“So tell me, why was your evening so bad that you chanced total rejection by coming here?”
Lucas raised an eyebrow. “As if you’d reject me. We both know better.”
I snorted and tried pulling my hand away. We were crossing into awkward hand holding territory. My palm was getting clammy and the last thing I wanted was for him to feel how sweaty I was. But I couldn’t help it. I was all frantic heartbeats and belly flips with him so close. I had regressed to a middle schooler around her first crush.
But Lucas wouldn’t let me go. Instead he laced our fingers together and gave me a squeeze.
“It was nothing. Just sometimes being me is a ball ache.”
“It must be all the good looks and money,” I joked.
Lucas turned to me, the television completely forgotten. “You think I’m good looking, huh?”
“I refuse to inflate your ego any more than it already is. I think you’ve had enough smoke blown up your ass for one night.”
His face became serious. “You were right, you know.”
I swallowed a little thickly. “About what?”
“I did originally come here for a booty call.”
My heart slammed against my ribcage. I felt a mixture of irritation and desire.
“And I told you that’s not going to happen.” I was finding it hard to look at him. As my grandmother would have said, he was too pretty to be looked at.
Lucas cupped my face in his hand. It was a tender gesture completely at odds with his comment. “I think that’s why I want you so badly. Why I can’t stop thinking about you.”
He wanted me? He couldn’t stop thinking about me?
My stomach flipped and tumbled.
“Why is that?” I whispered. I could barely speak. My head was a mess. My heart was beating so hard I thought I’d pass out. And I was definitely getting clammy hands from my nerves.
Just great.
Lucas ran his thumb along my bottom lip. “Because you’renotthat kind of girl. You don’t take shit. You speak your mind. And you’re unimpressed by everything I do,” he chuckled.
“Well, I’m notcompletelyunimpressed,” I admitted.
Lucas’ lips twitched. “Oh, not completely?”
“I think you’re a very impressive soccer—sorry football—player.”
“Really? Well thank you,” Lucas leaned forward and kissed the corner of my mouth. I sucked in a breath. Well then…
“And you’re television navigation skills are decent.” I was being swallowed alive by the butterflies in my stomach.
“There is that,” he murmured, kissing the skin beneath my earlobe.
“But I was raised to be a good girl, Lucas,” I told him firmly. I covered his hands with mine and inched backwards. I needed some breathing room. Otherwise I was in danger of passing out. Or diving tongue first into his mouth.
“I know you’re a good girl, Morgan. You’re the best girl. The one I’d take home to meet Mum if I was into that sort of thing.”
He meant it as a compliment but it hurt. Because it showed all too clearly that his head wasn’t in this for a commitment. He wasn’t invested in something serious. He wanted a wam bam thank you ma’am. That was it.
But I wasn’t looking for anything serious either. So why should it bother me that he was the same?
Because I was a silly girl who wanted the boy to pine for her.
