even wanted to tongue kiss, much less get naked with.
    She looked at Luke, long, tall and sexy in well-fitted jeans and a tight black T-shirt. His dark eyes were glittering with rage, his normally sharp cheekbones and square jaw cut into even sharper relief by the hard light from the bar clashing with the velvet night.
    He looked…like Luke, familiar and warm and everything she’d ever wanted in a man. And also, not like Luke.
    He seemed edgier. Darker. The bruise staining the skin around his eye, the barely restrained violence in his posture…
    It should make her want to run away from him. But it didn’t. No, the difference fascinated her. Tempted her.
    To move closer. To try again.
    To make it clear that she wanted something more from him than his overprotective BFF routine.
    But that was the fruity drinks talking. She’d had a couple tonight. A little liquid courage to help with Mission Virginity Loss.
    For all the good it had done. She just felt dizzy and annoyed.
    “Get. In. The. Car,” he repeated.
    And since the only man she wanted was standing out here, and there was nothing for her back in there, she obeyed.

Chapter Two
    ‡
    M ELANIE SHIFTED IN her seat, making sure her shoulder strap was in the appropriate position. Then she tugged the skirt on her dress down so that it covered a little more of her thighs. What had felt fine, even exciting, back in the bar, now just felt self-conscious sitting in the car with Luke.
    She was so aware. Of every bit of bare skin. Of how tight the material was. Of just how hard he must think she was trying. Because she was trying hard. And of course Luke would know that. He knew how she usually looked. And pretty much had zero reaction to it.
    He’d had a reaction to this. But it wasn’t exactly the reaction she’d always hoped for.
    Of course, another man had been touching her.
    Luke didn’t seem like he was jealous, though. He just seemed like he’d gone into some fugue caveman state where he disregarded the rules of polite society, while forgetting that women were full-fledged people and not objects at the same time.
    “Where are you taking me?” She tried to look out the window, but the blur of buildings glowing in the streetlights made her dizzy.
    Thanks, alcohol .
    “I’m staying at the motel just out of town.”
    Melanie rolled her eyes. “Classy.”
    “I’m on a budget, Mel.”
    “You’re taking me back to your motel?”
    “Didn’t you want to go home with a guy tonight?”
    “Not with you,” she said through gritted teeth. The annoying thing was, that was a lie. Part of her had always wanted to go home with Luke. From the first moment she’d understood what that meant.
    It had been a jarring realization for teenage Mel. Luke had always been a safe space, the only man she’d ever trusted. But once those churning, shaky, stomach-tightening, knee-wobbling, attraction feelings had been introduced things had gotten a little bit difficult on her end.
    So yeah, the past decade of their friendship, really. She’s been a late bloomer when it had come to men, thanks to her past. But good Lord, if her Luke feelings had started any earlier she would have imploded by now. Of course, had she been normal, she wouldn’t be a twenty-eight-year-old virgin with nothing but sweaty dreams about her best friend to count as sexual experience.
    Had she been normal, she probably would have gone out and found a man who was actually interested in her a lot longer ago.
    Now that she finally had, Luke was here meddling.
    “Just take me home,” she mumbled, feeling