by Lia Lee
“Don’t you think you should have told me about it?” I asked.
“We can fight about that another time, first, let me shake them.”
Luke was being reasonable even though I was upset about the fact that he hadn’t told me about the black SUV following him. If I had known, I wouldn’t have pushed to come to town to speak to Lizabeth. But Luke was right, we could talk about it later. For now, we had to get away from them. I had to get rid of my dad as soon as possible. If he caught up with me and found Luke, there was no telling what he would do to us. My dad wasn’t known for his mercy, and the last thing on earth I wanted was for him to hurt Luke when Luke had done everything to take care of me.
Luke raced down the road we had taken to come to town, and I witnessed superb driving skill. He handled the truck like it was a race car and in no time, the SUV had to step on it to keep up. Luke shot past the road that led to the cabin and drove on, indicating and turning in the opposite direction down another dirt road. This road split up into several smaller roads that led into the trees. Luke seemed to know where he was going and drove between the trees, taking turns whenever he could, making last-minute decisions, stopping after a while. He switched off the car and waited.
“What are you doing?” I asked. I was still panicking. If they found us here, we had nowhere to go.
“They won’t find us here. I know the road like the back of my hand, but to someone new, it’s like a labyrinth. We’ll wait them out before we head back to the cabin. They won’t find us there once we manage to get onto the dirt road and between the trees.”
I tried to listen to Luke, to understand what he was saying to me, but I was in a flat panic. What if my dad found us? What if he hurt Luke? What if he took me back home and forced me to marry Sam? I didn’t know if I could handle it. I didn’t know if I would survive the life with the man I loathed.
After a while, Luke switched on the car again and slowly crept out of his hiding spot between the trees. He looked left and right, driving out of the maze of dirt roads and onto the main road. We kept our eyes open for the black SUV, but it was nowhere to be seen. Luke turned onto the dirt road that led to the cabin, and finally, we were safe.
“Oh, my God, what am I going to do?” I cried out. I was still trying to get a handle on my panic. I was freaking out.
Luke wrapped his fingers around my wrists and forced me to look at him. “Listen to me. I’m not going to let anything happen to you. All right? They think we live somewhere in those dirt roads because it’s the second time I’ve taken them in there. We’ll be all right. They lost our trail.”
I nodded and forced myself to calm down. Luke was right, he knew what he was doing, and he would take care of me. I had to trust him. It was the only thing I had left.
Chapter 22
Luke
I managed to get Anna to sleep early that night. She was still panicking about the back SUV, and her emotions were all over the place. I didn’t know who her father was or what he had done to her to make her this scared, but it was bordering on dangerous for her mental health if she was in a state of panic like this the whole time. I had seen people go mad with fear, losing all sense of reality, and it was impossible to ground them once that had happened.
Anna wasn’t there yet, but she was so much more unstable than she had been when she’d arrived. I was starting to wonder what was up. Was there more to her story that I didn’t know about, that she wasn’t telling me?
When I was sure she was sleeping tightly, I walked back to the living room and built up the fire more. When the cabin was warm, I took a beer out of the fridge and popped it. I switched off the lights so the only light in the cabin was the orange glow from the fireplace and walked to one of the windows, looking out. The night was heavy outside, the world tinted in black and gray, and I kept my eyes open for movement. I had told Anna I didn’t think they would find us here, but I wasn’t so sure.
How had they known that I was the one they had to follow to get to Anna?
The only people I knew with resources like that, with the means to track people down when it had nothing to do with the government or anything official, was the mafia. Could Anna’s father be in the mafia? She was a Santora.
I shook off the thought. There was no way they could have found her out here so easily when they had been looking for me for a year and hadn’t found me. Maybe her father had managed to track her phone after all or her friend had let it slip where Anna was.
It couldn’t be the mafia. I shivered. I had been running from them for so long, and before that, I had been so caught up in who I was to them and who they were to me, it was all I could think about. Not all the people who were after each other were involved with the mafia.
I kept my eyes open for movement between the trees outside, for shadows across the snow. I half expected people with guns to creep around the cabin, surrounding us. But the night was peaceful and quiet, the snow around the cabin remained undisturbed, and I knew I was being paranoid.
I turned around and sat down on the couch, sipping my beer and staring into the fire. There was something nostalgic about staring at the flames that always made me think about the bigger things in life, things I didn’t think about during everyday life.
Anna was a one of a kind girl, a person I hadn’t expected to fall for so hard and so fast. I was worried about her. Lately, something was wrong, and I didn’t know how to help her. The appearance of the black SUV didn’t help matters. I wished I could keep her safe, that I could protect her. I cared for her more than I had ever cared for anyone.
Usually, I saw getting emotionally attached as a liability. My time in the mafia had taught me that being attached to anyone only gave you a weakness, that having people you cared about gave the mafia leverage to hurt you if they wanted to. Because of that, I had kept the people I cared about to a minimum and the ones I wasn’t willing to sacrifice I made sure only to see on the odd occasion when the mafia would least expect it.
Like my parents. I had missed the days when I could go to my parents whenever I wanted to without worrying that someone would find me and realize I had pressure points they could exploit.
With Anna, it was different. I had had women in my life before, but they had only been one-night stands. They hadn’t been worth the trouble to have a weakness over. This time, I was willing to do everything and anything to be with Anna and keep her safe. I was willing to accept her as a weakness in my life because I wanted to be with her more than I had ever wanted anything. I didn’t believe in the bullshit about true love and destiny until I had met Anna. But how did the perfect woman land on my doorstep in the middle of a snowstorm when I had been in hiding for a year without fate being involved?
I looked at the beer in my hand. Earlier, while we had eaten dinner, I had offered her a beer, and she had declined. I had hoped the alcohol would help her take the edge off, but she had refused.
When I had asked her how she had known it was her dad, she had said she’d recognized him through the tinted windows. My heart ached for her that her own father was someone to fear. I loved my mom and my dad. My parents were beautiful people, and I knew I could trust them no matter what. Frankie Santora, on the other hand, had become the man of my nightmares when I had realized how fucked up the mafia was, and I couldn’t imagine. If he had been a father figure to me, I might have been in a far worse position.
To think that the person that made your life hell and your dad could be one and the same explained why she was as emotionally unstable as she was right now.
I stood up again and looked out of the windows, moving to each of them one by one. I was still unsure about no one finding the cabin. When I had lost them in the labyrinth of roads the first time, I had been sure that no one had seen me turn back into the road that led to my cabin. I wasn’t so sure about the second time. I had managed to lose them again, but I hadn’t known for a fact that they hadn’t turned back the moment I had turned into the maze of roads. I didn’t know for
sure that they hadn’t been watching me, and for all I knew, they had managed to find the road to the cabin after all, and it was only matter of time before they came looking for Anna.
When I had made my rounds through the cabin, checking every window and there was still nothing outside, I walked to the kitchen and put on the kettle. I had finished my beer, and I desperately wanted another one, but I wasn’t going to drink more and allow the alcohol to dull my senses. So instead, I made coffee.
“Luke?” Anna said in a small voice as she stood in the door, her skin pale against her dark hair and her eyes sunken. She looked sick and scared. “Is everything okay?
I nodded. “I just checked all the windows. Everything is fine. There’s nothing to worry about.”
Anna nodded. She looked forlorn, unsure.
“Come here,” I said and held my hand out to her. She came to me, padding silently across the cabin in her socks and wrapped herself around me. I held onto her, feeling her against my body, and I vowed that no matter what, I would keep her safe.
“We’re safe here, right?” she asked again.
I nodded. I didn’t want to tell her about my doubts. I didn’t want to scare her unnecessarily. She was already terrified. There was no reason to make it worse.
“We’re safe here,” I said. “And I’ve got you.”
She looked up at me, her eyes shimmered with tears. When Anna cried, she looked so soft and vulnerable, and it always broke me. I hated seeing women cry but seeing Anna cry was so much worse. She was a strong woman with a strong personality and to see her reduced to fear and broken emotions like this made me hate whoever hurt her this much. A beautiful person like Anna didn’t deserve to be in such a state.
I rubbed her back. “It’s going to be okay,” I said softly. Sometimes, that was all we needed to hear.
“I’m sorry I’m crying again,” Anna said after a moment, wiping her tears with her sleeve. “I’m such a mess lately.”
I shook my head. “It’s understandable. A lot is going on. Don’t be sorry.”
“Thank you for everything you’re doing,” she added. “I don’t say it often enough, but I really appreciate that you’re going out of your way from me, whether it’s to drive me to town or to watch my back or make sure I’m comfortable. You’re sharing your private little space with me, and that means more than you know. So, thanks for that.”
I nodded and wrapped my arms tightly around her. “You’re welcome,” I said.
Anna tipped her head up, and her face was beautiful in the soft glow of the fire, her delicate features softened by the orange light and her dark eyes large and soulful. I wanted her. I couldn’t help it. This wasn’t the time to think about sex, but I wanted all of Anna. I wanted her in a way I hadn’t ever wanted anyone else.
“You can kiss me,” Anna said when I turned my head away from her.
“I don’t want to push you into something when there’s so much going on. Sex must be the last thing on your mind.”
Anna shook her head, and when I looked into her eyes, they were filled with desire.
“Sometimes the best way to escape is to get lost in each other,” she whispered. I looked at her for only a moment longer before I gave up my self-control and kissed her. I pressed my lips against hers, and she melted against me, sighing into my mouth.
Kissing her never got old. Anna was an amazing kisser, not only because she was naturally good at everything she did but because she gave herself to me with such reckless abandon no matter what we did. It made everything with her that much more sensual, that much more intense, and this time was no exception.
She kissed me as if there would be no tomorrow. And perhaps, if everything fell apart and they found us, if they took her away from me, maybe there would be no tomorrow.
Chapter 23
Anna
I had come to see Luke as my safe haven and when he kissed me, everything else fell away. It was exactly what I needed, now. I needed to forget. I needed to escape and escaping into Luke was perfect. Since my dad had arrived in town and I had freaked out about him finding me, Luke had done everything in his power to keep me calm. He had reassured me that we were safe. He had told me he would keep me from harm, and he had watched me like my safety and peace of mind was the only thing that mattered.
Luke was everything I could ever have wanted in a man, and now that worst had come to worst, he was stepping up to the plate. Luke’s lips were hot on mine, the atmosphere charging until the air was thick with lust. I poured everything I felt into that kiss—the fear, the desperation, my feelings for him—and it became urgent. Luke and I groped at each other, our hands roaming our bodies, and for the first time since I had learned I was pregnant, I let it all go and drowned myself in the safety that was Luke.
I didn’t feel sick. I didn’t feel scared. I didn’t stress and panic and worry. I let it all go and lost myself in him, feeling his hard cock press against me as he ground his hips against mine.
God, I wanted him so badly. It was an ache that burned in my gut, and I needed him inside of me, needed the release that he would bring. His hands were in my hair, his arms wrapped around my body, and my arms were around his waist, holding onto him. I reached down and placed my hand on his dick over his jeans, rubbing the thick ridge. Luke sighed into my mouth. He laid me down on the couch, his body on top of mine and we made out, our bodies pressed against each other so tightly we barely felt the clothes that were a barrier between us. Luke’s tongue was in my mouth, his hand on my breast, and my body was on fire. I needed him to have his way with me. I wanted him to strip me naked and to take me, hard and fast.
I wanted him to fuck me until everything that bothered me went away. Luke ground his hips against me, moving his hips, mimicking sex, and I was so turned on. I wanted him so badly.
Until now, every time we had had sex, Luke had been the one to give me pleasure. He had run his hands all over my body, fingered me and licked and sucked my pussy until I hadn’t been able to hold it anymore.
I wanted to do the same for him. This time, I wanted to be the one to drive him wild.
“Sit up,” I said to Luke, and he looked a little confused, but he did as I asked. I moved off the couch and kneeled between his open knees. His eyes were filled with hunger when I reached for his pants and he realized what I was about to do. I undid the button and unzipped his jeans, pulling his hard cock out his jocks. The shaft was hard, the skin silky smooth, and the tip was already wet with lust. I ran my fingers over the head, and Luke shivered. His lips were parted, and his eyes were a deep ocean blue.
I leaned forward and licked a line up his shaft. I had never done this before, and I had no idea what I was doing. But judging by Luke’s reaction, I was doing it right. I closed my mouth around Luke’s dick and slid him deeper into my mouth. Luke groaned, and when I looked up at him, his eyes were closed. I bobbed my head up and down, keeping my teeth out of the way and fucked him with my mouth. Luke’s whole body tensed, and I wondered if I had done something wrong. I paused, glancing up at him.
“Don’t stop,” Luke said, looking down at me. He slid his hand into my hair and gently pushed my head down, encouraging me to carry on sucking him off.
I didn’t hesitate any longer. I did what I had done before, bobbing my head up and down faster and faster, his cock pushing deeper and deeper into my mouth until I couldn’t take in any more of him before I gagged. I wasn’t covering all of Luke’s shaft with my mouth, so I wrapped my hand around the base, closing the distance between my lips and the hilt.
Luke groaned when I bobbed my head up and down again, meeting my lips with my fist every time I pushed his dick into my mouth. He tensed and jerked on the couch, and I loved that his breathing was as shallow and erratic as mine became before an orgasm. I loved that I had the ability to push him that far to the edge, to make him feel even a fraction of what he made me feel every time he played with me or sucked on me.
It turned me on, too. Knowing that I was driving him wi
ld make me wetter than wet, and I craved his dick inside me.
“Anna,” Luke said in a breath as he pressed his hand against my cheek so that I stopped. “Stop.” He swallowed hard. “You’re going to make me come. I don’t want to come, yet.”
He leaned down and kissed me on the lips. “You drive me crazy,” he said. “Go to the bedroom so I can fuck you.”
I blushed when he said it and stood up. I turned toward the bedroom. On the way, I sensually pulled my shirt over my head and turned so Luke could see me in my bra. I took a few steps back while reaching behind me for the clasp, taking it off. I let the bra slide down my arms, stopping it just before my breasts were exposed. Luke’s eyes were glued to my body, and he practically drooled. I smiled and disappeared into the bedroom where I pulled off the rest of my clothes and draped my naked body over the bed.
Luke came into the room, his face riddled with lust as his eyes slid over my body.
“Fuck, you’re so beautiful, Anna,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind having this every day for the rest of my life.”
The words made me feel warm inside. Saying that he wanted this for such a long time made me feel like what I felt for him wasn’t one-sided. I thought about the baby and what it would mean for us, but I pushed the thought away. Tonight, I wanted to forget. I wanted to escape. Nothing mattered tonight. I wanted it to just be Luke and me.
Luke stripped of his clothes and crawled onto the bed with me. We were both naked, and his dick was rock hard, bobbing up and down as he moved toward me. I rolled onto my back. Luke pushed his hands between my legs and his eyes widened.
“You’re so wet,” he said.
I nodded. “I want you,” I said.
Luke moved between my legs and leaned over me, his arms on either side of my head. He pushed into me, his dick finding my entrance, and I moaned as he slid in up to the hilt.
