I’d be lying if I said I knew how we ended up in a car with a driver and a bodyguard in the front seat. To be one hundred percent honest, the next thing I remember is being back in my apartment. I must’ve lost at least half an hour by his side.
At least there’s no risk of Taylor showing up tonight—she’s been spending more and more time at William’s place.
When I open my eyes again, I find myself in bed. Lucifer is taking off my shoes.
I shoot up, trying to act like I’m totally fine, even though I’m clearly drunk.
God, please don’t let him figure out how obsessed I am with him while I’m like this. It’s pathetic enough that I waited all these years, only to end up making a fool of myself.
“Give me a minute. I’m going to take a shower.”
“This isn’t a social visit, Jackie,” he says, his voice gruff. “I probably just saved you from being assaulted.”
I blink a few times, trying to focus on what he’s saying. Then it hits me—the two guys I danced with at the club to provoke him. I only did it because I was sure he’d come after me.
I want to deny it, to say nothing would’ve happened. But I can’t. I know I put myself out there and I’m ashamed. Still, I’d do it all over again if the prize was having him here with me. Even if it’s just to get him out of my system once and for all, I need answers. Even if they don’t come from his mouth, even if they’re just in a cold, indifferent look, I need to know whether I’ve been living in a fantasy.
Tonight is my one shot, my boldest move yet, to show him that what I feel has nothing to do with brotherly love.
“It doesn’t matter. I just need a quick shower, and then I’ll make us some coffee. Or I can get you a drink. I mean... I don’t even know if you drink.”
He doesn’t answer. He just stares at me in the dim light of the bedroom.
“I don’t really care about the coffee. Just... don’t leave yet.”
My voice fades at the end, but I don’t care about sounding vulnerable. I’ve waited too long for this moment.
“You’ve got five minutes,” he says, and I take off running.
That commanding tone of his definitely does something to me.
I shower in three. Throw on a pair of shorts, panties, and a T-shirt in one minute flat. Just as I’m about to step out of the bathroom, I catch my reflection in the mirror—one of my eyes still has mascara smudged under it. I look like a panda.
I splash water and soap, and now I’ve got a red eye with smeared makeup, but I’ve got twenty seconds left, and I won’t waste this opportunity to be with him. Even if, after half an hour of talking, I realize he’s a jerk and I wasted all these years.
“I have to go,” he says as soon as I enter the living room. This time, I’m the one who says nothing.
My arms hang limply at my sides, completely unguarded, and I realize that’s basically a metaphor for what my life has been like when it comes to Lucifer.
Protected from the world, but never from him.
My dead brother’s best friend. The man who took it upon himself to keep looking after me the way Martin would have if he were still alive.
But who’s going to protect my heart from him?
Despite what he just said, he doesn’t make any move to leave. He stands there in the middle of the room, just looking at me.
As big and strong as I remember.
Lucifer seems to dominate the entire space—like my apartment suddenly shrank.
Or maybe it’s just that, inside me, he’s that massive?
His intense eyes, paradoxically, give away no emotion. That chiseled jaw, the thick brows framing the face I’ve always considered the most beautiful I’ve ever seen—none of it lets me guess what’s going on in his head.
I want to say something. Move. Do something. But it’s like the deep midnight blue of his gaze holds me frozen in place. Forthe first time, I don’t see Lucifer as a romantic fantasy. I see him for what he is: a man with too many secrets, most of them probably dark. Someone who never knew what it meant to be cared for or loved when he needed it most, as a child.
Someone with a heart beyond repair?
