Harvard Hottie (12 page)

Chapter Fourteen

I’m not entirely sure how and maybe I don’t want to know, but Luke seems to know every bar in Boston. He’s a virtual encyclopedia of all the upper end taverns. Of course, he doesn’t know the seedy little dives, but he’d never go into a place like that anyway.

The place to be on Saturday night is a smoky little establishment named Moonlight, where a well-known local singer that I’ve never heard of is playing a set. Luke not only knows every bar in the city, but apparently knows the people who run every bar in the city because despite the place being crowded, we get a fantastic table right next to where the singer will be performing.

“These seats are great,” I comment.

“Being rich and influential has its perks, huh?” Luke says, winking at me.

We place our drink orders, but as the waiter walks away, I see Luke has turned a bit pale. I look at him in concern. “What’s wrong?”

“Rebecca,” he mumbles.

Rebecca. As I recall, that’s the name of his last girlfriend, the one who destroyed his self-esteem by dumping him after seeing him naked in bed. I don’t blame him for looking upset. “Do you want to leave?”

“No, it’s okay,” he says, although he kind of looks like the answer is yes.

If I were Rebecca and I had done what she did to Luke, I would probably have wanted to stay far away from him. But apparently she and I think very differently because about two minutes later, I’m face to face with Luke’s ex-girlfriend.

Rebecca is exactly the type of girl that Luke used to date in college, meaning she’s blonde and gorgeous. Several orders of magnitude better-looking than me at my best. I can’t help but notice she’s got a huge rock on the ring finger of her left hand. And that she’s accompanied by a man who’s probably twenty years older than her and not particularly attractive, especially compared with Luke.

“Luke,” Rebecca coos. “It’s so good to see you again!”

Luke lifts his eyes only briefly to look up at her. “Hello, Rebecca.”

“I’d like you to meet my fiancé, Richard,” Rebecca says, gesturing at the thin, gray-haired man next to her.

“Luke Thayer,” Richard says, holding out his hand for Luke to shake. “I’ve heard the legends, of course. But it’s great to finally meet you in person.”

Luke shakes Richard’s hand and seems moderately embarrassed by his inability to really solidly grip the other man’s hand. Richard too seems surprised by the limpness of the handshake. “Nice to meet you,” Luke says quietly.

Rebecca regards me with a critical eye. I can tell she’s trying to sum me up, figure out my type. “And who’s this?”

“This is Ellie,” Luke says, possessively putting his arm around my shoulder. “She’s… we’re together.”

“Oh,” Rebecca says. Then she adds in a really patronizing voice, “That’s wonderful, Luke. Good for you.”

By the time Rebecca sashays away to her own table, Luke seems completely beaten down. He doesn’t say much for most of the music set, mostly just stares down at his drink. I feel awful for him. I don’t even blame him for his anxiety in the bedroom anymore. Getting shot down by a woman like Rebecca seems like a permanently damaging experience.

After the singer finishes up, I head off to the restroom, although Luke is so preoccupied he barely seems to notice. When I get out of the stall, I see none other than the infamous Rebecca touching up her make-up. I immediately feel uncomfortable and smile at her politely, hoping our interaction will be left at that.

Unfortunately not.

“So you’re dating Luke, huh?” Rebecca says. “Ellie, right?”

“Uh-huh,” I say, not sure which question I’m supposed to answer, but the answer to both is yes.

“You have a stronger stomach than I do,” Rebecca says.

“Excuse me?”

She shrugs. “I mean, when it comes to money and power, Luke is entirely ideal. I mean, he’s absolutely loaded. But when it came to the bedroom, I just couldn’t go through with it. I mean, when I saw him, you know,
all
of him, it felt like it should have been illegal.” She laughs. “I guess you just want it more than I do.”

I’m shocked that she’s saying this to me. At first, I’m at a loss for words, but then I manage, “I’m not dating Luke for his money.”

Rebecca laughs harder. “Oh, come on. It’s okay. I certainly can’t throw stones.”

I stick out my chin. “Luke is a wonderful guy and I think he’s really sexy.”

“A wonderful guy? 
Sexy
?” Rebecca stares at me, looking very confused. “Is he paying you to be here with him?”

“No!” I’m not a violent person, but I seriously want to punch Rebecca in the face. “Look, as hard as this may be for you to believe, I actually really like Luke. He’s smart and cute and… and fantastic in bed! And if you didn’t realize that, then you’re a shallow bitch.”

Rebecca is still staring at me as I stride out of the bathroom.

I rush back to our table, where Luke is sipping on his beer. I approach him breathlessly. “We should go. Now.”

“Why?”

“Because I just told off your ex-girlfriend in the bathroom,” I say.

For the first time since Rebecca arrived, Luke smiles. “Okay,” he says.

***

Back at Luke’s house, he immediately grabs me. He pulls me onto his lap and he can’t stop kissing me and touching me. “Let me go down on you,” he says.

“No,” I say. “Let’s have sex.”

Luke’s shoulders sag. “Look, Ellie, I know you’re being nice, but… you just… don’t understand.”

“You can’t base anything on Rebecca,” I say. “She’s a horrible person. She only wants to date men for their money. Honestly, I don’t know why you were dating her in the first place.”

He lowers his eyes. “I guess because she was the sort of girl I used to date. And I wanted to prove to myself that I could still get that type of girl.”

“Well, she’s awful,” I assure him. “And you’re lucky it didn’t work out.”

With those words, I go for the button of his pants. I undo it and Luke quickly swats me away with his hand. “Luke!”

“Ellie,” he sighs. “Can’t you just trust me that… that…”

“No, I can’t,” I say. “If we’re dating and I can’t even see you naked, then I don’t know what. This isn’t going to work out, I’ll tell you that much.”

Luke shakes his head. “You don’t understand.”

“No, you don’t understand,” I say. “I’ve got a three-month rule that I need to date a guy for three months before having sex with him. But I’m breaking that rule for you. Because you’re the sexiest guy I’ve ever met.”

He seems baffled by that revelation. “Really?”

“Really.”

“But… why?”

I don’t answer him and instead start kissing his neck. While I do, my fingers go back down to his pants start unzipping his slacks. His whole body is stiff and tense, but he lets me do it. I pull down his boxers as I continue kissing his face and his neck. He’s stiff at first, but then his muscles loosen up and he starts kissing me back.  All I can think about how sexy Luke is and how much I want to make love to him. I don’t care anymore about my three-month rule. Fuck the three-month rule.

Luke obviously senses my urgency and starts wheeling us in the direction of his bedroom. Between my weight and the decreased strength in his hands, he’s struggling a lot to wheel the both of us, but I do nothing to help. I like the fact that he’s struggling enough that his face is turning slightly pink with effort. Shows how much he wants me.

I climb into Luke’s bed and he kisses me on the lips. “Just a minute,” he says. He wheels himself to the bathroom and I hear some rustling and rattling around. I have no idea what he’s doing in there. Putting in a diaphragm, perhaps? (Kidding.)

When Luke finally comes out, he quickly wheels over and transfers into the bed next to me. I’m breathing heavily at this point. He starts to pull at the intricate buttons on my blouse but he’s having trouble and I can tell that if he doesn’t succeed in another second, he’s going to rip it open, so I quickly undo the buttons myself, as well as the ones on his shirt (although he seems able to manage his own buttons a little better). Finally, I’ve got Luke completely naked.

I admit, it’s a little difficult not to compare this Luke’s body to the one I saw naked during Primal Scream all those years ago. That Luke had the body of a Greek god. This Luke has the body of… well, a disabled man. His hands don’t look quite right, and it’s obvious there are no muscles at all in his abdomen. And he’s pale, very pale. Luke hasn’t been showing off this body at the beach any time recently.

“Okay?” He’s studying my face anxiously.

“It’s fine,” I say quickly.

“I just took a pill,” he whispers. “To get a… you know, erection. It… usually works. Should be fine. I hope. I mean, it will be fine. But we’ve got to give it a little time.”

So we take things slow, even though it just about kills me. We lie side by side in bed, he kisses me, I kiss him. I rub my naked body against his, and after about thirty minutes of this, I feel Luke’s penis growing hard against me. I put my hand on it, and while it’s not as fantastic as one might have expected from the Great Lucas Thayer, I’m fairly sure it’s good enough for him to penetrate me.

I put on a condom for him and he lies on his back while I pump against him in the cowgirl position. He keeps his hands on my hips, but compared to his skill when he ate me out, he isn’t able to do very much now. He’s mostly lying there while I do all the work, which I guess is all he can do. But I don’t mind so much. It’s actually a nice reversal, considering Luke is always the one with all the power. Part of me wishes he’d wipe the worried expression off his face, although part of me loves him more for it. I finally come three times, then collapse onto his sweaty body.

“Did you come?” I ask him.

“I don’t come,” he says.

I stare at him.

He shrugs. “It’s okay. I just want you to enjoy yourself.”

“But didn’t you enjoy it too?”

“Of course I did,” he says and hugs me.

This Luke is so different from the one I used to know. The old Luke wouldn’t have shrugged at the idea of not being able to have an orgasm or told me earnestly that he just wanted me to enjoy myself. I could never have loved the old Luke. But I think I’m falling for this one.

Chapter Fifteen

Luke is always happy to pick me up to go back to his house, but he absolutely hates to visit me in Brookline. “I hate crowded areas,” he grumbles, whenever I suggest it. He’s not at all impressed when I tell him about the guy in the power wheelchair who always hangs out by the Trader Joe’s in Coolidge Corner.

But there’s a farmer’s market going on and I haven’t been there in ages. Luke sounds horrified when I mention it to him. “What are you—a hippie?”

And that’s how I know he must really like me, because even though he hates Brookline and he hates farmer’s markets, he still shows up at my building on Sunday afternoon, wearing a dress shirt from work, but also Ray Ban sunglasses. Nobody in the world but Luke could pull that off.

“I look like an idiot, right?” Luke asks me as he pulls off the sunglasses to reveal his nice brown eyes.

“No,” I insist. “You look hot.”

He pulls me into his lap and kisses me deeply on the lips. It’s so intense that I don’t even notice the fact that my neighbor Sadie is standing in front of us, pushing a shopping cart full of grocery bags, her jaw hanging open. Not until it’s too late.

“Sadie,” I gasp, leaping off of Luke’s lap. Luke just looks amused.

“Is this your suitor?” Sadie asks me, her voice almost comically loud.

“Um,” I say. I look over at Luke, who looks even more amused than he was a minute ago. “I… I guess it is.”

“I’m Luke Thayer,” he says to her. “I’m so sorry for Ellie’s rudeness.”

Sadie laughs. “Nice to meet you, Luke dear. I’m Sadie Katz.”

“Okay,” I say with false cheerfulness. “I guess we’d better get going.”

“I don’t blame you for liking him, Ellie,” Sadie says to me. “Look at that
punim
! So handsome. He looks just like Robert Redford.”

I only very vaguely know who Robert Redford is, but I suppose it’s a compliment, so I’ll take it. Luke seems pleased anyway.

“Also,” Sadie says in my ear, although loud enough for people across the street to hear. “Don’t worry about the wheelchair thing. My husband was in a wheelchair for the last few years of his life and we still had sex all the time.”

I back away, staring at her. Oh God. I did
not
need to know that. I look over at Luke, who is very obviously trying not to crack up. I’m glad one of us is amused.

Sadie says her goodbyes, and I’m left with the image of Sadie having torrid sex with her now-deceased husband. Luke puts his sunglasses back on and grins up at me. “You think we’ll still be having sex when
we’re
a hundred and eighty?”

“Stop,” I say. “Seriously.
Ew.”

“All right,” Luke says. “Enough joking around. Let’s check out this farmer’s market. You better make this worth my while, Ellie. I had to
parallel park
to get a spot. It was horrible.”

We head out to the farmer’s market, where I stock up on fresh vegetables and fruits. Ever since I discovered farmer’s markets a few years ago, it’s very hard to go back to grocery store fruit. You don’t even realize how awful it tastes.

“I’ve never seen someone get so excited over a couple of melons,” Luke comments as I’m sifting through a fruit stand. “No wait, I take that back, I have
definitely
seen someone get that excited over a couple of melons.”

I stick my tongue out at him and he does the same. The breeze has mussed his hair and as I watch, he tugs on his shirt to undo the top button, revealing the tiniest bit of golden chest hair. It’s just so sexy, I can hardly bear it. Why does there have to be a flight of stairs to get up to my apartment? Why?

“I wish there weren’t stairs to get to your apartment,” Luke says, as if reading my thoughts.

“Well,” I say, “maybe I should move.”

He raises his eyebrows. “You’d move for me?”

“I don’t know,” I mumble, my cheeks red. “I might, you know… consider it.”

Luke smiles up at me. “I wouldn’t object to that.”

Although there’s a small part of me that wonders if I wait long enough, a room might come available in a certain house in Newton.