I blinked, the logic cutting sideways through the ache. “I—what?”
“You have nothing,” he said, a sharper edge under the control. “I’m taking you to get your things.”
The light turned green, and he eased through the intersection.
“And then I’m taking you home.”
He finally looked at me.
“My home.”
chapter
fourteen
It was the gentleness that undid me. Not the violence, not the animal hunger—those I’d expected. The real danger was in the way he held me now, tucked beneath his duvet, my head cradled against his heartbeat. His breath stirred the crown of my hair, his hand spread over my rib cage like he was keeping me in one piece.
Nobody warned you about this—how a man could wreck you one minute, then stroke your scalp in the dark until your demons fell silent. How a body could be both a weapon and a shelter, sometimes in the same minute.
The sensation of him was everywhere—the weight of his arms around me, the warmth of his bed, the sated throb between my thighs.
He thumbed at the collar of my T-shirt, an old swim team shirt from Emory.
Tugging lightly, he asked, “Why are you wearing clothes?”
“I can’t sleep naked,” I mumbled into his chest. “It feels…weird.”
Luka huffed out a quick, silent laugh that vibrated through my cheek. “You were naked in front of dozens tonight at the club, but not here in my bed?”
“It’s not that,” I said, knowing how absurd it sounded. “I just…I’ve never been able to sleep without something between me and the sheets.”
He ran his palm down my spine—slow, possessive. “You’re strange.”
“Takes one to know one, cowboy.”
“Cowboy? That’s the second time you’ve called me that.” Luka hooked a leg around me, pinning me under his thigh. “Is it because you like it when I ride you?”
I swatted his chest. He caught my wrist midair and pressed it over his heart, fingers laced through mine.
A faint curve touched his mouth. “Or maybe,” he murmured, his palm flat against my ass, “you need a firm hand to break you.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” I shifted closer into him. “I don’t break that easily.”
He pulled back, just enough to study my face. “No?” One eyebrow shot up, teasingly skeptical.
“Okay, fine.” I rolled my eyes, heat crawling up my neck. “Maybe a little.”
The quiet that followed charged the air, like right before a lightning strike.
I traced the contour of his collarbone, the smooth stretch of skin over muscle. “But something brokeyou, didn’t it?” The words tasted dangerous, but my tongue released them anyway. “Luka…what happened to you?”
He didn’t move. I waited, counting his heartbeats hammering under my hand. Rain ticked at the window. Wind warbled the old glass.
“What makes you say that?” he asked. Flat tone. No inflection.
“Because you were ready to let me go tonight,” I said. “You kept giving me a way out. Like you truly expected me to takeit.” I pulled back and studied him, shifting my focus from one crystalline blue eye to the other. “Who the fuck hurt you?”
He exhaled, then drew me closer, like he needed to keep me in place for the words to come out. “Who the fuck hasn’t?” He held me so tight I thought his arms would imprint my outline into his chest. “Where I’m from, you learn fast not to trust anyone.”