Page 47 of I Can't Help It

I can taste every emotion Luke pours into the kiss. Hesitation, followed by relief, and a fierce level of desire that burns through my veins and leaves me feeling intoxicated.

It’s all there.

It’s all for me.

The kiss is perfect. It’s so perfect, that I’m almost scared to ruin the moment by kissing him back. But his fervent mouth coaxes mine with each touch, and there’s no way I can just stand here. I think I might die if I don’t kiss him back.

So, I do something about it.

I let my lips part against his, enjoying the low sound he makes when I lean in even more and deepen our kiss. The energy between us is strong and desperate, a powerful force that I willingly surrender to.

“Ava…” His voice is laced with a delicious, husky edge as he repeatedly claims my mouth with his own and I kiss him without holding anything back.

But then unwanted paranoia starts to creep in.

What if he reconsiders this and pushes me away?

Don’t push me away.

And just in case my silent begging doesn’t help, I grip his arms a little bit tighter to get my message across. However, when I feel myself moving backward, I’m convinced that our lip-locking is coming to an end. He’s pushing me away.

I start to protest, because I’m not ready for this to be over, but then I realize what’s really happening. Luke shuffles us backward a few steps; and then using one arm, he eases me onto the gazebo’s railing. Is this an unexpected development? Yes. But I don’t question it.

I don’t need to.

I just need to keep kissing him.

He steps between my knees and his free hand moves to the back of my neck, then his lips are pressing harder into mine. In response, I grasp at his back like I’m drowning and he’s the last piece of driftwood. Okay, the metaphor is weird, but my reasoning is totally valid.

I can’t keep my hands off him.

And Luke seems to be feeling the same way. His hands end up skimming the sides of my rib cage. Then, they slide down to my hips. After that, he cups my face and lightly brushes his thumbs against my flushed cheeks as we continue to share the kiss. I’m seeing stars at this point, and I swear that nothing else matters.

It’s just me and Luke.

The both of us giving and taking as much as we can before—

“Lynn!” a gruff voice yells as a flash of light beams in our direction. “If that’s you sucking face with Will again, just wait until your brother finds out!”

We’re definitely not Lynn and Will, but Luke still yanks away from me so fast that I almost fall back off the dang gazebo railing. Thankfully, my panicked yelp causes him to grab me just in time.

“What the—you’re not Lynn and Will!”

And then it becomes clear who the gruff voice belongs to.

It belongs to a police officer.

WE’RE GOOD TOGETHER

Luke

“I thought you two were a couple of teenagers messing around after curfew,” Officer Garcia grunts as I fight to catch my breath. “I guess I was wrong though.”

He might’ve had the wrong assumption; and yet, I should be thanking him for showing up when he did. Kissing Ava like that was incredible, but things got out of hand way too fast.

I would’ve just kept going if we weren’t interrupted.

“It’s okay,” Ava tells the officer, tugging her cardigan up onto her shoulder. Wait. When the heck did that slip down? When we were making out? “No harm done. I mean, it would’ve hurt if I had fallen off the railing, but I didn’t. So, that’s good.”

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