Sugar Shack (5 page)

“
Do you want me to wear a condom?” Luke asked against her ear.

Touched that he asked, she pulled back and looked at him in the dim light.
“If it’s a matter of pregnancy, I’m on the pill. If it’s a matter of health, I’m clean.”

“
Me too.” Luke grabbed her as he toppled onto the mattress, carrying her with him. His hands were all over her, rubbing her skin, the small of her back, cupping her ass. His fingers traced every inch of her—the side of her breast, the curve of her hip, the tempting crevice of her pussy.

She loved how he
’d let her stay on top. Did he remember how much she liked this position? Her heart melted a little more toward this man she’d turned her back on so many years before.

Their mouths locked again, more eager than
before. Anxious hands groped and fondled, unable to get enough. Beneath her, Luke writhed, his hips bucking with his need to enter her. Reaching around, she grabbed his turgid cock and raised her hips, slowly letting herself slide down his thick length. They groaned in unison as he filled her to the hilt. She threw back her head and began to ride him. It felt so good, so right to be here with him, like this. They fit together so perfectly.

Luke
’s fingers squeezed tighter around her hips as she slid up and down his length. “God, I love fucking you, babe,” he muttered through clenched teeth.

Bracing herself on his chest, she ground against him harder, faster.
“You don’t know how many times I’ve imagined this,” she said. “I’ve masturbated to this fantasy a thousand times.”

He bucked faster.
“Don’t tell me that,” he ground out.

“
Mmmm, why not?” She undulated her hips against him, enjoying the feel of him inside her.

“
Because...” He stopped and closed his eyes briefly. “Because if I imagine you playing with yourself, I’m going to come too soon.”

“
Do I still excite you?” she asked, going still for a long moment until he opened his eyes and looked at her again.

They stared at each other for a long time, then he reached up and cupped the side of her face.
“God, yes, Cat. You excite me like no one ever has.”

Those simple words sliced directly to her heart.
“Same here.”

Their lips touched again, tenderly. It was the lingering kiss of a long-ago goodbye and, yet, the tentative kiss of a surprise hello. It was all the pains of yesterday fading into the background, if only for a little while. It was a renewal of a want and desire so strong, it couldn
’t be denied.

His hand gripped her ass as he plunged into her and held her there, her clit rocking gently against his pubic bone while his cock filled her so deliciously.

Against his mouth, she moaned. It felt so good. Her Lucky Luke was back with his magical sex. He could always make her come.

The little telltale signs of her impending climax tingled up her belly and spread like wildfire into her veins.
“Oh, fuck,” she whispered brokenly against his open mouth. “I’m going to…ah! Ah!” She arched and held onto him as her body began shuddering, the most wonderful feeling radiating from her pussy where he continued to rock against her. “Oh, Luke! Yes! God, yes!” She rode the euphoric wave as high as it would take her, then gently fell back to earth in time to hear his labored breath as he tongued her ear.

He gave one final thrust and shuddered against her as he came, murmuring her name.

It took a good ten minutes before either could drum up the strength to move away from the other. When Catherine finally came down from her cloud and could move her muscles once more, she pushed up on Luke’s chest and stared down at him.

“
Wow.”

“
Yeah.” His chuckle was low and intimate, but his eyes remained closed. “Wow.”

“
Who would have thought we’d still have that chemistry?”

“
Chemistry?” He squeezed her hip and drew her back down to him. “The whole damn lab exploded.”

They laughed at their impromptu joke, the easy humor of lovers comfortable with each other. It was odd how quickly they fell back into step, as if they
’d picked up exactly where they left off here at his maple farm. Like time had never spanned a decade-old rift.

“
How did we go so wrong?” she asked quietly.

The smile died on his face. His lashes lifted and he looked at her, pain shining in his eyes before he blinked it away.
“You tell me.”

Catherine sighed and rolled to her back, staring at the ceiling.
“I honestly don’t know what happened. All I know for sure is I was young and immature and thought I needed to spread my wings.”

He remained quiet.

She turned her head to look at him, the shadows from the setting sun making it hard to read his expression. “All I can say is I’m sorry, Luke. I never meant to hurt you.”

“
Let’s move past that for now, Cat. I accept your apology. I just want to know what you want from me now. After all these years.”

It was a fair question. But she honestly didn
’t have a good answer for him. “I don’t know what I want. I just know I had to come here and try to figure out what happened. What might have been. What could still be.”

He nodded, still avoiding her eyes.
“But tell me. Would you have had that overpowering urge to come here had the weather not gotten so bad you couldn’t drive to your folks’ house?”

“
I honestly don’t know.”

He rolled off the bed and grabbed his jeans, sliding them on quickly.
“I’ve got to feed Sapphire. I’ll be back in a while. You know where everything is if you get hungry.” He left without a backward glance.

Catherine fell back on the bed as tears slid down the sides of her face, dampening the quilt beneath her head. She didn
’t want things to be so strained between them, but what the hell had she expected? She’d walked out of his life with no real explanation and then just sauntered right back in. If the tables were turned, she’d be just as wary of him.

****

Luke stroked Sapphire’s thick mane while the horse chewed on hay. A part of him didn’t want to go back inside and listen to any more of the fragile excuses Cat gave about her disappearance. He didn’t want to hear she’d broken the engagement because she was young and immature. Of course, he didn’t want to hear her say she’d fallen out of love with him, either. But another side of him wanted to charge back inside the house and throw her on the bed and fuck her until they both passed out from carnal pleasure.

He sighed, the heat of his breath frosting the air.
“Why did she have to come back now? When I finally thought I was over her?”

Sapphire didn
’t answer, just kept chewing hay.

He thought about Hannah, but no smile touched his lips. He liked Hannah. She was a good person. She was pretty, smart and used to working a farm with her family. It made perfect sense they would wind up together. They
’d been seeing each other casually for the past five years. Hannah knew all about Cat.

He sighed again.

But knowing about a person and suddenly meeting them face-to-face were two totally different things. Hannah wouldn’t understand. He nearly choked on his own thoughts. “Of course she wouldn’t understand the whole sleeping-with-the-old-girlfriend part, you dumb ass!”

Sapphire neighed.

Hannah was a good match for him. Nothing unexpected. No flashes of temper. No spontaneous sex. He looked down at his pecker, bulging at his zipper. “And no sudden hard-ons just thinking about her.”

A warning voice sprang to life in the back of his head at that last thought. Shouldn
’t he be worried if he wasn’t getting a woody thinking about the woman with whom he was supposedly going to spend the rest of his life? Shouldn’t thinking of Hannah make him hard as a rock?

“
Fuck!” He kicked the side of the stall. The noise sent Sapphire scurrying backward.

“
Sorry, girl,” he soothed, stroking her neck softly. “I’m a little high-strung tonight.”

The horse nuzzled his hair and went back to happily munching her hay.

He had no idea what he was going to do with Cat in his house. He only knew was he was stuck with her until this damned storm blew over. And it looked like it was going to be a doozy. The weatherman was talking white-outs and blizzards this time. Thank God he had the generator gassed up.

“
Night, sweetie,” he told the horse, rubbing her nose before he hurried out into the cold and barred the door behind him.

Chapter Six

After a quick shower and change of clothes, Catherine wandered downstairs. It was amazing how everything still looked the same, for the most part. There was new furniture in the den, more pictures lining the wall behind the sofa. She smiled when she spied a photo of a snaggle-toothed blond kid. It was Luke at about six years old.

She studied all the pictures. Young Luke and his little sister Beth grinned back at her from the wall. Beside the couch, a collage frame held six recent photos. Catherine picked it up and recognized Luke’s parents. Older, but they still looked as she remembered them. There was a picture of Beth in her wedding gown beside a handsome man. So this is the ex, Catherine thought. She nodded. Not bad. Kind of looked like a player, in her opinion. More the type of guy you sleep with and hang out with. Not really the marrying kind.

Her gaze scanned the rest of the photos in the collage. Pictures of horses, pets and holidays took up most of the frame, but it was the couple in the lower right hand side that captured her attention. Luke and a pretty blonde. The woman was beaming from ear to ear with her arm looped around his waist. They were both dressed up, he in a tux and the woman in a floor-length red evening gown. In the photo, Luke was smiling. He looked pleased. He looked content. They made an attractive couple. Two dressed-up blondes.

She set the frame down. Why had she come here? Luke was no longer part of her life. After all these years, of course he’d have another love. What did she expect? For him to wait on her? A curt laugh blew from her lungs. Who was she to swoop in after all these years of silence and expect him to be the same guy she’d left behind?

She flopped on the couch and held her head in her hands. What had she gotten herself—and Luke—into? They hadn
’t been together twenty-four hours and already they’d had sex. Catherine groaned. And why did it have to be such great sex?

“
Hungry?”

She looked up to find Luke standing in the doorway, bootless as usual.
“I didn’t hear you come in.”

He shrugged.
“Sorry. I wasn’t trying to sneak up on you.” He turned his back and headed toward the kitchen again. “I’m going to reheat some pot roast if you want to join me,” he tossed over his shoulder.

Like a puppet, she rolled to her feet and followed him. She had no idea what the future held for the two of them, but since she
’d started this snowball, she might as well ride it down the mountain.

****

They ate in silence, even though Catherine was dying to know who the pretty blonde in the picture was. It was none of her business, but if she wanted to completely close this part of her life, she should at least make sure he was happy, right?

Her reasoning might be a little skewed, but it was enough to give her permission to delve where she really shouldn
’t go.

“
So Beth’s been married and divorced, huh?” she asked, spearing another carrot with her fork.

Luke nodded and took a sip of milk.

“What about you? Did you ever want to get married? Have kids?”

“
Once,” he said, lowering his glass and looking at her.

Hot blood rushed to her face.
“I don’t mean us, Luke. I meant...you know. After.”

He wiped his mouth, his paper napkin lingering over his lips longer than necessary while he contemplated. Finally, he nodded.
“Yeah. I’ve thought about it.”

The small bite of carrot she swallowed seemed to lodge in her throat. With a lift of her eyebrows, she asked,
“Recently?”

Another nod.

She gulped down a large sip of water and washed away the carrot.

Luke dropped his napkin on the table and pushed his chair back a few inches from the table.
“If you want to know the truth, it took me a long time to get over you leaving me, Cat. It wasn’t so much that you left—it was that I never saw it coming. Trust was a difficult thing for me after you.”

Her fork fell from her numb fingers and clattered against her plate.
“Luke, I’m so sorry. I—”

He waved away her apology.
“It was a long time ago. I don’t need to hear you tell me you’re sorry.” He cocked his head to one side. “I just wish you’d talked to me. We could have figured something out.”