“I’d rather he’d hit me.”
My blood ran cold. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not? You have. Several times. And it’s not fucking okay, Luke. I don’t care how ill this man was, he hurt you, and I’ll always hate him for that.”
I fended off an image of her flying through the air and landing crushed on the roadside. Jesus. Did this never fucking end? I sucked in a deep, painful breath, like full lungs and agony could somehow cleanse me of this bizarre nightmare.
Mia crouched in front of me. “Are you really thinking like this? Because I have to say, you’re a better person than me.”
“I’m not better than you in any way whatsoever. I’m just tired of worrying about shit I can’t control. All I want is to be with you.”
“Do you mean that?”
“I do, Mia. More than ever.”
Mia
Sexual tension was a funny thing. One minute it hovered over you, a simmering haze you could work around, the next, it was all-consuming.
I took Luke by the hand and led him upstairs, careful not to drag him like I truly wanted to.
In his bedroom, I stripped him and pushed him gently onto his bed. We hadn’t made love in days, weeks, and despite everything that had happened, nothing and no one was stopping us now.
I kicked my clothes aside and carefully straddled Luke’s waist, bending to kiss the ever-darkening bruises on his torso, and trace his ripped muscles with my tongue. His nipple found its way into my mouth, and he sucked in a breath as I gently dug my teeth in.
“Don’t play with me.” His voice was harsh, and full of urgency. “Just take what you want.”
I wanted him to throw me down, claim me, love me, own me, but he couldn’t, and perhaps that was how things should be. Maybe it was time I claimed him as my own, and we left the past behind. “I want you.”
His only answer was to pull me on top of him, covering his pained gasp with a gentle kiss that set me on fire. He was hurting, but he didn’t care. He needed this from me, and he needed it now.
I returned his kiss and slipped my tongue into his mouth, all the while fumbling to get him inside me as fast as humanly possible. His dick slid home, and I gasped as he filled me, stretching me, crammed inside me to the hilt.
He consumed me, the pulse of where we joined reaching every part of me. My nerves sang, my veins buzzed, and only the desperate craving to tumble over the edge with him kept me from absorbing the almost meditative sensation forever.
I rode him like he was made of glass. We were halfway to learning that sex cured nothing, but as I moved over him, the lines of pain faded from his face, and a glorious flush replaced it.
“Mia.”
Low and worshipful, his tongue wrapped around my name, and I squeezed my thighs together, a sheen of sweat breaking out over my entire body. “What? Tell me, baby. Tell me what you want me to do?”
“I already did.”
“Tell me again.”
“Just love me, Mia. I don’t need nothing else.”
I did love him, probably more than he’d ever know, and somehow, through the mist of delirious desire, I knew that simply saying it wasn’t enough. I pulled away from him, sitting upright on his supine form, still grinding down on him. The pressure was so intense my eyes teared, and I knew I would come soon, come hard and fast, obliterating any orgasm that had come before. Fucking Luke had always been like that...each time another notch higher than the last, but this was beyond fucking. My mother had told me stories of fated mates—of peoples and tribes so connected with nature that they bonded like wolves, forever and unbreakable. I wanted that, and with hum buried so deep inside me, connected so absolutely, I truly believed we could have it.
White spots danced in my vision. Another rush of energy stole over me and Luke drove up from beneath me, his steady thrusts ripping control away from me. Reclaiming it, perhaps, or setting it free. All I knew was that I was a heartbeat away from losing my goddamn mind.
A low scream escaped me. My knees dug into the bed and Luke’s hands came to my hips, his blunt nails cutting into my flesh, adding a devilish lick of pain to the heat building inside me. He moved a hand to the back of my head, gripping my hair, and we stared at each other, lost, found, together.
“Luke.”
He groaned and a million sensations went off in my body, like a firecracker in November. His hooded stare of pleasure was my undoing. Orgasm hit me hard and messy, and then he came too, surging inside me with a groan that rattled the walls.
I collapsed beside him, gasping noisily, still shuddering and moaning as aftershocks rippled through me, until it occurred to me that I was probably hurting him. Alarmed, I reared up to find him grinning, his chest heaving, expression as wrecked as I felt. “Are you okay?”
“Of course I am. You’re here.”
He sounded slightly loopy as his head dropped to the pillow and his eyes fell shut, but I got him, and he got me. Maybe this time we really would be okay.
I kissed his cheek and smoothed his messy hair out of his face. “I love you.”
EPILOGUE
Six months later...
Luke
Sandgrove Park was home whatever the time of year, but winter was always magical for me, especially now, when it seemed as though I was experiencing it all for the very first time—the snow on the ground, the frost on the trees, the ground crunching beneath my boots. Mia’s laugh rang out as she pelted Gus with snowballs. Leaning on the railing, watching them across the iced-up lake, I was perhaps as content as I’d ever been.
It did seem a little creepy to be watching them without their knowledge, though, particularly considering the phone call I was waiting on.
I tore my gaze from them and walked back towards my house. My phone rang at the edge of the park. I checked the screen. Billy’s name flashed up and tension rippled through me. I answered without speaking and he gave me the answer I needed without preamble.
“Four years,” he said. “In the secure hospital the defence lawyer kept harping on about. How do you like them apples?”
“Seems fair to me.”
“Seriously?” Billy sounded as disbelieving as I had when he’d volunteered to attend Morgan Benson’s trial. “You body-check a speeding car and you think four years in a cushy hospital is fair?”
“Mate, we’ve been over this. No one gets locked up forever anymore, and don’t you think four years with treatment is better than ten years without? In regular prison there’s every chance he’d come out as fucked-up as he went in.”