28. Luka
I’m melting into Aisling like I’m nothing but shadows and whispers.
The heat spa, with its distant voices and lush decor, is a cocoon where time’s got no grip on us. Can’t say how long we’ve been here, tangled up in each other, but it’s like nothing I’ve ever known. We fuck her in an endless rotation—finding each tight space, every empty cavern of her body. Me, Gunnar, Oberon…she needs us all.
My senses come back to me in fragments. I blink awake, not a damn clue what hour it is. I’m curled tight around Aisling, her soft breaths tickling my chest. Only us now; Oberon and Gunnar’s voices drift from the annex, their words too hushed for me to catch.
Aisling’s looking up at me, grey eyes wide as the moon, pupils blown out. Her lips are bruised from kisses, telltale signs of our recklessness. She’s a picture of desire and vulnerability all mixed up in one, and it hits me hard, right in the gut.
“Hey,” she whispers, voice rough like it’s been dragged through gravel and honey.
“Hey yourself,” I manage, voice barely there. My hand finds her hair, threads of white-gold slipping between my fingers. There’s something sacred about this, about her, in the quiet after the storm.
Just don’t know if I’m the saint or the sinner in her story.
A shudder ripples through me, unbidden. My mind’s a traitor, dragging me back to New Eden, where the world was red and raw, where I woke up knotted inside her, with the taste of blood and salt on my tongue. Her cries still echo somewhere in the hollows of my skull. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to banish the ghost of that day—this is different, this is safe.
“Stop,” I murmur to myself more than to her, but Aisling’s hand finds mine, her fingers tracing patterns on my skin, grounding me.
I look into her eyes, and she’s staring at me with something fierce and soft all at once. It’s like she sees right through the bullshit, straight to the parts of me I can’t hide.
“I’m sorry,” she breathes out, and it cuts through the haze, sharp and unexpected.
“Sorry for what?” Confusion laces my words; it feels like we’re dancing around a bonfire, and I’m about to step into the flames.
“For everything.” Her voice, it wavers, carrying the weight of worlds. “If I hadn’t—“
“Shh.” I want to argue, tell her none of this is on her, but she silences me with a finger pressed to my lips, gentle yet insistent.
“I need to say it, Luka. To you, to them,” she insists. “Maybe then we can start to heal.”
“None of this is your fault, Ais,” I say, but the words feel heavy, like I’m dragging them up from the seafloor.
“Let me have this,” she pleads, eyes earnest and searching. “Please.”
I nod because what else can I do? She’s the gravity that holds us all together, even when she’s breaking apart. And if her apology’s what she needs to patch herself back up, then I’ll swallow every word if it means she gets a shot at peace.
“Okay,” I whisper, watching as the tension eases from her shoulders, a silent surrender to whatever comes next.
Her fingers brush against mine, a touch that lights up the dark corners of my mind. I can’t help myself—I reach up, take her hand in mine, and bring it to my lips. Her skin’s soft, and I kiss every fingertip, one by one, like they’re something precious.
‘Cause they are.
They’re part of her.
She watches me, those storm-cloud eyes of hers wide and wondering, as if she can’t fathom why I’d bother with such tenderness. But I’ve got reasons, too many and not enough all at once.
“Didn’t want it this way, Ais,” I murmur against her skin, voice rough like gravel. “Everything…it should’ve been different.”
“Tell me,” she whispers, curiosity threading through the exhaustion. “How would you have wanted it?”
And damn, if those words don’t open the floodgates. I lay it out bare for her, the dream of what could’ve been—a fantasy scrawled in charcoal and hope on the back of my eyelids.
“Somewhere quiet,” I start, tracing patterns on her palm with my thumb. “Just us, no complications, no past haunting our steps. Some place where the city can’t touch us, where it’s just the sound of our breaths and the rustle of leaves.”
“Would it be beautiful?” She’s leaning into every word, drinking them in like the finest whiskey.
“Beautiful doesn’t even start to cover it,” I say, and mean every syllable.
I lean in, pressing my lips to the tender stretch of her neck, feeling the pulse beneath her skin as I lay her back against the plush cushions. My mouth trails a path of soft kisses, each one an apology, a vow, a glimpse of that unspoiled world in my head. “Celestial Hills,” I breathe out, words dancing across her skin. “There’s this spot, perfect for watching the sun die in a blaze of glory.”
“Sunset?” Her voice teases, a smirk on her lips even as she takes me into her arms. “A little cliché, isn’t it?”
“I think we’ve earned clichés,” I chuckle. “We’d watch the sky bleed into a thousand colors, all melting together.” My lips find the top of her breast, pausing there as I share the secret dream. “We’d trip acid, let the world warp into something miraculous, just for us.”
Her chest rises and falls more rapidly now, her heart a thrumming bird against my mouth. “And then?” There’s a catch in her voice, like she’s falling into the fantasy too.
“Then we’d go back to the old church,” I continue, the vision so vivid I can almost see the stained-glass windows come alive in her eyes. “And I’d paint you, Ais. Every inch, like you’re part of the art itself. Undress you and put my mark on you.”
I don’t wait for her response before taking her nipple into my mouth, sucking gently, savoring the taste of her as if she’s the masterpiece I’ve always yearned to create. Her back arches slightly, a silent plea, a canvas begging for the stroke of a brush.
“Fuck, Luka,” Aisling groans as I worship her with my mouth, and it’s music, the kind that pulls at the darkest parts of me. “That’s when you’d do this? Taste me like I’m your religion?”
“Exactly like this.” My words are a rough murmur against her skin. “Lick you, touch you until you’re trembling under my hands.”
She breathes out heavy, her scent wrapping around me, intoxicating, seductive. It’s a battle not to lose myself in her, to forget the past that haunts us both. But I grit my teeth, determined. Not this time.
“Please, Luka.” Her plea is raw, her heat enveloping us like a storm. “I need… I can’t wait…”
“Shh, baby, we’ve got time.” Insisting on patience feels like trying to hold back the tide, but I won’t rush this. Won’t let her heat dictate us. Not now.
I lower my face between her legs, the place where desire blooms hot and heavy. Her perfume is there, a blend of her own sweet scent mixed with traces of Gunnar, Oberon, and me—a tangled web of us. My pack, together where we belong.
“Right here, Stargazer,” I say, and my voice is a growl swallowed by the warm, humid air of the spa. “I’m not going nowhere.”
Her fingers tangle in my hair, a lifeline as she rides the waves I send crashing into her. She’s all soft moans and sharp gasps, and every sound she makes is a bullet to my resolve.
I focus on her, playing her body like it’s my favorite damn instrument. My mouth sucks her clit, and she bucks against me, the nest becoming our world. Then three fingers dive into her, thrusting with a rhythm that matches the pounding in my veins. Her walls clench around my fingers, and I swear I can feel every damn heartbeat.
She’s begging now, words spilling from kiss-bruised lips. “Luka…I want this, I need you—“
“Fuck,” I mutter, because those words—they’re a trigger, pulling me back to a place where we were different people, where no meant stop and everything was pain and confusion.
But she’s not that Aisling now, and I’m not that monster.
“Look at me, Ais.” I climb her body, pressing kisses into her skin like they’re stamps of a new promise. “This time, it’s right. You feel it?”
“God, yes.” Her arms wrap around me, desperation in her grip. “Don’t stop.”
I don’t. Her lips find mine, and it’s like a damn dam breaks between us. Her kiss is fierce, demanding, wiping every awful memory from New Eden clean. I press into her, slow at first, feeling every inch of resistance give way until she’s accepting me completely—a soft sigh breaking the kiss.
“Slow…I’ve got you,” I whisper against her lips, my movements gentle, nothing like the frenzied man I was on that fucked up island.
“More, Luka…please.” The plea in her voice wraps around my heart.
We find a rhythm that’s all push and pull, give and take. My hands roam over her, memorizing the curves that the low light from the annex bathes in shadows. She whispers love like it’s a secret meant only for the dead of night, and I whisper it back because it’s the most honest thing we’ve got in this mess.
Her fingers dig into my back, nails leaving stories I’ll carry with me. “Missed you so much…” Her words are breathless, lost between the sounds of skin meeting skin.
“Right here, Aisling.”
And then I’m thrusting home, locking us together, knotting her.
I can’t breathe, can’t breathe, all I can think is her.
The world shrinks to nothing but the heated cocoon we’ve spun around ourselves. The hum of voices outside, the scent of the spa—they fade into insignificance. Here, in this nest, Aisling and I move together, healing the raw edges of a past that’s tried to cut us apart.
“Perfect,” she breathes, her hands tracing patterns on my back, “just like this.”
“Only for you,” I rasp out, every thrust a promise, every moan from her lips a balm soothing the scars we both carry. We’re lost in a rhythm that’s as old as time, the primal dance of two souls intertwined.
Her heat rises again, crashing over me in waves that drag me under. I can’t fight it; don’t want to. The need to claim her, to sink into her warmth, overrides everything else. Our bodies are slick with sweat, sliding against each other as if made for this very moment.
“Fuck, Luka…” Her voice is a siren call, luring me deeper into the abyss.
“Yours, always fucking yours,” I grunt, my control slipping. There’s no going slow now. It’s just instinct, need, the pure truth of what we are.
“Need you…just like that,” she gasps, her hips rising to meet mine in urgent demand.
“Got you, Aisling…I’ve got you.” My face buries in the crook of her neck, breathing her in, my teeth grazing her skin.
This isn’t the island.
This isn’t fear and pain.
This is us taking back the night, reclaiming every stolen piece of our damn souls.
She clings to me, her legs wrapped around my waist, pulling me deeper. We lose ourselves in each other, fucking through the relentless pull of her heat, each movement erasing the lines between where she ends and I begin.
“Love you…so much,” she whispers against my ear, her body trembling with the force of what’s building between us.
“Love you more,” I reply, my own voice rough with emotion. We’re spiraling together, reaching for that peak that promises oblivion.
And when it hits, it’s cataclysmic, shattering the remnants of our restraint. We fall, tumbling into the ecstasy that obliterates thought, reason, everything but the pulse of her heart against mine.