No…
I need him to understand something.
“We can stay here as long as you need. The door’s locked, so no one is coming in. Just…” Professor Levine looks at me almost helplessly, like I’m spun sugar melting beneath all my tears. “Tell me what you need.”
It’s too much and it’s ridiculous… and I still say it anyway. “You. I just need you.” I don’t miss the warmth that flashesthrough his eyes chased by something close to pain. “I don’t want to lose… whatever this is. You don’t understand.” I drop my head to his shoulder and inhale the warmth of his scent, wondering if it’s going to be the last time I get to. “I don’t know why, but you’re the only person I know who makes me feel… safe. I don’t want to lose that.”
Chapter
Twenty
MADDOX
I don’t know why,but you’re the only person I know who makes me feel… safe.
Fuck me.
Luca’s words rattle around my head for the rest of the week.
It’s a losing fucking battle.
There’s nothing about Luca that’s pretending to be the adorable mess he is. He wants nothing from me, not hanging on to see what I’ll become. I make him feel safe. Cared for.
Loved?
I scoff as I shuffle the papers that Luca left on my desk for filing when he ran out of time today.
Looking around my office, I see how much better he’s made my life in only a few weeks. Desk clean, filing cabinets no longer overflowing, I can even see my floor again.
Not only that, I haven’t made any students cry in a while. Sure, I scared one of them the other day, but that was in the name of teaching.
Luca is making me better by doing nothing more than being himself.
The scary thing is, he’s awakening the caretaker side of me I thought was dead long ago, and I didn’t even notice until wewere in that prop room and I was comforting him. I didn’t know I needed to feel that warmth, that steadiness from taking care of someone until Luca leaned into me and told me I made him feel safe.
My feral side almost went fucking crazy when I saw Hilman touching him. Something about the flash in Hilman’s eyes and the slight quirk of his lips had me dashing outside to… I don’t know, save Luca from him.
What the fuck is Luca Archer doing to me?
Feelings that were nonexistent even weeks ago are surfacing, fighting for dominance. One minute I want to take care of Luca, to be gentle with him and show him how good I can make him feel. The next, I want to ram into him, fuck him into a fucking coma nice and rough so he knows who he belongs to.
Crista is right; I need to figure my shit out and not drag the kid along. I know what that’s like and I didn’t like it. I need to?—
A hard knock sounds at my open office door and I look up, meeting the skeevy gaze of Professor Alec Hilman. I fucking hate this clown. Something about him bugs me, something that it seems only I can see.
The entire campus sees this veneer he wants to show them, but I’ve peeped his shit. He’s scummy and it’s only a matter of time before everyone else knows it.
“What?” I ask with an edge to my tone. I’ve never liked him, but seeing how he was so insistent on taking Luca with him, even when Luca pleaded with his eyes not to let it happen, makes me want to fucking deck him. Mostly for touching what’s mine, but also because I don’t like his face.
He looks taken aback, like my tone startles him. Another act. I might be a big guy, but he’s not afraid of me. If he were, he wouldn’t still be standing in my doorway. “Am I interrupting?”
I huff, tick up an eyebrow, and say, “What?”
He takes a step inside, looking around my office with a slight sneer. He flicks his muddy brown eyes back to me and flashes me that smile I want to wipe off his face. “I was wondering how Mr. Archer was. I haven’t seen him since he burst from the building, tears streaking his cheeks.”
Tears streaking his cheeks? Who thefuckdoes this guy think he is? A fucking fiction writer? No one uses “tears streaking his cheeks” in casual fucking conversation.
Alarm bells ring in my head. The auditorium I’m using and Hilman are in the same building. Luca has been here every day, working until his scheduled classes or attending classes with me. If he hasn’t seen him, it’s because Luca is actively avoiding him. The question is, why?
