Page 55 of Memories with Fire

Biting down on my lip as he takes a washcloth I didn’t know he had and starts to clean me from center to toes, I watch with utter fascination at the care he takes. His hands are gentle, tender and full of devotion, and if I’m not careful I’ll end up wanting him all over again simply because of this.

To distract myself, I ask, “You needed a change of scenery?”

Luke’s eyes lift from what he’s doing to meet mine. His jaw works for a moment as he contemplates my question which tells me that the answer is yes. He confirms it a second later. “I needed out of Waco, yeah.”

“You haven’t mentioned that since coming to the firehouse.”

He shrugs, going back to what he was doing. His hand slips between my legs and heads skyward, moving over my ass cheek. “Freckles, there’s lots of things I haven’t mentioned yet. We have a ten year gap to fill in and it’s been a bit rocky. Give it time.”

While it’s a fair assessment, something about it makes me feel uneasy. The time and space between us that seemed to disappear when he was rocking my world opens again, and I realize that even though this feels right, there’s so much that we don’t know about each other these days. What if we discover that the people who we are today don’t match the same way we did back then?

Swallowing that thought down with a harsh bob of my throat, I forge ahead. “Why did you need a change of scenery?”

Luke’s hand stills for a second too long, and then he blows out a breath. It’s another moment before he says, “Some stuff happened, and I knew I couldn’t stay in Waco anymore.”

My eyebrows knit together. “What kind of stuff?”

He’s silent as he mops up the floor with the wet towel he brought, then dries it with another one. When he’s done, he gets to his feet, frowning at me, which brings all the uneasiness to the forefront, my stomach swooping with anxiety. He shifts from foot to foot but tries to mask it by putting the towels on the stool to take my hands.

“I promise one day I will tell you, but tonight I don’t want to get into it. It’s a long story, and it brings up some really awful memories for me.” He dips his forehead down until it touches mine. “Can we just enjoy our evening together? Please?”

Leaning back so I can study him for a moment, I take in how hopeful he is that I’ll leave it be. He’s given me everything today. My life, my dreams, helping me forget when I needed it the most. Luke never fails to give me what I need. I believe him when he says he’ll tell me one day, he just doesn’t want that day to be today. How could I possibly deny him?

Finally, I nod. “Okay. But I’ll hold you to that promise.”

“You better,” he says, then touches his lips to mine, and as he kisses me, I allow it to melt away all the anxiety that was building.

Luke will tell me. I’ll trust that.

CHAPTER 18

LUKE

“You gonna eat that?”I ask Hailey, pointing at the last enchilada in the casserole dish.

We’re sitting on my couch, her on one end, me sprawled in the middle with her legs in my lap. After the impromptu session in the kitchen—which will go down in history as my favorite sex moment ever—I finally got the food in the oven and the guacamole finished. We devoured it in record time, both of us starving after a long, weird, satisfying day.

I think it’s still technically the same day as when we got to my house, but I can’t be positive without checking my phone. Everything has blended together since we got here. Screwing, dozing, screwing some more, more sleep, thoughts of food, more sex, and finally food.

Now I’m mostly sated and mostly full, but I still want that last enchilada.

She sits back against the arm rest, puts her hands on her belly, and shakes her head. “You crazy? I had two and a half. I’m stuffed.”

Shrugging, I snag it from the dish and sit back, devouring the thing in a few bites so I can slide my plate on the coffee table.

The meal was well earned, if you ask me. Not counting Hailey’s pussy, there was no breakfast, lunch, or dinner until now. And considering it’s dark outside, that’s a long ass time to go without food while exerting as much energy as I did today. Between the adrenaline and the sex, I’m going to crash into a food coma sooner than later.

Dang. A coma. I can’t begin to imagine what she must have gone through. It makes me sick to think I wasn’t there to help her. That, on top of everything else she was going through, she thought I’d deserted her. It’s no wonder she hated me so much when I waltzed back into her life.

I’m pissed about it all. I don’t understand how her mom could keep us both in the dark about each other. I guess she didn’t owe it to me to say anything when Hailey was in the accident, but to lie to Hailey once she was awake and asking for me was wrong. It makes me irate when I think that Hailey spent any moment of any day wishing the car accident had killed her instead. If Debra knew that, and still kept the truth from her, well, that’s unforgivable in my eyes.

Things could have been so different if Debra hadn’t done that. Would Hailey and I still be together? I’d like to think so, but I can’t say for sure. I do know that I would have been here for her. I would have dropped out of college, said goodbye to football, and moved to California ten years ago if I’d known. It’s not like I became a cop anyway so it would have saved me tuition.

Wrong way of thinking about it, but I’m angry. Our choice was taken away, and neither of us had any idea. I spent months torn up over her. I know she spent months heartbroken. I have to wonder if she’s been angry this entire time. From the bit of info Quinn has slipped me, Hailey hasn’t had a serious boyfriend for as long as they’ve known each other. Does that have something to do with what happened between us? The way it ended?

That first year of college I’m lucky I passed any classes. If I wasn’t training as hard as I could for football, I was out partying with my teammates, and not just a beer here and there; I was the life of the party my freshman year. Sure, I took some heat at the beginning of the year because I was one of the new kids, but by the end of the year the ladies loved me, and the guys wanted to be me.

It didn’t feel that different from high school, except everything was on a larger scale.

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