Chapter Twenty-Seven: Fall Hard, Fight Forever-1

*** "Yes, we'll be fine, I promise. I'll keep you posted, okay?" I said patiently on the phone as I sifted a ladle through a pile of beef strips and vegetables in the wok. "Love you, too, Gramps." I sighed as I put the phone back down in its cradle on the counter. It hadn't been an easy conversation with my grandfather considering how protective he was of me. Unfortunately, I had a feeling this was yet to be the last effort at collateral damage that Luke and I would have to make. "Is he mad?" I turned around and found Luke standing by the doorway of the apartment, his face drawn tight with exhaustion, his jaw clenched. He looked about ten times worse than he did this morning which was understandable considering he'd been in several meetings with lawyers and his PR team all day. In fact, this was the first time we'd seen each other since our conversation at his office this morning. I smiled. "He's very... concerned. Don't worry, I explained everything to him. He knows we can handle this." A faint smile curved up a corner of Luke's mouth as he shrugged out of his suit jacket and tossed it on the couch. "Are you just telling me this to make me feel better?" I turned off the burner and took off my apron before making my way to him. I circled my arms around his neck, standing on my tiptoes and kissing his cheek. "Maybe. I don't want to add to your stress. Gramps's concerns are valid but he'll have to trust us more than Lola and the papers when it comes to the truth." "I'm glad the talk with Elise worked," he said, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear and grazing his thumb across my cheek. "She's very persuasive when she wants to be. When I was trying to stay away from you and kidding myself that it was for the best, she kept trying to talk me out of it. I figured she'd help talk you out of leaving me." I rolled my eyes. "Honestly, it hadn't been necessary because I wasn't going anywhere. But still, I appreciated having that conversation with Elise because she and I talked about things that you should've probably talked to me about." Luke grimaced slightly. "She told you all about the accident, didn't she? I didn't tell you at first because Elise doesn't like to talk about it. It required revealing her injury and the last thing she wants is to have people act weirdly around her. After she recovered from the physical and emotional trauma, she decided to live as normally as possible. Considering my contribution to that disaster, the least I could do was respect her wishes and let her be." The guilt was plain on Luke's face. Even after all these years, even after the peace he and Elise had made about it, a big part of him still felt responsible. And maybe that would take time to truly fade but right now, it helped me see us in hindsight and understand the pull that countered every step Luke took toward me. Guilt is a bag over your head that blocks almost everything out and forces you to trust nothing in the dark. The monsters that emerge from the shadows look different to each one of us because when we can't see anything, it's easy to imagine the very things that terrify us the most. I was afraid to love and be hurt. Luke was afraid to let someone love him and only hurt them. It was funny and mildly ironic-to fear the same thing but in different ways. "She's happy, you know?" I said softly. "And I think she's wanted the same thing for you for a long time." Luke's ghost smile fully materialized on his face. Even with that hint of vulnerability in his eyes, I could perfectly see what he meant when he said, "I am happy." There was so much to talk about-from Luke's next legal steps to PR efforts to our own plans-but none of that came up over our quiet, lovely dinner. "Let me," Luke said when he appeared behind me just as I was about to take down my hair to shower. There was nothing special in the routine of brushing one's hair down to wash it but the entranced expression on Luke's face as his strong hands unwound my hair from the low bun ever so gently made the whole experience incredibly tender and erotic at the same time. It probably helped that he wore nothing but his black dress pants, every tight muscle on his upper torso flexing with the slightest movement. "There's something so seductive about your hair when it's down like this," Luke murmured as he slowly let thick, wavy locks down my back, his fingers slipping through the loose knots and catching the curls at the ends. "It's so soft and wild and dark." He pressed his mouth on the top of my head, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply. His hands moved from my hair to my shoulders, kneading the tension away from them a little before his fingers found their way to the front of my button-down shirt. One by one, he popped the buttons open, distracting me with little, teasing kisses behind my ear and down my neck. My shirt came off fast, giving Luke more of my skin to access. He mapped the outline of my neck and shoulders as his hands looped through the straps of my bra to push them down. His fingers found my left breast before my bra found the bathroom floor and a stuttered moan slipped past my lips at the slow squeezes and the contrasting texture of his rough palm against my stiff and sensitive nipples. The damp suction of his mouth that followed did nothing to the heat spreading across my skin like wildfire. I clung to his shoulders, trying to hold myself steady as he continued to worship my breasts and loosen my slacks. My panties followed them to a heap somewhere else in the bathroom. Luke scooped me up in his arms and carried me to the shower-tub combo which was too small to really do anything naughty in. I'd already turned the shower on earlier, not knowing that it would take more time between undoing my hair and getting under the water than it normally did. I blinked through the hazy steam and the drops of water on my lashes to watch Luke take off his pants and boxers and climb into the tub with me. Our hands went to where we needed soap and shampoo, just lingering longer than necessary with our reluctance to continue on with the motions when we were both trembling for more.