Chapter 26
I am going to have sex with Luke Bailey.
I decide this as I leave Rory and Sinead and the solstice behind me. I decide it as I turn down the empty street and head to the café, where Luke waits outside, lounging against the window. I wish I’d decided earlier. I wish I’d washed my hair and worn nicer underwear and brought a condom.
I wish I’d had a sip of that mead.
“Did you find Rory?” he asks, straightening when he sees me.
“He’s crushed without my company but he’ll survive. He’s got front-row seats to the tree thing anyway.” As if on cue a cheer rises from behind us. “The harvest is saved,” I add.
Luke grins, shouldering open the door. “We must seem unbelievably corny to you,” he says as I step past him. “Solstice parties. Family fun days.”
“Andrew does seem more intense than I remember. He wants me to join the Tidy Towns committee.”
“Well, be careful. He almost got us disqualified one year when they caught him tipping over flower boxes in Knockshannon.”
“Shut up.”
“I’m serious. Turns out he’d been going in once or twice a week to drop some gum on the pavement, leave the bins open for the foxes. That kind of thing.”
“He’s a criminal.”
“Anything for the cause.”
Luke locks up and I follow him up the stairs to his apartment.
After a few days of spending far too much time up here, I know it pretty well, so instantly spot the changes.
For one, the textbooks that usually pile high on the coffee table are gone, along with the stacks of essays, though God knows where he had space to put them.
Instead, three fat white candles are arranged on a small metal coaster, waiting to be lit.
“What?” he asks at my look.
“Candles?”
“What’s wrong with candles?”
“Nothing,” I say, matching his innocent tone. “It’s just that one time in college a guy lit a bunch for the one and only night we had sex and he forgot they were there and halfway through we rolled over and he burned his—”
“Okay,” Luke interrupts. “I really need you to not finish that sentence.”
“Got it,” I say as my phone buzzes with a text. “Oh good, my mother wants to know if my iron levels are low.”
“Are they?”
“I have no idea.” I hold down the button to turn it off. “Rory knows about us.”
“Yeah?” Luke’s distracted as he turns on a light. “Did you tell him?”
“He guessed. I don’t think we’re being as discreet as we think we are.”
Something in my voice makes him turn and he frowns when he sees me still lingering in the middle of the room.
“Does that bother you?” he asks. “That he knows?”
“No,” I say truthfully. “It’s just new. That’s all.”
“If you’re uncomfortable about—”
“I’m not uncomfortable.”
“Good.” He pauses. “You’re a little awkward now though.”
“ No. ”
“ Yes. ” He looks amused. “You expecting something tonight, Reynolds?”
“I’m not the one who bought the candles.”
“That’s what I get for making an effort. Teasing.”
“That’s you making an effort?”
“Even more teasing.” He steps forward, catching one of my hands in his. “We don’t have to tell anyone if you don’t want to,” he says, and I’m distracted by how his fingers play with mine. “It can just be us for now. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“I mean it. I don’t mind.” And I don’t. Now that Beth has given us her blessing I don’t mind who knows about us.
Luke’s gaze grows warm as if he knows exactly what I’m thinking. “You want something to drink?”
“No.”
“Something to eat?”
I shake my head and he reaches for my other hand. The light he turned on is not enough to counter the slow darkness as the sun begins to set and outside I can hear the muffled voices from the party, the soft sounds of a fiddle.
“You should really be studying,” I say, my voice thick.
Luke ignores me, tucking a stray curl behind my ear. “I used to have a crush on you,” he says. “When we were kids.”
“Louise told me.”
“She knew?” He smiles faintly. “Of course she did. I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone knew.”
Everyone but me. I’d been so focused on getting out of Clonard I hadn’t even looked around to see what was here.
“When I realized it was you at that bus stop I couldn’t believe it,” he continues. “And Mam kept saying what a nice coincidence it was but it never felt like that. It felt like…”
Fate.
A small word for something that feels so big.
He stares down at me, suddenly serious. “I am really, really sorry for everything that happened to you, Abby. I mean that. I wish it hadn’t. But a shitty, selfish part of me is also really glad that you came home. Even if you didn’t have a choice.”
“I think I did,” I say. “I think it was my first choice. Deep down, I knew I would feel safe here. I just didn’t want to admit it.
I was used to being on my own.” Because that’s how I always was.
In competition with everyone else whether they knew it or not.
Even at school, I drew away from everyone.
I put my head down to get through my exams, to leave them all behind.
It was the same in college and then at MacFarlane, where we were pitted against each other, fighting for projects and clients.
To rely on anyone but yourself was almost like a weakness.
Even with Tyler, I was alone. I was just so used to it by then, I didn’t think to question it.
I touch the side of Luke’s face and he lets out a breath. “I’m glad you came home too,” I say. I let my finger drift downward, my eyes following as I trace his jaw, his neck. When I reach his shoulder, Luke bends his head, his nose grazing mine briefly before he kisses me.
We stay like that for a while, gentle and unhurried, our hearts half open to each other.
There is more to say, but for now, this is enough and I’m beginning to think that nothing will happen tonight, that we’ll fall asleep as we usually do, one of us pulling away before it can go too far, but instead we continue to stand.
Stand and kiss until every part of me grows loose and languid, until the music outside stops and the voices fade away and Luke sweeps a hand across my back, pulling me into him, and we’re lined up so perfectly I gasp.
I blink my eyes open as Luke pulls backs, his lips parted, his breathing heavy. My entire weight is pressed against him, leaving me slightly unstable in my heels. In the dim light of the apartment our eyes meet and I still at the sudden ache in my chest, a feeling that wasn’t there before.
“What?” he murmurs.
But I’m too scared to voice it. I don’t know how to. The sudden thought in my head, in my soul, that I won’t even admit to myself.
So instead I do what I can to show him. I rise on my toes and kiss him for all he’s worth. He’s almost hesitant at first, as though waiting for me to stop, to slow down, but I don’t. I kiss and I kiss until kissing isn’t enough.
“Up,” I mutter as my fingers find the hem of his T-shirt. He catches my eye for an instant before he complies, reaching behind his head to pull it off in one swift movement.
“Your turn,” he says, and there’s no time to be seductive as I bunch the material at my waist and bring it over my head.
I can’t help how I suck my stomach in, how I straighten my shoulders as I dump the dress on the floor, but Luke doesn’t look, just continues to hold my gaze.
His hands return to my hips, tracing patterns in the skin above my underwear and after a second I start to relax, my body loosening once more under his touch.
Only then does his attention drift downward and I watch, fascinated as a muscle jumps in his jaw.
“Abby?”
“Yeah?”
“Keep the heels on.”
He doesn’t let me respond before he’s all over me, crowding me until he’s all I know.
I’m not even aware of us moving until suddenly I’m on the bed, the sheets cool and fresh beneath me.
I scoot into the middle, not taking my eyes off him as he follows but when he reaches for me, I move so I’m on top, a position he seems more than happy with. For now.
“This is what I wanted to do to you before,” I say, dragging my hands down his chest. “I wanted you so badly that night I saw you outside. More badly than I think I even realized.”
I lean down to kiss him, tracing his muscles as I slip my tongue into his mouth. I stay there for only a second, ignoring his low noise of protest when I stop.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about you after,” I say, pressing my lips to his neck. “I think that’s why I was so mad at you. I wanted you and I couldn’t have you and I didn’t know what to do.”
His body moves under mine as he laughs. “You could have had me whenever you wanted,’ he says hoarsely. “Believe me, Abby, my resolve was hanging by a thread.”
“You didn’t like me,” I say, undoing the button of his jeans.
“I thought you were playing with me.”
“I wasn’t—”
“I know,” he says quickly, his expression softening. “I know. And it doesn’t matter anymore. None of that matters.”
No. All that matters is the here. The now. I undo the zipper of his jeans, reaching inside, but he barely gives me a few seconds before he sits up, rolling me under him again.
“Okay,” he pants. “You keep going like that and it’s going to be a short night.”
I stare up at him, feeling the first flicker of nerves. “It’s been a while for me.”
“We can go slow.”
“No.” I say the word so quickly he smirks.
“Just talk to me,” he says as his hands move down the side of my breasts, my ribs. “Tell me what’s good.” He reaches my underwear and I lift my hips, helping him as he pulls them down my thighs and my calves, gently over my shoes.
I watch, barely able to breathe as he kneels between my legs, propping one on each of his shoulders.
Holding my gaze, he presses a kiss to one ankle and then the other before undoing the straps of my heels, tugging them off.
They join the pile on the floor and he sits there for a moment, just looking at me.
Is he going to—
Oh my God.
I squeeze my eyes shut, tilting my chin to the ceiling as he dips down, keeping my legs wrapped around his head as he kisses me, worships me until every muscle in my body tightens and releases in a glorious rush.
But even then it’s not enough.
I scramble to sit up as he does, pulling him to me, impatient and needy and no longer caring that I am.
I’m not as smooth as he is, so I yank at his jeans, helping him kick them off as I undo my bra.
His briefs follow and a crinkle of foil and then there’s no more slyness.
No more grazes. No more brushes or sweetness or anything light as he pushes into me with my name on his lips, his lips on my skin.
My legs fall apart as our bodies find their rhythm and I let him know that it feels good. That it feels very, very good.
The pressure builds again, surprising me, but I let myself go, giving into it as he soon follows, clutching me to him as he unravels.
Afterward, we stay like that, the sweat cooling on our skin, murmuring to each other between kisses until eventually, almost unwillingly, Luke pulls away to lie by my loose-limbed side.
I turn my head to look at him and he smiles when I do.
The ache in my chest doesn’t go away and I wonder what I’ve done and how I’m just supposed to leave him.
How I’m supposed to do anything when I’ve been falling in love with him ever since he picked me up on that cold March night and did his best to make me smile.