Sultry with a Twist (10 page)

But June was faster. She scrambled on her hands and feet, slipping momentarily on the quilt, until she righted herself and barreled into the kitchen. The rubber soles of her sneakers squeaked against the wood floor as she ran. When she didn’t hear Luke’s heavy boots clomping behind her, she glanced over her shoulder. He wasn’t there. Instantly, she halted. He’d probably circled through the other doorway in the dining room to ambush her.

She backed behind the kitchen island, using it as a barrier, but making sure not to corner herself. The house was too quiet, and her frantic breaths would give her away. She held the air inside her lungs and tiptoed silently back into the dining room. He’d never expect her to return there.

The backs of her thighs tingled the way they always did when she was nervous, and June peeked around the room, seeing nothing except the disheveled blanket and scattered paper plates on the wood floor. There was nowhere to hide, and she could only avoid Luke for so long. She needed a plan. If she made it to the front door, she could bolt outside and lock herself inside his truck until he promised amnesty. June crept forward into the dark living room more carefully than a soldier navigating a minefield. Her shuddering breaths seemed amplified, but she couldn’t hold them inside any longer.

The front door was within sight, and a burst of adrenaline propelled her into a sprint for freedom. But then two strong arms flashed from the shadows, snagging her around the waist and pulling her backward. June released a primal scream, and then before she knew it, Luke had her pressed against the foyer wall. She writhed against his enormous body in a futile attempt to escape, but it was like trying to move a boulder. Finally, she resigned herself to defeat, and he used one hand to pin both her wrists above her head.

“If I remember correctly,” he said against her temple, sliding one hand down the length of her rib cage. “There’s a little spot right here…” He yanked her T-shirt up and brushed his fingertips across her belly.

Darn it, he had a really good memory. “No,” she pleaded. Then his fingers started wiggling against that one weak spot right behind her waist, and she burst out in hysterical laughter. “Please,” she managed with a gasp. But he was relentless. The sounds of her uproarious torture reverberated through the vacant foyer.

“You know what to say,” he taunted.

“Uncle! Uncle!”

“Unh-uh. Not that.”

“Okay!” June tried to stop giggling long enough to get a sentence out. “Luke Gallagher is…”—she laughed, more from remembering the old words than the tickling—“the only Master of the Universe.”

“Stronger than?” he prompted, playing her ribs like a piano.

“Stronger than He-Man and twice as good-looking!” she shouted in a rush.

Mercifully, his fingers paused, and he curled his large, warm hand around her waist. “That’s a good girl.” Then he eliminated the sliver of air between them and pressed harder against the length of her body. Soon his lips were at her ear. “You know what comes next.”

“Oh, come on, that’s disgusting.”

She felt his chest rumble with low, quiet laughter. “If you mess with the bull…” he whispered. But instead of a cold, wet finger, the tip of his soft tongue swept the inside swirl of her ear, and her knees buckled with pleasure. When he used his body to lift her up, his chest brushed against her nipples, and her heart pounded so hard it seemed to shake the whole house.

Luke pulled back and gave her a look that would melt a snowman at ten paces. His throat bobbed as he glanced down at her mouth. The silence, interrupted only by their short, quick breaths, was maddening, and the waiting was nothing short of torture.

“You gonna kiss me?” she whispered, feeling suddenly bold.

Luke lifted his lips to her forehead and brushed them back and forth against her skin. “Is that what you want?” Then he moved in an agonizingly slow trail down the side of her face, kissing her temple, her cheek, the edge of her jaw, finally lingering at the corner of her mouth. “You asked me to kiss you once before. Remember what happened after that?”

June couldn’t make words yet. Instead, she whimpered from the back of her throat.

“Mmm-hmm,” he murmured, licking and sucking his way down the side of her neck and driving her crazy. “Me too.”

With one hand still beneath her shirt, Luke skimmed his palm higher, until he brushed the outside swell of her breast with his thumb. June couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. Part of her—one part in particular—wanted him to keep going, but something from deep inside caused her to hesitate. Perhaps that’s what forced the words in a shaky voice off the tip of her tongue.

“I remember you rolling off me like I had a flesh-eating disease.”

Everything stopped: Luke’s mouth, his hand, his breath. It was probably the last thing he expected her to say, and he held still for several long seconds. Heat flooded June’s cheeks. She wished she could rewind time and take it back. Why on earth had she mentioned it in the first place? She’d had nine years to get over what he did. Bringing it up now made her feel like a petulant child.

With a long, slow sigh, Luke released her wrists and stepped back. He stood there, watching her with an expression she couldn’t quite read, somewhere between solemn and frustrated, but stopping just shy of angry. Similar to the look in Gram’s eyes when June had refused to attend the local Bible College and instead applied to a school six hours away.

“I tried to apologize,” he said. “Did you read any of my letters?”

June shrugged one shoulder. She’d read them. Right up until his wedding invitation arrived, and then she began marking the envelopes
return
to
sender
and replacing them in the mailbox. “Didn’t change anything.”

Placing his hands on his hips, Luke hung his head and then gave a tight nod. “Awful long time to hold a grudge. I didn’t take you for that kind of girl.”

She started to object, but as much as June wanted to tell him there was no grudge, she couldn’t say it aloud. Because maybe he was right. Maybe she
had
held on to that pain and anger too long. The fact that she’d let nine years pass without reaching out to Luke pretty much proved it.

After another minute of charged silence, Luke gestured to the kitchen. “Let me get another hour in before I drive you home.”

Nodding her head, June cleared her throat and said, “Sure. I need to finish that third bedroom.”

Luke tore another chunk from the side of his empty foam coffee cup and glanced at the clock above the hospital admissions desk. Four-thirty. While he’d waited around for Trey’s doctor to discharge him, one perfectly good hour of daylight had burned away.

“’Scuse me,” he called to the receptionist, leaning forward in his chair. “How much longer?”

She shrugged and flashed an apologetic grin. “Things move a little slower on the weekends. Shouldn’t be too much longer, though.” She bit her bottom lip and slid her eyes to the side in an unmistakable invitation, but Luke thanked her and turned away.

There was only one woman on his mind that day—hell, for the last week and a half—and that was June. When he’d learned she still hadn’t forgiven him, it had felt like a kick to the beanbags. Luke didn’t know why he was so surprised, though, since he’d never really forgiven himself either. Hell, even at eighteen, he should’ve known better.

Ever since Luke had discovered how to get a girl into the backseat of his Camaro, he’d been careful to make his intentions known. To the point of brutal honesty, he’d made it clear he wasn’t offering anything beyond an hour or two of fogging up his windows. He’d never had a steady girl, and he’d never wanted one. When June had come on to him that day at the pond, he should’ve turned her down. Luke had always known about her little crush on him, and he’d been a fool not to realize sex would mean something completely different to her. Especially for her first time. Being young and horny and undeniably stupid was no excuse for what he’d done to June.

Luke leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. Ever since she’d come back to town, the memories of that afternoon had pressed the walls of his mind like water against a breaking dam. And like the little Dutch boy, Luke didn’t have enough fingers to plug the leaks. Every sweet and bitter detail of their final day together came rushing forth in a deluge.

They’d just graduated high school on that fateful morning, and the ceremony had dragged until lunchtime. Pru had been so proud of him and June that she was practically glowing. She’d served cold sandwiches and leftover cherry pie and then gone into town to buy ingredients for a special supper. Luke had finished his meal and walked half a mile to his family’s pond, while June stayed behind to pack for college. It was late May, and the temperature had already broken ninety-five that afternoon, so he’d peeled off his Sunday clothes, hung them over a low tree branch, and tossed his wallet into the grass before wading naked into the cool water. The air was thick with the scents of algae and cedar, and Luke let his body float on the water’s filmy surface while he listened to wind stir the leaves high in the trees.

He’d been swimming less than half an hour when the crunch of twigs and the rustle of underbrush sounded from the nearby path. Then, like a model in one of the Victoria’s Secret catalogs he kept under his mattress, June stepped into the clearing, wearing her little black bikini. Pru obviously hadn’t known June owned the thing, because those miniature triangles didn’t do much to cover her bouncing, full breasts, and God bless America, when June turned around to spread a quilt in the shade, the crack of that glorious, broad ass peeked out from the top of her swimsuit bottoms. Sometimes he wondered if June enjoyed torturing him. Luke already had a semi from watching her move around for ten seconds, and he was grateful to be waist-deep in the dark water. Just to be safe, though, he swam out until the water concealed most of his chest too.

June pointed to his clothes, which flapped gently in the breeze. “You skinny-dipping?”

“Well, duh.”

“Maybe I will too.”

Luke laughed and called her bluff. “Go ahead. Get naked.” But she never would. Pru kept that girl under her thumb so tightly she probably couldn’t even
say
the word naked.

“You think I won’t do it,” she said with a sideways grin.

The way she looked at him—all cocky and smiling—he should’ve known something was up. She sauntered toward the water, slowly trailing one hand up the side of her ribs to the back of her neck. Then, even more slowly, she pulled the string that fastened her bikini top until it came loose. He’d expected her to whirl around and face the other way, to tease him and hold the material against her chest and then run into the water to hide, but she didn’t. With all the confidence of a Playboy centerfold, she pulled off her flimsy top and extended one arm to let it drop to the ground.

“Ho-o-ly shit,” he whispered, going from semi to hard as titanium in an instant.

Luke knew his mouth was hanging open like a fly trap, but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. He’d imagined June naked a time or two. Or a hundred. But this put every one of his fantasies to shame. Her brazenly exposed, pink-tipped breasts swayed along with her body as she stepped nearer to the water, and he couldn’t have looked away for a million dollars.

“Still think I won’t do it?” June hooked her thumbs under the fabric around her hips.

If there was one thing that could tear his gaze away from her magnificent breasts, it was
that
. Part of him screamed,
Don’t do it!
But another, much more influential part, begged her not to stop.

June paused, waiting until he glanced directly into her warm, brown eyes. Then, watching him the whole time, she peeled the stretchy black fabric down over her thighs, shimmied it to her feet, and kicked it aside. Again, he expected her to hide behind her hands or rush into the water, and again, he was dead wrong. She stood completely naked before him and just let him look. And he did look. Her body—especially the drastic flare of her hips and those little dimples in front—was almost too feminine, if such a thing were possible, and his hands grasped at the water in an overpowering urge to touch her. The skin between her long, fair legs was totally bare, something he’d never seen before, except in dirty magazines.

“Jesus, Junebug,” he whispered, completely stupefied.

Finally, she stepped into the pond, wading forward until she was waist-deep, and then dove in headfirst. When she surfaced several seconds later, she was right behind him.

“Guess you don’t know me as well as you thought,” she said, gasping for air and slipping her arms around his shoulders. When the firm tips of her nipples brushed against his back, Luke had to press his lips together to keep from groaning out loud.

He cleared his throat and tried to sound casual. “I’ll consider that my graduation present.”

“I don’t know,” she said, still trying to catch her breath. She pulled herself around to face him and then wrapped her smooth legs around his waist. When the inside of her thigh skimmed his erection, he gasped and held her still. “I think,” she continued, “such a momentous occasion calls for more.”

“Christ,” he hissed, pushing away. “Stop. You can’t do that.”

For the first time that afternoon, he saw her confidence falter as her coy little smile drooped into a frown. She peered through wide eyes and asked, “You really want me to stop?”

Luke held his breath for a long moment then let it out real slow. “No. But you don’t understand about guys, Junebug. I’m already too—”

“I know plenty.” Cupping one hand against his cheek, she pulled his head lower, until they were eye-level. “I know I want you to kiss me. And I won’t ask you to stop, whatever happens after that.”

Oh, god. How many times had he abused himself beneath his bedspread, imagining this very situation? But this wasn’t just any girl. This was June. His Junebug. The only person in the world who’d never turned her back on him or let him down, and for all practical purposes, his best friend. If they had sex, there’d be consequences. They’d go their separate ways for now—him to basic training and her to university—but what about when they came back to Pru’s at Christmastime? Would this ruin everything?

“Don’t think,” she whispered, tightening her legs and pulling their bodies together. “Just kiss me.”

So he did. He took June’s face in his hands and he kissed her, brushing his lips lightly against hers, and then taking her bottom lip between his teeth. Her mouth was soft and wet, and she tasted like cherry pie. When Luke deepened the kiss and felt her warm tongue sweep against his, a jolt of pleasure struck directly between his legs. Kissing June was different than his experiences with other girls—not a dull, mechanical exchange of tongues or a stepping stone to second base. With June, he felt that kiss deep inside his chest, as if his lungs were balloons inflating bigger and bigger, until they might pop. And she kissed him like he was the only man on earth, fisting her little hands in his hair and pulling his mouth harder against hers, trying to consume him. He wanted to consider the consequences more, but his mind grew foggier with each soft swirl of her tongue.

The noises that came from the back of her throat caused his heart to skip ahead a few beats, and then she started exploring his body, smoothing her fingertips along the tops of his shoulders, down his back, over his ass. Then she grabbed both cheeks and pulled herself closer to strain against his erection.

“Shit,” he whispered, clenching his eyes shut and tilting their foreheads together. Did she understand what she was doing? He wanted her to stop rubbing up against him, but he wanted her to keep going even more. Gripping the bottoms of her thighs, he shifted her higher, away from his groin, and then pulled her face up for another slow kiss.

June moved one hand over his, tugging it away from her cheek and guiding it to her firm breast, and then, keeping her legs wrapped tightly around his waist, she leaned back into the water, bringing her nipples right to his mouth. God damn, it was like a wet dream.

Luke cupped one breast and sucked the satiny nipple into his mouth like a greedy child, feeling a surge of pride when June moaned loudly in response. Then he moved to her other breast, using the seam of his lips to brush lightly back and forth across the tight pink bud, teasing her into a frenzy before drawing it deep into his mouth.

She whispered things he’d never heard her say before—filthy words that would make a porn star blush, and it made him want to drive her further, to see how she’d react when he pushed her over the edge. Skimming one hand along her round bottom, he lifted his lips from her nipple long enough to ask, “You kiss your Gram with that mouth?”

Instead of answering, she dug her nails into his shoulders and pulled herself back up. Then, heaven help him, she started grinding again. But this time, she angled her hips so the tip of his shaft pressed right against her warm, slick opening. She attacked his mouth, kissing him with animal ferocity, and lowered onto his erection just a tiny bit. Just enough to make his breath catch. Just enough to get her pregnant if they weren’t careful. Luke was out of his mind with need, but not so far gone that he’d take that risk.

Luke wasn’t sure how he managed it, but he grabbed June’s thighs and carried her across the uneven, silt-covered pond floor, out of the water, and onto dry land without dropping her in the process, and then laid her on the quilt in the shade.

When he lowered his mouth to hers, water droplets from his hair fell onto her cheeks and trailed down the side of her face like tears, and it reminded him this was her first time. It would hurt. He’d never had a virgin before, and he wondered if she’d cry. Suddenly he wasn’t sure if he could do this. He couldn’t bear the thought of hurting June.

“We don’t have to,” he whispered against her lips. “We can do other things instead.” And he trailed one hand down over her slippery, wet breasts, over her flat belly, all the way between her thighs. He swept his knuckles lighter than a dragonfly’s wing across the soft folds of skin there, and when she opened her legs, he skimmed his thumb across her slick, sensitive flesh, until she whimpered and arched her hips for more pressure. “See?” he said. “This is just as good.” It was a lie, but she didn’t need to know that.

“Please.” She cupped his cheek and pleaded with heavily lidded eyes. “I want you to be the first. Not some frat boy.”

Luke’s gut clenched into a knot so tight he thought he’d get sick. The thought of some preppy college prick touching her—sliding his dirty hands across her nipples, settling his thumbs in the dimples at the front of her hips that were made for him, slamming into her without a care for her discomfort—enraged him to the point of madness.

June was his girl. All his. And he’d take this gift she offered and treasure it. No matter how far apart life scattered them, no other man would have what she’d given him today.

“Okay,” he said. “But only if you’re sure.”

“I’m ready.” She wrapped one leg around his waist and tugged down on his shoulders.

He was ready too—had been since the moment she’d slipped off her bikini—but he wanted to give June pleasure before the pain. The only problem was how she might react. Some girls were squeamish about it. He reached between her thighs to stroke her again and said, “I want to kiss you here first.”

“You can
do
that?” When June’s mouth popped open and her eyebrows shot up, it took every ounce of Luke’s dwindling self-control not to smile. But he remained stoic, refusing to laugh at her innocence. It just made her that much more beautiful. “But,” she objected, “isn’t that kind of gross?”

“Unh-uh.” He shook his head and continued moving his thumb in slow, lazy circles. Then he slipped his index finger inside where she was warm and snug. Though it took a Herculean effort, he tried not to imagine how it would feel around his painfully hard shaft. This part was just for her; he needed to focus on her. Then he brought that same glistening finger to his mouth and sucked it clean right in front of her astonished eyes. “You’re delicious, and I want to taste you again. Just say yes.”

“Yes.”

Starting with her forehead, Luke kissed his way down June’s body, pausing at the strawberry birthmark on her neck that had always taunted him. Her sweet, salty skin smelled like coconut lotion, and when he bit her, she gasped and pulled his head down, urging him to bite her again, harder.

He lingered at her breasts awhile, and then kissed down the length of her stomach to her hips, stopping to kiss each luscious indent. When he finally reached the apex between her thighs, Luke settled one hand beneath her bottom and angled her toward his face. Then, slower than molasses going uphill, he licked her salty, wet flesh and waited for her reaction.