Page 73 of Stuck in Paradise with You

I nod into the darkness. ‘You’re right. I have to see it that way, don’t I?’ The tightness that brings to my chest is painful. Am I going to do this again? Set off on the path to the rest of my life with Luke just a memory that eases with time but is always there, always present, like a dull ache in my bones that never ceases?

‘You don’t have to do anything, Carrie.’

Except, I do. I don’t forgive Luke. I haven’t forgotten. How can I when I’ve never had an explanation for what he did to me, to us, the way we ended? We got so wrapped up in the crazy sexual chemistry between us that we,I,let it cloud my judgment.

‘A mistake,’ I mutter. ‘Closure.’

‘If that’s what you want it to be,’ Callum says.

There’s such a fine line between want and need.

34

LUKE

No, no, fucking no.

It’s the bellowing wind outside, wildly chiming the dangling ornament I forgot to bring inside last night that wakes me, but before I even open my eyes, it’s the lack of Carrie that has me thumping the bed in frustration.

She’s run, again. Gone without a trace.

The worst part is, I should have expected it. I should have known better. Desire got the better of me and here I am, again, with a fucking vortex under my ribcage where my heart should be.

Why did I go there? Why let her in? For this body-crushing feeling all over again?

I roll onto my back and let my forearms fall across my eyes, willing whatever sensation is trying to be present there to justdo one.

‘Idiot,’ I chastise myself, roughly dragging my hands up and down my face like it might rub some sense into me. Unfortunately, it’s not going to do that retrospectively.

Who am I kidding? Even if I turned back the clock ten hours, I would be powerless to stop what happened last night.

Damn it, even now, lying here alone, devastated, I don’t know if I would want to.

Last night was… Christ, it was intense, hot, sexy. Incredible. But not just because there’s an unexplainable and unbeatable magnetism between Carrie and me that no one in the world could deny. Not because she’s the most stunningly attractive woman to have ever consumed every single one of my senses.

It’s because being with her, over her, on her, inside her, is a feeling like nothing else I’ve experienced in my life. She can blow my world apart, make me feel ecstasy, and make it feel like we’re one person, as if she’s the other half of me. I felt more alive last night than I’ve ever felt.

I shake my head, reminding myself that I am in this pod, in this bed, solo. As I do, I notice the first light of the day is trying to peek through the thick dark clouds, through the slatted blinds covering my window.

I need to get up and move. To spend the entire day with the woman who shatters me like a mirror, for fun.

Or maybe, I just lie here, wait out the storm and take my chances in this pod, because that would be easier than enduring a day with Carrie, asking myself over and over, why did she even come to me last night? I’d walked away. It took more willpower than I knew I had but I walked away from her pod.

Then she was here. In mine. Standing in the doorway to my shower, begging me to make love to her under the setting sun.

Goddammit, it had felt like that. I’d felt the rush of being with the woman I love.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I drop my arms across my face again.I love her.

And I really fucking hate her too.

Reluctantly, I come to sit on the edge of the bed, feeling tired and deflated. I’ve hit rock bottom once before and this feeling isn’t it, but it sure as hell feels reminiscent.

Regardless, I have three friends who are as close to me as family and who would probably want to slap me around the head if they knew I walked right into the mess they all helped pick me up from seven years ago, again. I’ve got four energetic but pretty amazing god kids who need me today. Uncle Luke needs to take his head out of his ass and turn up to play and distract.

I dig out a pair of shorts, a t-shirt and a sweater from my drawers and shove some staple bits into my duffle bag to take with me. Not because I think my things are at risk in the pod – this place is solid as a rock – but because I don’t know how long the storm will take to pass and if I’ll be communal sleeping tonight.

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