Celeb Crush (19 page)

I shift away from him, trying to create as much space between us as possible.  “I said it’s not your fault.”

“How do you figure?”

I motion for him to back up, which he does reluctantly.  It’s my turn to pace now.  I nervously run a hand over my messy bun.  “So, uh—what happened last night might have been on…me.”

Luke seems to freeze to the spot.  “What do you mean?” he asks carefully.

I’m suddenly fascinated by a bag of flour on the counter.  “Well…”

“Tell me.”

“Alright!” I snap, turning on him.  “I started it, okay?  I thought it was a dream and I…”  I let my voice trail off, mumbling incoherently.

Suddenly Luke is in front of me again, his face mere inches from mine.  His eyes seem to darken as he searches my face.  “You, what?”

“Can we just drop it?” I plead, widening my eyes.  “I wasn’t even awake when I started touching you—”  I bite down hard on my bottom lip.   I never meant to tell him about the touching.  I know I said I would, but I was lying.

I swear Luke seems to get closer without moving an inch.  By the look on his face, you’d think he was about to move in for the kill.  “You…touched me?”

I gulp, taking a step back.  “No!  Maybe.  A little.”

“Andi,” Luke growls warningly.

I should tape my mouth shut when I’m feeling both guilty and angry, because this is what comes out:  “I groped you like a blind whore in a braille factory, okay?!  And then I shoved your hand down my pants, and rode it all the way to Happy Town!”

Dead silence ensues.  He appears stunned at my revelation.  I watch apprehensively as he processes my confession, the shock slowly fading and turning into something else.  Our eyes lock, and the heat between us becomes a raging inferno.  I know one of us is about to do something extremely dumb right now.

Luke’s expression abruptly changes as his gaze shifts away from mine, and lands on something behind me.  I immediately whirl around.

I let out a loud and wretched gasp at the sight of the gray-haired older gentleman standing there, holding the door open from the other side.  He appears mortified, his face red with embarrassment.

“Pastor Dan,” I wheeze out in an unnaturally high voice.  “H-hey.”

Pastor Dan snaps out of his horrified daze.  “Excuse me,” he mumbles, quickly backing away.  The door swings close behind him.

I shouldn’t have said what I did, not in the house of the Lord.  I wonder if Pastor Dan remembers who I am, and that I’ve always been a foul-mouthed little creature.  I hope he doesn’t mention this to my aunt and uncle.

My musing is cut short by the sound of Luke’s deep chuckles.  I whirl on him.  “You think this is funny?!” I shout incredulously.

He leans against the counter, shaking his head and grinning.  “Yeah, it’s fucking hilarious,” he replies wryly.  “I’ve been waiting two years for something to happen between us—and when it does, we’re both asleep!”

I narrow my eyes at him.  “You waited two years to make a move on
me
, Mr. Rich and Famous?  Yeah, right.”  I snort derisively.

Luke’s face darkens in anger.  “No, I waited over two years for you to stop pining over some asshole that banged your cousin on your bed.”

I gasp again.  “I am not pining over Bran!”

He crosses his arms over his chest, and regards me skeptically.  “Are you sure about that?  Because every time he says jump, you say how high.”

Now I’m really pissed.  No one accuses me of being froggy.  I point my finger in his face.  “I don’t jump for anyone!  Not for Bran, and not for you!  Not anymore.  I fucking quit!”

“You can’t quit!” Luke retorts, his eyes shooting green fire at me.

“Watch me!”

He lets out a growl of pure frustration as he turns away, running both hands through his blonde hair.  When he finally turns back to me, his face is more composed.  “I’m sorry, Andi.  This isn’t going the way I planned,” he admits.

I can tell by his tone of voice that he’s trying to calm down and be reasonable.  But I don’t want to be reasonable, damn it.  I want to fight!

I put my hands on hips, and smirk at him.  “Didn’t go as planned?  Oh, excuse me, was I supposed to just lie down and open my legs for you like all the other girls?”

For a few seconds, Luke just stares at me like I’ve grown another head.  “You think that this is all about me wanting to get in your pants?” he says incredulously. 

“What better time to try and hit it than when I’m helping to plan the wedding of my cousin to my ex-boyfriend?”  I say bitterly.

“I came down here for you!  I wanted to be there for you while you’re going through a rough time.”

“Right, so you can seduce me when I’m nice and vulnerable.”  I flash him my best challenging smile, silently daring him to contradict me.

Luke briefly shuts his eyes and I imagine he’s mentally counting to ten.  When he’s done, he opens them.  I can tell he’s on the verge of losing it.  All he needs is a little push.

“I can see where you might have got that impression,” he says slowly.  “I’ve been acting like a jackass since I got here—and I know you’re well acquainted with my track record.”  His laugh is bitter.  “But I’m not—I just…I suck at this.  Look, I wasn’t sure if I should try to start something between us.  After a long time of going back and forth, I decided I couldn’t risk fucking it all up and losing you.  But then that time in Paris...” 

Luke grabs my hand and tugs me forward so that our bodies are just a thought away from touching.  Our breaths come rapidly, chests rising and falling almost in sync.   If we crossed that distance, would we absorb each other?  My heartbeat.  His heartbeat.  His pain.  My pain.  My aching emptiness.  His huge hard—

“I finally got you in my arms, and in my bed,” he continues, interrupting my dirty thoughts, “and I realized that I never wanted to let you go.”

If this was a movie, and I was one of Luke’s leading ladies, I would throw myself into his arms and kiss the life out of him.  But I’m me, and, honestly, I’m usually the villain.  I don’t want to be anyone’s heroine.  I don’t want him to look at me like that.  I don’t want him to say those things to me.  I am so confused.  And freaked out.  Where the hell is all this coming from?

“Blah, blah, blah!” I blurt out, pushing him away from me.  “You never want to let me go?  Are you kidding?  Why don’t you just say you wanna bang?”

Luke turns to me sharply, disbelief written all over his gorgeous features.  “You still think this is just about sex?!”

I throw my hands up in the air dramatically.  “It’s always just about sex with you, Luke!  Part of my job description is to sweep up the trail of broken hearts you leave in your wake.  You’ve been humping and dumping girls since I met you.  Why the hell would I be any different?!”

“Because I—”

Don’t you hate it when someone is on the verge of blurting out a confession—but then they come to their senses?  Luke clamps his mouth shut, jaw clenching so hard a muscle in his cheek jumps.  He shoves his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and walks a few steps away from me, his posture rigid. 

“You know what?  Forget I said anything,” he finally mutters.  “You’re too fucking stubborn and too fucking scared to hear what you know is the truth.”

“The truth!” I scoff.  “Please, you’re an actor.  You lie for a living!  You sound like you’re reciting a sappy speech from one of your scripts.  Say something ugly so I know you mean it.”

Luke stalks toward me, murder in his eyes.  I pick up the bag of flour and hold it in front of me like a shield.  Sometimes you have to take comfort where you can find it.

“What the hell do you want me to say, Andi?  That I have to think about my taxes just so I don’t get hard whenever I’m near you?”  He glares down at me, intimidating me with his size and his anger.   “That I bury myself in other girls because I'm trying to forget about the one I can't have?  That I think about you when I’m fucking?"

"You…really?"  I’m disgusted.  But also kind of flattered.  And a little turned on, if I’m honest.  That can’t be right.

“What, you wanted to hear the ugly truth right?”  Luke is saying.  He backs me up against the refrigerator, nothing but the bag of flour between us.  “You ready for another one?  I know you want me too—only you don’t have the balls to admit it.  Tell me I’m wrong,” he dares me.

“You’re wrong,” I declare.  “You think just ‘cause I groped you in my sleep that I have the hots for you, Mr. Big Shot?  In my dream, you were my high school English teacher!”

“Oh, really?”  Luke smirks. He captures my gaze with his and doesn’t let me look away.  “I may have been half asleep, but I remember you moaning my name.  I remember feeling you come around my fingers.  You were soaking wet, Andi.  So tell me again how you don’t have the hots for me.”

I flush immediately, and it’s like someone pulled a warm stocking over my entire body.  “Fuck you, Luke.”  I mean to say this menacingly, but my voice comes out all weak and shaky.  It sounds like I’m about to burst into tears—which I’m not!  I make sure to convey my fury through dagger-like eye contact.

“You will; count on it.”  A hard smile touches his mouth as he rests both palms against the refrigerator above my head, and ever so slowly leans in like he’s doing a vertical push up.

I freeze as his mouth hovers over mine.  The molten gold in his eyes mesmerizes me.  I know what I must look like to him:  lips parted, heavy-lidded, and with the stereotypical heaving bosom of a fair maiden caught in a wicked rogue's sex web.  In other words:  I look like I want it bad.  For the record, so does he.

If he kisses me right now, I won’t be strong enough to stop him.  Again, I don’t mean that in a rape-y way.  I mean willpower.  I have none when it comes to him.

"I’m going to give you time to adjust to the idea of us," Luke says, his eyes focused on my mouth.  “Then we’re done with the bullshit, Andi.  I’m not letting you run away from me again.”

I clutch my flour baby closer to my chest, and try to swallow over a sudden massive lump in my throat.   Electric thrills of excitement course through my veins.   I wait for his gaze to meet mine again before I flash my patented fake smile.

“If I’m running away, it’s because I’m not interested, Golden Boy,” I say sweetly.  “There is no ‘us.’  There never has been, and there never will be.”

Luke’s answering smile is as fake as mine, contrasting with the sharp gleam in his eyes.  “You know me well enough to know that I get what I want.”

I roll my eyes, breaking the spell.  “Your ego must be the biggest thing I’ve ever seen.”

His smirk only grows wider and more confident as he finally backs away.  “That’s because you haven’t seen all of me yet.”

“Ugh!  You’re such an arrogant asshole!”

I angrily slam my flour baby down on the counter—and I’m immediately enveloped in a cloud of white.  I did not realize that sucker was open.  I glare at Luke, but he’s not laughing at me like I would have been.  I guess some people are just more mature than others.  I laughed at him at the fire extinguisher incident.  I think I also made a really dirty joke about the foam.

“Get yourself cleaned up, Tiger.”  Luke tosses me a hand towel from a shelf.  “I’ll see you later.”

He straight arms the door, giving it a few rapid fire punches as he goes through so it stutters open.  I can’t help but wonder if he’s imagining the door is my face.

Well, thank god that went well.

Chapter 16

Luke is gone again.  I guess he must’ve driven himself to the airport like a big boy.  I don’t care that he didn’t say goodbye.  As far as I’m concerned, this whole last week has not happened.  I’m erasing it from my memory, and when he comes back I’m going to act like nothing’s changed between us.  Like we didn’t say those things to each other, and he didn’t give me the most amazing orgasm of my life.

But I’m not thinking about that.

I don’t go on the internet because it’s inevitable that I’ll see something about Luke.  I don’t want to watch any movies because even if he’s not in them, I’ll think about how much better Luke would have been in the role of the male lead actor.  He may be an arrogant ass, but he sure is talented.  And so hot.  Oh, my god.

Ellen has a date to play Bingo with her new boyfriend.  She doesn’t even invite me along despite my puppy dog eyes.   I guess she remembers how I get when I play any kind of game with a prize.  Same reason why I got kicked off the basketball, track, and debate teams throughout my formative years.

I’d just decided to head to the gym for a good long workout when the doorbell rings.  I open the door to the world’s dopiest couple.  Megan and Bran stand there holding hands, with matching smiles.  They’ve brought along Megan’s copies of the Soul series. Bran says we’re going to have a movie marathon night with determination in his voice.  Judging by the strained look on Megan’s face, she thinks it’s a shitty idea.  She’s correct.

Well, who wouldn’t want to spend the night cuddled on the sofa with their cheating ex-boyfriend and cheating ex-cousin, watching movies starring the guy who you made give you a hand job in his sleep?