“Want me to drive?” Tyler asked, looking apprehensive.
“I’m okay.” He buckled his seat belt. She continued to look worried. “Really, I am. I’m not going to go all crazy. Promise.” He glanced back at Chloe. “Pinkie promise.”
“Well, then.” She settled back in her seat. “That’s okay.”
It was okay, he realized after a few minutes on the road. Tyler had witnessed the ugly underbelly of his family life, but he didn’t mind. In fact, her presence helped him keep some perspective on the disaster. He’d sort out his father and sister another day. Even his writing problems he’d solve somehow. The snarl in his gut gradually untangled as they drove back to Burronga.
Ten minutes later, Tyler’s head was nodding against her headrest, and Chloe had already fallen asleep. Luke slackened his foot off the accelerator and eased back to catch the breeze flowing through the window. They would arrive soon enough, but for now he had everything he needed right here.
Tyler tucked the blanket under Chloe’s chin and pressed a final good-night kiss on her head. Her daughter barely stirred. Worn out by the party, she was already fast asleep. Tyler shut the bedroom door behind her and moved to the living room.
Luke was still there. Her heart skittered. She’d thought he might have gone next door, but he stood motionless by the window, gazing at the dusk-drenched garden. Judging by the tense set of his back, she had a suspicion he wasn’t really seeing anything. Emotion rushed over her and before she knew it, she had closed the gap between them. She brushed her hands across his back, and then couldn’t help herself wrapping her arms around him. His body was taut and hard, but at her touch, his muscles seemed to ease a fraction.
He turned toward her, arms going swiftly around her. Her heart thumped louder. This was exactly what she needed, she thought. What they both needed.
“Weird day, huh?” She coasted her hands over his back, exploring the length of his spine.
He pressed himself against her, muscular thighs rubbing against hers, triggering an answering flare in her legs. “A roller coaster of a day.” His breath feathered her temples. “Some pretty bad lows, but it’s starting to look up again.” His fingers fanned across her hips, explored her bottom, then slid to her waist. Desire sparked in his licorice eyes. She sensed him straining against his self-restraint, managing to just hold on. “Tyler,” he murmured, “are we suspending the light-and-casual policy?”
He had to bring that up now? She slid her hands over his torso, gliding upward to the bare skin at the V of his shirt, where she twirled her nails through a few strands of chest hair. Today she’d glimpsed the loves and hurts that shaped this complex man. He was so much more than just her hunky neighbor, and light and casual just wasn’t going to be enough for her.
“It’s a sacrifice, but someone’s gotta do it.”
Heat flared in his black eyes, and then he crushed his mouth against hers. This was no courting kiss. This was a blistering, ravenous kiss that bordered on rough. If it had been anyone else, she would have objected, but Luke’s thirst only inflamed hers. She matched his kiss, as avid as he, licking her tongue deep into his mouth. He made a growling noise in his chest, a primitive sound that stoked her excitement. Tangling his fingers through her hair, he claimed her jaw and neck with swift little bites before returning to her mouth. She could feel the fever throbbing through him as strong and urgent as her own, and she wasn’t too surprised when the front of his jeans swelled against her belly.
He must have become aware of it too, because he broke off the kiss and cupped her face in his hands, his breathing quick and uneven. “Do you know what you’re doing to me?” he muttered. “You could make a grown man cry.”
She gulped in some much-needed air. Her head was spinning like a top from his searing kisses, and she didn’t want the mayhem to stop. “Well, I’d hate to see you cry.” Her body was out of control, and she found herself sliding her belly up and down against him.
Luke let out another growl that sent a delicious shiver down her spine. She was toying with the tiger, she knew, and any second now the beast was going to pounce on her. The idea made her knees even weaker.
He gripped her waist again, harder this time. “We both know there’s an easy solution to this dilemma.”
His words hung in the torrid air between them. Her body screamed to kiss him, to possess him and be possessed by him. She couldn’t keep away from Luke. Not now, not after everything that had happened today. The wrenching confrontation he had endured with his father had demolished all her reservations about keeping her distance. Luke needed her, and tonight she couldn’t deny him anything.
“I like easy solutions,” she murmured.
Taking his hand, she led him down the hallway and into her bedroom. Fortunately, the bedroom was the one place she managed to keep clean, as she disliked mistreating her clothes. The room was reasonably tidy, but Luke didn’t seem to notice, all his attention taken by the huge, four-poster bed that dominated the small space.
“If I’d known you had a bed like this, I would have made my move sooner.”
She gave him a saucy grin, loving the glint in his eyes. “I have plans for you in this bed. Naughty plans.”
“Oh yeah?” The gleam in his eyes became a furnace. “I have a pretty fertile imagination too. I can see myself doing a few naughty things to you as well.”
She bit her lip as an all-body flush enveloped her. “Just a few?”
“Looks like we’ve got a busy night ahead of us.”
He reached for her and spun her into his arms, and she landed against his chest with a gasp.
Oh yeah, it was going to be one busy night all right.
Chapter Eleven
Luke was dreaming of making love to a beautiful redhead on a deserted beach when something nudged his shoulder. He tried to roll away and continue his randy dream, but the shaking continued. With a sigh, he peeled his eyes open to find the gorgeous redhead of his dream peering down at him through sex-tousled hair.
“Tyler? Is everything okay?” He blinked several times as he shook off the last remnants of his dream.
“Everything’s fine,” she said in a low tone. “But it’s almost six.”
Gray, predawn light percolated through the curtains. They were in her room, and he was naked in her four-poster bed. They were both naked. Memories of last night came surging back. The kissing and caressing, the teasing and playing, the scorching, incredible sex
“Ah” Exhaling a sigh of pleasure, he stretched out on the pillows and twined his fingers through her hair. “You’re hungry again, are you? Is that why you’re waking me up?” Instant heat unfurled through him, his body already priming itself.
“Sorry, no.” Her smile was regretful. “I’m waking you so you can go home before Chloe gets up.”
He blinked at her. “Really?”
“Yes, really.” Rolling out of bed, she picked up a violet robe and drew it around her naked body. “I make it a rule never to let Chloe see me in bed with a man.”
He pushed himself against the headrest. “I’m not some stranger. Chloe knows me.”
Tyler shot him a frown. “Are you suggesting I’m in the habit of picking up strangers?”
“Not at all,” he swiftly replied. He rubbed his bristly jaw for a few moments. “Hell, that was pretty insulting, wasn’t it? I apologize, but my point still holds. Chloe’s used to seeing me around the place.”
“It doesn’t matter.” She tied the belt of her robe with quick jerks. “Chloe is young and impressionable. I want to keep my sex life under wraps from her.”
“For how long? Until she’s eighteen? Leaves home?”
“If I have to.” Shaking back her hair, she perched on the bed next to him, her expression softening slightly. “I don’t want my little girl growing up faster than she has to. Can you understand that?”
The plea in her blue eyes instantly melted him. “Of course, and I’m just being selfish.”
And slow-witted, too. Tyler was right to turf him out of bed. Whatever sexual relationship was developing between them, it would have to be temporary because sooner or later, he’d be leaving. So it would be better all around to keep that away from Chloe, and better for them, too. They both had busy lives with individual goals and different paths to follow. It wouldn’t do to let this crackling magnetism between them take over their whole lives.
He got out of bed, wondering where all his clothes had gone in the frenzy of last night. As he searched about, he saw Tyler staring at him with hungry eyes. Her gaze slid over his naked body, ogling him without shame, and damn it if she didn’t lick her bottom lip.
He grinned at her. “You don’t want to look at me like that, or I’ll strip that robe off you in two seconds.”
“Promises, promises.” Her lips curled up.
He found his jeans and pulled them on. “So when can I make good on my promises?”
An odd, nervous look came over her. “Uh, I’m not sure.”
It hit him that Tyler wasn’t always as confident as she made out. She exuded such an aura of sultry sexiness that he’d assumed she’d had plenty of experience with men, but when he thought about it, she probably hadn’t. Before Chloe, she’d been involved exclusively with Damien, and since Chloe had been born, she’d always put her daughter first.