Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 46895 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46895 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ana
Luke’s stare is piercing, his blue eyes flecked with amber, his mood taut, his jawline sharp, his agitation palpable. He’s angry with me. I’m angry with him, too, of this there is no question. But he’s also standing in this doorway instead of walking out of the bedroom, and with that one little piece of knowledge, I find hope. And hope, I have learned over the years, can be the tool that builds you up to the highest tower in the sky, only to deliver elation or crushing pain.
I suck in a slow whisper of a breath, and I do not dare blink for fear he will vanish like stardust in the winds of a stormy night and if ever there was a stormy night, tonight is that night.
But I do blink and in that short flutter of my lashes, Luke is standing in front of me, pulling me close, his fingers tangling roughly in my hair. The feel of him next to me, his powerful thighs pressed to my thighs, his hands on my body are bittersweet when I do not know if this is a new beginning or the final ending.
“What are you doing to me, woman?” he demands, his voice a raspy, smoky tone, that draws me into his moody, dark spell.
“Not everything I want to,” I dare because I’m done talking in circles, and punching at all the wrong things.
His response is a grunt, just a grunt, and already his mouth is closing down on mine, torment, and passion a wicked mix on his tongue. But the torment isn’t new. The torment is a part of Luke, the part of himself that drives him to call himself Lucifer, the part that will always hate himself for what he became and how he lived. But I love him more than he hates himself and I kiss him with that message on my lips. There’s a message on his lips, one of hunger and demand. One that demands everything, but I fear he will never offer as much to me ever again.
This idea torments me, and I can do nothing but live in the moment.
I embrace our haze of urgency and passion as we tear at each other’s clothes. I am desperate to feel him inside me and I shove at his tee, even as he tears mine over my head, leaving my breasts naked and exposed to his hot gaze. In what feels like moments, I’m fully naked, he’s fully naked, and I’m pressed against the wall, and oh God yes, his fingers drag along the wet heat of my sex, preparing me, teasing me right where I need him.
“Holy hell,” he murmurs, lifting my leg, and then he’s burying himself to the deepest part of my body, pleasure sliding over his handsome features.
He is beautiful in these moments, the image of perfect masculine dominance, a warrior who is somehow more human and vulnerable than in any other moment. He thrusts into me, and I gasp, clinging to him, panting out his name. “Luke.”
He cups my breast, pinches my nipple in that delicious way he does just right, and sensations wash over me, settling low in my belly. My sex clenches around him, and I arch into his next pump, his next thrust. He catches my other leg, lifts me, and slides deeper, burying his face in my neck. I hold onto him, cling to him, move with him, and we fuck—that is what this is, but there is more to it for us. So much more beneath the surface.
This is raw and honest, real in every way. This is us. I’m not sure anything since we came together again has been before now.
The rub of his body against mine, the build of passion, comes too quickly. My sex clenches around him hard and fast, spasming with a wickedly intense orgasm. Luke follows me over the edge just as hard and fast, quaking, moaning in that rough, masculine way of his, until our bodies are still and he holds me there, fingers flexing on my back.
Seconds tick by and neither of us move or speak, almost as if we’re clinging to the intimacy, afraid of what comes next. But Luke can only hold both our weights so long, and we can only suspend time so long. Caving to the inevitable, he rotates us and sets me on the bathroom sink, pulling out of me but now away. He allows me a moment to right myself, providing a towel to do so, and then presses his hands on either side of my hips.
“All in,” he murmurs. “Good, bad, ugly. All in. Say it, Ana.”
Relief fills me at where this delivers us. “Yes. All in. Good, bad, ugly.”
“Don’t do that again,” he orders roughly.
“Never again,” I say, all too aware that he’s talking about bringing up his past and that I didn’t just hurt him, I hurt him deeply. “Don’t leave again,” I order. “Don’t do that again.”