A Deckerstar AU

Chapter 4

As the days passed by, Charlotte’s words started to eat away at Chloe.

She thought about her marriage, the one that was now coming to an end.

She thought about how she had always put Dan first, how she had sacrificed so much to keep him happy. She had turned the other cheek so many times, tried desperately to never hurt him, despite how much he hurt her.

She thought about how many times she had taken him back after he promised to do better… and how many times he never did.

He always let her down.

He always let Trixie down.

Chloe thought about her daughter.

Sometimes she couldn’t believe how much she loved her. It was a physical ache in the pit of her belly, an invisible string tied from her heart to hers. There wasn’t a thing she wouldn’t do for her—for her safety, and her happiness.

So, Chloe thought about what Charlotte had said… and she thought about Lucifer.

He was mysterious, and a little unpredictable, and a lot weird. He never took anything seriously. He liked to live on his own terms. He was confusing in a time when she needed her life to make sense. She needed simplicity, stability. Not just for herself, but for her daughter.

The first time they had sex, that day she had burned in his office, it had just been a way to scratch an itch. She had been angry—at him, at Palmetto, at Dan, at everything. She had used him to release all that pent up rage, used him as a way to replace it with the mind numbing release she knew he could give her. And he had. He had calmed her down and made her feel relaxed.

But he had also made her feel wanted.

He’d made her feel sexy, and important, and powerful. And now, they weren’t just fucking; they were speaking, and laughing, and sharing stories, and he still invited her to dinner every week.

The stirrings in the pit of her stomach, the butterflies fluttering with more than desire, scared her. She didn’t need this. She couldn’t entangle herself in another relationship with an unpredictable, dangerous man, and she couldn’t allow it to be used as a bargaining chip to hurt her.

So the next time he had her up against a wall, entangled in a passionate make-out session… the next time he husked “have dinner with me” into her ear, she replied—

“We need to break up.”

She felt him stiffen.

Fuck, she thought. I shouldn’t have said it like that.

His mouth lifted from her neck. His tongue stopped tracing those lovely patterns. His body stopped pressing against hers. He took a step back, and she mourned the loss.

He cleared his throat and twisted one of the expensive cufflinks at his wrist.

“I wasn’t aware we were together.”

She narrowed her eyes at his dry, almost cold, tone.

“We’re not, but…”

But this is something.

“But what?”

She huffed, her cheeks suddenly burning. She shifted against the wall behind her, righting her clothes back in place.

“But we’re doing… something,” she struggled with the words, with how to describe it, this strange and rare and fragile thing between them.

“Something,” he repeated, his tone flat.

Chloe suddenly felt annoyed, flickers of embarrassment licking hot inside her. This wasn’t a relationship, but he was wrong to pretend it was nothing… to look at her like she was insane for even using the term breakup. He knew what she meant… and he was being difficult.