Page 370 of On A Manhunt: Complete Series

LUKE

Aspen might throw down like a girl, but whatever she hit me with fucking hurt.

I raised my arms to block my head. “Ow! Shit, what is that?”

“It’s a shin pad. It’s supposed to deflect hockey pucks. It better fucking hurt!” she shouted and whacked me again.

This time, I was ready and stopped the swing with my hand to her wrist, gently grabbing it, then plucked the shin pad from her grip.

“I told you I can explain,” I breathed.

“Shep Barnes?”

I was a little surprised at how pissed she was. I never met someone who had no clue about my role in NYC ER. Even her daughter recognized me.

“A craniectomy?” she snapped. Yeah, seriously pissed. “How the hell has my daughter seen you perform that? And what the hell is a triple one?”

I glanced around. We were on the side of her house, but her neighbors were close.

All I needed was to be seen in a fight with a woman.

I may have been the one attacked, but it’d be spun into something else entirely.

A druggie in rehab was one thing, but a woman having to defend herself from me with a kid’s hockey shin guard was another.

Yet, I wasn’t a drug addict. I wasn’t an ER doctor. I wasn’t Shep Barnes. Nothing anyone accused me of, including Aspen, was actually me.

“Look, if you calm down, we can talk about this,” I said, trying to tone things down a bit. I even had my hands out in a placating gesture.

Her eyes narrowed and it was possible steam came out of her ears. Okay, that was a dumb thing to say because with a strong southpaw, she whacked me with the other shin pad.

“Calm down? Who the hell are you?”

Another bad move on my part, forgetting shin guards came in pairs. Fuck, that stung!

I had to laugh–which was pretty fucking dumb–but the one woman who knew the truth and only the truth was beating the shit out of me? She was furious that I’d been honest?

She stormed past me and to her door. The lock was a number pad and she entered it and threw the door open.

I followed because I had to make this right. “My name is Luke, just as I told you last night.”

We stood in a small vestibule at the bottom of a flight of stairs.

It appeared her place was on the second floor, as if the house had been split into two, up and down.

The small space had a mirror, a row of hooks below it and a basket on the floor with shoes piled in it.

The stairwell was wood with a navy carpet runner.

I pulled the door closed behind me so we were alone.

She spun around. Glared. “Right,” she said with every bit of sarcasm possible squeezed into the one word.

Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were a little wild. So was she. There was something wrong with me because I was hot for her even though she was angry. It was a good look on her, this fierce tiger, but there was no way in hell I was going to tell her that.

“Shep Barnes is a character I play on TV,” I explained. “I’m an actor. Haven’t you seen NYC ER?”

“Never heard of it. I don’t have a TV,” she replied.

I stared at her for a moment, trying to process those words. It was as if she said she didn’t have electricity or running water. “You don’t have a TV,” I repeated.

She shook her head. “No.”

“Your daughter recognized me,” I commented, meaning she had to have seen the show somehow.

Later, I’d have to think about the fact that she had a daughter, and one who was around ten.

While I knew better than to ask any woman her age, I guessed she was around thirty, so she’d had Sierra when she was really young.

Where was the dad? If Aspen was at the bar for a blind date, then she was single.

“Obviously, she watches it at her friends’ houses or with Granny Waddle,” she explained.

“Look, I didn’t lie to you,” I said, reaching into my pants pocket and pulling out my wallet and grabbing my ID.

It seemed she wasn’t going to believe my word alone.

I held it up so she could read it if she wanted.

“My real name is Luke Graham and besides the motor vehicle department of Nebraska, you’re one of the few people outside my family who knows that. ”

Now she looked more hurt than mad. “Why did you hide who you are to me last night?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t.” When she looked at me with skepticism, I pushed on. “Really, I didn’t. I’m not Shep Barnes. I’m not Derek Dashwood.”

“Who?”

“My actor name.”

“Like a pen name?”

I nodded. “Yes. I work as Derek Dashwood, who plays the role of Dr. Shep Barnes on NYC ER. Your daughter–and the entire world–thinks I’m Shep. Or Derek. In fact, you’re one of the only ones who doesn’t recognize me from the show. And now you know who I really am.”

That shut her up.

I shoved my ID and wallet back, then crowded Aspen, which wasn’t hard to do with the area at the bottom of the stairs only being a few feet around.

“It’s time for you to tell me why you snuck out.”

It was time to switch this around.

She swallowed, her eyes darting to mine, then away. “It was a one-night stand. One time.”

“If you’d stayed, it could’ve been more than once,” I countered. Many more times than once.

Her gaze met mine and I saw her interest in that possibility, but then that faded. “You’re an actor on… vacation? You really wanted more? I had no expectations, Luke. Besides, I had to teach a class first thing.”

I had to come across the only woman in the world who didn’t want something from me. Had no expectations, as she said. I was the one pursuing her.

It was refreshing and… real.

Aspen intrigued me because I had a feeling her interest in only one night stemmed from something. Except she really had no plan of seeing me again and I wasn’t sure if I should be hurt, thrilled, or motivated to change her mind.

Definitely the last. Because she’d been right there with me the night before and I wanted more. I wasn’t ending this if I could help it.

I nodded. “Right, yoga.”

She blinked. “How did you–”

“Remember when I set your ankles on my shoulders and pretty much bent you in half while I fucked you?”

I remembered all too well. My dick had been buried deep and the angle change had me going impossibly deeper. The way her cheeks turned pink, she remembered, too.

“I commented on how flexible you were, and you said you were a yoga instructor.”

She blinked. “I said that?”

“I remember everything you said,” I admitted, but my inner caveman was thrilled I’d made her mind go blank with the power of my dick.

I moved closer still so she was now backed against the wall and my forearm was braced by her head.

“I admit, the caveman in me is pleased you don’t remember anything but the feel of me inside you. ”

“Luke.”

“Ah, there’s my name on those lips.” I glanced down at them, all plump and perfect. I had yet to see them wrapped around me, but it would happen. “Fuck, I love it when you say it.”

I put my hand behind the back of her neck, held her in place and kissed her. Thank fuck, she let me. With my knee, I nudged her legs apart and pressed close so her pussy was rubbing on my thigh. I could feel the heat of her through the fabric.

As we kissed, I ran a hand over her, cupping her tit and then lower, sliding beneath the fabric of her yoga pants to find her slick and wet.

Her head arched back at the touch, right into my hold.

“Like that?” I asked. Fuck, she was perfect. So passionate. So needy. So… mine.

“Luke,” she whined, her eyes falling closed.

I grinned against her neck because while I was circling her clit with my finger, I wasn’t getting her off. Oh, I could. After the night before, I knew her body.

“You want to come?”

She licked her lips, nodded.

“Too bad there’s not enough time before your daughter comes back.” My fingers stilled on her clit. “Besides, naughty girls who sneak out instead of getting a hard morning fuck don’t get to come.”

Her eyes flew open, and she stared at me, wide eyed.

“We’re going to talk, tiger, about why you didn’t trust me.”

“I… I’m going for a hike with Sierra and her friends.”

“Then it’s a good thing I like to hike. Lots of time to get to know each other.”

I kissed the tip of her nose and pulled my hand from her pussy.

She gasped. “You’re going to–”

“Mom!” Her daughter’s shout and heavy footfall carried through the closed door. “Jackson and Johnny will go unless you force kale chips on them.”

She watched as I licked my fingers of her sticky honey. Fuck, I was addicted to her sweetness. “Kale chips? Tiger, you’re the only snack I need.”