Sage
I’d never had the bejesus scared out of me while in the middle of the best kiss of my life—well, tied for best if I counted the first time Luke kissed me—but I did not recommend the experience.
My heart was pounding. My head, a giant pile of blurry, blissful mush. And my body tingled with an ache that spiraled to each individual pore.
When a zombie appeared with a sickening growl next to us, I was too incoherent with want for my fake boyfriend to remember that we were in a haunted house, and it wasn’t a real apocalypse. So, I let out a not only unattractive bloodcurdling scream but also let it out right in Luke’s face.
There was a split second where Luke was completely unfazed before he shoved me behind him for protection at the exact same time I went to bolt for the nearest exit.
White smoke spun up like dust around the commotion, and I missed the lip in the old hardwood floors, catching the toe of my boot and rocketing me toward the ground.
I cried out as I fell, my knees landing with a hard thud, making me wince, and tears collected in the corners of my eyes. But the pain evaporated as soon as I turned to look at Luke.
My lips parted but my lungs were too shocked to let any air through.
Luke stood with one hand locked around the zombie’s throat, pinning him to the wall. No wonder he hadn’t heard me fall.
He looked menacing. Terrifying. Voldemort in the flesh. Except he wasn’t the Dark Lord looking to punish, he was looking to protect. Me.
“Interrupt me kissing my woman again, Billy, and I’ll give you something to scream about,” I heard him warn the kid in a low voice.
Luke must recognize him.
The younger boy nodded frantically and mumbled an apology, something about how they were told to scare anyone getting frisky.
Releasing him, Luke immediately looked for me.
Crap.
My head jerked away. I tried to stand up before he realized I’d tripped, but I managed all of a single inhale before I was doused in hot Voldemort’s shadow, his hands gripping my arms and lifting me upright.
And that was when I heard it—the sickening sound of fabric tearing.
“Jesus, Sage,” he muttered. “Are you—”
“I’m fine.” I brushed my hands down my dress, searching for the tear. Meanwhile, Luke reached down for my hat, the point peeking out through the smoke.
I managed to keep my breathing steady as he secured it back on my head, but couldn’t stop my chest from catching when he began to tuck strands of dislodged hair back behind my ears.
“We need to catch up to the group,” I murmured, hearing just how husky my voice had become.
Dropping my gaze down my front, I could see where my nipples were pebbled against my dress, aching for more of his warm touch. Lower still, a small cry cracked open in my throat when I saw the tear across the skirt, the fabric gaping to expose my green stocking-covered knees and shins.
“Oh no,” I whimpered, peeling apart the pieces to see just how far it stretched.
Which was pretty much across the whole front of my costume.
I bit my lip, scrambling for a solution to the situation, but my thoughts were still all knotted around Luke.
“I can’t walk like this,” I murmured, though it was an obvious truth. The torn fabric drooped down on top of my shoes, just begging to get caught up and tumbled over.
Luke crouched back down, sending a rush of heat when he ended up eye level with my core. With a grunt, I watched him adjust himself, my pulse quickening at the reminder of the hard length I’d felt wedged against my stomach.
“Trust me?” He looked up and asked.
I felt my head nod before I could think to give him a verbal answer, and when his eyes returned to my legs, I wondered if he could see my knees shaking.
Grabbing the dress at the edge of the tear, he ripped it farther, drawing a long gasp from my chest until one edge of the fabric was severed, and I realized what he was doing. My mouth parted, watching his arm and shoulder muscles flex with a hard pulse as he tore the other end and turned my costume from a full dress into an uneven high-low style—the high sitting a little too high on my thighs… especially when Luke’s face was right in front of them.
Balling the scrap of fabric in his fist, he stared at my legs wrapped in green fishnet tights and let out a grunt that sounded pained when he rose up straight.
My tongue slid over my lower lip, stalked by the heat of his stare.
“I think everyone is still—” I broke off with a small gasp when he cupped the side of my face, angling it up to his like he was going to kiss me again.
And if I was being honest, that was what I wanted. More of his kisses.
More of him.
More of the way he looked at me like I was pure magic.
“I’m not taking you where everyone else is,” he rasped, a strained look of uncertainty creasing a face that was always confident, especially when it was looking at a woman.
“What?”
“I can’t do this anymore, Sage.”
I tried to swallow over the growing lump in my throat. “Do what?”
There was a long pause—long enough for me to hear how my heart fluttered with hope.
“Pretend like how I want you isn’t real.” He stroked his thumb down my cheek and along the dip under my lower lip. “Pretend like I didn’t think you walked right out of my dreams and into my brewery that day. Pretend like I haven’t dreamed of you every night.” He groaned. “Pretend like I wasn’t about to fuck you in the back of the hayride because I couldn’t control myself.”
And just like that, we weren’t in a haunted house any longer, we were in this magical realm where there was only him and how he consumed all of me.
“Luke…”
His fingers traced down my neck, over the thrum of my pulse, and skated down the outside of my arm until he reached my hand, taking it in his.
Slowly, so I had plenty of time to realize exactly what he was doing and plenty of time to stop it—he cupped around the back of my hand and drew my palm to his cock.
Oh god. I couldn’t breathe. And I definitely couldn’t be imagining that.
I couldn’t breathe because that would mean this was real—that Luke standing in front of me, saying these things, was real. And my heart had hardened in self-preservation to the idea that a man like him—handsome, charming… the perfect prince—would want the Wicked Witch with my full curves, bright sense of style, and sharp, independent streak.
But he did.
And he’d offered his massive hard cock as proof.
Like an exhaust valve, steam erupted through his clenched teeth as my fingers molded over his length.
“I can’t pretend like wanting you isn’t killing me,” he rasped, his voice hitching when I gently tested his girth in my grip.
And it was confirmed; fisting a man like Luke Chambers was a two-hand job.
When I squeezed a second time, he jerked my hand away with a sharp inhale and a curse.
“I won’t take you back to the group and risk you continuing to think that what I’m doing or saying is just for show,” he went on, bringing my captured palm to his lips so he could press an openmouthed kiss to its center. “So believe me when I say that this is all for you, that I want you even when—especially when no one is watching, and that I want to forget about everyone else right now and take you home with me.”
His words hit a spot inside me that disintegrated my defenses. For the first time, I couldn’t walk, talk, or scare myself away from the gorgeous man in front of me.
The man who wanted me.
I knew I was strong and independent, but that didn’t mean I didn’t come without weaknesses or scars—that didn’t mean that the shithead upstairs hadn’t hurt me when I was young and vulnerable enough for it to not alter my future.
Because of Sean, I’d put up walls—blinders that prevented me from looking at any guy who was, as they say, out of my league.
But then Luke showed up—literally—at my parents’ house when, knowing who I was, he could’ve easily stayed away. Instead, he’d smiled that panty-melting smile, looked at me with eyes that drew out the butterflies in my stomach like a magic magnet, and declared himself my boyfriend.
And now, instead of wondering if this was real, his sincerity… his intensity made me question whether any of it had been fake?
I shuddered when the hot velvet of his tongue flattened on the racing pulse at my wrist, drawing me back to the moment.
“Are you using dark magic to convince me?” I murmured thickly, watching him smile as he licked my skin.
Hot tingles roamed over my body, further proof that, at least around Luke, magic was real.
“My beautiful, wicked witch… I don’t need dark magic to sway you,” he rasped, a slow smile spreading over his face, easy and sure now that he knew he had me.
My breath stuttered. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.” His head dipped, and I heard him chuckle before I was suddenly hoisted into his arms.
I sucked in a breath and locked my arms around his neck for support that was unnecessary, his arms were like solid steel bars around my back and legs.
Angling his head, Luke nuzzled my ear, and then he added with a deep, sexy voice as he carried me out the back exit of the house and toward his truck, “I don’t need magic to make you melt.”