It had been a month. One month and three days to be exact. That's how long Luke had been gone. He had suddenly been called out and had to leave almost immediately. Val didn't want to release him as he held her against him. His fingers ran through her hair slowly as his other arm wrapped tightly around her waist. The way he kissed her lips with such need it made Val feel like she was going to melt into him.
He had explained to her that he wasn't sure how long he was going to be gone, it just depended on how fast they could complete their mission. He said with the way the dossier looked it could take a while. He had also explained to her that for her safety that he wouldn't be able to contact her in any way. He wasn't even taking his personal phone with him on the mission for that reason. Val had protested greatly because she wouldn't know if he was okay or not the entire time, but he said it was a price that had to be paid in order to keep her and the others he cared about safe.
It had brought tears to her eyes as she thought about Luke getting hurt in multiple scenarios and she wouldn't have any idea what was happening with him. She knew that every day that passed by, she would be getting more and more worried about him. Part of her wondered if the entire thing was just her imagination and she would be back in Luke's arms in no time.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. Seconds turned to minutes, minutes to hours, hours to days, days to weeks and Val was miserable. She had tried to keep her mind occupied by going back to work at the Sacred Hearts Hospital. All she had to do was make a quick phone call and she was working in the Emergency Room again.
It was worse than Deja Vu going back to work in the hospital. Everything seemed so familiar. All the rooms were the same. The vibes were the same. The smells were the same. There were even a couple of her coworkers still worked there from before. They were more than happy to see her back and asked her all kinds of questions about where she had been. She wasn't sure what to tell them about it, so she just said she had moved out of the country before coming back to The States.
She fell back into the routine of the hospital life quite easily as if it were riding a bike. She loved that she was going back to work as a doctor and made sure to come up with a perfect plan to thank Luke when he returned to her. She was still in a daze that she was a doctor again. She loved that the hours were long and sometimes brutal, but that just gave her more reason to come home, shower, eat, then go to sleep for a while so she could get back up and do it all over again.
Her days off, however, consisted of her finding anything and everything that she could do just so she could keep her thoughts away from Luke. She prayed he was safe wherever he was. She missed him greatly. She missed the way his fingers brushed across her skin leaving trails of fire behind. She missed his smile. His taste. She knew she had it bad. Luke had managed to work his way under her skin.
There was a part of her that was hoping that every time he opened his mouth it would be the moment that he would ask her to be his girlfriend. The thought of it felt weird though. Was that how people their age did it? Did they handle it the same way as a couple of teenagers? Maybe people their age didn't even bother with asking and just fell into a comfort with each other. In that case, they were already dating in her eyes, but what if Luke didn't have the same level of feelings for her?
It was the third week of him gone that she had received flowers from Luke. She had laughed at the card attached because it simply just stated "From: Luke". She should have known better that there would be no declaration of love or anything of the sorts on the card, but she still figured there would have been more on the card than just his name. She smelled the flowers gently with a smile. Just the fact that Luke had sent her flowers showed that there really was a romantic side to him somewhere. She knew that the flowers he sent to her was partially just to let her know that he was fine.
On her day off, her, Letty, and Mia had found themselves having lunch together in a random diner they had found. Brian had kept Jack so they could have some time to themselves and to give Mia a break. Also because Mia had told him he had no other choice. Val had tried to pay attention to what the girls were talking about, but no matter how hard she tried, she felt her mind wander back to Luke.
She wondered where he was traveling to on his current mission. She wondered who he was going after. Maybe it was a group of people similar to her family. Maybe it was a drug lord. Maybe it was a war lord. Wherever he was, she hoped he was safe and warm and well fed. If he was in a third world country she knew it was going to be hard to keep him fed up to his standards. She would have to cook him a nice home cooked meal worthy of his appetite when he returned.
She came too whenever she saw Letty's hand wave in front her face trying to catch her attention. Val even shook her head a little as if she had to shake her thoughts about so she could back on track.
"You zoned out there for a bit. You okay?" Letty asked a little of concern across her face. Mia giggled catching both of their attention.
"Oh, she's fine, she's just regretting not getting Luke in bed before he took off," she teased. Letty narrowed her eyes at Mia, then looked to Val. Letty leaned towards Val quickly and put her elbow on the table.
"You haven't slept together yet?" she asked as if she was seriously shocked that they haven't been together like that.
"We're not even dating, yet," Val admitted. Letty's hand smacked the table.
"What the hell is his problem?" Val couldn't help, but chuckle at her.
"We're just taking it slow." Letty and Mia exchanged bemused looks then looked back at Val.
"Slow? Who are you trying to kid? You two are so hung up on each other right now that it's almost disgusting. You have literally spent every day together, you're all over each other, and it's hard to tell what happens behind closed doors, even though apparently it's not much. And I'm not going to lie, Val, with the way he looks at you, it's enough to give anyone an orgasm," Letty stated. Val covered her face with her hands and groaned.
A week later, Val had five days off from work and had it in her head that she was going to do absolutely nothing the entire time. She was exhausted. She had work four eighteen hour days in a row and even stayed at the hospital for one of those nights because she was too tired to drive home. She knew that if she got behind the wheel of her car that she would just end up back at the hospital and not to work.
She hadn't even changed out of her clothes before she plopped down on her bed so she could sleep. She had slept nearly the entire next day away, but when she came to she felt rested enough to where she would be able to function at least somewhat normally. She made herself something to eat since she had barely eaten in the past four days. As her food cooked was when she went into her bedroom to change out of her scrubs finally. She changed into a pair of shorts that she wore to bed and a cami. She put on a pair of knee high socks to keep the cool air of the air conditioner off her skin.
She had just made herself a can of soup not wanting to eat herself sick just yet. She sat down on the couch and started eating her soup slowly as she flipped through the channels trying to find something for her to watch. She found a movie, but hadn't really paid attention because her thoughts had always went back to Luke.
Luke couldn't stop thinking about Val. Every breath he took he hoped that there would be a random whiff of her scent somewhere. Sometimes as he would walk through the streets of the Middle East country he was currently in trying to shut down an entire drug ring, he would catch a scent that would remind him of her. If they were able to complete the mission at hand, there would be billions of dollars of narcotics off the streets worldwide. The drug lord they were currently hunting had been on DSS's radar for years and they were finally closing in on him.
Luke was beginning to get frustrated with the whole situation. He wanted to go home. He wanted Val back in his arms. He needed to hear her laugh. Hear her voice. See her smile. He hated that he wasn't able to call her since he was on a mission and he was glad that she understood why he couldn't. His chest had tightened when he had told her he couldn't because of the look of disappointment in her eyes.
He regretted fully that he hadn't asked Val to be his right then and there, but he couldn't do that to her then leave indefinitely on the mission he was currently on. He should have done it sooner. It had already been over a month since he had been back in the States.
He had sent her flowers, knowing how big of a mistake it was, but he had to do something for her as a token of his affection, a sign that she was on his mind, a symbol that he was still okay. He wanted so bad to put something romantically poetic on the card, but he couldn't think of anything that would be worthy of Val. It was hard to tell how many times that he tried to fill in the little box for what they would put on the card for him before he would delete it all then continue staring at it. He settled on his name and he was so ashamed of himself. He was sure the people at the flower shop were currently laughing at him for his lack of romance.
He had never really been the romantic type. He had no idea what he was doing. He wasn't even sure if Val was the type of woman to enjoy flowers. He wanted to slap himself for being so pathetic. His entire life he had always been so confident in himself then he has to go meet Val and he has to be just so beside himself about everything. It was pathetic.
When the mission was finally over and they were able to bring the drug lord down, Luke had only received a bullet to his side. It was just a flesh wound and it was taken care of by the doctors provided by DSS. It didn't hurt though every time he moved the wrong way he could feel the stitches tugging at the rest of his skin.
He wasn't able to get Samantha for a couple days since she had school and he didn't live inside her district, but he had stopped by to see her for a couple hours. She was so happy to see him and that he was okay. He held her tight against him when she ran to him. Shana, his ex wife, and Jerry, her new husband asked him to stay for dinner which he did.
He got along with Shana and Jerry. He liked Jerry. He treated his daughter like she was his own daughter. Jerry wasn't able to have children due to him being a diabetic. He treated Shana like a queen and Luke knew that Shana deserved no less. They talked loosely of his mission and they were so relieved to know that Luke had taken down a major drug cartel. It wasn't long before Jerry had brought up Val.
"So, Samantha here is talking about this new lady in your life." Luke gave Samantha a sideways glance. Samantha just grinned at him with a grin that clearly said "neener, neener, neener". "What's her name?" Jerry asked.
"Her name's Val. She's a doctor." Shana hummed very impressed by Val already.
"How romantic, is that how you met? Was she patching you up?" Luke thought back for a moment. He had known who she was and had even watched her as she moved about with the rest of the crew, but the first time they were alone and were able to talk, she was patching up his arm. He absentmindedly rubbed his arm where the scar was that she had fixed up.
"Actually, yeah," he said with a slight scoff. He wasn't sure where someone would be able to call that romantic by no means, but whatever worked.
"Well, I think it's great, but when are you going to let her meet our daughter? Seriously, Samantha wants to meet her."
"Yeah!" Samantha agreed. Luke chuckled and pushed his food around on his plate for a second.
"We're not even official yet. We're just casual." Shana frowned the pointed at Luke with her fork.
"Well, you need to hurry it up. I'd like to meet her too eventually." Luke's imagination went crazy on how the first meeting Val and Shana would have. Val would like Shana. He knew it would be a little awkward because it wasn't every day when divorced couples would be able to maintain a decent relationship with no kind of negativity towards each other.
After dinner, Luke helped Samantha with her homework and put her to bed. After that, he decided it was time for him to take his leave so he could go see Val.
He glanced over after he turned his truck on to see Shana walking towards it. He rolled down the window to see what she had wanted. He ran through all the items he carried in with him wondering if he maybe forgot something in there, but he hadn't.
"Jerry doesn't know, but Samantha told me who this Val really is. And how you really met her." Luke narrowed his eyes at Shana wondering what she was getting at. "But she makes you happy, I can tell. And you deserve that. Don't let her slip through your fingers." Luke grinned and nodded to her.
Luke had stopped by his home so he could take a shower and change into civilian attire. He was going to take his chance and make Val his. He felt that he wouldn't be able to relax until he asked her to be his. He was sure to grab a package of the condoms he had purchased just in case. A slight anxiety gripped at his heart as he thought of her rejecting him, but he knew it was thinking crazy. There was no way Val was going to turn him away. She just couldn't.
Val had finally managed to get Luke off her mind long enough to watch the climax of the movie she was watching to the end. She felt her stomach start to rumble as hunger took over her once more. She made her way into the kitchen so she could make herself something a little more filling than soup. She decided on spaghetti and pulled out one of her pots to fill with water. When she sat it on the stove eye and turned it on, she heard someone knocking at her door.
She quickly ruled out Roman and Tej since they had their signature "shave and a haircut" style knock. Dom would always call or text before coming over so it couldn't have been him. She thought maybe it was Letty, but she doubted it since Letty was still going through the small phase of not being able to leave Dom's side for very long almost like it was instinct. She put her money on it being Brian and Mia. Those two were always the spontaneous ones of the bunch.
She unlocked her door and slowly opened it up. She gasped in surprise upon seeing Luke standing there. He gave her a brief once over taking in her casual attire with a grin. She heard his name escape her lips in a whisper. She would have never thought it was Luke. He always called or texted whenever he came over. She figured he would have let her know he was back or something. She felt an unknown pressure build in her chest when she made the assumption that he wanted to surprise her.
She leapt forward and threw her arms around his neck. He responded immediately by wrapping an arm around her waist as his free hand tangled in her hair. He lowered her as she began to pull away from him and she kissed his lips a few times before wrapping her arms around him once more.
"I missed you so much, Luke," she said looking up at him. He reached up letting his fingers brush against her cheek. He doesn't repeat it back to her, but she could see it in his eyes. He had missed her too. She pulled him into her house and closed the door behind them. She locked it up tight then faced Luke again. His hands rested on his waist as her hands began to wander his body.
At first, Luke had thought she was doing it as a way to be sensual and he was enjoying every last inch her hands explored. It wasn't until he saw the serious, calculating look in her eyes that he discovered that she was examining him. He chuckled grabbing her hands to stop her.
"I'm fine, Val. Hardly a scratch on me." She narrowed her eyes at him.
"Hardly?" She slipped her hands out of his and began rubbing his body some more. Her fingers brushed against the patch on his side from where he was shot. She frowned looking up at him. She lifted his shirt though he tried to stop her and looked at the patch. "What happened, Luke? That's a huge patch!"
"A bullet just grazed me a little." Val looked up at him clearly exasperated by his words. Just a little he said. He pushed his shirt back down then kissed her lips again gently hoping that it would be enough to get her mind off his wound.
That was when they heard the sound of water boiling in the kitchen. Luke waited patiently for the proper moment to ask her to be his. The moment came as Val snuggled up next to him on the couch. They watched a random television show in silence before Luke turned to face her.
He told her about how he couldn't get her out of his mind the entire time that he was gone and how much he regretted that he never asked her sooner. He told her how he should have followed his gut and asked her as soon as he could. When he finally asked her, her eyes seemed to light up.
She crawled up into his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. She kissed his lips gently.
Luke had known Shana was right, there was no way he could allow a woman like Val slip through his fingers and there was no way in hell he was going to let that happen.
Author's Note: Hello once again to my wonderful, wonderful readers! I hope you guys are doing well! I am! It's been five days since my last update and here I was thinking that it's been so much longer than that since I have. So that's good news. I had to make another trip back to my homeland in West Virginia because a cousin had a mild stroke. He's doing well and should be going home in about a week if he keeps up recovery the way he is. I forgot my tablet at my apartment because I was in a hurry to get there so I didn't get a chance to work on it while I was there and I've been having withdrawls from this story.
ANYWHO! Hope you guys enjoyed the chapter. Don't forget to review and tell me what you think.
Also, welcome to all my new followers and people that have favorited my story. Thank you guys so much and I love you all!
Aven