He grabs his fork and digs into his dinner, leaving me staring at him and speechless.
He’s not hitting on me.He’s flirty, jokes about dating me, but doesn’t actually ask me out.Not that I necessarily want him to ask me out, only because I can already see how this won’t work out between us.We live in completely different worlds.He’s a jock, I’m a bookworm.We don’t even share the same interests.
Oh, the over-analyzing is tiring.I shove my fork into my food and take a bite, keeping me from saying anything that will embarrass me further.
“I like her,” Nova says, nodding at me, as if I’m not right there and can hear every word.
“Me too,” Luca chimes in.
“Wow, I have a fan club,” I joke, trying to break the awkwardness that I feel with the two of them discussing me, right in front of me.
“Sign me up,” Luca says.“Do I get a card that I can carry in my wallet?”
“Sure, if you’ve got twenty bucks.”I hold out my hand teasingly.
After dinner, Luca drives me back to my dorm.
He leaves the car running, with Nova in the backseat, but climbs out when I get out.
“Are you walking me to the front door?”I’m half-joking but also kind of hopeful.
Although I don’t know what I’m hoping for exactly.Another heated kiss?When I think about that night, my lips still tingle and warmth floods me.
“Is that okay?”Luca asks as he grabs my backpack from the trunk and slings it over his shoulder.
“Sure, I guess that’s fine.”
“What kind of gentleman would I be if I didn’t make sure you made it home safely?”
I don’t want to admit that I’m not ready to go home.If Quinn, my roommate, is around, it’ll just be hell until bed.I suppose I’ll pop on some headphones and watch a movie on the laptop until I fall asleep.
“I could never deny a gentleman anything,” I joke.
“Is that so?”he grins, and I feel heat flame my cheeks.
I head for the dormitory door, and he’s right beside me.We enter together, Luca escorting me inside the building and all the way to the front door of my dorm.
“Have a good night, Harper,” Luca says, and he leans in, brushing his lips chastely over my cheek.I turn slightly, letting his lips brush mine, needing a taste, wanting a reminder of what I felt that other night.
It all comes flooding back and more, the heat, the tingles pooling in my stomach and lower, making me feel things new and foreign.The butterflies are back, but this time I’m not upset or angry.I know he’s not interested in another girl, at least not Nova.
A part of me wants to invite him inside my dorm room, to finish our exploration and discover so much more about each other.But I know Nova is in the back of the vehicle, the heat on, but she’s waiting for him to return, to take her back to the house.And it’s that tiny voice, the annoying one that stops me from taking things any further.
Even though I want it.
I want him.I want Luca Ricci.
It’s fact.I’m falling for him, and I don’t know how to stop or even if I want to.
“Goodnight,” he says again, this time softer and sexier as his lips pull away.He’s smiling, his eyes dark and shining down at me.
I refrain from dragging him into the dorm room.I’ll have dreams about it, fantasies for the next several nights, imagining how it would go down if I tugged on his shirt and pulled him into the room with me, our limbs tangling together between the bedsheets, naked, hot, and sweaty.
A soft sigh escapes my lips, heavy and throaty as I whisper, “Goodnight,” back to him.
He plants one more kiss on my lips and waits for me as I fumble with my key before slipping into the dorm room, closing the door behind myself.
The warmth, the heat that flowed through me, instantly chills when I hear the sound of Quinn laughing and moaning as she’s making out with another random guy on her bed.
