But he wasn’t the good guy. Not anymore. And I was reminded in the most exquisite way.
“What are you—”
I didn’t finish my sentence because the words had nowhere to go but Luke’s mouth, which was plastered on my own. He didn’t hesitate in plunging his tongue inside, kissing me mercilessly, pushing me inside the apartment with so much force a vase shattered on the floor.
I barely heard it.
And the slam of him kicking the door shut.
The roar of my heartbeat almost drowned everything out.
Luke’s hands were not chaste, they were not hesitant, not tender, worrying about the demons they summoned with such a passionate touch. Not like before. Not like last time.
The last time was the striking of the match.
This was the unleashing of the entire fucking inferno.
I knew, as he ripped my tee off me, sucking at my nipple through the lace of my bra, that there would be nothing remaining of me amongst the ashes when this ended. And it would end. Infernos burned hot and quickly.
His hand went straight into my panties, landing on the perfect spot without needing to search.
I cried out in surprise and pleasure. He bit at my lip, drawing blood.
And then his fingers were inside me.
And I didn’t care what little would be left at the end.
Endings didn’t matter when you were at the midst of the most beautiful of beginnings. Or maybe this was just another in a long line of endings.
I didn’t give a fuck.
Not when Luke had me naked in front of him, his eyes burning with carnal desire. His gaze devoured me, saying everything he thought about my naked body without uttering a word, as if we knew words would ruin this, bring about reality, sever the connection.
Then he knelt like he was worshipping me, the most tender of gestures juxtaposed by the raw and brutal look in his eyes. He stayed like that for a moment, and then his mouth was on me, right there.
I screamed. I couldn’t help it. Maybe it was because he hit the perfect spot with the perfect amount of pressure and tongue. Maybe it was because I hadn’t realized I hadn’t had good, carnal, and brutal sex in… forever.
Or most likely it was because it was Luke.
It was Luke kneeling at my feet. It was Luke’s mouth on my most intimate part of me, Luke’s kiss that mingled with the taste of blood in my mouth.
I clenched his hair as he stoked my fire, unleashing the climax that turned my knees to jelly. His hands immediately came to my hips, steadying me, holding me up as my shudders washed over me.
Every aftershock was jarring, hitting all my fragile nerve endings. The loss of Luke’s mouth and the rush of humid air on my bare skin sent shivers vibrating through me.
His mouth immediately covered mine, which was expelling breath so rapidly I vaguely wondered whether I’d pass out.
I really hoped I didn’t pass out.
His taste mingled with my own served to build up the desire that I’d thought he’d just sated. My hunger for him was not quelled after that. Not after this long.
We had years to make up for.
He growled as my fingers ripped at his tee, detaching from my lips for the second it took to yank it off his body. The second he was separated from the material, he yanked our naked torsos together, the electrifying combination of his skin against mine something beyond perfect. I scratched at the flesh of his back, moaning at the same time he hissed out a breath when I broke the skin. His eyes were almost black, telling me he liked it like that.
Which almost made me stutter. This glimpse of the new Luke, the bad Luke, who was going to take me hard and rough and drew my blood and liked it—no, loved it when I drew his.
But then he yanked my hand to the hardness straining from his jeans and all my feelings of guilt disappeared, swallowed by the power of my desire. I was desperate, feral almost, as I yanked at his belt buckle, a small sting in my forefinger telling me I’d broken a nail getting it loose. Not that it mattered. Not when I was freeing him in all his glory.
I caressed him for a moment, freeing him from jeans but leaving them on. He grunted as my hands ran over the smooth and hard flesh. And then they weren’t anymore, one of his hands circling my wrist, yanking it away from him. The other made short work of his jeans and then somehow—maybe I collapsed, maybe he pushed me down—we were on the floor. And then he was inside me.
Both of us stilled on that first thrust, all the ferocity of before disappearing. He just stayed there, inside me, both physically and emotionally, stare locked on mine. The moment that passed was not one fueled by aggressive and almost-crazed desire. This lucidity was almost painful in its exquisiteness, in the way we passed a million words in that one glance, acknowledging how long this had been in coming, about how perfect it was.
About how this should never have happened. About how imperfect it was.
And I wanted to throw away all those other moments I’d snatched from between us so I could make room for this one. Steal it out of the present and store it to become my ultimate treasure.
But I didn’t have time.
Because his lips were on mine.
And then he moved.
And then there was no room for coherent thought.
There was room for nothing but our bodies and our passion, and for once, simplicity.
But all good things come to an end. And the worst ones too. I just couldn’t figure out which one this was.
I came to my senses quickly. Well, after five orgasms. But after a handful of hours with a man who could give five orgasms, one could describe that as quick. Because most women, most sane women, would hold onto that, not let it go after a mere few hours. No, a sane woman would put a fucking ring on that shit.
It had been well established that I wasn’t sane.
Therefore, the first words spoken from my mouth after some of the most beautiful hours of my entire life showed me and the world—the world being Luke—how fucking off the reservation I was.
“This was a mistake.”
Luke’s hand, which had been lazily drawing circles on the underside of my breast, froze. His head, which had been very intently inspecting the underside of my breast, moved too.
His expression was unreadable as his glacial stare locked with mine. “Say again?”
I pushed him off me. Or at least tried to. Luke was on top of me, much stronger and therefore in control. He did not let me push him off me. The old Luke would have. No matter how much it pissed him off, my small gesture would’ve been taken as an order to his morals to get off the woman he was using his strength against.
This was not the old Luke.
“Get off me,” I ordered.
His stare remained cold. “No fucking way.”
“Luke.”
“Rosie.”
I glared at him. He glared right back at me.
“You’re really going to keep me here for the rest of my life, Luke?” I snapped.
He didn’t move. “No, just for however long it takes to talk, or fuck, some sense into you.”
The extremely sensitive part between my legs jumped at the pure sex in his tone. Who was I kidding—all of me jumped at the pure sex in his tone.
But I couldn’t waver.
I knew I couldn’t.
“Newsflash, Luke. People have been trying my whole life to talk some sense into me. Hasn’t worked,” I replied. “Different people have also tried to fuck some sense into me too. That didn’t work either.” That was a low blow, and I almost regretted it the moment it came out of my mouth. Almost. I was fighting for my life here. And, more importantly, his. I’d ruined it enough. That motivation was enough to have me fighting dirty.
He flinched at my words, jaw turning to stone. His hand moved to circle my neck, not loosely, but only dancing with the point of pain. I could still breathe, but he was making his point.
And it was turning me on even more.
“I’m not most people,” he growle
d. His hand squeezed. “We’re not most people.” His eyes searched mine. “And I’m not tryin’ to change you, Rosie. I’ve fucked up enough thinking that’s something that I needed to do. Somethin’ you needed. I ain’t fuckin’ up again. The only shred of sense I’m going to make you see regards you and me. Everything else in your life, in you, can stay as beautifully and chaotically senseless as it is.” His hand moved, stroking the column of my neck that he’d just been squeezing, and his fingertips moved upward to trail along the sides of my face. “That’s what made me fall in love with you. All that exquisite senselessness.”
I froze. Even my heart stopped beating. Every inch of me was suspended in time, in the moment following those words. The ones I’d thought maybe could’ve been true when I’d had too much pink wine and watched too many Julia Roberts movies. The ones I taunted myself with, with their impossibility of coming out of Luke’s mouth.
Sure, whatever we’d had, whatever Fuck-Up that was us that hinted at feelings—I wasn’t that much of an idiot. I knew he felt something crazy and intense for me in order to explain everything over the years. But I hadn’t dared to let myself actually believe it was the ultimate crazy and intense thing.
Love.
“What did you just say?” I choked out.
He held my eyes, continuing to stroke my face. “You know what I said, Rosie. You know what it is between us. We’ve been tangled up in each other for two decades, coiled into the core parts of each other. I can’t get you out. Sometimes, I’ve wanted to. Not for me, but for you. Because I was convinced that all there was for us was pain. And I didn’t want more pain for you. Nothing more than life had already dealt you. But now I’m convinced of another thing. We have more than pain. And I sure as fuck don’t want you out of me. Not in this lifetime or the next.”
I blinked at him. At his words. The freedom with which he said them. Though, by the sounds of it, they’d been caged for twenty years, so maybe freedom wasn’t the right word.
I didn’t feel free right then. I’d imagined I would. When what had been unspoken between us all this time was finally uttered. I thought it’d be some kind of release of all of this pressure. It wasn’t. It somehow created more of it, tightened the chains around me so I could hardly breathe.
Fear almost paralyzed me.
The only thing worse than loving someone you couldn’t have was having someone you were scared to love. Scared because of what you knew it would do.
Destroy everything.
“I know you love me too,” Luke demanded my attention. “Get yourself the fuck out of your head. Stop trying to create reasons why this isn’t going to work. We’ve had enough of them. We can do this, babe. After this long, we have to do this.”
“No,” I whispered. “We can’t. After this long, after everything, it’s too much. There’s too much pain.” I sucked in a harsh breath. “Loving you has been pain, ever since the start. Since I was five years old. Don’t you get that?”
His eyes danced with regret. “Yeah, babe, I get that. I’ve been livin’ that pain too. The only thing worse than that is living another fuckin’ second of what I had to get through this year. And the years before it.”
That was it. The words that I was thinking, but with more shape and definition and sense. That’s what we were—pain, together and apart. But all we’d known was apart, and that was the worst kind of pain. So why was I fighting for more of that? I’d tried my entire adult life to get rid of him from under my skin.
I’d failed.
The pain didn’t lessen over time, as so many fucking inspirational idiots liked to preach. It was worse. Every year, every moment I wasn’t with Luke, it was worse. My life was bursting with chaos, with love, with life, with death. It was happy. But it wasn’t full.
And I’d been stopping myself.
For what?
A reel of everything in the past played on a rewind. The dead bodies Luke created and buried for me. The ones I created, stamped on his soul and conscience.
“We were bad,” I whispered. To my horror, my voice was shaking like the rest of me. I never even trembled when facing rapists, human traffickers, drug lords. But there I was in front of the man I loved, and I was terrified.
“Yeah,” he rasped back, never letting my eyes go. It was only fair, I guessed, since he’d never let my heart go either. “But I’m no good anymore. I’m ready for bad now. I’ve been ready my whole life, just pretending to be good, trying to fit into a life that never quite fit. It took me a long time to realize that. So we’ve got a lot of making up to do. Half a lifetime, to be exact.”
“It’s not going to be that easy,” I said, instead of doing what I wanted and sinking into him and letting us take care of each other. “There’s still so much shit. So much fight.”
He stroked my face. “You’re so eager for it, the battle. It’s your default,” he murmured, his thumb tracing the outline of my lips. It was strange and beautiful, the ease with which he was touching me, like he’d been doing it forever, not four hours. “You’re fighting right now.”
I swallowed my butterflies, inhaling his scent and letting it seep into my pores. “Fighting? I’m simply breathing,” I lied.
He regarded me, his gaze long and measured. “You’re not simply breathing. You’re fighting. With every breath you take.”
I sighed. Weary of the conversation, of the situation. Of everything. I got it now, that phrase ‘world-weary.’
“Isn’t that the same thing?” I asked.
His stare was unwavering. “In your world, I guess so. But it shouldn’t be,” he said.
“My world is the only world I’ve got,” I shot back.
He regarded me. “It’s all I’ve got too.”
I swallowed, taking him in, trying to reconcile this Luke with the one who’d been there when I left. “You’ve changed,” I observed. He’d gotten harder. Not just in the muscle department, though he’d changed a lot there too.
But him.
He’d been soft—not in the muscle department—kind, good before.
Now?
He was starting to resemble the men I’d grown up with. The men I called family.
Criminals.
That’s what he was now, I guessed. It was what he’d been since I’d made him that. Made him rip off that badge, take off that uniform that was everything to him. That defined him.
Of all the people I’d killed, causing that little death inside Luke would be the thing that would haunt me to the grave.
His eyes didn’t waver. “So have you.”
My replay reel went to Venezuela. “Yeah,” I agreed.
He moved so he was on top of me. “We’ve got a lot of talkin’ to do, babe. Lot of fightin’, I’m sure. Lot of shit. Complicated. For now, I feel like keeping it simple. Me fucking you. How does that sound?”
His fingers were inside me before I could say anything else, but I didn’t need to give him permission. He’d had my permission since forever.
“Sounds perfect,” I breathed.
Chapter Sixteen
“I’m gonna ask you some questions, and I want the truth.”
We were in the kitchen. It was either very early or very late. We’d ordered Chinese and I was storing it in the fridge, where I’d intend to eat it for leftovers but it’d just sit, spoiling for a week until the smell made me throw it out.
Simple, amazing, breathtaking, life-shattering simple was over.
Not that I wanted it. I just didn’t think I could handle one more orgasm.
And it was time for complicated, it seemed.
I eyed him. “No you don’t.”
“Rosie,” he warned.
I sighed dramatically. “Be careful what you wish for.”
“That’s a yes?”
I raised my eyebrows impatiently in response.
“Where were you? This year.”
Okay, starting with an easy one. “Venezuela. Mostly.”
He narrowed his eyes. “And how is it that yo
u were mostly in Venezuela and there’s no record of you leaving the country?”
I narrowed my own eyes. “You’ve been sneaking into some databases you shouldn’t be. I’m impressed.”
He scowled. “I’ve got friends. Answer the question.”
I shrugged. “Used a fake passport.”
His left eye twitching was the only visual form of his surprise. “You have a fake passport?”
“I have three.” If he wanted honest, I’d give him the dirty, ugly truth. Then I’d look at the Luke-shaped hole in my door once he’d heard it all.
“Three?” he repeated.
I nodded.
“And Cade knows?”
Surprising question, but I went with it. “He knows about one, hence the need for the other two.”
“How did you get them?” It seemed to be asked more out of curiosity than need.
I grinned. “You’re not the only one with friends.”
He didn’t grin back. “What were you doing in Venezuela?”
“Escaping, mostly. Tanning. Drinking. For a start, at least. Stumbled onto something and I started to tan a lot less. Drink some more.”
He caught it, the chilling of my tone, the darkening of my eyes. His hands clenched into fists. “What did you stumble onto?”
I took a breath. “A human trafficking ring.”
He stared at me. For a long time. “Only you would ‘stumble’ onto a human trafficking ring while tanning and drinking.”
“Well, I was in Venezuela. Stumbling onto trouble was inevitable.”
“I don’t think that counts. You could stumble into trouble on a Mormon compound.”
I scowled. “Hey, that priest started it,” I protested.
He narrowed his brow. “Continue.”
I rolled my eyes. “Well, I couldn’t very well do nothing—”
“Nothing is exactly what you should’ve done, Rosie. You can’t do anything about something as huge and institutionalized except get yourself killed,” he said sharply.
It was time for a scowl of my own. “Really, Luke? This is what’s coming from you, of all people? I see human beings being abused in the worst ways imaginable and I’m to just walk away? That’s righteous Luke Crawford’s advice.”