“Holy shit,” I breathed, incapable of wrapping my mind around this news. I was, however, able to septuple my vow of revenge against Noah.
A disabled lady in her seventies? What a jerk!
“I underestimated him,” Luke went on, interrupting my mental tirade. “He gets caught, his picture hits the news, women come forward who didn’t report him and he’s f**ked even more than he was f**ked. He’s not gonna let that happen and he would be desperate enough to do about anything to make certain it doesn’t. Including f**kin’ with my woman, somethin’ not a lot of people in Denver would have the balls to do.”
Okay, so, it was safe to say this was not good news. I felt like an even bigger idiot now than I felt when Noah took off with my money.
Time to focus and not on me being an idiot.
“Luke, you aren’t responsible,” I said. “I’m responsible. I let him in my life in the first place.”
“Lotta women do.”
“That doesn’t make it any better.”
“Probably not but it’s the truth.”
There you go.
Time for a different tack.
“Okay then you want to know how I felt when you first said you were going to go after him?”
Luke just looked at me.
“I felt happy,” I shared. “My stomach got melty. I was glad someone wanted to take care of me.”
Silence.
I persevered even though doing so scared the shit out of me. We were in vulnerable territory here, way vulnerable.
“Last night, you were preparing to go gonzo. You didn’t because I needed you. Last night you also said you can’t say no to me. If I pushed it, that I didn’t want you to go after him, really pushed it, would you have?”
More silence.
Shit.
It was going to have to be all or nothing.
I put my hands to his neck and moved so I was facing him.
Do it, say it, the time is right, Good Ava urged.
Don’t! The time will NEVER be right! Bad Ava yelled.
For once I listened to Good Ava, took a breath and bared it all.
Quietly, I said, “Yesterday, when I was in my freak out about Jules, Daisy said to me that I was trying to find ways to protect my heart but I was doing it wrong. She told me the best way to protect my heart was to trust it to someone who will protect it for me.”
More silence but his body went completely still.
“That’s you. It’s always been you,” I whispered, my heart racing, I was scared as hell but I forged ahead. “Please don’t take responsibility for Noah being an ass**le. I couldn’t bear it if you did that.”
I’d barely stopped talking when, without a word, Luke got up, taking me with him. He carried me to the bed and put me in it, coming down on top of me.
“You belong to me,” he stated, his voice soft, his tone firm, his hands starting to roam.
I was pretty f**king happy he seemed to be delighted (in a Luke way, of course) with the news that I’d trusted him with my heart.