Chapter 52 – Luke
LUKE
Iset Eden down right outside the front door. As much as I’d love to carry her up to her room, I don’t trust myself to stumble through her house in the dark without making enough of a racket to wake up Rose. Instead, I just take her hand and lead her up the stairs.
All night, I’ve been waiting for this moment.
I haven’t stopped staring at her for a second.
I spent most of the night watching her like a creep as she moved through the venue, checking in with the DJ and setting up the cake and making sure every centerpiece was in the exact center of the table.
I couldn’t stop grinning, watching her go to every table to check in and make sure everyone was enjoying themselves.
She’s so goddamn competent at her job, and I’m not afraid to admit that’s a turn-on for me.
Still, I don’t find myself rushing up the stairs.
The night of the bachelor party, my body screamed for me to put my hands all over her, take her, claim her.
Now, though, that ragged desire isn’t tugging at me.
Instead, I feel a strange sense of contentment.
Tonight isn’t the last night I’ll get with her.
There are a string of nights ahead of us, which means I can take the time to savor her.
I’m still carrying my mother’s voice up the stairs with me, too.
Earlier, when I brought her a slice of cake, she caught my wrist before I could walk away—Tricia Windsor, who never reaches first. “The whiskey business was always impressive,” she said, halting, like the words were in a language she hadn’t practiced.
“But watching you today. With your sister. With your Eden.” She squeezed my wrist once.
“We’re proud of the man, Luke. Not just the company.
We should have said so a long time ago.”
I didn’t manage much back. A nod. A “thanks, Mom” that came out rougher than I meant it to. Twenty-seven years of waiting for one sentence, and when it finally came, it didn’t fix everything—but it settled somewhere in my chest, warm as a first sip, and I suspect it’s going to stay.
With the wedding all but finished outside, the whole house is quiet. Open windows fill the hallways with warm, sweet-smelling evening air.
When we reach Eden’s room, we don’t have to carefully ease the door shut. There’s no one to hide from, no one to fool. Wade and Jasper found friends to crash with tonight, and I doubt Reed will be sneaking around protecting his sister’s now-nonexistent virtue.
Eden moves to the window, the breeze from outside rustling her hair. She looks ethereal in her bridesmaid’s dress, an angel sent just for me.
Before I take a seat on the edge of the bed, I reach into my back pocket and pull out a cocktail napkin—creased, soft at the folds, my handwriting faded but legible. Five rules written out in blue ink.
Eden stares at it. “I can’t believe you kept this,” she breathes.
“I’ve been carrying it since the night we wrote it,” I tell her.
“At first, I kept it in my desk at the distillery. When I got back from Sundre, though, I put it in my wallet. Because somewhere between the stars in the field and kissing you in your childhood bedroom, I understood I was never going to be the man who let you go. I’ve been carrying the terms of our fake relationship next to my driver’s license for months. ”
She laughs, sharp and breathy. “You’re insane, for the record.”
“I know.” I look back down at the napkin and read the last rule out loud.
“No falling in love. I broke that rule the night I wrote it.” I look up at Eden and unshed tears shine in her eyes.
“I was already gone by the time the ink dried. I’ve spent eight months pretending otherwise, and I’m done.
I love you, Eden. I’ve loved you since I saw your birthmark on that auction poster, or since you laughed on the cam stream, or maybe even since you were a ten-year-old girl who took too long to escape a game of hostages.
I don’t know when it started, and it doesn’t matter.
Because I fell for every little part of you, and this is always how it was going to end for me. ”
Eden crosses the room and takes the napkin from my hands.
“I love you, too, Luke,” she says, her voice low and sure.
“I’ve loved you since I was ten years old and too young to know what the word meant.
I loved you through fifteen years of silence and a fake relationship and a virginity auction and three overprotective brothers and a best friend I almost lost. I’m not pretending anymore either. ”
She tears the napkin in half. The sound of it is small—paper giving way, nothing more—but I feel it in my sternum, eight months of careful architecture coming down in one clean line.
She tears it again, quarters now, and lets the pieces fall.
They scatter across the floorboards of her childhood bedroom like the confetti we never threw for ourselves.
“No more rules,” she declares. “We’re starting fresh. We don’t need them anymore.”
We both reach for each other and then our bodies are pressed against each other, our hands in each other’s hair, my lips sliding over hers. Our tongues meet, slow and unhurried, and the kiss tastes like the beginning of something beautiful.
“Wildflower,” I whisper against her mouth, and she shivers.
I drag my hands down her back, finding the zipper on her dress and dragging it down inch by inch.
When I reach the end, it slides off her shoulders and pools on the floor under her.
She’s left in her strapless bra and underwear, and I flatten my palms against her back.
She’s so warm and soft, so goddamn touchable.
My tongue slides into Eden’s mouth as I drag her toward me, suddenly hungrier. I need to feel all of her. I need to coax out the intoxicating sounds she makes when she’s losing control.
Eden’s hands find the front of my shirt and pull me closer, too frantic to actually undo the buttons. I walk her backward until her shoulders meet the wall, and she arches her back against me. I slide my thigh between hers, groaning when she grinds herself against it, already chasing her pleasure.
“Fucking perfect,” I mutter. “I’m going to make you feel so damn good, wildflower.”
Her breath catches as my hands slide down over her ribs. Goosebumps rise under my fingers. She’s so beautifully responsive, and I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of it. I pull back just enough to look at her—flushed, wanting, mine.
There’s no napkin, no rule, no end date, nothing between us anymore except the bedroom door Eden already closed and the night we’re about to take for ourselves.