Silence, then Billy made a low sound I couldn’t quite decipher. “When did you become so reasonable?”
I crossed the road, ignoring the urge to look both ways a dozen times. “I’m not reasonable, just realistic.”
“Yeah, but you don’t know the half of it. I sat through that trial, man. I know what he—” Billy stopped and sighed. “Never mind. I just don’t think four years is enough.”
“It’s enough for me.”
“What about Mia?”
Now that was a question I couldn’t answer. We’d both given evidence at the trial, but it had been behind a screen, and a non-event as all we’d had to do was recite the facts as we saw them. In my victim impact statement, I’d told the court my only worry was that Morgan Benson wouldn’t get the treatment he clearly needed, that I wasn’t interested in punishment, so the defence had left me alone. And so had Mia. Only Billy had questioned my sanity.
I reached my front door and let myself inside. “I honestly don’t know. I reckon she’ll just be happy when it’s all over.”
“It is over, bro. Is she happy?”
I pictured Mia as I’d last seen her, playing in the snow with the brother I loved almost as much as my own. “Yeah, I think she is.”
Mia
“Four years?”
Luke nodded. “Yup. In the hospital, not the prison.”
“So he really was ill?”
“Yes, but we knew that.”
“No...” I said carefully. “You did. I was still considering the possibility that he was just an evil bastard.”
Luke chuckled and shut the oven door. “I don’t believe that.”
“I don’t care if you believe it or not, it’s true. You’re a better person than me.”
“Doubt it.” Luke came to me, wrapping his warm arms around me. “But I want to be done with this so we can move on with our lives. Can we do that? Please?”
There was nothing I wouldn’t do for him, so I nodded and kissed him, but my mind continued to replay the last six months anyway. Luke’s recovery from his injuries as the real depths of Morgan Benson’s obsession with me had come to light. We’d chosen to focus on us, on Billy, and on our own healing. I was right about Luke being a better person than me, though. It had taken him a split second to humanise Morgan Benson, and I’d spent every day since torn between wanting to shake him and being in awe of the compassionate man I’d missed him becoming.
“Hey.” Luke knocked his head gently against mine. “If there’s something you need to talk about, we can. Don’t lock shit away because I want to.”
“I’m not locking anything away. I want to move on too, but you know I’m going to have a good chinwag with Billy about this, don’t you?”
“Of course you are. Don’t bank on it anytime soon, though. When I spoke to him, he was heading home.”
“To his mystery lover?”
“If you say so.”
I did say so, but Luke respected Billy’s privacy more than I did, so I bottled my gossip for the next time I saw Fran. It gave us something to talk about in the stilted cups of tea we’d taken to sharing on a regular basis. Jesus, was I becoming halfway human? Sometimes I missed the lonely life I’d lived before Luke had reclaimed his hold on my heart, but the feeling was fleeting. My life was full of love and friendship now, and my solitary days were behind me.
Luke trailed kisses down my neck. “What time did you tell Gus to come by for dinner?”
“Six. I think he’s got a date this afternoon anyway.”
“Good. Maybe he won’t show up at all.”
“You don’t mean that.” Of course he didn’t. Feeding Gus was way too much fun, but the prospect of a few hours to ourselves sent a thrill through me. The sensation of Luke’s hard length pressing against my thigh? Yeah. What brother?
Luke unbuttoned my jeans and slid them over my hips. He gripped my thighs and lifted me onto the kitchen counter in one smooth movement. My jeans hit the floor, my underwear too. I made a mental note to retrieve my G-string before Gus came over...my last coherent thought before Luke buried his face between my legs. “Oh!”
My head thwacked the cabinet behind me, but he showed no mercy as he ran his tongue over my clit, circling it again and again until he drove expert fingers inside me. Over and over, he brought me to the brink while I dug my nails into his strong shoulders and moaned, but eventually, his sinful mouth wasn’t enough.
I dragged him up and yanked his t-shirt over his head. “Fuck me.”
“You think you have to ask?”
“Do it.”
He never refused me anything, least of all this. He thrust inside me and fucked me right there on the countertop, driving inside me until the air was heavy with sex and clean sweat, and I had nothing left but a climax that pretty much put me into a coma.
Luke pulsed inside me, then stilled as he came with a hoarse shout.
He didn’t withdraw, though, and we stayed locked together, kissing like it was the first time, lost in each other. Only the need to breathe drove us apart.
Luke panted against my shoulder, still holding the both of us up. I nuzzled his neck and bit his ear. “Do you think it will always be like this?”
“Like what?”
“So intense. I feel like we’re always chasing something.”
Luke raised his head, his eyes hazy with the post-coital detachment that often sent him to sleep. “We’re not chasing. We’re catching up.”
I hadn’t thought of it like that. Huh. Perhaps that was it. Ten years was a long time to be without something as magical as what we shared.
Luke cupped my chin in his warm hand. “Do you forgive me?”
“What for?”
“For leaving you. I had to go, but I didn’t do right by you, and I’ll never—”
Slowly, deliberately, I pressed my palm over his mouth, silencing him the way he had me so many times. “We don’t look back because it’s not where we’re going. I love you. You love me. And for the first time ever, there really is nothing else.”
* * *
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