He wanted to take her.
Hand in hand down Main Street. Leaves crunching underfoot. Kettle corn grease on his fingers. Her laugh warm against his collar when he pulled her close against the cold.
He wanted to lean down and kiss her under the garlands of lights without caring who saw.
He wanted the town to know.
This is her. She’s mine. I’m hers.
Not secret. Not hidden. Not contained.
A life.
And she had asked him for exactly that.
Dinner on Main Street. His hand in hers. Daylight.
She hadn’t demanded forever. She hadn’t asked for a ring. She’d just asked not to be hidden.
And he had weighed up everything she was offering him and turned her down. Like a fucking idiot.
Grace looked up then.
Her eyes found him immediately.
For a split second, something flashed across her face—surprise, warmth, followed by a moment of hurt she quickly buried. A memory of his rejection.
Luke didn’t look away.
He didn’t step back.
He stood there with the school moms and the minivans and the wind kicking leaves across the pavement and let himself want something he had once been too afraid to claim.
He was ready.
God, he was so ready.
Because Grace Hart wasn’t just someone he wanted to protect.
She was someone he wanted to build a life with.
CHAPTER 33
Grace
The new locksgleamed against the chipped white paint of her front door.
Luke opened the door, held it for her, followed her in.
Luke Bennett, inside her house, had always meant one thing.
His hands on her skin. His mouth on her throat. Her back hitting the hallway wall, her spine arching off the bed, her breath catching against the back of the couch.
No future. No promises. Just heat and shadows and need.
And every time, after he'd had his fill, he'd left her.
She watched him now, moving through the rooms. Showing her the new locks. Acting like they were something. Like she was more than just someone he touched in private and ignored in public.
