I laughed. “Yeah, well, so do I.” He’d been walking away from me, toward the kitchen area, but looked at me over his shoulder at that and smiled.
God, when he smiled at me I just wanted to peel all my clothes off and rub myself all over his big, strong body.
“Somehow I don’t see you doing whiny,” he said. He went to a drawer, opened it, and started rummaging around what looked to be delivery menus.
My phone vibrated in my jacket pocket and I reached for it on the chair—nothing was very far away in the small room. I pulled it out of my jacket and looked.
Syd and I going to a party later tonight. Will you be back?Jane had texted.
I looked at Lucas’s back, how his broad shoulders tapered down to his waist and how his jeans fit so perfectly. And that ass. Good Lord, where to start on Lucas’s ass?
No. Have fun, I texted back.
Lucas turned and walked back to me, a pizza menu in his hand. “What’s up?” he said, motioning with his chin to the phone in my hand.
“Nothing,” I said. “Just Jane checking in.”
“Afraid you came to the dark side of town and disappeared?” He was teasing, but there was something a little serious in his voice. A little defensive, and I knew I’d need to be aware of, and careful of, Lucas’s slight insecurity about where he came from.
Hey, we all had our shit to deal with. I knew I certainly did.
“No, not that. She just wanted to know if I wanted to go to a party with her and Syd—that’s our suitemate—later.” I had meant to show that Jane wasn’t concerned about my safety, but I realized by the look on Lucas’s face that I probably shouldn’t have been so honest.
“Doyou want to go to the party with them? ’Cause I can bring you home as soon as Andy wakes up. Hell, I can have Mrs. Jankowski come over and stay with Andy and I can take you home right now.” He rattled this all off so quickly, I almost didn’t grab his hand in time before he’d turned and walked away from me, presumably to make plans to take me home.
But I did grab his hand, and I held on tight. I even reached out with my other hand, holding his in a tight grip. “Wait. No. No, I don’t want to go to the party. I want to stay here.” He looked down as he stood over me. A thousand emotions played over his face.
I’m not what you need.His words to me that first night played over in my mind.
He was probably right, but right now I needed nothing as much as I needed Lucas Kade to want to be with me. To want to hug and kiss me. To want to do everything to my body that I wanted to do to his.
I tugged on his hand. “Lucas,” I whispered. I leaned back into the corner of the couch, pulling him with me. He didn’t resist, but he didn’t fall on top of me, either. “I don’t want to go to any party tonight. I just want to be with you.”
He put a knee on the couch next to my hip. He held out his free hand in front of my phone, like he wanted me to hand it over to him. Did he want to check and make sure I wasn’t lying? Would he be that type of guy, always checking my phone? I could see that kind of possessiveness from Lucas, but not that kind of insecurity. But really, how well did I know him?
I gave him my phone, still holding on to him with one hand. He didn’t look at it, not even a tiny peek, but took it, and his own and the forgotten pizza menu, and placed them all on the scarred coffee table in front of the couch. He even put both phones face down on the table.
“Won’t Andy be whiny if he has to wait for dinner?” I said as Lucas, with the ease and grace of an athlete, lifted his other leg and straddled me. Each of his knees were now on the couch, and had me encaged. A cage I was dying to fly into and lock the door behind me.
“I’m willing to put up with an Andy fit if it means I can put my hands on you that much sooner,” he said as he towered over me. He smiled down at me and I let out an answering sigh, my body melting all the more.
“Me too,” I said quietly as I sank further down into the couch. I laid my hands on his legs. The denim of his jeans felt rough and cool, and I was vaguely surprised to not feel his body burning up the way mine seemed to be. I slid my hands up his rock-solid thighs, circling around to his ass.
He just looked down at me, but his eyes burned and his nostrils flared as if he could smell me. He probably could—I seemed to be emitting pheromones like I’d just been swimming in them instead of the IM pool.
“We can’t…go very far,” he said, his voice low and throaty. He cleared his throat and continued, “Seriously. Andy will wake up soon and come running out here. And I just don’t want to have that talk with him quite yet about why his big brother was naked and on top of Miss Lily.” An ever-so-small smile crept across his face even as he undressed me with his eyes, paying particular interest to my chest, and that strip of skin showing below my shirt.
“Okay. So no Naked Big Brother and Miss Lily,” I said. I dropped one hand from his ass and I swore I saw him flinch from the loss. I touched the hem of my shirt, brushing the back of my hand across my bare tummy.
Lucas made me want to step out of my passivity. Made me want to be bold. Made me want to stop being the peacemaker and instead be the fire starter. “So, just how farcanwe go?” My thumb slipped beneath the cool knit cotton of my white shirt, Lucas’s eyes following the motion.
He swallowed hard. I followed the motion with my eyes as it traveled down his throat, wanting to lick that exact spot.
“God. So not far enough,” he said. He reached over his shoulder and pulled his hoodie over his head, taking his T-shirt with it. Instinctively I reached out and hung on to the gray cotton T-shirt as he got rid of the hoodie and tossed it on the chair, on top of my jacket.
“What was I thinking?” I said as I pushed the T-shirt up his body, admiring his hard abs like I had when I’d first seen him in his board shorts at the pool. “Get rid of this too.” I smoothed across his chest, the T-shirt falling over my hand, hanging up on my wrist. It didn’t matter. I could now feel that gloriously warm skin. The only thing better would be to feel it against my bare chest.
“That whole Naked Big Brother thing, remember?” he said, chuckling, as he lowered and adjusted the T-shirt back into place. But he didn’t move my hand. Instead he placed his on top of mine, but outside of his shirt.
