I want to stay embedded inside her. Never leave this small apartment, this bed.
But I’m lost.
I withdraw from her, then head to the bathroom. I grab a clean washcloth out of my small cabinet, run it under the warm water of the sink, and then squeeze out the excess. I bring it to Katelyn, who has rolled over onto her back. A lovely pink flush covers her body, and her nipples, though no longer rigidly hard, stand out against her areolas. She looks like an artist’s watercolor. So beautiful.
I gently clean her.
“That feels nice.”
I regard her. This is the first time I’ve truly looked at her naked. I stand before her the same way, and as I’m thinking that very thought, she opens her eyes.
I follow her gaze as it meanders up and down my body. She seems to pay close attention to my left arm and shoulder, but she zeroes in on something other than the tattoo.
“You were shot,” she says.
“Yes.”
“Who shot you?”
I don’t like to think about it. I deserved to be shot. I was trying to take a woman against her will. Not unlike Katelyn had been taken.
I didn’t commit the horrors that the men who visited Katelyn on the island did, but I committed my own kind of horrors against my last girlfriend. I kept her captive, told her she couldn’t leave, locked her in. When I had way too much to drink, I even sometimes struck her.
All of these reasons…
All of these reasons are why I do not deserve Katelyn now.
The only way I may come close to deserving her is if I go back. If I go back and face what I’ve done and make amends as best I can.
And if I go back…
I may lose my life.
But I have to do it. Katelyn could make me happy, but she has to know who I am. Perhaps I could have dealt with this—perhaps I could have truly become Luke Johnson—if I never met Katelyn.
But I did.
And she, along with the trip to visit Anthony DeCarlo, made me see the light.
I was not born to be every man and no man. I was born to be me.
Lucifer Charles Ashton III.
Named for the devil I became.
Street name—Lucifer Raven. Sometimes called simply The Raven.
Son of multimillionaire producer Lucifer Charles Ashton Junior and his wife, my mother. Charmaine Louise Portugal Ashton.
The woman who never gave up on me, even when I gave up on myself.
So I’ll go back. Back to LA. Back to the drug lords who want me dead. And back to my old man, who though he has no love lost for me, bailed me out with his money.
Luke Johnson is my own creation. Though I had help from my one FBI contact, I’m not in the Witness Protection Program. I did this on my own with my father’s help. After I gave up evidence to put several kingpins away.
I got immunity for my efforts as long as I went into rehab and therapy.
I did well. I understand now why I was wrong, and I understand how the alcohol played a part in my actions.
But my actions, alcohol or not, are my own.
I own them.
I’ll never take another drink, no matter how much a glass of wine or bourbon calls to me.
I’ve been here in Manhattan for a while now, working at The Glass House. Never once have I taken a drink.
I absolutely won’t. It’s nonnegotiable.
“You are a beautiful man, Luke,” Katelyn says.
“Not nearly as beautiful as you are.” I join her on the bed and take her into my arms.
Our lips meet, in a ravenous and hungry kiss. I need more of her. I will need it, to get through what is to come.
I move from her lips to her neck to her ear. “I’m going to love you again,” I whisper to her.
She shudders against me.
“I’m going to love you again and again.”
I roll over so that I’m on top of her, holding my weight on my arm so as not to crush her. I look into her sparkling blue eyes and I see her love reflected back at me.
This is it.
This may be the last time I make love with Katelyn.
And I’m going to make it count.
I meld our mouths together, slide our lips together, swirl my tongue around hers. It’s a long and hungry kiss, and my cock is hard and ready to go again.
She pulls me toward her and then maneuvers her body somehow so that we’re back on our sides. I break the kiss and lift my eyebrows.
“I want to give you what you’ve given me,” she says.
“You are.”
“No. You went down on me. I want to do the same for you.”
My cock hardens even further. I don’t hate the idea. I love the idea, in fact. But is Katelyn ready to do that?