“What’s he on about, love?” Henry asks me.
The truth would be too offensive. I keep it simple. “I’m not your love. I never was. I can never be. Good luck with your life, Henry. Goodbye.”
I leave the dressing room and jog down the hallway, flashing my credential badge to security before slipping out a back door. I finger the ring in the pocket of my dress. This is what happens when you bottle love for your entire life, I think of Luke’s words. Then I add my own. It explodes. There’s no traffic heading out the back exit of the arena, and I speed all the way to Luke’s house.
Chapter Twenty-One
Luke
I’m lying down in the glass hallway staring at the stars. They’re brighter than they usually are. This is where I feel okay. In the silence, locked away from people. My phone rings through the Bluetooth in my kitchen, but I have my cell in my pocket. ‘Aara’ flashes across the screen. The name alone sending a flock of birds to my stomach. It’s been months since we’ve spoken. I tried to reach out in the beginning when we redeployed, but respecting her wishes seemed more important than my selfish inclinations. It feels like it’s been years since I’ve spoken to her. I’m able to keep track of how she is healing through Dagger and Marissa. Today was her first day back at work, and it was hard seeing her on base. When you want someone in your arms, seeing them from a distance is torture. I sit up and tap the answer button.
“Aara,” I say her name and the feel of it on my lips makes the loneliness more desperate. “Are you okay?”
She inhales and exhales. “Why do you think I’m not okay?” Her voice is small.
“Because I’m not,” I admit.
“Oh, Luke. I’m so sorry.”
“Why are you apologizing?”
“Because I should have months ago. You proposed to me and said beautiful, kind, truthful things, and I never gave you an answer. Not a real one, standing face to face. I was so scared.”
“I owe you an apology,” I counter. “It was the wrong time. I think about it constantly. How it seemed like I was only asking you to marry me because it was a loophole. That was never how I wanted it to go. I bought that ring at the same time you moved in with me. Before I knew marriage was the save—the Hail Mary. Before Chantal and the baby. It was rushed, and I’m sorry for putting you on the spot in front of everyone. I fucked it up.”
“I’m sitting outside your house right now.”
My heart speeds. I never thought I’d see this day. There were never any scenarios that ended with her back in my arms. I couldn’t fathom them. It was ruined. Our foundation seemed to crumble from beneath us. “I want to be close to you, but I don’t trust myself to come in tonight.”
I stand and walk to the panel on the wall to look at the security cameras. Her car is idling parked along the road in front of my gate. I know that Aara came over when I was in a meeting with the Balls. Jonas told me she sped away without bringing me whatever it was she had. She changed her mind, and I respected that.
“Just let me see you, Aara. Please come in. I’ll stay away from you.” My voice cracks on the last word. “Please.”
I stare at the screen, staring at her car.
“I need you to know, I know. About Chase and Chantal and their baby girl. About how they played God in our relationship, but mostly in your life. I can’t pretend to understand the malicious world they live in, but I know that you did everything in your power to make things right. You’re a good man, Luke Hart.” There’s an audible swallow. “I know you had to…with Aurora to fix things with the condo.”
I go to cut her off, to tell her the truth, but she asks that I let her finish.
“I’m sorry if anything I did made you feel less than, or not worthy of my love. Mostly I’m sorry because I never stopped loving you and I didn’t tell you that. The most important thing. I kept it to myself. What is love if it’s not shared? It’s less than nothing. I’m so sorry for hurting you. For loving you silently.”
She’s crying, and I’m overwhelmed. Hearing all the things I dreamed of. She knew exactly what my soul needed to hear.
“Will you go out on a date with me tomorrow night?” she asks.
My chest tightens. “Yes. Does that mean I can’t see you tonight?”
“We never have had a proper date. We need the simplicity of a date. Don’t you think?”
“You used the word need, and I’ll never not give you something you need, Aara. I want to see you now, in person, in front of me, but you’re right. No more hiding.”
She pulls away from the curb and makes a U-turn in front of the guard shack to head in the direction of the main road. I’m at the very end of a dead-end road without an exit.
“I’m sorry. Again.”
“I didn’t do anything with or to Aurora Ball. You need to know that. I had a meeting with her dad and she wanted to be present. I haven’t spoken to Chase since I got the paternity results back.” I swallow and listen to her exhale relief. “Chase and Durnin have been interconnected for a long time. I wanted to tell you, but by the time I discovered it, you wanted space.”
“I saw you with her. She was getting out of your car and I thought. Well, I thought you were falling victim to the same predator as Henry, and God knows how many other people. It wasn’t the greatest moment. Seeing you and her together. Sorry, I should have known better. Even if it didn’t make sense, there’s always this voice in my head that makes me feel worthless. That the Aurora Balls of the world will always take my things because I don’t deserve them. Because I’m not woman enough. Or know how to be something worth keeping.” She’s full-on crying, her muffled words and sniffles echoing in her car.
“You’re enough. For me, you’re the only thing worth keeping. I love you so much.”
She sniffs once loudly, sucking snot back up. “I love you so much. I’ll fight for you forever, Hart. I’ll see you tomorrow after work. I’ll come over at six.”
The workday passed slowly. I sat in meetings for most of the morning and then had practice at the range for the rest of the afternoon. I didn’t see Aarabelle today. Dagger said he saw her in the gym early this morning with a Team physical therapist. My cardio was running seven miles on the treadmill in my home gym before the sun even rose. I kept the television off because my brain was spinning a million different ways. She asked me out on a date, and the rules of the Teams still stand, so my logical conclusion is that she’s going to agree to marry me.
The polar opposite option is she’s going to give me closure and break things off for good. Face to face. As I ran, I tried to come up with rebuttals, but I know when it comes down to it, I’ll give her whatever she wants. Whatever makes her happy. In the convoluted heart where we’ve built our friendship, the relationship hides. If she’s done with this, then I know I’ll have to switch Teams. It’s what will be best for the both of us, and the world.
I’m pacing my office, back and forth, slicking my hair back after a shower as I wait for her. She’s five minutes late, and I nearly jump out of my skin when Jonas buzzes to let me know she’s parking. I jog to the front door and open it. Aarabelle looks like a goddamn angel, long brown hair waving over her shoulders. Her dress is tight, black, and short. She’s wearing more makeup than she usually does, her lips are shiny and red. Her eyes are all mine. I can’t control the smile on my face. It’s huge and goofy and it takes everything in me to not break down right now.
“You’re here,” I say.
“You’re here,” she replies.
“You look beautiful.” I walk halfway down the staircase as she walks forward a few more steps. Aara has her hands behind her back.
She’s breathing in shallow quick gasps. Bringing her phone from behind her, she taps the screen and the most awful song of all time shrieks from the speakers. Holding it above her head she says, “You were supposed to be inside so I could do this John Hughes proper.”
“How are we supposed to dance if I’m inside?” I say, biting my lip, cringing at the chorus.
“That’s part of a proper apology, right?”
She grins as I take the last steps to stand in front of her. I slide the phone out of her hand and slip it into the pants of my slacks, speaker side up. “May I have this dance? If we can figure out how to dance to this song, that is.”
Aarabelle throws her arms around my neck and the panic rioting my system, calms. The relief is so evident, I release a pent-up breath—one that I’ve seemed to hold since I saw her slip my ring in her pocket. I take her left hand from around my neck and gaze at the ring on her finger. I sway a little to the music, and she follows me, her body pressing firmly against mine.
“You’re wearing it.”
“I never should have taken it off, Luke.” She has an air of self-confidence that wasn’t there before, and I bask in it. The song fades from my pocket and I release her, but she clings tightly to my chest. “I missed you so much.”
“I’ve been right here. I’ve always been here.” Leaning down, I kiss the top of her head and inhale her hair. Her scent. “I’ll always be right here. For only you.”
“I don’t know what I did to deserve you, but I’m finished pretending you’re not mine. All in. You hear me?” Her voice rises at the end, and I have to laugh at the seriousness of her declaration.
“I hear you. So, what’s the plan for our date tonight?”
She walks carefully on the cobblestone ground to her trunk and pops it. I follow close. “At first I had reservations at a fancy restaurant in the Gas Lamp. That would be the normal thing to plan for a date.” She teeters on her heels as she picks up a huge picnic basket from her trunk. I try to take it from her, but she swats my hand away. “Then I realized that nothing about us is normal, and I don’t want it to be. We’re going to have a picnic on the beach instead.”
A blissful, warm feeling spreads over my whole body. “That sounds perfect. Still sort of normal, though,” I tease.
“Trust me, nothing about this picnic is going to be…normal.”
“Should I be scared?”
Aara grabs a blanket and closes the trunk. “No one is getting wet and sandy tonight, Hart.”
I chuckle and wrap an arm around her shoulders as we hike up the stairs to the house. Aara pauses when I close the front door behind her. Like she’s remembering something. Good or bad, she smiles and continues her path through the house to the pool deck. Kicking off her heels before she descends the rocky staircase down to the beach.
“God, the ocean is so beautiful here,” she whispers, stalling when she hits the white sand.
I guide her to a patch of packed sand and help her spread the enormous camouflage blanket, that I now recognize as a tent cover. “It was the biggest thing I could find,” she explains.
We talk a little bit about the camping training we’ll have to do, and that distracts her enough to take away her jitters. She’s nervous about something. She starts taking stuff out of the basket. Pistachios are the first out, and she stretches her legs out in front of her, crossing her ankles.
“I canceled the reservation at the fancy restaurant, but forgot to cancel the dress. Not the most proper picnic attire,” she says, yanking on the hem.
“Personally, I think it’s perfect picnic attire.” I grin.
“Killing me with your smile, Hart.”
I lean back on my elbows. “And you’re just killing me, Dempsey. Tell me what’s on your mind.” I toss shells next to the bowl as she takes out a bottle of bubbly and pops the top.
“There’s a lot of my mind. But first, champagne. To celebrate.”
“You’ll have to tell me what exactly we’re celebrating.” She pours it into two long-stemmed glasses and hands me one.
“We never really got to celebrate the end of deployment,” she says. “Or our almost engagement.”
I tilt my head to the side. “Is that what that was?” I eye her hand. “An almost engagement?”
She takes a big sip and then digs the base of the flute into the sand. Reaching back into the basket, she pulls out what looks like a black box.
“I mean, kind of. Not really? I have something for you. It might not look like a big deal to you, but uh, I bought it instead of putting first and last’s month rent down on an apartment. If you don’t say yes, I’ll be living with Marissa for the rest of my life.” She opens the recognizable red box and there’s the same ring I bought her, but bigger. “It was an almost engagement because it wasn’t equal yet. Now we’re fifty-fifty. What do you say?”
Setting my glass aside, I pluck the ring from the box and slide it on my finger.
“I say, yes. One thousand percent forever.”
The box falls to the ground as I take her head in my hand and force her lips to mine. Euphoria on all fronts. Aara’s tears slip onto her cheeks and I taste the salt in our kiss. This shared moment means so much and also falsifies everything that tried to keep us apart. Honest meets honest. Bravery honors bravery. And love? The real kind. That never goes away. A warm, tingling feeling spreads over my body as she glides into my lap, straddling my hips. Aara’s hands entwine in my hair as she deepens the kiss—more tongue and force. I give it back to her in the same. That’s the satisfaction in our match. She will always be next to me. Never behind or in front of.
“I’m so glad you said yes.”
“Did you think I’d say no? I already asked you, Aara. My feelings were never in question. When I said I love you the first time I meant I’ve only loved you. You’re it. I’ll never love anyone else.”
“You’re perfect, Luke. I love you so much. Also, I have a confession,” she says, tongue tracing a path up my neck to my ear. She presses her body down on my lap, and when I peek, I see her dress has ridden up, no panties. Just pussy. A breath lodges in my throat.
“Confess then, sinner.”
“I canceled the reservations because I wanted to be here. At your house. Alone with you. So I could have sex with you all night. I was confident we’d end up right here, right now, and well, let’s go inside. Right now.”
Standing up, I carry her back into the house, abandoning everything save for her lips. By the time we stumble into the living room, the kissing has turned violent. A passion so fervent, it scares me. What’s sex if the feelings behind it don’t scare you a little? Everything about my emotions when it comes to Aara terrifies me. The cold metal on my ring finger a foreign, welcomed feeling. I set her on her feet and she pulls me toward my bedroom. Her eyes a siren call, leading me to my greatest temptation I get to have at my beck and call.
She pulls the dress over her head and tosses it aside. She’s bare for me, and I come unraveled, scrambling to take off my clothes as quickly as possible.
“What do you say? Make this official?” she says, popping one hip to the side, lids slipping over her eyes.
“We gonna SEAL this deal, you mean?”
“That was an awful joke, Hart.” Aara licks her lips, stepping to the edge of my bed. “But I forgive you.”
“Dagger wouldn’t forgive me if I missed the opportunity to make that joke,” I explain, striding forward, covering the same space in far less time. “Jokes aside, now. I’ll only fuck you right now if I’m the only man you’ll ever fuck as long as you live.”
“That’s the point.” Aara drags a finger down the center of my chest, over my abs and then closes her fist around my cock. I close my eyes as she begins pumping her fist. “This is the start of the rest of our lives.”
She drops to her knees and puts my dick in her mouth while she continues moving her hand. I watch as she laves my balls with her tongue, popping one in her mouth and then the other. The lightheaded feeling hits when she returns to my cock and slides it down her throat. When tears form in the corner of her eyes, she pulls back and uses her hand and the spit to stoke a frenzy.
“Get on the bed, Aara.”
She follows my command, but she keeps my hard-on clutched in her hand like a leashed dog. She lies down, pulling me on top of her. When I’m between her legs, I bury my face
in her chest and kiss her pink nipples, lightly sucking the honeyed skin on her neck. I tease the tip of my dick at her silken entrance. I groan when my bare skin meets wet flesh. “It’s okay, Luke. It’s just us now. You don’t need a condom. Kiss me.”
This time, I obey, lifting my chin to press my lips against hers. I want to believe her, that it’s just us now and forever, but Chantal scarred me beyond recognition. “Aara,” I say her name, a plea. “I don’t know.”
She grabs the sides of my face and looks me in the eye. “Let’s do this right now. Worst-case scenario. Tell me.” Aara lifts her hips, forcing the tip to dance once again with her dripping center.
I lose my brain for half a second before I answer. “Pregnancy.”
“Open your eyes.”
I do. “I’m on birth control. You know what else? Worst-case scenario comes true. I want your babies, Hart. Eventually. Right now, it’s just practice.”
This would be the cruelest hoax in the world if she was tricking me. This is how it happens, I realize. But Aarabelle isn’t any other woman. She’s the first woman who has truly loved me. She’s a woman who has far more to lose than I would. It feels unnatural. Like I’m doing something illicit, but I let my hips fall a little bit. Her pussy is tight and soaking wet. It grips my head, the bare feeling at once overtakes me. It’s exhilarating rapture.
I groan as I tuck my head into her neck. “You mean everything to me,” I say. It’s muffled, but I know she heard it because she’s telling me she loves me on repeat. Over and over, bucking her hips, asking for more. This is the final step in the claiming of my heart. I give it to her. In one solid thrust. Bare sex feels a million times better than sex with a condom. But it’s more than just a barrier, it’s a mental breakthrough. No walls. Nothing keeping us apart. I have nothing else to give her. She has it all.
I kiss her when her moans drive me to fuck her harder. The kiss is teeth and heaven, and everything in between. “You’re going to make me come,” I rasp against her mouth.
Legacy: A Salvation Society Novel Page 24