Stealing Home(48)
I nodded. He had been a good sport about it, leaving me surprised all day. From the quid pro quo insinuation in his tone, I guessed I knew why he’d been so accommodating.
“So?” I shrugged like I didn’t know what he was alluding to.
“So it’s time for you to uphold your promise.”
Damn. Just his voice was making me wetter. Or maybe it was the image of what his voice was hinting at.
“I didn’t make you a promise.”
“Just because you didn’t verbalize it doesn’t mean you didn’t make one.”
My hands wrung the steering wheel. “Mind telling me, exactly, what promise I nonverbally made you?”
He leaned in, sliding my hair over my shoulder. His fingers brushed my bare skin, leaving a trail of goose bumps behind. “The one you made on your knees this morning.” His fingers worked down to the roots my hair, giving it the slightest of tugs.
The ragged breath it elicited from me wasn’t so slight. “This is your place, Luke. Your home—not some impersonal hotel room. Are you sure you want to do this, be together, like this?”
“I want to be together with you wherever I can be.” His fingers curled beneath my chin, tipping it toward him. “But I especially want to be together with you like this tonight.”
When my head bobbed, his door flew open.
“Not so fast.” I shoved open my door, unlocking the back hatch. “Wheelchair.”
His groan echoed through the basement parking garage. “I’m not going to have to stay in the wheelchair for what happens when we get into my apartment, am I?”
“Only if you’re lucky.” Coming around his side, I patted the back of the wheelchair and waited.
“I’m planning on getting lucky. All night long.” His eyes sparked as he crawled out of the SUV into the chair. “Does that count?”
“It counts for something.” Locking his SUV, I wheeled him toward the elevator.
I couldn’t help the smile that spread on my face—the day had been amazing. Malls and mall food aside, I loved getting to spend time with Luke in such a normal way, meeting his sisters and seeing the roles they played in each other’s lives. I adored the stolen glimpses, the private jokes, and the sense of belonging that seemed to come so naturally with the Archer siblings.
They laughed at my jokes, they shared licks of their ice cream cones, and they had no qualms about giving me the same hard time they gave each other. Growing up without siblings and having to split my time between two parents both as a child and now, I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed that sense of unity a healthy family had at its core. Even with the Archers losing their parents, the four of them had a strong sense of cohesion I’d never experienced with the closest of family or friends.
“You’re thinking,” Luke stated once the elevator doors closed us in.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you’re not talking.”
“So therefore I must be thinking?”
Luke’s shoulder lifted. “That’s generally the way it works.”
“I’m thinking I just spent more time at the mall today than the sum total of every mall visit of my life, and it’s been one of the best days of my life.”
“I’m thinking today’s been pretty damn great, but it’s about to get even better.”
“Thank you for sharing today with me, Luke.”
His hand wrapped around my wrist. “Thank you for sharing your life with me.”
My reaction was to recoil, and I wasn’t sure if it was because I was scared of being hurt or hurting him. But I fought my instinct. I fought it until I’d chased it back into the dark, stagnant place it resided.
I fought it until all I could feel was the place where my head and heart came together, the spot where reason and logic lived in harmony with whim and feeling. It was a place I’d never visited before, but experiencing it made me want to take up permanent residence.
Whatever this was, wherever it took me, I wasn’t going to hold back. I was all in, to whatever end we found ourselves in.
Feeling that was staggering. Accepting it was freeing. But living it was redefining.
“Still with the thinking,” Luke muttered good-naturedly, glancing up at me.
“All done. I’m all thought out.”
“Good, because as brilliant as that mind of yours is, I have immediate plans that involve your equally brilliant body.” His hand tightened around my wrist when the elevator doors chimed open on his apartment’s floor.
“Before you get me behind a locked door, I need you to agree to give me a few minutes before you throw, bend, or spread me over whatever surface you have in your depraved, albeit also brilliant, mind.”