Winter (Four Seasons #1)

by Frankie Rose

  “WHAT MAKES you think you can just tell me what to do?” The door isn’t even open before I start speaking. At least I am speaking, not shouting. Luke stands in his doorway with a towel wrapped around his waist, dripping wet. I’m silently congratulating myself on the fact that I’m not staring at his ridiculously toned body when he grabs my hand and yanks me into his apartment.

  “Shut up,” he snaps.

  “What the—”

  “Stop talking!” He slams the door and storms through his apartment towards his bedroom, the muscles in his back tense. “I’m sick to death of this. Come with me.”

  “…hell?” I finish. Stunned, I follow after him, pausing in the doorway to his bedroom. I look away as he drops the towel and angrily kicks his way into a pair of jeans. He pulls a t-shirt over his head next and pads barefoot over to me. I’ve never seen him so wound up before. Well, I hadn’t until this afternoon, anyway. He takes a firm hold of my wrist and pulls me into the room, sitting me down on the end of his bed.

  “Luke, what the hell?”

  “Wait here.” He storms out of the room, and then returns a minute later with a stool from his breakfast bar in one hand and my Super Eight camera attached to a tripod in the other. Wait, my Super Eight camera?

  “What the hell are you doing with that?”

  “I borrowed it.”

  “From my apartment?”

  “Yeah, from your apartment.” He places the camera, attached to the tripod directly in front of me and then turns it on. Once he’s done that, he sets the bar stool down a couple of feet in front of me and sits on it. “Let’s do this,” he tells me.

  “Do what? What the fuck’s going on, Luke? You broke into my place?”

  “I’ve done a lot worse. Now come on,” he grinds out.

  “Come on, what, Luke? What’s this supposed to be!”

  Luke grasps his hands together in his lap, apparently trying to stop himself from snapping. He presses his lips together in a white line and stares away from me, out of his bedroom window. “Your college assignment. You have to hand it in tomorrow, right?”

  “What?” How on earth does he know about that? And then it hits me: Brandon. He didn’t mean I should ask my mom to do the interview with me. He meant Luke. And he told him all about it. Seriously? “Oh, we are so not doing this, Luke. You’re the last person I want to interview about what happened back then.”

  Luke’s shoulders slump but his face remains hard. He’s still not looking at me, still staring out of the window, the cold wintery light casting his face into a contrast of light and dark. “Why not?”

  “Because you won’t be honest and that’s the whole point of the exercise.”

  He finally turns and meets my gaze. “If you think you’re fucking bulletproof, Avery, I’ll tell you every single gory detail of what happened that day.”

  “It’s not just that, though! It’s not…it’s not that you didn’t tell me my father’s dying words until years later. It’s everything. It’s why he was mentoring you. It’s why you were so fucking close to him, and all the other secrets that you won’t fucking tell me!”

  I hate myself. I hate that I’m crying and screaming and swearing and I can’t get my words out properly. Luke tucks his hands underneath his thighs, literally sitting on them. If I didn’t know him better I’d think he was being a cold son of a bitch, refusing to look at me and glaring at the floor. But I do know him better. I know that if he doesn’t sit on his hands, if he doesn’t keep his eyes off me melting down, then he will be standing over me, trying to comfort me in two seconds flat. That makes my crying worse. I let my head fall forward, my hair obscuring my view of him, and that’s when he starts to talk.

  “The first thing you should know is that I’m in love with you, Avery. You know I am.”

  He loves me.

  The world stops turning. I stop breathing. Everything just…stops. I should look up at him, should meet his eye. Should take in the look that he’s wearing on his face, but I can’t. Because if it matches the tone of his voice right now, it will set my very soul on fire and there will be no saving me. Luke sits quietly while I struggle to try and remember how to breathe. He loves me? Oh my God. How do I survive this?

  “The second thing you should know is this…” Luke’s chair creaks. “You were fourteen. You hadn’t spoken in five days. The doctors were getting worried and your mom wouldn’t even go into your bedroom to check on you. My partner and I came to the house to get a further statement from your mom, but I was feeling…I couldn’t even step foot through your front door. Chloe left me outside, said she’d handle it. I sat in your front yard, right there on the front lawn, alone and crying. It was pathetic. But then you…you came down and sat with me. I was so embarrassed.”

  I don’t remember any of that. I stifle back a sob and shunt myself back on his bed, hugging my knees to my chest. Luke continues, unfazed that I’m paralysed and his words are hitting me with the force of a sledgehammer.

  “You spoke. Your first words after five days were to me. You asked me why I was sad.” Luke looks up, straight at me, straight through the camera, straight into my soul. “And I told you why. I told you exactly why I was sad and why your dad dying was the worst thing that had ever happened to me.

  I shake my head, my eyes blurring. “That didn’t happen. I don’t remember.”

  “It did happen.”

  “Then what did you tell me?”

  Luke just shakes his head. “You were quiet for a long time, but after a while you collapsed into my arms and started sobbing. You kept saying the same thing over and over, ‘it hurts, it hurts, it hurts’. I couldn’t bear that, Avery. I swore to you that it would stop hurting one day, I promised you it would. I carried you into the house and put you to bed. After that, Chloe came to get me and we left. But I made you that promise, Ave, and I wanted to keep it. That’s why I kept coming back to see you all those years.”

  “And that’s what this is now? You’re still trying to make it stop hurting?”

  Luke’s eyes harden as he shakes his head again. “No, I told you. Everything changed when I came back to Break and saw you with that Justin guy. I wanted to kill him. You weren’t a kid anymore, you were a woman, and I was blindsided by how strongly I felt for you. How…” he looks up at the ceiling, clenching his jaw, “how insanely jealous I was. I had to leave. I didn’t even speak to you that time. I just fucking left.”

  He remains quiet for a moment, a moment where I search my memory, scour it trying to find a snippet of recollection, anything that correlates with what he’s telling me. But I can’t. There’s nothing.

  “I was catatonic for eleven days after my father died, Luke. I couldn’t have spoken to you after five.” Luke doesn’t argue with me. He just looks at me, brown eyes wide, t-shirt a little damp over his chest where he didn’t dry his skin before putting it on. His shoulders are still slumped like he’s resigned himself to something awful. I can see how much pain he’s in. I can see how badly he needs me to believe him. And, for some reason, I do. “Why were you so angry with me at the station?” I whisper.

  Luke sucks his bottom lip into his mouth. “You really don’t know, do you?” he says, running his hand through his hair. “I was mad at you because you just sat there like it was completely normal, and the whole time…the whole time…”

  “The whole time what?”

  He can’t do it anymore. He stands up, but he doesn’t come to me. He prowls across his bedroom, looking up at me from underneath his brow—a dark, predatory, wild look. “That guy’s hand was on your leg, Ave.”

  “What? Luke, you can’t be serious! I’m not your property. I never said I was yours.”

  “Well you’re going to. By the time you leave this apartment, you’re gonna have promised me that you’re mine, okay?”

  I open my mouth and just stare at him. He’s totally lost it. “Look, I told you. There’s just too much history—”

  “Tell me you haven’
t been thinking about me,” he demands.

  I let out an exasperated sigh. “Of course I’ve been thinking about you. You make it almost impossible not to. You call me, you turn up at my apartment, you kiss me in public, you tell me you don’t think my dad—”

  He cuts me off as he rushes towards me, grabbing hold of my head with both hands. With his chest pressed up against me, he crashes his lips down on mine and kisses me so hard I can do nothing but let him. For a heartbeat, a teeny tiny heartbeat, I let myself go. He straights up, lifting me to me feet as he stands, and then he pulls back, breathing hard, staring at me fiercely.

  “Tell me that kiss at the club didn’t kill you. Tell me you haven’t been thinking about me like this,” he says, his voice rough, full of gravel. Holy shit.

  “I didn’t. I haven’t,” I say softly, begging him not to hear my voice shake.

  The corner of his mouth twitches. “Liar.”

  Damn. He pulls me to him again, and this time I don’t resist. I’ve tried not to, haven’t wanted to, but I’ve needed him. Missed him sorely. I meet him with just as much force. He tangles his hands in my hair and is stripping my clothes from my body before I can even sigh. Gone is the Luke who was so conflicted the last time we were alone in this room together. Now he’s frantic, demanding, and frighteningly sexy.

  “I’m fighting for you, Avery. I’m not letting you go. It doesn’t matter what you say, you care about me just as much as I care about you.”

  “I don’t,” I gasp, “You’re wrong.” But I’m still tearing at his clothes like a woman possessed. In one hurried movement Luke yanks down my pants and drags them off my feet, then lifts me so I can wrap my legs around his hips. He takes a step forward, narrowly avoiding knocking over the tripod and my camera, and then he throws me back down onto the bed, where he holds himself over me. Another deep kiss, his tongue parting my lips and playing over mine, has me panting, my hands clinging onto his arms. He kisses my jaw line, and then moves down until he’s grazing his teeth across my neck. I’ve never told anyone about that secret spot, the one that has me melting and screaming inside all at once, yet Luke hits it straight away. He and my weak spot are best friends, apparently.

  “Luke!” I gasp.

  “Tell me,” he growls. “Admit it.”

  “No.” I am breathless, totally boneless underneath him as he reaches down and slips his fingers underneath my panties. A feeble moan works its way past my lips as he finds another spot that sends me just as crazy. He starts teasing me, running his fingers so softly against me so that my body begins to quake. “Please…”

  “Tell me,” he repeats.

  “I can’t.”

  Luke freezes, his fingers still. He leans back and looks down at me, searching my face. “Then we need to stop,” he murmurs.

  The guy is trying to kill me. I can feel him pressed up against me, completely naked, his erection harder than granite between my legs, and I know this has to be killing him, too. “No,” I whimper. At any other time, it would be humiliating that I’m so breathless and weak, but I need him. “Please…”

  “I can’t have sex with you again until you admit it,” he says softly, his eyes pinning me to the bed. I tremble when his fingers start moving again, just missing the small spot that will drive me over the edge. He found it no problem two seconds ago so I know he’s doing it on purpose.

  “Luke, don’t tease me. Please.”

  “You’re doing this to yourself. All you have to do is admit it.”

  “Admit what?” I grab hold of the sheets and screw them up in my hands. That’s the only way I’m stopping myself from punching him in his face for making my body burn the way it is.

  “You know what.” His brown eyes are calm when I look into them. How can he not be losing it right now? Two can play this game, buddy. Reaching down between our bodies, I gently take hold of his erection and squeeze. His eyes flicker but they never leave mine. Even when I start stroking him, feeling him grow harder in my hand with every repetition, he doesn’t look away.

  “I want you, Iris,” he whispers. “I know that. You know that. I’m not the problem here. I’m not the one afraid to admit my feelings. I love you, okay? And I know you love me.”

  I carry on stroking him, trying to push a smile onto my face. A hard one that will tell him what I think of his foolish declaration. Of what he thinks he knows about me. But it never materializes. Luke reaches up and strokes a hand down my face, tracing his lips across mine gently. I stare back at him the whole time, wondering what the hell is happening. Why am I not leaping off the bed and running for the hills? Luke bites his lip and tenses a second before he finally gives in and slips a finger inside me. A rush of pleasure charges through my body, and I can’t stop the embarrassing groan from escaping my lips.

  “Say it,” he whispers.

  I close my eyes and I melt as he pushes another finger inside me.

  “Say it, Avery.”

  Shake your head. Shake your head, damnit! But I don’t. I rock up with my hips instead, begging for more of him to be inside me. “I need you,” I moan.

  “That’s not it,” he replies, drawing his fingers out. I cry out and he pushes back a little. He’s so hard in my hand, and his muscles are twitching erratically. There’s no way he isn’t on the verge of coming.

  “Please, Luke.”

  “Still not it,” he says gruffly, his breath unbearably hot against my neck. I shiver and press my body harder against his. Luke leans away, making me whimper again. I’m frustratingly close to tears when he sits back completely, kneeling over me. He continues pushing his fingers inside me, but he puts his hand over mine on his erection. “You don’t get to make me come.”

  “Are you…bribing me?” I pant.

  Luke shakes his head, his eyes intense. “Sex is important to me, Avery. That’s why I didn’t sleep with Casey all those years. It’s okay for me to love you and do this, but I can’t be with you like that if you don’t admit what you’re feeling.”

  My head starts spiraling in that crazy Seeing Stars kind of way. He takes my hand off him and just about blows my mind when he starts stroking himself. I’ve never seen anything so hot in my entire life. I want to watch some more but he shimmies down the bed and pushes my legs apart roughly, pulling my panties out of the way. I know what’s coming but that doesn’t stop me from crying out when his tongue touches me.

  “Shit! Luke, please!” I groan.

  He doesn’t stop. If anything my begging only seems to make him draw it out even more; his tongue sweeps across the very center of me, slower and slower until it feels like my whole body is vibrating. I can’t take it anymore. I sit up and grab his arms, pulling him up the bed. He lands on top of me, still so incredibly serious.

  “Just do it, Luke. Please just do it. I need you.”

  He is so close to being inside me, unbearably so, but no matter how much I wriggle he keeps moving away. Eventually he puts a stop to my ideas by grabbing my hands over my head and pinning me.

  “I’m not some jerk who sleeps around, Avery. You’ve got to be honest. Tell me!”

  I buck underneath him, fighting to get free. “You’re insane, “ I hiss.

  “And you’re lying to me and to yourself,” he says. “Now just do it.” He presses down on top of me and the tip of his erection pushes into me, making my skin burn. I’m on fire.

  “I…I can’t!”

  “DAMN IT, AVERY, TELL ME THE TRUTH!”

  And that’s when I snap. When everything snaps. The wall I so carefully constructed and have been hiding behind for so long crumbles and I’m left naked in more ways that one. “Fine! I love you, Luke. I love you so much I think I might die sometimes!Are you happy now?” With my eyes finally open, I stare up into his face, feeling ridiculous when they start to burn.

  “Do you mean it?” he whispers.

  I can’t answer. Tears streak down my cheeks as I nod my head, yes, my heart breaking, suddenly feeling like a frightene
d little girl. This is the most exposed I have ever been in my life, and there’s no turning back. I don’t know what I expect to see on Luke’s face—triumph, maybe—but it isn’t pain. Yet there it is.

  “Thank God,” he says softly. And then he pushes inside me. I suck in a sharp breath and hold it, not wanting to make a sound. “Don’t leave me out here on my own,” he says, as though he knows exactly what’s happening inside me: sheer, uncontrollable panic. I told him. I told him! “Look at me, baby.” Luke draws me back with his soft voice, and I do as he asks. He pushes into me again, and my body shudders.

  “Oh, God.” I can’t stop what is building. Nothing can. Luke’s intensity only grows as he thrusts again, his shoulders starting to tremble.

  “You’re mine. Say it!” he growls.

  I manage to say it as I came apart in his hands, my body disintegrating into blindly firing nerve endings. “I’m yours, Luke! I’m yours.” And I really am.

  Damn it.

  ******