Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 129408 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 431(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129408 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 431(@300wpm)
Tears streamed down my face and I couldn’t control them. I hadn’t cried, really cried, since that day they found Bex.
I was at the wharf.
It was the only place I could think of… after. After I’d seen Bex brought into the club.
Or more aptly, Bex’s body.
She was breathing.
But it was still her body.
Something important had been taken. You could tell by looking at the emptiness in her eyes. Her body was beaten, broken. Her spirit was all but ruined.
As was Lucky’s. The man who lit up the lives of so many people, reminded us all not to take life so seriously, was gone.
How could you stay inside your own optimism when the person you loved was raped? Beaten? Tortured? Taken from you. Despite being able to retrieve her, she was gone.
It was too soon to tell if she was coming back.
And I couldn’t handle it all. I was weak. But I couldn’t let my weakness show. I wouldn’t.
So I came to the place where I could be weak with only the ocean to witness it, to wash it away, like it had never happened.
Like always, he was there. When I was at my lowest, he was there to shield me from it. From the worst of it all. From the worst of myself.
He didn’t touch me at first.
Didn’t speak.
Just stood beside me, watching the wild ocean.
I wondered if he was wishing it would wash away all of the pain my family had to endure. That Bex had to endure.
Probably not.
He was practical. Practical men knew the frivolity of wishing.
It came out of nowhere. The wave. Not out there in the ocean, but in there, in me.
My feet just stopped holding me.
He caught me. Easily swept me into his embrace, like he’d been expecting it. And he held me while I clutched at his shirt and sobbed, broke down. He held me, kissed my head, murmuring everything and nothing at the same time.
And somehow, by doing that, he stopped my whole world from falling apart. So then I could help Bex put hers back together.
It occurred to me that every single time I really cried, really let myself go, I was in Luke’s arms.
I moved almost on instinct so I was on top of him, straddling him, framing his face with my hands. The whiskers of his stubble rubbed against my open palms.
“You have a corner,” I whispered through my tears. “You occupy the prime real estate, Luke. You have since I was five years old.”
And with that open honesty, I kissed him, the flavor of my tears mixing with the flavor of us.
Because the memories made me feel him inside me, and every instinct I had was to crawl away and let that dirt turn to rot, I went against them. My hand fastened against Luke’s, pushing it down, right to my perfect spot.
We both hissed out rough breaths as he rubbed me. Then, as if he knew what I wanted, what I needed, his fingers went inside.
He may have not been clean anymore, but he worked at washing the dirt away.
Chapter Seventeen
I may have been intent on keeping Luke and me under wraps, and I was usually pretty good at the whole undercover thing.
I just didn’t take into account how much I’d need Luke naked and inside me.
And the fact that almost all of my family had keys to my apartment.
And they didn’t knock.
“Luke,” I breathed, scratching at his back, my nails breaking the skin, creating new wounds to replace the barely healing ones from earlier in the week.
Luke’s hand bit into my hip, likely imprinting fresh bruises to join the fading ones.
It turned out that we enjoyed hurting each other.
Not that this was new information.
“Don’t you come yet,” he commanded roughly. “You come when I say.”
He was also bossy in bed. Really fucking bossy. I loved it.
I was about to disobey him when the front door opened.
“Surprise! I pried myself away from Cade’s spawn to come shopping—oh my God. Shit, I’m so sorry!”
Luke and I were on the sofa. My apartment opened onto my living room.
Both of our heads snapped toward where Gwen was standing, hand over her eyes, keys dangling from her fingers.
“I’m just going to go away to Chanel. I’ll be hours. Hours,” she repeated. She then turned and paused, hands still over her eyes. “I just want to say that this makes me very happy. Well, not me totally barging in on you doing the nasty, but you and Luke doing the nasty. It’s, like, fucking awesome,” she yelled.
I cringed.
Luke grinned.
Then the door shut.
“Did Gwen just walk in on us in the middle of having sex?” I whispered.
Luke’s grin widened. “Yes, she did.”
I expected him to pull out, discuss this turn of events. He did not, he moved his hips in deeper and I gasped. “In the middle,” he rasped. “Which means I’ve got a lot more fucking to do.”