“Thanks everyone,” I said quietly to the crowd, feeling like a big dork but knowing at least a gesture should be made (I mean, it was late) before Luke’s arm came back around my shoulders. He took me to the Porsche and we were gone.

* * * * *

Luke was right, it hit me and it hit me a lot sooner than I would have expected.

It hit me the minute he flipped the light switch in his loft.

Light filled the space and I felt panic seize me. I ran to the switch and turned it off. Then I flattened myself against the wall, protecting the switch with my body.

“Babe,” Luke was close, his voice gentle.

“He’s watching,” I whispered, terrified.

I’d forgotten to tell Luke one little, but important, thing.

Shit.

Luke’s fingers slid under my hair to curl around the back of my neck. “Ava, come away from the wall. Let’s get you changed and in bed.”

“We have to go to a hotel.”

“Ava.”

“He’s watching.”

“He’s not watching,” Luke said softly, his hand dropped away from my neck and came around my waist and he gently tried to pull me away from the wall. I resisted, he felt it and instantly stopped trying.

“I forgot to tell you something,” I said.

I put my forehead against the wall and Luke’s body came close to my back, his arm went tight to hold me against him and his face came to the side of mine.

“Tell me,” he said softly.

“He followed us last night,” I whispered. “He broke in somewhere, across the street, next door, I don’t know. You don’t have any curtains, no blinds. We left the lights on when we did it. He watched us have sex, I know because he knew we did it against the wall. He –”

Luke interrupted me. “We’re going to a hotel.”

Thank you God.

* * * * *

Luke checked us into the kickass, cool-as-shit Hotel Monaco in Downtown Denver. I’d never stayed there but any hotel that had “The John Lennon Suite” and “The Grace Slick Suite” and “The Miles Davis Suite” had to be kickass, cool-as-shit, and it was.

Then we went to bed.

We were lying side by side in each other’s arms. Luke was quiet, likely deciding how to dispose of Noah’s body once he killed him.

“Luke?” I called.

One of his hands slid up my back under my tee. He’d located the newly-washed Triumph tee for me and I was wearing it. This I found incredibly sweet but I was trying not to dwell on it.

“Yeah, babe,” he answered.

I tilted my head back to look at his blurry, shadowy face. “Will you make love to me?” I asked in a small voice.

Don’t ask me why I asked this. I just knew, somewhere deep, I needed it.

“Ava, I’m thinkin’ that’s not a good thing,” he replied softly. “Right now, sleep is a good thing.”

I found his answer both disappointing and (probably hysterically) very alarming.

“Okay.” My voice was even smaller.

There was a beat of silence then Luke muttered, “Shit.” He rolled into me and his hand came up to the healthy side of my face. “This doesn’t bode well for my future,” he told me.

“What?”

“My inability to say no to you,” he said before touching his mouth to mine and his hand slid slowly down my neck, my side, my hip and then over my bottom.

“You say no to me all the time,” I told him, now feeling happy in that somewhere deep down inside. I was happy that he was touching me, holding me, kissing me, taking care of me and he didn’t find me dirty and repulsive.

“When have I said no to you?” Luke asked my neck where his lips had moved.

“You don’t say no, as such. You just haul me around until I’m where you want, doing what you want.”

I felt his mouth move and knew he was smiling against my neck. His hand cupped my ass and he pulled me against him but he didn’t respond.

I didn’t mind. I wrapped my arms around him and held on tight.

Then he started to make love to me and it was exactly that, slow and sweet and absolutely perfect. I forgot about everything: being taped in my basement in the pitch dark and Noah touching me while Luke was in the house.

It was perfect until Luke’s hand moved down my belly and between my legs. His fingers hit the target but instead of feeling the usual jolt of pure goodness, my body froze and I wrapped my hand around his wrist and pulled it away.

“No,” I whispered, my body came unfrozen and all of a sudden I was shaking and not the good kind of shaking. “I’m sorry. I was wrong. I can’t.”

I tried to move away, feeling like an idiot, but Luke’s hand pulled free of mine. He rolled off me and held me close.

“Ava, hold on to me.”

His voice was rough but he didn’t sound angry that I stopped the action when it was really getting good.

“I can’t,” I told him. “I need –”

“Quiet, beautiful, just hold on.”

I did as I was told. I felt him hard against my belly and felt like a huge dork because I was the one who started it.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered and I was. I was so sorry that my voice broke in the middle of saying it.

“Quiet,” he replied softly.

“I got you all worked up and –”

“Babe, I’ll survive.”

“Luke.”

“Ava, I’m good. Just be quiet.”

I went quiet.

We lay there for awhile, silent, holding on. The shakes left me and I eventually felt nothing in the world, nothing but our bed at Hotel Monaco, Luke and me in it.

Then out of nowhere something hit me, a flashback.

Not of Noah beating me up and touching me where I didn’t want him to, but a flashback of Luke. It was a flashback of when Luke took me for a ride on his new motorcycle when he was seventeen and I was thirteen.

His Mom wasn’t happy about the motorcycle but she kept this to herself (outside of telling my Mom). His Dad hated it and he didn’t keep it to himself. As usual he tore into Luke about it.

I loved the motorcycle and after I heard Luke have a rip roarin’ with his Dad and Luke slammed out of the house heading to the garage, I ran over and caught him. In my thirteen-year-old-girl usual blathering, dorky way, I told Luke I loved his motorcycle and I told him exactly how much.