Chapter Twenty-Five: For Love's Sake-7

We were just by the front door, the men still talking about football. Peggy had just put on her coat before she drew me in for a light hug. "I'm pretty sure Charles likes you, Max," she whispered to me, a mischievous smile on her face. "He behaved himself all night and he's only like that when he's comfortable with the people around him." I grinned and raised my brow at her. "I think you might have more to do about that than me." Peggy's cheeks pinkened as she laughed. "Luke told you, didn't he? He's just trying to rally some extra support." "Charles needs it that badly, huh," I teased. "You're a stronger woman than I am," she said with a shrug. "These Hedenby men are both so easy and hard to love. You might have to give me advice." She flashed one last smile before turning to go and breaking up the sports talk. Charles, his face a lot younger since he lost his so serious and stern expression over dinner tonight, walked up to me. In the corner of my eye, I could see Peggy chatting up Luke and Terrence and showing them some funny video on her phone, probably to give Charles a few minutes with me without his son hovering around protectively like a mama bird. "Thank you for the wonderful dinner," he said graciously. "I never thought I'd ever eat anything my son cooked, knowing how little of it he did in his entire twenty-seven years. But the food was great and the company even better." I couldn't help but smile stupidly. "I'm glad you had a good time with us, no matter how low-key it was." "I would've preferred this dinner over some fancy one because I understood so much just watching you and Luke together in the last three hours," he said bluntly, his expression a bit serious. "Whatever had seemed preposterous in my head last night when Luke called with the news now seem perfectly reasonable and natural. Of course, he loves you. He's practically vibrating with the emotion. And you love him, in that quiet but intense way people would only notice when your eyes are on my son." There's no sparing the details here. The Hedenby men aren't exactly known for being shy. "For the first time in years, I'm not worried about Luke," he added, glancing briefly at his son with a soft smile. "He's happy and he's determined to stay that way." When he turned back to me, there was a hint of turbulence in his gaze. "But I am worried about you. Luke's quite a public figure, not just because of who he is but also because of the reputation he's propagated for himself in the past several years. While he's going to be toasted to and touted, he's also going to be vulnerable to every vindictive charge, every nasty gossip and every invasive ambush out there. You'll need to trust him like you've never trusted anyone. That'll be the only way he can trust you to stick it out with him until the end." With everything happening so fast, I haven't had the chance to really itemize the kind of changes my life would go through marrying Luke. And maybe I put it off purposefully because I didn't want to start over-thinking things again. But Charles was right in that regard—eyes would be on us, no matter how privately we conducted our personal lives. And I was well aware of Luke's less than sterling reputation before I fell in love with him and decided that the past didn't matter to me if he'd wanted a different future. And I appreciated this fatherly advice—I just wasn't sure if it meant more than what was at the surface. "Thank you," I told Charles. "For giving us a chance, for looking out for us. It's not going to be easy but it helps to know we have support from the people we care about." "Dad, what did you say now?" Luke's voice carried over to us before his feet did. He had a worried frown on, glancing back and forth between me and his father. "Max looks so serious!" "It's a very serious undertaking, you know—marrying you," I said with an even more somber tone. "I'm trying to get into character." Charles chuckled when Luke's face skewed up in confusion for a second or two before I cracked and burst out laughing. "You're nuts," Luke said with a roll of his eyes, draping his arm around my shoulders and pulling me to him. His frame felt warm and hard and thrumming with contagious energy. "But I love you anyway." He dipped his head, his mouth settling on mine, taking more than the light kiss I would give considering the audience we still had. "We'll see ourselves out," Charles declared, amusement in his voice. Since Luke still had me turned toward him, I didn't see him step back and reach for the door, calling out goodnight to us as they left. Luke paid them no attention. The moment the front door closed, he lifted me up in his arms, urging me to wrap my legs around his hips and locking his arms around and under my thighs. "I thought they would never leave," he murmured as he started kissing the exposed skin on my neck. "If they'd taken another ten minutes, I would've kicked them out." "You honestly could not have been thinking about this all throughout dinner," I said with a slightly mortified laugh as my flats slipped off my feet, my arms latching on to his shoulders, my fingers slipping into his soft dark hair. "I've been thinking about this since I first walked into your apartment and saw your princess bed-—which we'll need to christen next," he said as he carried me effortlessly into his bedroom. "Tonight's the first time in days that I've had you all to myself. I've been slowly going insane." Looking down on his handsome face, gazing into his eyes blazing blue with heat, his hair curling lazily over his brow, his lips parted and tempting, the fever feeding Luke's blood erupted into mine. I felt it surge through my veins and gather into a sweet ache between my legs that suddenly had me trembling. "I want you, Max," Luke panted as he stood by the bed. "So badly it feels like I'm burning from the inside." "Poor baby," I said with a smile before leaning down to kiss him hungrily, my fingers tightening around his hair and my legs shifting around his hips, trying to get close enough to feel every rigid muscle of him reverberating with barely restrained lust. He slowly lowered me to the bed, my feet finding purchase in the firm mattress. Stepping back, I pulled off my sweater hastily, tugging my bun loose in the process. I swept the hair from my face and reached back to pull the elastic off, letting my thick locks bounce down on my neck and shoulders bared by the white cami I wore. Luke reached for the fly of my jeans, making quick work of my belt and zipper. Slipping his hands into the space between my jeans and butt cheeks, he pushed the denim down, revealing the lace-trimmed black panties I wore.