Page 85 of I Hope This Email Finds You in Hell

He moves to step back but I cling to him, forcing him to stay.

“I want more.” My voice is breathy and doesn’t sound like my own. “I want you.”

My hand slips between us so I can stroke him over the towel still tightly tied around his waist. The most beautiful sound slips out of him at my touch.

“Are you sure?” he asks, unsteady, like he’s not so sure himself. “We can stop. I haven’t forgotten what you said about needing to really know someone before—”

“I do know you.” My free hand cups his cheek so he has no choice but to see the sincerity and want in my eyes. He turns his head into my palm, pressing a soft kiss to my wrist. “I trust you. I—”

He doesn’t let me finish the sentence before his mouth is back on mine. It’s tender and unhurried, like we have forever in this moment. I finally, finally unravel the towel from his hips. At the feeling of my hand wrapping around him, he gasps, startled eyes flying open.

“What?” I whisper, satisfaction curling in me at his reaction.

His laugh puffs across my cheek. “I’m just— It’s— I—” Another laugh as he shakes his head, cheeks flushed. “I haven’t done this in a while and I’m afraid it shows.”

“I haven’t, either,” I admit. “I want this if you do.”

“Yes,” he groans, though his hand rests over mine to thwart my movements. Disappointment lances through his eyes. “I don’t have anything, though. Contraceptives aren’t common in the underworld yet.”

“Pull and pray?” I joke breathlessly.

“I’m really not the praying type.” He swallows thickly as my lips brush over his scar again. “Though I’d make an exception for you.”

“Lucky for both of us that I have the shot.” I pull back to look at him seriously. “I’m okay with it if you are.”

I get my answer in his hands gently pulling me even closer to the edge of the counter. I only release my hold on him when he’s nudged against me, the burn to have him all-consuming.

“Look at me,” he says softly, tilting my chin up to meet his eyes. I do, and for a long moment, it’s just this: his thumb brushing my jaw, my fingers stroking the short hairs on the back of his neck, our gazes locked as a million emotions pass between us. And then, in one seamless glide, his hips land flush with mine.

“You okay?” he asks. I nod, unable to string together a coherent sentence to save my life. Has sex always felt this good?

But it’s bigger than feeling good. What I feel is safe. Caught in the cage of his arms and warmth of his body, it’s like nothing can hurt me. No demon or monster, no grief or guilt. All I know is his heart throbbing against mine, a promise that I’m not alone.

I know he feels it, too. He nuzzles my cheek affectionately before finding my mouth again, groaning into it as my nails dig half-moons into his skin. I can’t seem to remember how to inhale through my nose and I break the kiss, sucking in a lungful of air.

“Breathe, Brie,” he murmurs. It’s the same thing he said to me on the train to hell. But that was then, and this is now, and everything is different. Me, him, us. Because there is an us, and maybe we got here a little unconventionally, but there’s nowhere I’d rather be.

“Where are you?” he asks, abandoning my lips to kiss my neck again.

“I don’t know,” I pant, slightly irate that he’s choosing now to quiz my geography skills. “Somewhere in California hell?”

His laugh rumbles against my collarbone. “I meant, are you close?”

“Oh.” It feels good, but…“I’ve never twice.”

He raises his head from my neck, brow suspiciously quirked before he lowers to his knees. I stare down at him, lips parted.

He flashes a devilish grin before diving in.

The rub of his stubble tickles my thighs, adding to the overstimulation of it all. It doesn’t take long to feel that familiar build. My fists curl in his hair, pulling at his strands until he’s standing. I lure him in and we sigh into each other’s mouths when we’re one again. All it takes is the press of his thumb rolling a half-assed semicircle at the apex of my thighs to make me tumble off the ledge.

He follows suit only a breath later, groaning my name into my jaw. I drag my nails down his back, listening to the steady thrum of his heart beneath my ear.

The after is blurred around the edges as exhaustion makes a home in my bones. It’s only once he’s wrapped a fresh towel around me that the world blinks back into focus. Luke holds out a hand, staring at me expectantly with a soft smile.

“What?” I ask, realizing I’ve missed something.

“You need to take your contacts out, don’t you?”