Page 111 of Beautiful Storm

“Your ex. Your dad. Pick someone.”

“You.”

“Fuuck. Amelia, I will never be able to make up for that, but I’m not the same guy. At least, I’m trying hard to be different. For you.”

For me.The regret in his eyes and his broken expression make me want to believe him and I know he’s trying.

“Everything about this is different, Luke. The feelings, the intimacy. All of it. And it’s scaring the hell out of me.”

“The intimacy.”

“God, I don’t know why I just said that. But Preston and I… It was different. The urge. The tension. It’s bigger now. But… Shit. No. This isn’t about us. We have to think about Jelly Bean.” I pause, staring through to his soul, begging him to listen. “What if we mess this up? Whatever it is?”

“And what if we don’t?” He moves closer and my breath hitches as he steals the air from my lungs. My heart screams at me to say yes, to pull him into my arms and kiss him, to let myself fall along with him, but then my brain takes over and I find myself shaking my head. Because there’s a burning question that we can’t answer right now. A question we have to consider.

What if we do?

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

Amelia

Luke squeezes his eyes shut as his nose brushes against my cheek, and I’m about to speak when he lets out a strangled groan and drops to his knees, resting his head against my stomach. His arms curl around my legs, and he bunches the material of my satin shorts before staring up at me, his teeth clenched as though it pains him.

“We can’t,” I rush out, but my voice holds no conviction as his pleading eyes meet mine.

“There’s something here, Amelia. I don’t know what it is but it’s something. Can’t you feel it?”

My heart skips as if reminding me that I do. I feel all of it, but it’s not that simple. “Yes,” I whisper, “but it doesn’t change a thing.”

Luke suppresses a groan as his hands lower, causing his fingers to brush against my skin. The sensation sends a spark through me and my legs quiver, giving my true feelings away.

“Please, Amelia. I need you to focus on the here and now. To trust that this is real. Even if it’s just for today. Just. This. Once.”

The raw desperation in his tone has me melting against him. I want this as much as he does, but we’d be blurring the lines of our arrangement, more than we already have. If it ends badly, the person who loses the most can’t defend itself.

“Luke.”

“I know. Fuck, I know.”

He groans again, louder this time, before his lips touch the sliver of bare skin between my shorts and my top. It’s so faint that I can’t tell if I imagined it, but a warmth lingers either way.

For a torturous few seconds, I hover on the edge as a need pools between my legs. I fight an internal battle, trying not to react as I decide between what’s right and what I need.

When he finally moves again, he kisses a path across my stomach, and my heart pounds so hard he couldn’t possibly miss it. But I don’t speak. I don’t tell him to stop. Even though everything is screaming at me to pull away.

“Fuck, Amelia.” His fingers bite into my skin, his touch frantic…kissing, nibbling. “Jesus.” He curses himself before releasing his hold and staring up at me once more. “Tell me to stop,” he begs. “But also, don’t. Please don’t.” His breath is so rushed and needy that it silences me. I have never felt this wanted in my life. I have never had someone so desperate to have me that he’s on his knees begging. And it’s hard to say no when I need him all the same.

“I can’t,” I whisper and his head drops back as he bites his lip without waiting for me to finish. “I can’t tell you to stop because I want you, Luke. I’m just so scared.”

“I’ve got you, Amelia. I won’t let you drown.”

His words penetrate my heart, and for the first time I don’t see the guy he projects to the world. I see the boy I remember, the teen I found again that night in the attic, the guy I once thought was put on this earth to protect me.

“I trust you, Luke. Here and now, I trust you completely.”

Luke’s eyes flash to mine as he curls his fingers beneath the band of my shorts and panties, holding them like a lifeline, a guttural groan ripping from the back of his throat. He kisses my stomach again, before standing up and walking me backward toward the wall.

And when my body hits the plaster, something snaps between us and there’s no going back.

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