He smiled, a wide, genuine smile that made my breath catch in my chest. So, so gorgeous when he smiled. “Stick’s more of the talker. I just sit there and look pretty.” His grin was infectious, and I smiled back at him.
“Well, pretty as you are, you’re going to have to talk to me. You blow me off like that again, and that’s the last you’ll see of me.” I was still smiling, and my voice had a joking, teasing tone to it. But he knew I meant it.
His smile faded a little. “I know. And Lily, I’m really sorry that I handled it so badly. This is kind of new for me.”
That stopped me. Gorgeous Lucas, football star Lucas, must have had tons of girls coming on to him.
“What, exactly, is new to you?”
He waved a hand between us. “This. Us. You. Being…caring…about how a girl’s feeling.”
“You didn’t care about other girls’ feelings?” Maybe my radar about Lucas being a good guy really was off.
“Well, yeah, sure. But there was never any girl that I went out of the way to… Listen, I’m not great with words, and I know I’m going to screw up what I want to say.”
“You’re right. I don’t want to talk about other girls in your life.”
“That’s just it. That’s what I’m trying to say…badly. There were no other girls where I felt like this. Wondering where they were, what they were doing. And not in a stalker kind of way. But because I really cared where you were, what you were thinking, what you were feeling. It’s all different with you, Lily, and…and…I don’t really know what I’m doing.” He sat forward, his arms once again resting on his knees. But this was not a relaxed pose; he was leaning toward me. He put a hand out as if to touch my knee, then pulled it back. “So, bear with me, okay?” he whispered.
“Okay,” I whispered back, with no hesitation.
I would bear with Lucas. And, I suspected, very shortly be bare with him, too.
Chapter14
He movedto the edge of the bed, then dropped to his knees on the floor in front of me. He placed his hands carefully on my knees, gently, as if I might bolt with a sudden movement.
I wasn’t going anywhere.
I placed my hands on top of his. He turned his up so we were palm to palm.
“Remember what I said to you that first night? Right outside this building?” he said, looking up at me.
I did and nodded, but I waited, wanting him to repeat it. Wanted him to deny it, take it back.
“I’m not what you need,” he said, echoing his own words.
I hadn’t answered him that night, but now I said, “Don’t I get to decide what I need?”
“And do you? Do you need…this? Us? Me? God, I want to be. I want to be what you need.” Pulling his hands from under mine, he wedged them between the back of my knees and the chair, rolling it closer to him. I instinctively spread my legs so that the chair slid right against his chest.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Yes, what?” he said, his voice low and throaty.
Excitement rushed through me. My body, tingling since I’d seen him, moved to fever pitch.
“I need…us.” I slid to the edge of the chair, my legs dangling down at his sides. My ballet flats fell off my feet with a subtle movement. I heard them plunk softly on the carpeting like the sound was a million miles away. Everything was a million miles away, except Lucas right in front of me.
“I need…to kiss you,” I said. I wasn’t sure if I moved off the chair first, or he pulled me, but I was straddling his lap, my hands in his hair and my mouth on his.
He tasted like sweet coffee and I drove my tongue into his mouth, nearly frenzied with wanting to taste him.
He sensed my urgency, and wrapped his arms tightly around me, his hands going to my hair. In seconds, he had released my bun. I moved away from the kiss, his face following mine. He opened dazed eyes, watching to see if I had changed my mind.
No way in hell had I changed my mind. I wanted Lucas with an intensity I’d never felt before.
It was like a physical craving, like when you needed salty chips or chocolate. It was what had always been missing with other guys I dated. It had definitely been missing with the one boyfriend I’d slept with.
