Emily

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After dinner, with the sky dark and the rain still coming down, the police car was still there. I found Luke standing in the living room at the front of the house, in the dark, watching the parked car through a gap in the curtains.

“They aren’t going to leave,” he said softly when he heard me behind him. He didn’t turn around.

Even in the dark, without touching him, I could see the tension in his shoulders, the hard way he held himself, the clamped-down line of his jaw. This was what he’d come home to: cops dogging his every move, courtesy of Mike Riggs.

Maybe he deserved it. I had no idea.

I put a hand on his arm, feeling the hard granite of his bicep under his shirt. “Did you know?” I asked him softly.

He paused, then gave a quick shake of his head, so subtle you would miss it if you weren’t watching like I was. “He wasn’t into that shit when I left. Not that I knew of, anyway. And when I came back…” He shoved his hands in his pockets, still looking out the window at the darkened police car. “It didn’t surprise me. It didn’t surprise any of us. We just don’t know what to fucking do.”

I stepped closer to him, my breasts brushing his back, my hand curling up over his shoulder. He nearly flinched beneath my touch, and I wondered if anyone had ever comforted Luke, ever bothered to make sure he was okay. “There’s nothing you can do tonight,” I whispered, resting my chin on his shoulder. “Let them sit there in the rain if they want to. Let’s go.”

He didn’t move, but when I moved my hand down and hooked it gently in his belt, he turned and followed me. Up the stairs, down the darkened hall to his bedroom.

I pulled my tank top off, so I was wearing only my lacy bra. I tugged off his shirt, then his T-shirt, pulling it over his head and dropping it on the floor. The game wasn’t going to be played tonight, after all; I didn’t want to, and I sensed neither did he. What I wanted tonight was something else.

He cupped my face, moving his thumb along the line of my jaw, but I didn’t kiss him, even though I wanted to. Instead I dragged my hands down his chest and his stomach. I unbuckled his belt, worked open his jeans, and sank to my knees.

Luke groaned, a soft sound almost of pain, but he didn’t stop me. I settled on my knees and pulled his cock out, pumping it twice, admiring it. Then I put my mouth on it, and I wasn’t shy. I put it all the way in.

He felt good. He tasted good. Luke was the first guy I’d ever done this to—one of the things we’d experimented with that summer, practicing until I learned to like it. And I had. Before I’d ever tried it I thought the act might be demeaning, but the reality was different. The reality was that Luke fucking loved this, and while I was doing it I owned him body and soul.

I took him deep, bracing my palms on his thighs, and he groaned again, this time deep in his throat. “Em,” he said, his voice ragged. I felt his hands in my hair, not pushing me but stroking my hair back from my face, twisting it gently in his grip. He was watching me, I knew. Giving himself a clearer view.

I took it slow and easy. All the way in, and all the way out again, sucking the tip. Then all the way in. His hands tightened in my hair and his thighs were hard beneath my hands, and I got lost in it, my eyes closed, my heart racing. I could smell him, how aroused he was. I could hear his ragged breathing. He sometimes used to talk to me while I did this, say dirty things, but this time he said nothing. I seemed to have rendered him speechless.

I kept at it, a slow and easy pace because I didn’t want him to come too fast. My nipples were hard in my lacy bra, and I was so wet between my legs it was almost uncomfortable. I pulled him from my mouth and put my hand on him, squeezing him gently while I licked the tip, the blood pounding between my legs, and that was when his hands left my hair and he pulled me up.

I was tossed on my back on the bed. He loomed over me, his eyes dark and wild, his jeans undone, that dark tat winding down his muscled arm. He put a hand on my belly and hooked his fingers under the waist of my jeans.

“Eight years, Em,” he said in that ragged voice, his eyes never leaving me. “Eight years I pictured your mouth on my cock every time another woman did that.”

Lust and anger bubbled under my skin, and I punched him on the shoulder, just above his pec. “Fuck you,” I said. Fuck him for mentioning another woman here, now. My voice cracked, which made me mad, so I punched him again, harder.

He didn’t even flinch, didn’t move away. His skin was hot where I hit him, the muscles hard. “Yeah,” he said, his voice harsh with something I recognized as pain. “I fucked other women. What was I supposed to do? You went off to your life, your future, and the only thing I could think of to do was get in my car and keep driving.” He undid my jeans and slid them down my hips, along with my panties. I didn’t stop him. I just lay there watching him, mesmerized. “I’d picture you in college somewhere, fucking some college guy. Coming like you did with me. Maybe telling him you loved him. Maybe wanting to marry him. And I’d go find some woman and fuck her, and you know what? It was never you.”

“Luke,” I said, my voice cracking again, this time not with anger.

He pulled my jeans off my legs, tossed them away. “I’d get in my car and go somewhere else,” he said, the words ripping out of him like they hurt. “But wherever I went, I’d picture the same thing. And I’d do it again. You want to know how the story ends? It wasn’t you there either.” He braced himself on his arms and leaned over me. “It was never you. That’s what I had to figure out. It was never going to be you. Not ever again.”

Was this how he felt? It was killing me—it was breaking me open. “Baby, come here,” I said, cupping my hands on his rough jaw. “Come here.”

But he took his jeans and boxer briefs off, then reached into his nightstand and took a condom out of the box. “We’ll never work, Em,” he said, ripping open the wrapper and rolling the condom onto his big, thick cock, his eyes on me. “We never have. We can’t even have a cup of coffee together.”

He was right, but screw that. Screw all of it. I raised my feet and put one on each of his bare shoulders. “Come here,” I said again.

Still watching me, Luke changed position, moving forward, coming over top of me, braced straight on his arms. As he moved my body bent, opening me to him with my ankles on his shoulders, vulnerable and wet. He moved his muscled hips and slid inside me, the position making it so deep that I cried out.

“Fuck,” he said, moving his hips again and going even deeper. He was all the way inside me, filling me to the point of pain, and I loved it. I arched my back and tried to get him even deeper.

He pulled out and thrust in again, harder this time, and I cried out again, not even bothering to be quiet. “Oh, my god.”

His voice was low and tight as he withdrew again, one of his big hands on my knee. “You are so fucking hot,” he said, and thrust into me again, hard.

I cried out yet again, in time with every thrust. Maybe the cops could hear us from the road—I didn’t care. “Do that more, Luke,” I said. “God, yes. Do that more.”

He pressed into me. My body was entirely his, entirely open, his possession. “Christ, Em,” he said hoarsely in my ear. “You take me so deep, and you always fucking love it.”

“More,” I moaned.

His hand took mine and pushed it down between my legs. His fingers stayed on mine and we both stroked me over and over as he fucked me deep. We’d had raunchy teenaged sex all those years ago, in every position, but that was different from this. It had been an exploration, a game. This was serious—Luke Riggs was a man, a beast, and he was fucking me as hard as he could.

And I came. The orgasm shuddered through me, starting deep and blowing outward, and I let it take over, let myself go. It was so intense I could barely breathe, and I had no idea what sounds I made. It didn’t matter. Luke stroked me through it, his hand still over mine, both of us stroking me until he went still and came, deep inside me. When he was finished he pulled my ankles from his shoulders, though I wrapped my legs around his waist instead, unwilling to let him go.

He braced himself on his elbows over me and lowered his forehead to the side of my neck. “I think you’re going to kill me,” he said after a minute.

I still didn’t let him go. I liked him exactly where he was, his big body over mine, between my legs, his cock still inside me. We were meant to be like this, him and me. It was like our bodies had been made to interlock.

I wrapped my arms around his neck, ran my fingers through the soft messy curls of his hair, ran my lips over the rough beautiful line of his jaw. He stayed still, letting me do what I wanted. Had anyone ever poured affection on him? Well, I was doing it now.

“Luke,” I said against his skin, “I’ve decided something.”

There was a flicker in the muscles beneath my touch, a flinch. Like he thought whatever I was going to say was going to be bad. And I realized that in his quiet way, this was how Luke worked. He figured things would be bad, and he braced for it.

Maybe what I was going to say was bad. I still didn’t know. But I was saying it anyway.

I leaned into his ear. I kissed the warm skin beneath it. And then I said, “We’re not over. And we never will be.”