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“Even after I lied to you?”
She smiles weakly. “I suppose covering your true eye color wasn’t exactly a lie.”
“But I told you. I’m not Luke Johnson. My whole identity is a façade.”
“And I thought that mattered,” she says, cupping my cheek. “You know what? It doesn’t. In a way, I’m a façade too. I’m not the same person I was before the island. I may never be the same person again.”
“You are anything but a façade, Katelyn. You’re one of the most real people I’ve ever met, and that’s one of the reasons I love you so much. You could never be a façade.”
“Tell me, then. Tell me what’s real about you.”
I sigh. “My eyes are blue and my hair is blond.”
“You already told me that. Tell me something about the real you. The Luke that’s inside.”
“I am a recovering alcoholic,” I say. “That’s not a lie.”
“Okay, that’s a start. What else?”
“My alcoholism… It made me…”
“It made you what?”
“It made me mean, Katelyn. It made me do things that I shouldn’t have done. But that’s not even the whole story. I was different then. I can’t blame it all on the alcohol. Sure, the alcohol pushed me over the edge, but it was me. I’m the one who did those things, and I have to own them.”
She strokes my cheeks, gazes at me with such love and wonder in her beautiful eyes.
“What things did you do, Luke? Nothing can be that bad.”
Nothing can be that bad.
Except what I did was worse than that. I harmed people. I got people hooked on drugs. I tried to control women, and in doing so I hurt them. And I had people…
I had people taken care of.
Such a stupid-ass euphemism.
I had people killed. Sure, they were bad guys, but to them? I was the bad guy.
How do I erase that red off my ledger?
By saving a life for each one I helped to take?
God… I haven’t let myself think about this in so long. I had therapy. Therapy helped. Helped me realize I was worth something, worthy of a second chance.
But am I? Truly?
What if I can never make up for the horrible things I’ve done?
The devil on my shoulder taunts me. You’re worse than the devil you were named for. You’ll never be a whole man. You’ll never be good enough for Katelyn.
The angel in my other shoulder— The people who are no longer in the world because of you were bad people. They would’ve harmed others, and you saved others from that harm.
I don’t believe either one.
All I know—just this one thing—is that I love this woman. I love Katelyn Brooks. And I’m going to make love to her one more time.
“You’re not mean to me,” Katelyn says. “Except for…”
“Except I left you. Or I tried to.”
If not for Pollack, I’d be on that damned bus right now.
Am I truly thankful for Pollack’s intervention?
Damn, maybe I am.
This way, Katelyn at least knows I’m leaving. She may not understand—I don’t even want her to understand—but at least she knows.
“You did,” she says. “But you know what? It doesn’t even matter, Luke. I forgive you. I forgive you for hiding your eye color, your hair color. I forgive you for trying to escape in the middle of the night and leave me. I forgive you for everything, and I will always forgive you for everything because I love you. I love you so much. You don’t know how much that means to me. I didn’t think I’d ever love. Not after what I’ve been through. You… You made me see that it’s possible to love. And even if you leave me tomorrow and I never see you again, I will always be grateful to you for that.”
I groan. And it’s a groan not just of horniness and sexual desire but of amazement. Amazement that a woman like Katelyn exists in this world. A woman who can forgive me anything.
Would she truly forgive me anything if she knew everything I’d done?
She thinks she can, and whether or not it’s true, at least I know she loves me now.
She wants me now.
Just as I love her and want her.
“I need to make love to you, Katelyn,” I say. “Please.”
“I never stopped you in the first place.”
I smile weakly. “No, you didn’t. Thank you. Thank you for just… For being you. For being so perfect and loving and forgiving.”
“I do love you, Luke.”
“And I love you, my beautiful, sweet Katelyn.” I kiss her.
I kiss her with all the pent-up energy and passion I have in me. Her shirt is gone, her chest beckons, and I trail kisses over her cheeks, her neck, shoulders, the tops of her breasts.
She moans as I take her nipples between my lips, suck them, bite them, lick them.
With one hand, I work the buttons on her pants. Then I slide my hand inside, find her hard clit, and rub her.
