In a demonstration of Luke’s approval of the driver, he opens the rear door of the vehicle and motions for me to join him. I begin walking toward him. He doesn’t turn away. He stands there, watching my approach, and just like the first night I met him when he’d leaned on his bike and watched my every step, he watches me in an uninhibited, sexual way and doesn’t make any attempt to mask it. Luke never hid who he was or what he wanted from me. And there was a time not so long ago when being what he wanted was everything. The truth is that in moments like this when I’m in the heat of his presence, it’s impossible not to be consumed by him. I didn’t even know it was possible to react to one person in the intense way I react to Luke.
When the space between us is gone, I stop in front of him and our eyes lock for the smallest of seconds. The impact is this crazy wicked mix of love, hate, lust, and passion that is downright combustible.
I watch his jaw tighten, almost as if he’s pushing back against the impact of me and him, the impact that is us together.
“Get in,” he orders, his tone clipped, his irritation at what just passed between us crystal clear, as if he wants to hate me, and in turn, hates that he can’t. Not completely.
I climb inside the rather small backseat of the car-for-hire and he shuts me inside. The driver doesn’t greet me, and that’s just fine by me. I don’t want him to know my name, face, or voice. I want to be in and out of this car. A few moments later, Luke joins me in the backseat, and we are ridiculously close, to the point that once he’s shut the door, I can feel his body heat.
My hand is on the seat and his goes to the same place, and there is a collision of skin against skin. And as is always, with any touch by this man, I feel that tiny little spark in every part of me.
Without even thinking, I look at him and he looks at me, and then a million tiny pieces of our history play between us, but they are broken because we are broken. Shattered into tiny pieces, to the point that I’m not sure we can ever mend—neither apart nor together.
I did this, I think, and I look away, pulling my hand back and setting it on my leg. Both of my hands are on my legs now, and I am staring at the bare finger that not so long ago was adorned with a stunning ring that symbolized our never-ending bond.
The one that ended—only it doesn’t feel as if it ended at all.
I guess it’s true that the line between love and hate is thin.
Only, I don’t want hate to be what is between us. I never wanted this for us. I just wanted us.
Chapter Twenty-Three
ANA
Luke has the driver drop us at a random hotel, which is not the hotel where we plan to stay the night. We walk inside, watch the driver pull onto the highway, and then exit again, with Luke glancing at the Google maps app on his phone. “There should be a Taco Bell a mile up the road. We can eat there and call an Uber.”
“Food sounds really good right about now,” I say as we start walking. “And so does sleep, but I know that’s not in the near future.”
“A good hour, at least,” he confirms. “We’re going to have to Uber around like fools before we settle in for a rest.”
“Run around in circles and confuse the hell out of whoever thinks they know where you are and where you’ll go next,” I say, quoting Kurt.
“Kurt and his training saved my life more than once.”
And yet, Kurt supposedly made a mistake that got him killed on his final mission. That’s always sat wrong with me, but then again, he was my father figure, no matter how much I sometimes hated his coldness and the way he pushed me. Accepting that he wasn’t invincible was highly devastating. Accepting your brother is dirty, on the heels of that loss, nearly impossible. Kasey wasn’t a bad person. He had bad shit happen in the military, stuff he never explained, but he couldn’t sleep most nights, he had a short temper, and he just didn’t accept defeat easily. He also saw defeat where others saw obstacles. So much so that he was willing to do whatever he had to, to avoid his perceived failure. To him, whatever it took, meant whatever it took. I tried to help him. I loved him. He was my brother. Luke knew how much he meant to me so finding out the man you loved is the one who took his life is confusing and terrifying.