His hair sticks to his skin, glistening with sweat in the early afternoon sun, and I ruthlessly ignore the urge to lick it straight off of him. He’s filthy, covered in grime and potting soil, but he makes it look impossibly good. His tattoos twist all the way up his arms to spill over his shoulders and down his chest, just barely visible through the white of his tank top. So many new ones, pieces I’m seeing for the first time right now, lines my fingers have never traced before.
The thought brings a sour taste to the back of my throat.
Lucas has lived a whole life after he left me, and all I get to see are the marks left behind. I hate it.
“Don’t have a face, huh?” he asks with a chuckle. “Guess that pretty thing on your head belongs to someone else, then.”
We both fall silent again.
He looks as shocked to have said that as I am to hear it. It’s a reminder of how he used to talk to me, always peppering in endearments and little compliments so casually I missed them half the time. My heart pounds traitorously in my chest. How fucking dare he? I hate the look on his face, hate that I recognize the softness around his eyes as affection and amusement, hate that he can probably read me just as well as I can read him.
Why couldn’t he have stayed gone? He already left once, and I don’t have the willpower to stay away from him. I never did. Now, when he’s put on fifty pounds in pure muscle and grown into his bulk properly? I don’t stand a chance.
“Why are you looking at me like that, Jenny?” Lucas’s voice is soft, barely loud enough to carry over to me, and I find myself leaning forward to catch the sound before it flits away. “Thought you couldn’t stand me?”
There’s a hint of something dark in his voice, something that might be guilt, or maybe sorrow. But his eyes? There’s nothing but fire there, heat and warmth and promises that he’s already broken, but scream like a siren song to me anyway. My whole body buzzes with what I refuse to admit is desire, my lips parting instinctively at the sudden need pulsing in my gut.
“I can’t. Fuck off, Cross,” I say with a snarl.
He shudders, teeth catching his bottom lip as he grins wickedly at me.
“You know I love that attitude of yours,” he croons, all pleased and inviting. “Keep going.”
I choke on my words, on the arousal searing through me like fucking lightning, on the sudden desire to yank him closer by his tank top and kiss him until he stops running his stupid mouth.
“Shut up.”
He takes a step closer, a bag of groceries slung carelessly over his shoulder, his bicep stretched and bulging with the weight.
“You want me to shut up?” he asks, blue eyes alight with glee and greed. “Shut me up, then.”
I gape at him, my hands clenching over the bags in the trunk in an attempt to ground myself. He’s been everywhere I look since I got back, but he hasn’t been likethis. Hasn’t hit on me, hasn’t done more than say good morning and crack a joke here and there. Something about this feels off — like I stepped on a live wire I didn’t even know was there, tripped a bomb, and there’s no going back.
The heat in Lucas’s eyes is anything but friendly, right now.
No, he looks like he wants todevourme.
And I can’t stand the fact that I want to let him.
The moment stretches on for what feels like hours, nothing but the racing of my heart and an impossibly strong pull between the two of us. It would be so easy to close the distance. What’sone kiss? It could even be a hate-kiss, nothing but fury and energy.
It wouldn’t change anything.
But then Lucas’s grin softens at the corners, and he drops his shoulders into a posture that’s far less demanding, less controlling. Watching him switch so easily into nonchalance yanks me right back into reality. We’re in front of the house, where anyone could see us, bags of groceries in hand. He’s my ex, who Ihate.
God, what the fuck was I thinking?
“You know, if you want something, all you have to do is ask,” he says casually, a lazy grin on his ridiculously handsome face. The moment has passed, thank God — but I know it’s still only a heartbeat away. And so does he, which he makes clear when he says, “I’ll give you whatever you want, Jenny.”
“I don’t want anything from you,” I splutter, desperate to save face.
He chuckles, the glittering amusement in his eyes only growing as he hefts another few bags into his arms. “Whatever you say,” he drawls. He drags his eyes over me, slow and intense, lingering on the low cut of my shirt as he licks his lips. “You let me know if you change your mind. I’ll give it to you good, if you ask nice.”
And just like that, he turns and heads up the walkway toward the house, leaving me to stand at the open trunk. I stare sightlessly into the sea of grocery bags, furious arousal pulsing through me with every beat of my heart.
“Rot in hell, Cross,” I mutter under my breath, gripping the grocery bags so hard that the canvas straps will probably leave indents in my palms. “Rot in fucking hell.”
JENNY
