Take Me 01 - Love Me

she offered wickedly.
    “Don't tempt me,” he growled, pulling her back against his chest. And, of course, he wanted to feel her mouth on him. Who wouldn't?
    The thing was, right now he wanted to talk to her even more.
    You're asking for trouble , a voice in the back of his head that had joined the warning bell cautioned him, but then she was saying, “Tell me more about all the trouble you got Travis in.”
    “I learned to swim before he did, which he hated because he always liked to think of himself as the older brother. Those sixty seconds before I came out are really important to him, you know.”
    “Figures,” she said.
    Laughing, he said, “Anyway, one afternoon when he was being a real piece of work, we were out by the pool and I dared him to jump into the deep end.”
    “The idiot jumped, didn't he?”
    Luke laughed too, remembering. “Of course he did. But in the end, it all worked out just fine for him.”
    “Why? Because you saved him?”
    “Yeah, I saved him. But it was our busty young babysitter who made his day. I swear he sat there with his head between her breasts the rest of the afternoon.”
    “How old were you?”
    “Six. Seven, maybe.”
    Janica giggled. “Come on. He was just a kid. He couldn't have already been such a dog. Now you're just talking smack about him because you know I like to hear it.” And then she said, “But I'll admit, it was pretty weird when he started dating my sister. I guess I always thought that she'd end up with you.”
    “No chance,” he said. “Lily and I were only friends.”
    “But you spent so much time together. How could nothing have happened? Something had to have happened at some point.”
    This was awkward.
    “We kissed once,” he admitted.
    “Aha! I knew it.”
    “We had zero chemistry, Janica.”
    “How could someone have zero chemistry with you?”
    He had to kiss her. “I'm flattered.”
    “Flattery has nothing to do with it, Luke.” She ran the pad of her thumb across his lips. “You're the best kisser I've ever known.”
    He leaned in to capture her sugary lips and it was the sweetest kiss they'd ever shared.
    “I love you,” she whispered against his lips.
    The three words ricocheted through him just as they always did. And each time something inside of him shifted a little bit more.
    Allowing himself one more sensuous sweep of his tongue against hers, he pulled back. “Janica, I—”
    Her eyes were dilated, her cheeks so flushed with arousal that he could see the heightened color on her face even in the dim firelight.
    “Shut up and kiss me some more, Luke.”
    Every time she gave him an out.
    And every time he deserved it less.
    But the worst part of it was that he knew he was going to take it anyway.
    His mouth never leaving hers, he laid her back on the blanket. He wanted to look at her, this beautiful miracle in his arms. Shifting so that he could run his hands over her shoulders, slowly down her arms, he drank in the sight of her.
    Firelight made her skin glow, but she didn't need it, didn't need anything other than the fire that was already inside of her.
    “I'm so damn lucky you're here.” His statement was out there before he could think better of saying it.
    She blinked up at him, her big brown eyes warm with arousal—and love. “You are?”
    Her response took him by surprise, the fact that she didn't know it already.
    And it made him want her even more. It made him want to show her how lucky he was, rather than just tell her with words.
    The surf crashed around them as he slowly stripped off her clothes. The moon shined down over them as he ran kisses over her skin. The fire flickered as she cried out with pleasure in his arms.
    As he made love to Janica Ellis, the warning bells and lights clanged and chimed and shined as loudly as they could, trying to remind him that the higher the heights, the bigger the fall. But with Janica moving beneath him and the stars up above in a cloudless sky, he couldn't stop himself from feeling greater pleasure—and deeper peace—than he ever had before.

Chapter Seventeen

    “Go back to sleep,” Janica murmured as she felt Luke shift against her the following morning.
    In the past few days she'd learned that her lover was an early bird. No matter how late they went to bed, no matter how little sleep they got, he was up with the sun.
    The only thing that made it slightly palatable was the fact that other parts of him were up too.
    “I'll let you sleep again soon,” he