Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
LUKE
The crying starts a little after two.
I know because I'm not asleep. Haven't been since I laid her down, pulled the door half-shut behind me, and sat down at the kitchen table with the radio on low and a hunting rifle within reach.
I've been staring at the topo map of this property I pulled off the wall, mapping every approach, every line of sight, every place a man could come at us from in the dark.
Three exits. Two windows. One road in. The horses would alert us before any vehicle got within a quarter mile.
I've been a Captain. I've been on protection details. None of them ever felt like this.
The first sound is small. A whimper through the cracked door. I'm on my feet before my brain catches up.
I cross the cabin floor barefoot, careful, listening. The fire's burning low in the wood stove, throwing a soft amber across the boards. I stop just outside her door.
Another whimper. Higher. Wet.
Then a word.
"Luke."
Christ.
I push the door open with two knuckles, slow, so the hinge doesn't groan.
She's curled on her side under the quilt, knees pulled up, one hand fisted in the pillow. Her hair's a dark spread across the white. Tears have already tracked down to the corner of her mouth. She's still asleep. Caught in something.
"Luke," she whispers again, and it's not for help. She says my name like it's the only thing keeping her upright.
I don't think.
I cross the room and sit on the edge of the bed, and put my hand flat between her shoulder blades. Her shirt is warm. Her back is shaking.
"Anna. Hey."
She gasps awake. Whole body locks. Eyes wild for half a second, hunting the dark.
"Easy. Easy, it's me. It's Luke."
"Luke." She gets out half a sob and reaches for me before she's even fully here, fingers grabbing at my forearm, my shirt, anywhere she can hold. "Luke."
"I got you. Right here."
I shift up onto the bed, back against the headboard, and pull her into my lap. She comes into me without resistance, wraps both arms around my middle, presses her wet face into my neck. The shaking gets worse before it gets better. I cup the back of her head and just hold her.
She cries. Not pretty. Not careful. The kind of cry that's been waiting under a closed lid for a week and finally found a crack.
"I keep seeing them," she says into my throat.
"My mom. My dad. Someone walking up the back deck.
I keep seeing me on your porch and not knowing somebody was looking at me through a lens.
I keep seeing." She breaks off. Hiccups.
"Luke, I don't know how to be this person.
I don't know how to live in a world where this is real. "
"I know."
"I'm so tired."
"I know."
"What if they–"
"They won't."
"You don't know–"
"Anna." I tilt her chin up with one knuckle.
Her eyes are swollen. Mascara from yesterday smeared at the edge.
Cheeks streaked. She has never been more beautiful, and I have never been more steady about a thing in my life.
"Listen to me. They will not touch you. Not one of them.
Not your folks. Not Madi. Not Gabe. Not you.
I will lay down every man who tries before he gets within a hundred yards of you.
That's not a maybe. That's a fact. You hear me? "
Her eyes spill over again. She nods. The smallest nod.
"Say it out loud for me, Anna."
"I hear you."
"Good girl."
The phrase lands the same way it landed in Madi's living room. Small. Visible. Her breath catches in her chest. Her pupils blow wider in the firelight bleeding through the cracked door.
I clock it. I file it. And I keep my hand on her jaw because she needs the anchor more than I need to be careful right now.
She turns her face just enough to press a kiss to the inside of my wrist.
The whole world pauses.
"Luke."
"Yeah."
"Make me forget."
"Anna."
"Just for tonight. Make me feel something that isn't this." Another tear cuts loose. She doesn't wipe it. "Please. I want to feel something good. I want to feel something that's mine."
I look at her. I take a long count of two. Maybe three. Long enough to know my answer is yes and long enough to know I'm not letting this be quick or rough or anything she'll wake up from tomorrow and feel small about.
I bring my forehead to hers.
"Okay, Brown Eyes."
Her breath shudders out.
"I'm gonna take care of you."
"I know you will."
"Slow."
"Yes."
"You stop me. Any second. Anywhere. We stop."
"I won't stop you."
I kiss her.
It's not the lean-to kiss. The lean-to kiss was a question with an answer.
This one's a promise. Slow. Deep. My hand on her jaw, thumb under the wet of her cheekbone, mouth opening hers, tongue sliding in unhurried because we have all night and she has nowhere she has to be except here, on me, getting taken care of.
She makes a sound against my lips that breaks me.
I shift her off my lap and lay her back against the pillows. Move over her, one knee between her thighs, weight braced on my forearm so I'm not crushing her. Look at her in the firelight.
"Look at you."
"Luke."
"I mean it. Look at you. I have known you eight days. Eight days, and I've spent every one of them trying not to look at this face the way I'm looking right now."
She covers her face with her hand. I take her wrist and move it.
"No. Eyes on me."
She lets her hand fall to the pillow. Her cheeks are pink under the tears.
"There she is. Christ, Anna."
I bend and kiss her cheekbone. The corner of her mouth.
Her jaw. The line of her throat where her pulse is hammering.
She tips her head back to give me more, and I take it, slow open kisses down to the hollow at the base of her neck, the place where her shoulder dips into her collarbone, where her skin is warm and salt-wet.
"You smell like rain still."
"It's been a day."
"Good day for it."
I get a laugh out of her. Short and real. I file that one, too.
I find the hem of the long-sleeve shirt she slept in, mine, one I gave her in Madi's living room before we rode out, and I push my hand up under it. Her stomach jumps under my palm. Soft. Warm. I splay my fingers across her ribs and feel her heart going.
"Off?"
"Yeah."
I sit up enough to pull it off her. She lifts her arms. The shirt comes free, and her hair falls back around her shoulders, dark on the white pillow. No bra. Small high breasts, dark nipples already drawn tight from the cool air, the prettiest pink-brown.
I make a sound I didn't plan on.
"Goddamn."
"Luke."
"Look at these."
I bend and take one nipple in my mouth. Just lips at first. Soft. Then tongue, slow, circling. Her back arches off the pillow, and her hand fists in my hair.
"Oh."
"Mm."
"Oh."
I switch to the other one. Same patience.
Same slow attention. I cup the breast I'm not on with my free hand, thumb stroking the wet of where my mouth just was.
Her skin breaks out in goosebumps. Her hips lift, looking for friction, and I press my thigh between hers because I'm not a saint, but I keep my mouth on her breast and don't speed up.
"You're so soft. I could stay right here for an hour."
"Don't."
"No?"
"I won't survive it."
I huff a laugh against her sternum. Move down.
Kiss the space between her ribs where her breath is trying to even out.
Kiss the dip of her belly button. Press my open mouth to the soft give of her stomach because she is soft and warm, and she's been told by some part of the world that she shouldn't be, and I don't care for that.
"I love this stomach."
"Luke."
"I'm a man telling the truth, Brown Eyes. Take it."
She makes a sound I can feel against my lips. Half laugh, half something cracking open.
I hook my fingers into the waist of the soft cotton shorts she's in. Look up at her.
"These off too?"
"Yes."
I pull them down her legs. Take the panties with them. She lifts her hips to help me. I drag both off her ankles and drop them on the floor. Sit back on my heels and look at her.
She closes her eyes. Hands come up to cover her belly, instinct.
"Don't."
She freezes.
"Hey. Look at me."
She opens her eyes. Still wet.
"You are the prettiest thing I have ever seen in my whole life."
Her mouth wobbles.
"I mean it. Every inch of you. Top to bottom. That face. These breasts. This belly. These thighs." I run my hands down the outside of her thighs. Squeeze. "These thighs alone are gonna ruin me. I want you to lie back. I want you to put your hands above your head. And I want you to let me see you."
"Luke."
"Trust me."
She lifts her hands above her head. Slow. Lays them on the pillow.
"Good fucking girl."
Her hips twitch. So does my dick.
I take my time. I look at her like I have all night, because I do, and I tell her every piece.
Her mouth. Her throat. The line of her arms. The curve of her tits.
The dip of her waist. The flare of her hips.
The dark trim of hair between her thighs that's already wet at the seam.
I run a knuckle up the inside of her thigh and watch her shiver.
"Open your knees for me."
She does.
"Wider."
She does that too.
"Fuck."
She is glistening pink, and her clit is already swollen, peeking out of its hood, and her thighs are trembling. I'm going to lose my mind before I get my mouth on her.
"You're gorgeous like this. You know that? Spread out for me. Wet for me already. I haven't even touched you yet, Sweetheart."
"Then touch me."
"As you wish, baby."
I lie down between her thighs. Drape one of her legs over my shoulder. Kiss the inside of her knee. Kiss up. Kiss the soft place where her thigh meets her hip and feel her pulse there. Kiss the mound. Breathe on her.
She whimpers.
"Eyes on me, Anna."
She lifts her head off the pillow.
I drag the flat of my tongue up the length of her in one long, slow stroke.
"Oh, my God."
"Mm."