Chapter Fifteen
Ana
Luke does nothing that I expect. He doesn’t turn me around. He doesn’t demand control. Instead, he cradles me to him, his big body pressed to every part of me, those blue eyes staring down at me, and the fact that he’s touching me, that once again he is here with me, is a blessed relief. He hurt me and as much as I wanted to form an immunity to him, it’s clear I failed. He is my addiction, and it’s bittersweet and terrifying.
“Luke,” I whisper, emotion welling in my chest and belly.
“I like the way you say my name,” he murmurs. “I really do.” His mouth slants over mine, his tongue stroking deeply. And just that easily, I’ve forgotten about the power play, the need for control. The need to protect myself. I can’t think about what it means for him to leave again. I can’t think about the past that might well force that to happen again. I’m lost without him. I thought he was fine without me, but not anymore. I think he’s lost without me, too.
I sink into him, moaning with how good he feels, my arms wrapping around him. Our water-slicked bodies press together, mine touching every hard inch of his anywhere I can possibly touch. But when his lips part mine and linger, fear pricks at my mind. He can hurt me again. I don’t know if I’ll survive him hurting me again.
“I’m still angry with you,” I whisper. “I hate that you left.”
“I know,” he says. “But I’m here now and I have every intention of making you mine again. No matter what that takes.” He lifts my leg, pressing inside me with a low groan. “Mine,” he whispers.
And I know what he wants me to say in reply. Mine. He wants me to call him mine. But I don’t know if that is true. I don’t know if Luke really is mine or not. Not after all we have been through. Not with the betrayal, we both felt, the pain we both created, in each other. He cups my face and stares down at me. “I’m nothing if not yours, Ana. God, woman. Why can’t you see that?” But he doesn’t force me to answer that question.
He’s already kissing me again, and I kiss him back, testing that promise of him being mine on his lips. Testing his vow that he’s here now. And doing so with a desperation I barely recognize as my own. For just a minute or more, we’re swimming in the moment, in a kiss that is so much more than a kiss.
But from one moment to the next, we need more, so much more.
Luke responds to that burn between us.
He lifts me, and now he’s holding my weight with his powerful body, almost as if he’s telling me he’s got me this time. Or maybe I’m just emotional and reading into every moment with Luke. An easy thing to do when you’re in the most intimate of ways with the man you loved and lost.
His mouth closes down on mine and our bodies sway, slow and sexy, and yet tender. This is not sex. This is lovemaking in the way I have only experienced with Luke. But it’s different now, a sense of loss and regret, and even desperation beneath the surface of every kiss, every touch, every connection of our bodies. I don’t want it to end, but there is just too much intensity between us to fight the build of pleasure in our bodies.
We tumble into our sweet spots, me first, holding onto him, my sex clenching his cock and dragging him with me. I shudder and moan. He quakes and holds me tighter, low rough, guttural groans sliding from his mouth. We collapse into each other, and as tired as he must be from holding me, he doesn’t immediately let me go. I sense there are things he wants to say, but for some reason, he talks himself out of it.
He eases me to my feet and strokes wet hair from my face. “I never managed to wash that blood off, not properly. I think that might require teamwork.”
He’s not just talking about Darius’s blood but rather the blood of our past. But he is, no doubt, brutally aware of the fact that Darius represents yet another painful loss etched in a stone of betrayal I haven’t fully even processed at this point.
“Yes,” I agree. “I do believe it will.”
I help him lather up and wash off, our eyes meeting often, a warm awareness between us, latent in history, some good, some bad. We don’t rush through the process, savoring this escape from the rest of the world that can’t last forever. Too soon, the water turns cold, and Luke turns it off.
Out of nowhere, it seems, I blurt, “I thought he was my friend.”
Luke grabs a towel and wraps it around me. “I know, baby. I know. Come.” He catches my hand. “We need to talk about some things.”
“So, you didn’t come to tell me you love me?”
“I did, but we have to both be alive for those words to matter. We need to destroy our enemies, not each other.”
He’s not wrong. I just hope with every part of my being that we haven’t hurt each other too much to come out of this both alive and together.