LUKE: Complete Series Read Online Free Page A

found out.
    “I’m sorry to hear that.”
    He finally turned to me. “Why are you sorry? Look at where it got me. I’m trying to make a point. I’m trying to tell you that it’s not too late for you. Maybe the $140,000 I’m offering will help you on that road.”
    He rose from the sofa and made his way toward me as I stood dumbfounded by this number. That was almost double what NeoSys was paying me. He stopped in front of me and I leaned into his hand as his fingers grazed my cheek.
    “Why?” I breathed, as his other hand slipped behind my neck.
    “Because you’ve already been through enough.”
    He kissed me and I was lost, spinning in a haze of his presence, his scent, his power… his kindness. I threw my arms around his neck and he lifted me up, carrying me to the kitchen island where the bowl of leftover milk from my breakfast cereal sat next to a block of knives. He sat me on the counter and I tossed the bowl and knives to the floor as I lay back. He pulled off my jeans and sunk down to bury his face in me.
    “Oh, my God,” I whimpered, as he lifted my legs onto his shoulders and proceeded to taste every inch of me. His fingers curled inside me as he massaged both my spots. “Oh, Luke!”
    “Yes?” he hummed into my lips and I shuddered with pleasure.
    “I… Oh, no.”
    “Do you want me to stop?”
    “Yes. Please stop.”
    He stood up and pulled his fingers out of me, though his thumb still rested on my throbbing clit. “What’s wrong?”
    “I’m sorry,” I said, as I slid off the counter, trying to ignore the intense longing pulsating between my legs as I pulled on my jeans. “I’m really sorry, but this is so wrong.”
    I couldn’t tell if he looked more confused or dejected by my words. He had probably never been rejected by a woman before. At least, that was what I was counting on.
    “You’re right. We should keep this professional.” He strode quickly toward the door. “Are you ready to go? We have a meeting with Imitex in two hours.”
    I stared at him for a moment, feeling like a ten-ton bitch. “It only takes forty minutes to get to Newport Hills, with traffic. I’m thinking that countertop was all wrong. My bed is much more comfortable.”
    We spent the next hour exploring every inch of each other like curious, untamed primates. He wanted to know exactly what I liked and I discovered a sensitive area on his lower back that made him squirm when I kissed it. By the time we got into his car, I was sure we reeked of sex, but there was no time to wash his scent off of me. And I didn’t want to, anyway.
    He reached across the space between us and grabbed my hand again. I stared at our fingers woven together and thought of my first boyfriend, Jimmy Nichols. Jimmy was the first boy, beside my brother, to hold my hand. When I asked him what the point of holding hands was, he said something to me I would never forget. “Holding hands is like giving someone a mini-hug.”
    Luke must have thought I was broken if he thought I needed to be hugged so often. That’s when I realized he really didn’t know why I had shown up at his office yesterday morning. He didn’t know about the $250,000 lump sum plus stock options NeoSys offered Janice to retire. Luke didn’t know that while he was trying to put me back together I was trying to demolish him.
    “I’m meeting with Imitex today to discuss Blaze,” he said, pulling me out of my pit of self-loathing. “I can’t have you sit in today. I have to wait until the full results of your background check come in. You understand, right?”
    My hand jerked involuntarily and I squeezed his hand as if it were a ship’s wheel in a storm. He didn’t know why I was there because he hadn’t done a full background check on me. Well, if he didn’t know before, he would know soon. This meeting with Imitex might be my last opportunity to gather intelligence. My last opportunity to show Luke that I wasn’t the broken girl he thought I was.
    “You do