His One Desire (5 page)

Luke was a lot smarter at eighteen than he’d been at
fourteen, and when he saw Kali again he recognized his feelings for what they
were: lust and longing in equal measure. She was just as odd, just as
interesting, and just as smart as she’d been four years ago, but this time,
something about her elfin face and small, slender body turned his crank like it
had never been turned before.

Ten years hadn’t changed that. Kali still turned him on more
than any woman he’d ever met. She was leaning forward now, her eyes alight,
completely caught up in what she was saying.

There was a sudden, sharp ache in his sternum. The two of
them used to talk like that, for the few short, blissful months during senior
year when they’d been friends.

“I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of ghosts. They can
represent so many things, you know? Memory, regret, life and death,
immortality. You’ve seen
A Christmas Carol
, right? One of my favorite
scenes is when Marley’s ghost is talking to Scrooge and he looks outside to see
a homeless woman with a baby. And he’s in agony because he can’t do anything to
help her. A reminder that people need to live fully in the moment, to help each
other while they’re able. Ghosts remind us of eternity and also the transience
of life. That’s the tragedy and beauty of being human—we’re finite but we touch
the infinite, and we’re not completely at home in either reality. Do you know
what I mean?”

She wasn’t talking to him, but he heard himself say “Yes,”
even as the VP said “I think so,” a little cautiously, before he shook his head
and smiled. “You creative types,” he said jovially. “You’re too deep for me. I
guess we’re all good at different things, right?” He checked his watch and rose
from his seat. “Time for my little speech,” he said, moving to the podium that
had been set up in the front of the room.

“I did it again,” Kali muttered, taking a gulp of wine.
They’d finished dinner, but Kali had only had a few bites of food along with
two glasses of wine.

“Did what?” Luke asked.

She glanced up at him. She’d hardly spoken to him during the
meal, and he knew the only reason she was speaking to him now was because of
the alcohol buzzing in her veins.

“I talk too much. You heard what he said, didn’t you? That
I’m ‘too deep’. That’s code for boring. The execs think I’m too intellectual,
and that it’s going to show in my scripts. Which it never does, by the way. My
first priority is always telling a good story. My ideas are just there in the
subtext, to make the story richer.” She sighed. “But I should know by now not
to share the stuff in my head with the network people. I always end up feeling
like the nerdy kid no one wants to talk to, and they never get what I’m
saying.”

He couldn’t help smiling. “You worried about this same thing
in high school.”

She frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

“You’d go for days without saying anything in class, and
then you wouldn’t be able to stand it anymore and you’d talk, and you’d always
say something interesting and original. But after class you’d be embarrassed
because you actually expressed yourself out loud and everyone must be thinking
what a dork you are, and you’d swear you’d never, ever do it again. You said
writing was much better than talking, just like art was better than life. And
then you’d last about a week before the words inside you would explode and
you’d talk in class and start the whole process over again.”

She smiled a little. “I did that?”

He’d forgotten what it felt like to have Kali smile at him.
“Yeah. But you didn’t have anything to worry about then, and you don’t have
anything to worry about now. Don’t you know that smart is sexy?”

They looked at each other for a moment. Then Kali’s gaze
dropped to her wine glass, and she ran a finger over the rim. “Maybe you
thought so once. But it’s pretty obvious that your interests have changed since
high school.”

He frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Come on, Luke. I’ve seen the movies you’ve made over the
last few years. You’re not exactly doing Shakespeare.”

He ignored the veiled insult and zeroed in on something
else. “You’ve seen my movies?”

She shrugged. “Well, sure. The whole world has. You make
blockbusters, remember?”

“Is that the only reason you’ve seen them?”

“Yes.”

The VP started his speech, and people angled their chairs
towards the front of the room as the lights dimmed. He welcomed everyone to the
network’s annual retreat and hoped they they’d enjoyed their dinner. It was now
his pleasure to give the weekend’s keynote address, and he wanted to start with
a little anecdote from his recent trip to Europe…

They were sitting at the back of the room, and Kali had a
wall behind her. With everyone facing away the space between them seemed more
intimate, almost private. Luke tuned out the VP and moved his chair closer to
Kali’s.

“I think you’re lying,” he said softly. “I think you watched
those movies because I was in them. I think you went home afterwards and
fantasized about me.”

He only meant to tease her, to knock her off balance a
little. But when her gaze jerked up to meet his and her cheeks flooded with
color, he wondered suddenly if what he’d said might actually be true.

Her expression turned fierce as she hitched her chair closer
to his. “Let me make this perfectly clear. I don’t have a secret crush on you,
Luke. I don’t think you’re sexy, I don’t think you’re charming, and I don’t
fantasize about you. Ever. I think you’re an arrogant jerk who got bored one
day and decided to mess with my life, and all I want is to send you back to
L.A. where you belong. So if you don’t mind, give me a dare so we can get this
stupid game started.”

He was a hundred percent sure it wasn’t her intention, but
when Kali got that look in her eyes it made him hard as a rock. His heart beat
faster, and the hunger to be inside her took over his body. He had to clench
his fists to keep from throwing her over his shoulder and carrying her off to
his cave.

Except for one explosive kiss the day he’d asked her to the
prom, he hadn’t touched her back in high school. She’d been so innocent…because
of her overprotective mother, she’d never even been on a date. He, on the other
hand, had slept with a dozen girls, all of them as experienced as he was.

Kali’s innocence had been oddly intimidating, as though
contact with him might sully her somehow. For months he’d resisted his desire
for her and tried to be satisfied with friendship, since he knew she wasn’t
ready for more.

It had almost killed him. Just like sitting beside her was
killing him now.

But he wasn’t a kid anymore, and neither was she.

He took a deep breath. “I dare you to sit without moving or
speaking for ten minutes.”

She sat back in surprise. “That’s it?” She thought about it
for a moment. “I suppose that’s your snide way of telling me I do talk too
much. Well, fine.”

She grabbed her purse and pulled her cell phone out of it.
After a puzzled moment he realized she was programming her alarm to ring after
ten minutes, and in spite of the tension vibrating through him, he had to
smile. She’d give him ten minutes to the second and no more.

It would be enough.

She set the phone on the table and turned her eyes back to
the front of the room, her arms folded across her chest and a sour expression
on her face.

They’d moved their chairs closer to each other over the last
few minutes, and her right leg was only inches away. The thought of her soft,
bare skin made his palms tingle, and the anticipation was so sweet that he made
himself wait a few extra seconds, just to prove to himself that he could.

Then, under the cover of the tablecloth, he put his hand on
her thigh.

Kali jerked her leg away in outrage, only just stopping
herself from saying something out loud.

But she managed to stay silent. Did he think he could win
the game that easily? Well, he could forget it. She was made of tougher stuff
than Luke Tanner realized. She wasn’t an innocent schoolgirl now, who could be
overwhelmed by a simple touch.

Luke’s eyes, like hers, had been trained on the speaker. Now
he turned his head to look at her, and something in his intense, predatory gaze
made her go still, as if she were a mouse in the shadow of a hawk’s wings.

He didn’t say a word, but his eyes stayed on hers as he
found her leg again.

The big hand circling her thigh was blatantly possessive.
When she tried to pull away again he gripped her harder, tighter.

And then, finally, she understood.

This
was the dare. She had to sit here for ten
minutes while he…what? Exactly how far was he planning to take this?

She stared at him, her expression stony, and he looked back
at her. He seemed cool and detached, his blue eyes giving nothing away. His
face had never looked more handsome or more remote.

Then his fingers moved, softly, massaging the muscles just
above her knee.

And one corner of his mouth rose half an inch.

He was taunting her. He didn’t think she would last ten
minutes. He thought she’d give up without a fight.

And suddenly, the only thing that mattered was proving him
wrong. Proving that his touch wouldn’t affect her in the least. That his
vaunted sexual power could work on every woman in the world except for her.

So she gave an impatient sigh, as though she were bored.
Then she settled back in her chair with her eyes once again fixed on the
network VP, who was droning on now about social media and viral marketing and
God knew what else.

She felt Luke’s gaze on her for a moment longer. Then, out
of the corner of her eye, she watched him turn his head to face the speaker
again. She breathed a quick sigh of relief and tried to ignore the waves of
pleasure that had begun to radiate from his palm on her bare skin.

Her relief was soon over. Because now his hand slipped under
her dress and started to move slowly up her thigh.

She stopped breathing. Another few inches and he’d be
touching the edge of her underwear.

She could handle it. She could. This was nothing but a
stupid, childish game.

Except that there was nothing childish about the way Luke
made her feel. There never had been. Long before she could put a name to the feelings
he aroused in her, she’d known that they belonged to the woman she was becoming
and not the girl she had been.

When she was fourteen, her longing for Luke had been so
unfamiliar, so new and strange and terrifying, that she’d pushed it aside and
refused to think about it. When she met him again at eighteen, it was still
terrifying…but she hadn’t been able to push it aside. Her feelings for him had
grown until he was all she could think about, but she couldn’t imagine ever
crossing the line of friendship to act on her attraction.

It was too enormous a thing to contemplate. She had been so
sheltered by her mother…she would never be on an equal footing with the other
girls in his life. She could never think of Luke the way they did. The chasm
between her innocence and his experience was too wide. All she’d wanted was to
love him silently and desperately, from afar.

She’d been afraid of physical passion, and because of that
she’d always been a little afraid of Luke. He was so big and male and
sexual—and she hadn’t been ready to deal with any of that. That fateful day
when he’d kissed her after school and asked her to the prom, she’d known she
was out of her depth.

And now?

Luke’s hand ghosted over those last few inches, and he began
to trace the edge of her panties with his fingertips.

She couldn’t believe this was happening. She was sitting in
a dining room filled with a hundred colleagues, and Luke Tanner was slipping a
finger under the elastic to stroke the sensitive crease on the inside of her
thigh.

She risked a glance at him, but he wasn’t looking her way.
His face was in profile to her and his gaze was fixed on the VP as though he
were making the most fascinating speech Luke had ever heard. There was no hint
in his expression or in his body language that he had his hand on her, stroking
her, making her skin tingle with sweet, shocked awareness.

She was sure he wouldn’t go any further than this. Her
conviction was confirmed a few moments later, when his fingers retreated from
under the edge of her panties.

She felt a rush of relief…and a twinge of regret. What Luke
had done was mortifying and inappropriate, but it was also incredibly arousing,
and a thread of forbidden excitement had been woven into her embarrassment.

Then she bit back a gasp as Luke covered her mound with his
big, warm palm.

In the years since high school, she’d had three lovers. But
no man had ever touched her like this, so firmly and possessively, as though
all her secret places belonged to him.

Her body started to quiver.

And then he was massaging her through the thin material of
her panties, his hand so large he seemed to touch her everywhere at once.

It was too much. She was pierced by sensation, overwhelmed
by it. She needed to move, to wriggle, to squirm.

But she didn’t. She wouldn’t. She was going to beat Luke’s
dare if it killed her, and—

She froze. Luke’s hand slid up to her belly and then down,
down inside her panties, his fingers spreading her wide as his palm brushed
over her clit, and even though she held back her gasp she couldn’t hold back
the rush of moisture that was her body’s answer to his touch.

He went still.

He knew, now. He knew she liked what he was doing…or that
parts of her did. Would he turn and look at her with that glint in his eyes?
Smile at her in triumph?

She held her breath, waiting. But he kept his head turned
away, his eyes still fixed on the front of the room, his expression cool and
detached and even stern.