Chapter 37
aimee
It was a bad choice.
But as my body relaxed and turned languid, I knew that the regret would be a future me problem. Right now, at this moment, I wanted absolutely nothing more than for Lukas to bury his dick inside me.
I wanted him to fuck me senseless.
I wanted what all the main female characters in the books I read have.
I wanted to get lost in the feeling of him, the present moment where nothing else mattered besides the ways our bodies fit together.
If I had to do the right thing and give him up, I wanted something to remember him by.
Because I was more and more certain that Lukas was it for me.
I’d spent too long and too many years thinking my future was Asher.
He’d taken over my mind and will to live.
I’d loved him so much, I was willing to ruin myself for him. I nearly had.
I felt Lukas’ fingers pull out of me, and I watched through a half lidded gaze as he brought his fingers to his mouth and sucked them clean.
The sight had me clenching.
I stared at him in the early morning light that filtered in through the cracks of the curtains.
His dark hair was tousled and messy. He hadn’t shaved in a few days and his jaw was covered in scruff that had felt divine on the inside of my thighs.
His eyes were red rimmed and slightly bloodshot, but I was sure mine were as well.
His bare chest was swathed in shadows, but I knew how it felt under my hands, smooth and firm.
His boxer briefs were sitting low and not hiding the evidence of how hard he was.
Lukas was gorgeous.
He wasn’t perfect, but he was perfect to me., And here I was, letting every bad and negative thing that had ever made me feel small push him away. I didn’t want to, but I wasn’t okay. As much as I wanted to be in a place where I was okay enough to be good for him, I wasn’t.
“I can hear you thinking,” he said, as he kissed his way up my stomach, my chest, up my neck and over my jaw.
I relaxed under him, letting each press of his lips imprint themselves onto my soul. All I could think about is how I would push him away, how he would grow to regret me—everything I would take away from him. A tear leaked out of the corner of my eye and he kissed that away too.
“I want you,” I whispered, and I hope he heard the depth in those words.
The sheer, honest truth.
It really was a case of ‘it’s not you, it’s me.’ That line had always been infuriating in books, because if they could just communicate.
A laugh that sounded like a sob ripped from me. Lukas continued to pepper my skin with kisses. I slid my hands into his hair, gently raking my nails across his scalp.
He hummed against my skin, so I did it again. I let my hands get lost in his hair, explore the hard planes of his shoulders and back and chest. I savored the feel of him, how safe I felt with him over me, his body nestled against mine. He was a heady weight, and I groaned as he rocked his hips.
I don’t know how long we stayed in that room, touching, feeling, fucking. We got lost in each other so thoroughly. And when it was time for me to leave, as I was picking up my discarded clothes and slipping them back over my body, I wondered if this would be the thing that actually broke me.
If what happened to Asher was just a blip in the bad things to ever happen in my life.
If my injury was just a pothole in the road.
I knew that once I left this room, something would shatter in me, and I wasn’t sure if it was something I was going to be able to fix.
My hands trembled as I turned towards the door and reached for the handle.
I looked over at Lukas. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, utterly distraught, tears silently leaking down his cheeks. It felt like we should be doing everything to avoid this goodbye, this heartbreak.
“I don’t want this,” he said, his voice quiet.
His words cut off my thoughts, and my shoulders tensed.
“I don’t want to lose you like this.”
Tears blurred my own vision. My voice and breath caught in my throat and I wanted to start sobbing again.
“Look at me Aimee,” he said.
I let go of the door handle and turned to face him, but not drawing nearer. Touching him would mean staying and ending back up in that bed, and if we were ending this, then I needed the space. We needed the space.
He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. Lukas shut his mouth and tried again, and I could see how his expression crumpled. He pressed his palms into his eyes, and I swallowed down my own pain.