Page 18 of Meet Me in a Mile

Eighteen

Luke

“I s it over yet?” Lydia asked, her cheeks flushed with an end-of-September chill. The shift in the weather had been a welcome treat after pushing through her training plan on the hottest days of summer. He just hoped the weather continued to cooperate a month from now when Lydia was actually running the marathon.

Luke glanced down at his watch, then looked over to see her teeth gritted. They’d only just passed seventeen miles. They had just under one more to go to round out at eighteen today. “Not quite. How’re you doing? Do you need to take a break?”

He’d just started to slow when her grimace lifted into a smirk and she breezed by him. “Kidding!” she called. She glanced over her shoulder, threw her head back, and laughed at whatever look was stuck on his face. “Don’t tell me you’re getting tired already!”

Luke picked up his pace to catch her as she giggled. They’d run the East River Greenway again, enjoying the changing autumn leaves, just as he’d promised. After they’d reached Battery Park, they’d cut up through the city, with no exact route in mind, building up the miles as they headed in the general direction of the gym. Eventually they’d opted just to finish out the miles circling Madison Square Park.

“Race you back!” Lydia darted off the path, checking for traffic as she ran across 5th Avenue. Luke slowed, getting caught in a crowd of pedestrians. When the group cleared, he hurried after Lydia, but she’d started sprinting, and he knew then that this was a race he was about to lose.

Luke pushed himself harder, his lungs burning, the muscles in his legs aching, but the sidewalks were too congested for him to close the distance, and as he crossed 6th Avenue, he spotted Lydia slowing outside the gym. She dropped her hands to her hips, her long hair plastered to her neck and the back of her shirt, her face crumpled up in victorious pain as she sucked in air.

“Ha!” she said, her face smoothing. She threw her arms up in victory as he approached.

“You cheated,” he accused her.

Her laugh was bubbly and infectious. “How?”

“I didn’t even know we were racing!”

“I literally yelled ‘race you’ at the top of my lungs!”

“Yeah, after you’d already made sure I got caught in a giant crowd of tourists.”

“It’s not my fault you weren’t paying attention. You’ve gotta be prepared for anything when running. Changes in the weather. Rogue pigeon attacks.”

Luke laughed, pulling the door to the gym open. “Is that what you’ve been researching?”

“I’m covering my bases,” Lydia said, stopping at the front desk and taking a long drag from her water bottle.

Luke couldn’t resist squeezing his own water bottle in her direction. Lydia yelped, then laughed, hurrying away to the showers.

“Ew. Can you not sweat all over the desk?” Dara shooed him away, wrinkling her nose as she wiped down the counter.

Grinning, Luke headed for the showers to wash off the last eighteen miles. As he let the hot water soothe his muscles, he considered the next month of Lydia’s training plan. The race was the first weekend of November, and they’d just hit eighteen miles. Luke figured he would build her up to twenty miles in a couple weeks, and then start tapering off the distance until the race to give her muscles enough time to recover.

Luke finished in the shower, changed and headed back to his office to make notes. He found the door open and Lydia sitting on his couch, her still-wet hair pulled up into a knot at the top of her head. “Hey,” he said. “Thought you’d be halfway home by now. You want to see your updated mile times?”

Lydia shrugged. “Maybe later. You want to get a drink or food or something?”

Luke’s immediate reaction was to say yes, but then he caught himself. He remembered an innocent invitation like this one months ago, after their evening touring the youth center. An invitation that had made everything complicated. Lydia glanced up from her phone and caught his eye. Luke looked away, worried she might be able to read the thoughts he was having.

“I’ve got a lot of paperwork to catch up on,” he said, the excuse weak.

“Oh, come on. I know you don’t have any other clients today.”

He couldn’t help his smile. “And how would you know that?”

“I asked Dara to check your schedule.”

Luke bit the inside of his cheek. The last thing he needed was Dara meddling. Jules already knew how he felt, and he didn’t need any more pushes in a dangerous direction.

“We should celebrate,” Lydia said, getting to her feet.

“Celebrate what?”

“The fact that I beat you back to the gym.”

“I feel like we need to look up the definition of a cheater,” Luke said.

Lydia groaned playfully. “Fine. I will get you a drink for hurting your feelings by winning the race.”

“Oh, well that makes me really want to go.”

“What if I promise to let you win the next one?”

Luke glanced over at her, and Lydia made an X over her heart.

“Thanks for walking me back,” Lydia said as she led Luke up the steps of her building. She shivered, that autumn chill sweeping across the city as the sun set. It wasn’t actually that late, but the sky was darkening earlier and earlier, and Luke felt like things were about to change. The marathon was getting closer. Soon there would be no need for weekend long runs and friendly postrun drinks. If nothing changed between them, then soon everything would. “Want to come up for a bit?”

Luke hesitated. They’d gone out for one drink. A strictly friendly drink. He knew he should say good night and walk back to the subway. Maybe it was all the thoughts of things changing or maybe he was just curious to see Lydia’s apartment—to gain the insight that could only come from seeing where and how someone lived—but instead of walking away, he nodded.

Lydia smiled and led him upstairs. The space was tiny, but impeccably neat, just as he imagined it would be. What really caught his attention was the copious amount of indoor plants. They filled shelves and dangled from the ceiling, stretching toward the massive windows in the living room.

While Lydia secured two beers from the fridge, he crossed the room to look out the windows. The sun was setting and he could just make out the peachy bands of the sky. “Nice view.”

“I know, right? It’s what sold me on the place.”

He turned to her desk, which was more of a drafting table. The wall above the table was filled with framed sketches. “Did you draw all these?”

She nodded. “A few of them are from college. Others are more recent, just buildings I like around the city.”

“You really are fantastic at your job.” He glanced over and could tell she was fighting a smile. He walked back across the room and she handed him the beer.

“To kicking your ass on that run,” Lydia said, raising her bottle.

“This again? I thought we covered this when you announced it to the whole pub.”

“Just be happy for me.”

Luke tipped his bottle in her direction. “You’re sure I didn’t just let you win?”

“Now what kind of trainer would you be if you did that?” she asked pointedly, and for a moment it felt like she might be reminding herself and him of what exactly they were doing here. She was saying all the right words and he was nodding along, and maybe they both even meant them. But there was also a part of Luke that wished they didn’t. That wished he could figure out how much of her saw him as a friend and how much of her might be able to see him as something else... Something more.

“How’s work going?” he asked, sipping his drink and changing the subject. At the pub, she’d mostly pestered him with questions about his business plan: What are the updates? Are you still going to host youth programming? Though he hadn’t had answers to everything yet, he loved how enthusiastic she was. He also loved that she let him ramble, that she’d just grinned and sipped her drink as he went on about how his gym would fare in the market if First Union Bank would just give him a chance.

“It’s gotten pretty busy lately,” Lydia admitted.

“New contracts?” he asked.

“No, actually, I’m getting a second shot at the Manhattan Youth Center competition.”

“Wait, what?” He shook his head. “That’s amazing. But how?”

“Jack actually asked me to partner up with him. He hasn’t submitted his proposal yet, so there’s an opportunity for me to try again.”

A flash of heat shot through him. “And you’re happy about that?”

“Of course.” She glanced up. “What is it?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

“No, tell me.”

He didn’t know how to explain the growling rage in his chest at the thought of her and Jack spending long afternoons together. Jack in his tailored suits, with his easy laugh, calling Lydia his running buddy . Luke felt like his skin was on fire. “I thought Jack was one of the people who keeps rejecting your work.”

Lydia shrugged. “I probably blew things out of proportion. I was upset and he was an easy target. He actually thinks we have a really good shot at getting selected to represent the firm.”

“Right. Well, that’s really...cool.” Cool was the last thing he meant, but he wasn’t willing to ruin their evening over a guy he barely knew.

She caught his hand. “Luke? What’s going on?”

“I don’t want to talk about Jack, okay?”

“Okay...” she said, dragging out the word. “You’re the one who brought up work.”

“I know.”

The question was clear in her eyes. What do you want to talk about then? But that was the problem. He didn’t want to talk, especially now. He wanted to kiss her senseless. He wanted to know that Jack didn’t mean anything, that his feelings for her weren’t one-sided, that despite all the complications, this could be something.

“Luke,” she whispered, the word like a beckoning finger. He put his beer down on the counter, and reached for her. Her lips parted, a soft sound escaping.

“Ask me to leave,” he said, leaning so close he could feel the phantom press of her lips against his.

“I’m not going to ask you to leave.”

“You know what will happen if I stay.”

“I know,” she said, and she leaned into him.

It was like fireworks exploded in his brain, erasing all thoughts of Jack, and he held her tighter, until they fit like mortared bricks against each other. His hands caressed her, trailing down her back to cup her ass. In one smooth motion, Luke lifted her onto the counter, swallowing Lydia’s little yelp of surprise as he leaned into the space between her legs. Situated like this, she was slightly taller, and he reveled at the sensation of pushing up on his feet to catch her lips. Lydia chuckled as they bumped the beer bottles on the counter, Luke chasing them blindly with his hands to stop them from spilling. He moved the bottles out of the way before letting his cold, condensation-slick hands slip beneath her shirt, tracing her spine.

Lydia gasped and arched, pressing against him in the most intoxicating way as he pulled her shirt over her head. Her hands were everywhere then, combing through his hair, cradling his face as she tilted her head, pressing her lips to his jaw. He felt the gentle scrape of her teeth as she moved down his neck, and Luke groaned. He could feel more than hear as she laughed, her hands dropping to his shoulders and squeezing, before raking down his front. Her hands didn’t stop until they were fiddling with the waistband of his pants. When she popped the button, he came haltingly to his senses and caught her wrists.

“Shit,” he bit out. “I don’t have any protection.”

Lydia slid off the counter and left him to go flick on the bathroom light and kneel in front of the sink cabinet. She started tossing things out of the cabinet one by one. Luke followed and leaned against the doorjamb, amused.

“Looking for your in case of emergencies condoms?”

“Are you complaining?”

“Not at all.”

Lydia grabbed something from the back of the cupboard and held the box up triumphantly. She tossed him the box.

When she stood, Luke snagged her by the waist and hauled her closer. Lydia’s hand reached back to flick off the bathroom light and then the kitchen light. Without them, the apartment was bathed in nothing but the streetlights, and they gravitated toward the massive windows, caressing and touching and kissing until they were both breathless. Luke honestly didn’t know how he could not be reading feelings into this. Not the way she was moving against him.

It wasn’t just the sex. It was more than that. Everything with her was better. She gasped as he squeezed her breast, shoving her bra cup aside so he could rub at the sensitive skin until her nipple pebbled, hard and needy against his thumb.

“You should take your pants off,” Lydia whispered into his mouth.

“What’s the rush? Don’t you want to enjoy the view a bit?” He twisted her in his arms, so she was looking out those massive widows. He nudged her forward and the streetlights spilled across her forearms as she reached out to catch herself against the glass. Luke leaned against her, pressing his hands next to hers on the chilled windowpanes. He ground his hips against her and Lydia’s head rolled back against his shoulder.

He tipped his head and kissed the exposed skin of her neck, nipping gently. Then he took one hand off the window and placed it on her hip. He rocked her against his body as he kissed his way across her shoulder. Then he slipped one hand down the front of her pants.

“Luke,” she husked, catching his hand before he could go any further. “What if one of the neighbors sees?”

“Do you want me to stop?” he whispered into her ear.

“God, no.” She put both hands back on the windowpanes.

“Good,” he said, letting his fingers brush against her folds, carefully avoiding the delicate nub of her clit. “Because I want us both to be very, very satisfied.”

A desperate little moan fell from her mouth. “Please touch me.”

Luke didn’t make her beg. He ran the pads of his fingers over her clit, stroking until he found a rhythm she liked. When she started to move with him, he held that rhythm, watching the way her fingers twitched against the glass.

He imagined stripping her bare before the window, watching moonlight caress her curves. Her thighs began to tremble on either side of where he worked his hand, and the sounds that came from her turned into breathy, demanding orders. Harder. Faster. There. Right there.

“Yes,” she hissed, grinding against his hand. “Yes, yes, yes .”

Her knees buckled and her fingers curled into fists against the glass as she came, riding his hand all the way down to the floor as they both sank to their knees. “How was the view?” he asked as she panted in his lap.

“Stunning.”

“Would you like to see it again?”

Lydia turned her face up to kiss him.