“Do you have any idea what I’ve been through? You saw the scars on my back. And I can tell you that a lot of things didn’t leave scars—not physical ones anyway. Do you really think there’s much that scares me in this world?”
“I don’t know, Katelyn. But there is one thing that scares me.”
“What’s that?”
“Harm coming to you. I will do anything to keep you safe. And that means…keeping you out of my world.”
“I don’t accept that. I don’t accept that at all. You’re nothing like them. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”
He rakes his fingers through his short hair. “I don’t want to get rid of you. I want to be with you. All I want is you, Katelyn. But I can’t have you. Don’t you see?”
“No, I don’t see. I don’t see at all. What I see is a man hiding from something. You hid your beautiful blue eyes from the world. What else are you hiding? I saw your hair dye in the bathroom. You don’t really have that dark brown hair, do you?”
“I’m blond. Kind of a sandy blond.”
“So why?”
“I can’t,” he says. “I can’t.”
“What can you do?” I ask.
“This.” His lips come down on mine once more.
17
LUKE
I can’t think about this. Can’t think about any of this.
Just need to have Katelyn one more time.
If she breaks the kiss again, I don’t know what I’ll do. What if I can’t have her one more time? What if I go to LA, lose my life, and never taste Katelyn’s sweetness again?
She doesn’t stop me, thank God. And as I kiss her I brush one strap of her camisole over her milky shoulder. I rip my lips from hers and kiss her neck, the top of her chest, her shoulder. My God, she’s so beautiful, her skin like fresh cream. The texture is smooth under my lips, under my fingertips, and she tastes… She tastes like flesh and caramel.
I’m going to fuck her. It’s not going to be nice and it’s not going to be pretty. But I need her.
I roll off her and undress her quickly.
“Luke, you’re going to rip the fabric.”
“I don’t care. I’ll buy you a new one.”
“On your waiter’s salary? Luke, come on.”
“I have money, baby. I have lots and lots of money. I’ll buy you whatever you need.”
And I will. First thing I’ll do when I get to LA is call my lawyer and make sure Katelyn is well taken care of no matter what happens to me.
I manage to get the camisole off her without tearing the fine fabric. Her breasts… She’s not wearing a bra, and oh my God, she’s so beautiful.
I caress the round globes, skim over the hard nipples. She undulates beneath me, raising her hips, looking for something…
Something I’m ready to give her.
I’m so freaking hard. My dick is pulsing against my jeans. I need to free it, let it breathe, let it find what it’s looking for—Katelyn’s pussy.
“Feels good, Luke,” she says on a soft breath.
“I’m going to suck on your nipples, Katelyn. Suck them and bite them and make you so crazy that you beg me to stop.”
“I will never beg you to stop.”
I believe her, but I go to work on a nipple anyway, first sucking it gently between my lips, relishing in her moans and undulations. Then I nibble it, taking it between my teeth, nipping it harder and harder and harder until I bite it.
“Oh!” she gasps.
But she doesn’t tell me to stop.
I bite the nipple again while I pinch the other one between my fingers.
But then I stop. I let the nipple drop from my lips.
“What?” she says.
I don’t answer.
I picture Pollack or any of those other derelicts doing terrible things to Katelyn’s body. Rage…that familiar fucking rage…
Her body should be treated like a shrine. Who am I to deface it?”
“Luke?”
“I’m sorry, baby. I love you, but…”
“What?”
“Those men… What they did to you… I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t be touching you like this.”
“Yes, you should. I want it.”
“Even after I lied to you?”
She smiles weakly. “I suppose covering your true eye color wasn’t exactly a lie.”
“But I told you. I’m not Luke Johnson. My whole identity is a façade.”
“And I thought that mattered,” she says, cupping my cheek. “You know what? It doesn’t. In a way, I’m a façade too. I’m not the same person I was before the island. I may never be the same person again.”
“You are anything but a façade, Katelyn. You’re one of the most real people I’ve ever met, and that’s one of the reasons I love you so much. You could never be a façade.”
“Tell me, then. Tell me what’s real about you.”
I sigh. “My eyes are blue and my hair is blond.”
“You already told me that. Tell me something about the real you. The Luke that’s inside.”
“I am a recovering alcoholic,” I say. “That’s not a lie.”
“Okay, that’s a start. What else?”
“My alcoholism… It made me…”
“It made you what?”
“It made me mean, Katelyn. It made me do things that I shouldn’t have done. But that’s not even the whole story. I was different then. I can’t blame it all on the alcohol. Sure, the alcohol pushed me over the edge, but it was me. I’m the one who did those things, and I have to own them.”
She strokes my cheeks, gazes at me with such love and wonder in her beautiful eyes.
“What things did you do, Luke? Nothing can be that bad.”
Nothing can be that bad.
Except what I did was worse than that. I harmed people. I got people hooked on drugs. I tried to control women, and in doing so I hurt them. And I had people…
I had people taken care of.
Such a stupid-ass euphemism.
I had people killed. Sure, they were bad guys, but to them? I was the bad guy.
How do I erase that red off my ledger?
By saving a life for each one I helped to take?
God… I haven’t let myself think about this in so long. I had therapy. Therapy helped. Helped me realize I was worth something, worthy of a second chance.
But am I? Truly?
What if I can never make up for the horrible things I’ve done?
The devil on my shoulder taunts me. You’re worse than the devil you were named for. You’ll never be a whole man. You’ll never be good enough for Katelyn.
The angel in my other shoulder— The people who are no longer in the world because of you were bad people. They would’ve harmed others, and you saved others from that harm.
I don’t believe either one.
All I know—just this one thing—is that I love this woman. I love Katelyn Brooks. And I’m going to make love to her one more time.
“You’re not mean to me,” Katelyn says. “Except for…”