Contents
Copyright
Title Page
Dedication
Description
Disclaimer
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Chapter Twenty Three
Chapter Twenty Four
Chapter Twenty Five
Chapter Twenty Six
Chapter Twenty Seven
Chapter Twenty Eight
Chapter Twenty Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty One
Chapter Thirty Two
Chapter Thirty Three
Chapter Thirty Four
Chapter Thirty Five
Chapter Thirty Six
Author Note
Prologue - Forever Flynn
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Loving Luca © 2020 by Lyra Winters. All Rights Reserved.
Editor: Diamond Editing and Proofreading Services
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Visit my website at lyrawinters.com
Printed in the United States of America
First Printing: June 27, 2020
Loving Luca
Book 2 of the Violet Ridge Series
Lyra Winters
For my Violet Ridge fans, I appreciate the love and encouragement from each and every one of you. Hang on tight, this is going to be one hell of a ride.
Description
A bad history. One tropical getaway. Another chance.
Luca Reed.
My best friend's cousin. Arrogant. Emotionally unavailable, and sexy as sin.
We made the stupid decision to sleep together. Twice. Both times, he ran away from me with some bullshit excuse.
Avoiding him won’t be easy, not with our roles in a week-long wedding getaway to a tropical paradise. Even with the last-minute date I brought with me, I sincerely doubt we will be able to stay away from each other.
I have craved this man in every sense of the word since before I can remember, but our past has warned me not to fall under his spell.
How can I make my heart listen to my brain? Luca is no good, yet I want him anyway.
Loving Luca is a complicated island romance, showing that a second chance at love is possible.
Mature Content is included.
Disclaimer
Loving Luca is an emotional second chance romance with a lot of angst and feel-good scenes. It should be noted that it also contains sex scenes, cursing, and mentions of domestic abuse.
The sun submerged me in a warm golden light. A slight groan resonated from under me, and I tightened my arms around the hard, fleshy feel of my body pillow. Two sturdy hands gripped my shoulders and pushed me upward. My eyes shot open, and I stared down at Luca, who was not my body pillow. His black hair poked up in every direction, probably from the number of times I ran my hands through it last night as he fucked me senseless.
The hard glare in his baby-blue eyes told me we were about to repeat the morning from eight years ago. He pushed my shoulders again, this time with more force, and I fell on my ass beside him on the cool wooden floor beside Faith and Asher’s black polyester sectional. A disappointed sigh escaped my swollen lips as I pulled my gray-cotton dress over my head.
Luca had his jeans yanked up and shirt haphazardly buttoned in seconds as he bolted out of the house. Burning rage coursed through my veins like a fatal toxin and demanded justice. It was like a volcano erupting; fury emanated from me in vicious waves. The anger and humiliation from him doing this a second time consumed me.
The shock wore off, and I took off after him like a woman scorned, only that wasn’t a metaphor. He had scorned me for the last time.
“Luca-fucking-Reed! Get your ass back here and talk to me!” I planted my bare feet on the bitter-cold gravel driveway.
His grip on his car door tightened as he twisted his head around to meet what I’d hoped was a death glare. His Adam’s apple bobbed.
“Stop being a coward and talk to me.”
A mid-winter breeze whooshed over me. My nipples hardened against the cotton dress, and I watched his eyes shift down to stare at my breasts. It brought the memories of last night back. The way he teased, sucked, and nipped them. He knew my body, and I knew his. But our bodies were the only thing we knew of each other, and that didn’t satisfy me.
His weary eyes met mine. “About what, Magnolia? It was a mistake. There’s nothing to talk about.”
“A mistake? Luca, people don’t make the same mistake twice.” I threw my hands up, enforcing my statement.
He raked a hand through his hair. “Shit. I can’t be what you need me to be, alright?”
My lips pursed. “Who said I needed you to be anything?”
His stare softened. “You’re a hell of a woman. You don’t need someone like me.”
My brows furrowed. “Someone like you?”
He didn’t answer as he slid into the driver’s seat and shut the door.
I ran toward him, ignoring the small rocks slicing the soft bottoms of my feet and slammed my hand against the window to steady myself. “You know what? You’re right. I don’t need someone like you. I need someone who will actually stay in the morning.” The words fell off my lips like venom as I pushed off the car.
I took pride as he flinched at my words. He took one last long look at me before he threw the car in reverse and drove off. Good riddance.
One Year Later
A thick silence settled over us. His unsettled green eyes shifted around the gaudy yellow hall of my apartment building. Violet Ridge had a knack for the old decor when it came to their apartments. I shifted from one foot to the other as I stared at Declan’s perfect platinum-blonde hair. From the previous two dates to this one, not one strand of hair dared to stray.
