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I was miserable at the rejection, especially considering I could practically taste his lips and feel him inside me because the image was so strong.
“Oh shit. No,” he replied and rubbed my back again. “I don’t mean like that. As if there’s something wrong with you. You’re stunning, Willow Avalon. Surely you know that. I mean, because of how far apart our social circles were. There wouldn’t have been any chance for you and I to ever… dothat.”
“That’s too bad,” I said before I knew what I was saying. His head jerked back, and he locked his gorgeous deep blue eyes on mine, and in that light, they flashed deep violet for just a moment.
“Don’t say that,” he said, and his voice rasped with unspoken desire. “Don’t fucking say that not after I almost lost—”
His voice cut off, and I felt as if I was hanging in midair like a bug stuck on a pin. His lips were parted slightly, and the light glinted off the blonde stubble along his angled jawline. He was simply stunning, and the longer we stared at each other, the stranger it felt.
I just knew I’d touched him before, I’d felt the weight of his body crush me, and I’d felt his long, thick fingers wrapped around my throat as he plunged into me.
But I couldn’t prove it. I couldn’t know something that had never happened, could I?
I was about to conclude that it had just been a very vivid dream or even a wild fantasy when he swallowed and made a strangled noise of desire. It was a growl that lodged in his chest and rumbled into my ears as he exhaled slowed.
His hand lifted, and I was frozen in place as he put it on the back of my neck, under my thick mane of hair. He pulled me towards him, and I thought I was going to lose my mind if he kissed me, but he didn’t.
He set his forehead on mine, closed his eyes, and said, “We can’t do this again. I’m trying to be strong and stay away from you. It will get you killed this time. I can’t lose you. After losing Marianne, I can’t lose you too.”
“Have we done this?” I asked, careful with my words. I felt as if I spoke too quickly, he would bolt off into the hedge, like a magnificent stag in the center of the forest leaping at the sound of a branch cracking. “I feel like I’ve done so much with you.”
“We’ve done just this, kissing and touching but not all the way,” he exhaled, and at that moment, a truth pierced my heart, waking up some part of my brain that had been dead. A vivid, full-color image of us kissing in these very hedges while Victoria was waiting for me in our rooms flashed into my mind.
“We have,” I said and gasped in wonder. “We have done this. I finally have a clear memory.”
He didn’t reply. His fingers wove into my hair, and his hand cupped the entire back of my head. For the first time in a while, I felt like I was home. I felt comforted and like everything around me was lined up.
And then he tilted my head up, pulled back, looked down at me, and, at long last, Luke Lancaster kissed me.
It was everything I wanted it to be. Familiar, expected but expected in the way a flash of lightning blazed across the darkened sky. It sparked desire along every nerve in my body and sent me spinning into an eternity of possibilities.
Luke wasn’t a stranger to me. I loved him. I felt it in my heart and the way he held me as his mouth crashed into mine. We were tender at first as if frightened by the rediscovery of each other’s bodies. But after a few moments, we grew hotter and more insistent.
I found myself clinging to him, holding him close like I was holding onto my own identity. With each pass of his tongue across mine, each hot breath we exchanged, every murmur or chest-deep grown caught in our throats, I felt closer to knowing who I truly was.
My memories, all of them, flitted just out of reach. I squeezed my eyes tighter and felt the breadth of his chest, so wide and powerful, knowing I’d been right here before.
And I almost caught myself. Almost grabbed hold of those memories.
But just as I felt my mind open up, fracturing the darkness with bright, piercing rays of my life, it slammed shut.
“Fuck, not again!” Harlow hissed behind us. “You two will never learn. You’re gonna get her killed this time for sure, you fucking idiot!”
And with that, everything fell away from me, and Luke tore back as if he was burned.
Again, disgust flooded his features, and I was left alone in the darkness inside my head.
CHAPTER9
“I can’t believe this bullshit,”Harlow spat as she stood in front of us, her hands on her hips and her feet planted squarely apart. She was pissed, and I didn’t know why. We were now sitting a healthy foot or foot and a half apart and weren’t looking at each other. “You’re already walking on the razor’s edge after last year.”
She was speaking to Luke.
“You know how close you are to being expelled, and then what? A life of drudgery doing menial labor for the Uppers in your town?”
Before he had a chance to respond, she turned to me and said, “Your idiotic behavior nearly got you killed last year. Are you feeling suicidal? Do you know what the Remingtons would do if they found you here? Or what they’d do to him? God! You’re such a fucking asshole. You told me you were going to stay away from him.”
“I thought you knew nothing about my life,” I quipped, unable to contain my own anger. It matched hers, but I wasn’t in the mood to rant like she was. I was too distracted by the swollen feeling in my lips and the throbbing sensation in my nether regions.
