Luke (A Redemption Romance #1) (13 page)

“You haven’t spelled it out for me either, but now, I want to address the seriousness of our relationship first. I
am
serious about you. I am committed to you. If you weren’t sure before, be damn sure now, we are together. You are my woman, I am your man.”

Luke paused a moment to take a breath and compose himself. Thankfully, he’d looked away so he didn’t notice the tears rolling down my face. This entire conversation was so confusing. I could see how he could be hurt by me calling Reed and not him. It was a stretch, but I could understand that.

I did see our relationship and saw all the ways he showed me that he was serious, but I’d been with guys before who acted like they were serious, then they were done, it was like nothing was ever going on between us. I never assumed anything. He was right, though, I hadn’t been open about my feelings either.

“I just need to know where you are. If you aren’t in one of your normal hangouts, I want to know. I don’t want to lord over you or control you, I just want to know that you’re safe. I want to be able to get to you if you need me.” He took a long breath and stared at me before continuing.

“I acted rashly last night. If I’d taken a breath, not let my emotions take over; if I’d taken a step back and thought for two seconds, I would have behaved differently. You’re right. I acted like an ass. I’m sorry, so fucking sorry. I – fuck, I feel like I’m holding onto you with my fingernails, that you’re constantly slipping away from me. Fuck, Rory, I love you. I fucking love you; and half the time, I don’t even know if you care if I’m around. You’re so cool with my job, don’t complain about not spending more time together.”

“Luke, will you look at me?” My voice was quiet and I could hear the tremor in it when I spoke. His head lifted, and I could tell when he noticed my tears. “Babe, I love you too. That’s why I am so hurt, that’s why this is so hard. I’ve been in love with you for a while.”

Luke moved so fast across the room. He sat on the bed next to my hip, torso turned to face me and placed a hand on each side of my face.

“You love me?” Luke’s hands were trembling against my face. I could see the question in his eyes even through my blurry vision.

“Yes, Luke, I love you. But, that doesn’t –”

I didn’t get the chance to continue, Luke crashed his mouth down on mine. He held my face and kissed me, I could feel him worshiping my mouth, there was so much reverence and love expressed. When I didn’t reach for him or wrap my arms around him, he pulled back and looked deep into my eyes.

“Rory, we’ll be okay, please baby. Don’t push me away.”

I shook my head in his hands, tears freely flowing down my face. “No, Luke. No! We can’t keep doing this. We can’t hurt each other like this. I love you, but we can’t keep hurting each other.”

“We’ll figure this out, I promise Rory, we’ll work it out. We’ll learn to work together. We’ll learn how to do this. Baby, I promise.”

“We were only together for six days, then, because we didn’t know how to talk to each other, we were apart for two weeks. Now, instead of talking, you lashed out. Instead of telling you how I felt, I shut you out. I don’t know how to let you in. The minute I feel slighted; the minute I feel like you’re pulling away, I pull away faster.”

“Yes, baby, and I get angry and hurt instead of talking to you. I push you and get bossy. Neither of us is perfect. Neither of us has been in a serious long-term relationship. We’ll figure it out, we’ll work it out. Can you, fuck, Rory, I hate to ask, but we need more time together. We need to see each other more than an hour in the mornings and one day a week, when we’re lucky. Do you think you can arrange your schedule to go in later? It doesn’t even have to be every day, but we need to spend enough time together that we can get used to being us. If you can’t that’s okay, I understand, I can try to work something out.”

I looked at him, a little stunned. It was like Luke could read my mind. I’d been thinking about doing that for a couple of weeks. I hadn’t made the changes yet, I was waiting to see where things would go with us. I was glad that he was asking. I thought that maybe he was right, that we would do better if we had more time together. I didn’t want to think about it, but in the past week, we’d probably only spent about ten hours together, total. Most of that was either in the shower or eating breakfast.

“Yeah, babe. I can do that. Amber can cover me in the morning. I’ll still need to be there on Saturday by ten. Depending on your schedule, and what you had in mind, I have a lot of flexibility.”

“It would be great if we had at least one full day off a week. I can’t always take Sunday off, obviously. You know, sometimes shit will go down and I’ll have to go into work, but if I can give you my schedule ahead of time, can you take one of the days off?”

“I’ll do my best. Same goes with me though, there will be weeks that I need to work more, or if something happens, I’ll have to go in.”

“Yeah, I know, but don’t expect me not to come to the store with you. Maybe I can lay around all day on that pink chair thing and watch you work. You can feed me grapes and when the store is slow, you can take a break and let me fuck you on it.”

“Hmm; sounds interesting. I could keep you around in the back, tied up and ready for me whenever I had time. That sounds even better!”

Thankfully, we’d pulled through this time, I hoped there wouldn't be another time like this. Between the two of us though, with our lack of experience with relationships, I was sure there would be.

“Come here baby.” Luke pulled me into him, his lips on mine. We kissed, moving to strokes, moans, licks, and then even bites.

“I need you babe, please make love to me.” My whispered words were all he needed to spur him into action. We spent the next three hours in bed together. We made love more times than I thought were physically possible.

At one point, we were in the lotus position, eyes connected as he moved me up and down on his lap. Staring into my eyes, he kissed me. Just before I fell over into climax, he whispered “I love you.” Into my ear. It was the sweetest moment of my entire life. I wished I’d had a video of that moment, so I could watch it over and over again.

We’d thoroughly enjoyed each other, sometimes romantic, sometimes dirty and sometimes downright kinky. I had no idea how Luke could go to work, but he had. I stayed in bed and slept most of the rest of the day.

Several weeks passed since Luke and I had our major blow up. Since then, I’d adjusted my schedule so that we could spend every morning together. I was also able to add a mid-week day off. We almost always had at least one full day off each week. Things had settled between us since we had more time. Getting used to sharing my life was challenging. There were times I still forgot to tell him what was going on, or he’d forget to tell me about an overtime shift until it was upon us.

We’d learned that the fire had started in the kitchen. There were no accelerants suggesting arson, but the back door had been pried open. Obviously someone had broken into the house and was doing something in the kitchen. We’d never get that mystery solved since any evidence was burned.

I’d hired a new employee at Indulgence. She was a great addition to the store. Dawn Adams, was almost as tall as me, but much more voluptuous. Her waist was tiny, but her breasts were enormous, she had long blonde hair, shapely legs and hips and was a total knock out.

I watched Reed’s face the first time he met her. He’d come into the store and I could swear his eyes almost popped out of his head when he saw her. She was the perfect pin up girl! The funny thing was, she wasn’t at all conceited. I hadn’t heard her talk about any guys or any crazy antics. She was completely down to earth.

She’d finished her bachelor’s degree and wanted to become a buyer for one of the high-end department stores, but found that the jobs available weren’t what she wanted. Since I paid a base salary plus commission, she found she was making more with me anyway. She was a great fit with Amber and me, so I hoped that she would stay.

After work one night, I drove to Dallas to meet Luke for dinner. We’d received our food and were talking about mundane stuff. It was nice, our relationship was becoming normal and after the drama, it was a welcome change.

“Luke, I want to have a barbeque. Let’s have everyone over, you know?” I blurted out-of-the-blue.

“Sure baby, where do you want to do it? You have a great back yard, but I have a better grill.” Luke’s grin was wide, he loved to tease me about my little Weber.

“I don’t care, if you want to do the grilling, we can do it at your house.”

“How long do we have to keep up this ruse?” Luke’s question had me confused. What ruse was he talking about? Were we faking something?

“What do you mean?” I asked hesitantly.

“This two house thing, it’s ridiculous, don’t you think?” He seemed so casual, was he seriously talking about us moving in together?

“Are you asking me something, Luke?” I decided to needle him a bit, see what he really had in mind.

Luke reached across the table, grabbed my hand and squeezed. “Rory, honey, love of my life, darling sweetheart, honey lumpkins, pookie bear.” His smile was wide and I stated to laugh as I tried to pull my hand back.

“Funny! Be serious!” I fake-scolded him.

“Oh, all right.” He feigned annoyance. “Hey Rory, let’s shack up, live in sin, fuck like bunnies; oh wait! We already do that one.”

My laugh was a little loud for the restaurant, I knew a few people were looking toward us, but I just didn’t care. “So, you want to move in with me? You really like my girly furniture that much or Rusty just likes my back yard better than yours?”

“Hey! I didn’t say your house. Let’s live in my house. I have a better grill, remember? Besides, my shower head is better. Think about all the hot stuff we’ve done in there.”

“Um, no, my house. My house is bigger, my yard is better and we can update the shower.”

“Hmm, I’m not sure, can we paint the walls? Or, maybe we can put my furniture in the living room?”

“No way in hell! I like my furniture. We can put your couch and TV in the den, how about that?”

“So, wait, is that a yes? We can live together?” Luke seemed excited, relieved even. I wondered if he had been nervous about asking me, how long he’d been thinking about it.

“Yep! You can, you can move in with me. Well, with a few conditions, of course.” This conversation could have been so serious, but it was fun with Luke. He could make even the most difficult situations better.

“Oh really? And what are those conditions honey lumpkins?”

“Can you stop calling me that? It’s just crazy pookie bear.”

Luke laughed loudly this time, I loved his laugh, deep and strong but jovial; it always brought a smile to my face.

“Yes, Mistress Rory, what are these conditions, madam?”

“Oh, I like that one, can we do that one tonight?” My bright excited smile wiped the grin right off his face, but I could see that he was kidding, as was I. Our silly banter tonight was just what I needed, what I hoped our relationship would be like.

“Okay, be serious now. One, you have to take out the trash.”

“One? Does that mean there are a lot of conditions?”

“Yes! Do you agree to the first?”

“Yes dear, I will take out the trash. That will be my manly duty.”

“Excellent; two, you have to put the toilet seat down.” Luke chuckled and just nodded to that one.

“Okay, you have to promise that one of these days, you’ll wear your uniform.”

“I wear my uniform all the time.” Luke’s eyebrow rose in suspicion.

“Yes, but one of these days, you’ll wear it - you know. You’ll wear to bed.”

“Oh, Rory! You want to play do you?”

“Maybe.” I felt shy all of a sudden, which was ridiculous after everything we’d done already.

“Absolutely, I promise. I’ll even wear a clean one. Maybe I can arrest you. I think you can show me how sorry you are for breaking the law.” This was exciting, I was getting wet with just our little bit of dirty talk.

“Mmm, maybe I’ll resist.”

“Damn baby, I can’t go back to work with a hard on like this. Jesus baby, maybe I should push you into the back seat of my car now. I wish I had time for that, well, and no cameras.”

“Yeah, we can’t make out in the patrol car with dash cameras and whatever else you have these days. I can only imagine what the brass would have to say about that!”

“Okay, new topic, any other conditions?”

“Just one.”

Luke waited for me to continue, but when I didn’t he encouraged me to proceed. “What’s that?”

“Never forget how much I love you.”

Thankfully we’d finished eating, because Luke stood abruptly threw a wad of cash on the table and pulled me out of the restaurant. My heart was racing, wondering what he was going to do. We got to the driver’s side of my car, he pushed me up against the closed door and wrapped his arms around me, crushing my body to his; he spoke into my ear.

“My god baby, I love you so much, so fucking much.” His entire body was vibrating; I could feel the tension in his muscles. I really wished we could be alone right now. I held tight to him, enjoying the feel of his hard body against mine. His radio began to crackle, breaking the moment between us. Luke pulled back, framing my face in his hands, he leaned down and kissed me gently.

“I’ll see you in a few hours, okay?” I could tell he didn’t want to leave me, any more than I wanted him to; but I knew that he didn’t have a choice. I made it a point to never make him feel bad about work.

“See you later. Be safe babe.” Luke’s smile was small but the light shining in his eyes was enough to melt my heart.

It took two weeks before we could find a day to get everyone together. The amount of texts it took to just secure a date was ridiculous. Finally, it was Sunday afternoon. I’d been running around the house in a frenzy all day trying to get stuff ready. Originally, we planned to have the barbeque at Luke’s but the weekend after our dinner, Luke moved his stuff into my house, got rid of the furniture he didn’t like and we shuffled enough to keep the rest. With him came his grill, so the party was at my - I mean at our - place.

It was a great feeling to live with him. I already knew that he was pretty tidy, for a bachelor anyway. We hadn’t had any major blow-ups, we’d argued a little over things like closet space, and the fact that he didn’t have much. Aside from little squabbles like that, things were smooth.

The night he moved in officially, I was getting ready for bed when he disappeared. He’d gone into the guest bedroom he’d stayed in all those weeks ago and didn’t come out until I was in the bed. He barged into our room, both dogs at his heels. He took a menacing stance, flashlight in hand, aimed at the bed and told me: “You have the right to remain silent, but I sure as fuck hope you don’t.” I laughed so hard. He’d done it! He dressed up in his uniform, no boots, but including the utility belt. Later I found out he’d left his gun off; probably smart.

As he made his way over to the bed, stalking in a very sexy swagger, I jumped up off the bed and tried to run for the bathroom door. Making it about three feet before he snagged me around the waist, pulled me tight, my back to his hard front and whispered in my ear. “There’s no escaping from the law.” I tried really hard not to laugh. This was so much better than any fantasy I’d had.

“Oh, officer, please! What have I done? Please, don’t hurt me!” I whined in the sultriest voice I could muster.

He moved us to the bed, with my feet still on the floor, pushed me over and placed my hands flat on the bed, my torso was parallel to the mattress.

“I’ll need to pat you down. You understand this is for my protection and for yours.”

“Yes, officer, whatever you say.” My words were breathy now, my heart was racing in excitement.

“You’ve been a very bad girl Miss Williams. You’ll have to face the consequences of your actions.” I shivered, all over and felt my pussy flood with wetness.

“Oh, Officer Jackson, sir, please help me!” This dialogue was so corny we could have been in a porn movie, but it was great. Luke was totally playing along for me. I loved it.

He let go of my waist, his hands began to run up my sides, his fingertips grazing the sides of my breasts. Moved up, over my back, the full length of my arms, he was stretched over me, his stomach pressed into my back and I could feel the hard length of his dick pressing into my ass.

“You’re doing well Miss Williams, stay still while I search the rest of you.”

His touch felt so good, firm and erotic, I couldn’t speak. I let my head fall between my arms and felt my hair fall in a curtain around my face. Luke crouched down behind me, his hands skimmed down over my hips, then to the outside of my legs. He shifted them to glide slowly up the inside. When he reached the apex of my thighs, he grunted. “What do we have here? I think this needs further inspection.”

“Oh, no sir, there’s nothing there. I’m not hiding anything.” My tiny sleep shorts were no match for his dexterous hands.

“Oh, Miss Williams, you are most certainly hiding something here, there is something right inside here that I am very interested in inspecting further.” His finger had entered the open leg of my shorts and slipped over the lips of my very wet pussy. “I think that I’ll have to remove these to do a proper inspection.”

“No, Officer, I’m sure you don’t need to do that!” I felt something hard pressing against me, it wasn’t his finger, it was hard and cold. Whatever the thing was, it moved across the crotch of my shorts over and over until I was moaning in pleasure. He moved the thing away then pushed my legs together, reached up and pulled my shorts down my legs. Roughly shoving my legs open once more, I felt his face move in closer.

“Oh yes, here it is. You’ve been hiding something very important, haven’t you? I think this needs a lot more attention.” His fingers spread my lips open, and whatever that cold hard thing was starting to probe at my entrance. He’d moved his hand back, moving something inside me and I wiggled.

He spread the cheeks of my ass and started to lick me, from my filled pussy back to my asshole. He circled my little rosette over and over as he plundered my pussy. Whatever the thing was, he pumped it shallowly, it was thick and hard, but not as thick as he was. His tongue was crazy! He somehow pushed his tongue just inside my hole and was spearing me over and over again, fucking my ass with his tongue while he fucked my pussy.

My entire body trembled, my legs were getting weak, but I tried really hard to keep myself upright. Luke felt my trembling and moved me to lay face down on the bed. I heard the sound of metal clink, then felt my hands pulled together behind my back. Before I could move, he had me handcuffed.

“Luke!” I shrieked loudly, I wasn’t sure how I felt about being restrained like this, but if I were honest with myself, it was really hot. He moved off me, with my cheek to the mattress I strained my neck to look back at him. He stood, so tall over me, put his hands to his belt and opened it along with his pants. I watched, mesmerized as his hand slipped inside his pants and briefs, pushing them down just enough to expose his long thick shaft and his balls.

His dick was a beautiful thing, I was pretty sure I could write sonnets about it. I loved playing with him, sucking on him and every time he entered me, felt like I was stuffed full. He stroked up and down a few times, his gaze dark and piercing me. His eyes didn’t leave mine as he released his cock, it sprang up and hit his navel.

He bent, picked me up at the waist, turned me over, then moved me onto my knees on the floor in front of him. I’d never seen his eyes so dark, so menacing. He was seriously in character for this.