“Luke!”

He slammed his fist into the glass and crushed his hand. I saw his dark reflection in the glass and his lips were parted as if he had just finished a thoroughly exhausting run. “I hate him,” he whispered into the glass.

My heart constricted painfully. I knew what it was like to be bullied by a parental figure. When my foster parents weren’t threatening me with violence, they would utter snide comments about everything I did, always comparing me to their perfect son, Vincent. I placed my hand on his trembling shoulder and I took it as a good sign that he didn’t throw my hand off. I spread my fingers like a starfish and stroked his shoulder. When he didn’t protest, I lifted my other hand and did the same to the other side. I crept up behind him and tentatively curled my hands around the firm muscles of his abdomen. Luke’s body leaned against mine. My heartbeat was almost painful.

Maybe I should say something. “I’m sorry that you have a jerk father.”

Luke took one of my hands inside his and I felt a swift flare of attraction as he traced lines in my palm. “I think he wants to drive me to commit suicide like he did with my mom.”

My chest froze as I digested this. It was too horrible to consider. No, that’s too much. It can’t be true. “No,” I said quickly. “I think he’s just cranky from his illness and he’s pissed that you won’t visit him and he wants to hurt you. If you died, he wouldn’t have anyone left to bully.”

He turned around in my arms and looked at me down his straight nose. “Hell, maybe you’re right.”

Still, his hollowed eyes were shining with years of tortured anguish. Deep down, he was still a little boy desperate for his father’s approval and some scrap of affection. He knew he would never get it. He was a man without love or guidance, and he looked utterly lost.

My eyes burned as tears slowly welled up. I had no one to look up to when I was growing up. I wasn’t very close with Natalie’s family. After I turned seventeen, I left my foster parents to live in a group home for a couple years. They were two dark years fueled by drugs and alcohol. Though I had escaped my abusers, the nightmares, the pain, and the panic attacks refused to go away. It was either drugs or a noose. I needed something to take it away.

They made me go to rehab when they found out I was hooked on painkillers, and when I finished the program, Natalie insisted that I move in with her. I remembered sitting in the car with her, my stomach feeling strangely empty as if I had vomited for hours. I sat in that car with no fucking idea what I was supposed to do with my life. I had absolutely no one to ask for advice, no idea what to do or what I wanted. I just copied what Natalie was doing and applied to the same college she planned to attend.

Luke did the same thing.

He still didn’t move from me, the same resigned expression on his face that I knew deeply. His lips pulled into a bitter, half-smile and he shrugged his shoulders. Suddenly, I knew from the bottom of my heart that this would end badly. We were two damaged souls and together we were a self-destructive entity. The suggestion to drink ourselves into oblivion was hanging on my lips.

But he moved in closer before I could speak. “I need to feel good about something.”

His lips came crashing down on mine and I responded with a fervor that made his back slam against the glass wall. It was probably our first real kiss, not borne out of a desire to present an image to the press, but borne out of a visceral need to feel better. I needed him. I needed his closeness, his naked chest writhing over mine, and his lips and tongue fondling my breast. I moaned into his mouth as his hands slid underneath my shirt and groped my breasts, his thumbs slipped under my bra and grazed my flesh, flicking my erect nipples.

Luke’s mouth pulled away only to lift my shirt from my head, and then his lips were sealed against mine once again, his hot hands wrapped around my back to search for the clasp of my bra. It snapped away with one twist of his fingers and I felt the shock of the cold stinging my nipples. Luke closed the space between us and kissed my neck. My head tilted back and I let myself dissolve into the ecstasy that was his lips and tongue. His fingertips ran up and down my body, running up the small of my back and along the curve of my breasts. Then his hands began to tease the waistband of my jeans, slipping his fingers through to stroke the very top of my ass, curving around my hip bones and slipping down the thin fabric of my panties. His middle finger stroked my mound in a circular motion, both of us breathing hard. The familiar feeling of desire and fear reared up again, but I knew I was safe with Luke and it all felt so incredible. I reached down and unzipped my jeans and Luke bent down slightly to pull my jeans and panties down my legs. I wrapped my arms around myself, now completely exposed, and gazed at Luke with a little bit of fear.

He sighed in pained voice. “You are so gorgeous and I want you so badly, but—”

“—No.” I covered his lips with my hand and his blue eyes cut through me. “Please, don’t. I need this, too.”

My head was ringing. I was stark naked in Luke Pardini’s hotel suite, overlooking the night sky of London in his office. Perhaps I was dreaming. He nodded at me and I uncovered his lips.

“Ok, then.”

He grinned as he suddenly swept me into his arms and I yelped as I was lifted into the air. Luke sat down in the office chair with my body in his arms. I was curled over his legs and chest. I liked it. It was much more intimate. His erection was like a rock under my legs and I felt a stab in my chest, but he leaned over and kissed me, stifling my violent vortex of thoughts. Then he kissed my neck and then my breast, until finally his tongue went for the kill and sucked my puckered nipple until it was raw.

I moaned his name and wrapped my arms around his head, tugging at his dark locks as he sucked and tongued. His other hand groped down my hips, searching for the damp heat between my legs. His fingers found my slit and he rubbed the ridge of his middle finger up and down; I was so wet that I could hear myself all over his hands.

Everything condensed to just us; the external sounds disappeared and the background seemed to fall away like in a dream. His body was lean and hard, full of a powerful desire for me. He was like a furnace, chasing away every wisp of cold that clung to my skin. He stroked a finger inside me, curving it and striking just the right spot with the tip of his finger. I bucked my hips and cried out as pleasure bloomed all over my body.

Every thought was consumed by pleasure. I cried out for more, but Luke smiled patiently and resumed his careful rhythm. I gripped his head and forced his lips over mine. His finger slipped out and I felt him pull back as he looked at me seriously.