He was jolted awake at dawn, startled by the speed of his thoughts.
Their bodies had been reconfigured at some point during the night; she was draped over him now, her ear pressed into his chest. Luke relocated the blanket, tucking the corners under him, securing her to his body.
He glanced down, watched the top of her head lilt softly as he inhaled.
He pictured her, closed his eyes and recalled her face, knowing that the complexities of their undertaking had reached every conceivable emotion. Thinking about their night together, he could picture her laughing, crying; crinkling her brow in concern, then in anger, in climax. Understanding that she had used him to work out so many of her frustrations, trying to ignore the voice that said he didn't care why they did it, because they finally did. Knowing full well that what had transpired between them, the reel of memories that would be incessantly replayed in his mind, was likely much different from hers.
She would assure him otherwise if he asked. She would persuade him, as she had earlier, that she just wanted to be with him. That it was desire, the desire just for him, that had roused her hands, urged them to the back of his neck, and pulled him into her lips for the first time. The same desire that encouraged those hands to unbutton his shirt, trace the dimples in his lower back, clutch the pillow in lieu of a headboard.
He certainly knew better. He hadn't let himself believe her at the time, but he'd wanted to. Enough to push it from his mind and step closer, take her hand. To convince himself that he knew her well enough, that he could make her forget about why she was there in the first place.
And though he wanted to know now, to have some intimate knowledge of the purity of her affections for him, he knew it wasn't possible.
Because it wasn't that she didn't want him. It was that she needed him. Emotionally, and now physically, she was coming to depend on him.
He let his thumb arc slowly across her skin, from shoulder blade to shoulder blade, then upwards. Cupping the nape of her neck. He knew she would always try to convince herself she had control, no matter the situation. She would insist that she had slept with him by choice, that she had exercised free will in the matter. Her head had rendered the verdict and her heart had complied. Together, agreed to banish Christopher. To embrace Luke. To be an adult.
Luke knew better than to convince her otherwise. And he knew better than to upset himself over what couldn't be changed.