Chapter 21
21
“ H ey.” Joan nudged Lucas. “It’s your walk up song.”
The first notes of “Fast as You” echoed from the Bourbon House’s speakers. The music lineup that night proved eclectic, to say the least—they’d moved from eighties pop to hip hop to country.
Lucas smiled. “God, I miss those days.”
She threaded her arm through his and tugged. “Want to dance?”
He studied her for a moment, calculating, and her throat grew tight with apprehension. Was he trying to think of a polite way to turn her down? They’d danced together before, but this felt different. Tension thickened like smoke around them.
He plunked his drink down and stood with her, leading her to the dance floor as her nerves wound tighter. A heavy bass line reverberated through her bones. The bitter scent of draft beer brought on a wash of memories involving college parties and dancing with their friends. She had time to wonder how stringy her hair looked, given how much it had rained on them earlier, but he wouldn’t care.
Lucas rested a hand on her shoulder and the other on her torso, though his touch remained light, like he worried about getting burned by direct skin contact. He twisted away from her and then back again, marking the rhythm with his feet. He was a talented dancer, something she’d noted with detached amusement in the past, but that now set her blood humming. The two of them moved together, maintaining a bit of polite distance.
He caught her eye, assessing her. Whatever he saw there must have emboldened him, because he snaked an arm around her waist to bring her body flush with his. Her eyebrows flew up in surprise.
“You okay?” His mouth lingered close to her ear, and she shivered. She wasn’t okay, but only because the entire wall of bricks she’d built around the idea of her platonic buddy Lucas crumbled around her in a pile of dust. They were almost dirty dancing, grinding a little, and she wanted to lick his neck. His pulse throbbed in the dim light, and she glanced at it, feeling like a vampire about to consume someone’s lifeblood.
Instead of saying anything, she nodded. She didn’t trust herself to utter anything that wasn’t some version of a proposal to take their clothes off. Taut lines of anticipation locked them together.
It was unbearable.
The next song started, another fast tune, and Joan swayed her hips. Lucas’s hand moved down, perilously close to her ass. She couldn’t decide if she wanted to urge him along or to put a stop to his path. The heat of his eyes on her could have melted glass.
Joan leaned forward to speak into his ear. “Can we go back to my apartment? We should talk.”
“Yeah.” He exhaled and dropped his arm. Joan missed the weight of it around her. “Yeah, I think we should.”
Another rain shower soaked them on the way into the apartment. She squealed as they sprinted through the rain, thinking of getting caught in the downpour together when they had messed around on the baseball field only a couple months before. How long ago it seemed, like that memory belonged to another person.
“I won,” she announced as she slammed the door behind them.
Lucas stared at her, his chest heaving, water dripping from his hair and slicking his neck. She thought he might tip forward and kiss her, and they hovered at the edge of it, tilting toward one another like magnets. They needed to talk first, though, to not do anything impulsive, even though her body sang with desire. She could tell he held himself back, too. His hands were clenched, his shoulders lifted.
Joan pulled her damp hair out of its ponytail. She retrieved a pair of shorts and a T-shirt from her bedroom and tossed them to Lucas.
“These are yours,” she told him. “If you want some clothes that haven’t been rained on. You left them here a few weeks ago.”
After they had both changed, she gestured to the couch. The scant distance between them burned with suspense. She shifted in her seat, unable to get comfortable, finally deciding to cover herself with a throw just so she had something to hide under. In the light of her apartment, away from the dim bar and the heady thumping of bass, she wondered if this was a wise idea.
Lucas regarded her like she might be a wild animal.
“What are we doing, Jo?”
She glanced away, then settled her attention back on him. She could be brave and assertive. “What do you want to do?”
His head met the couch behind him. “You want honesty?”
“Of course.”
“In that case, I want to do terrible things to you. You have no idea.” The air around them absorbed the sound of his heavy gulp. “No fucking idea.”
“I think I do, actually.”
The rain pounded outside the window, creating a soothing backdrop for what was otherwise a charged conversation. Lucas scooted closer to her without breaking her eye contact.
“So your answer is yes, then? To our deal?” She held her breath.
“Fuck yeah. Is my answer, I mean.”
The air felt heavy. Lightning slashed across the sky in front of her living room window.
“How do we do this?” She tucked wet hair behind her ear. “I don’t even know where to start.”
He patted his lap. “Put your feet up here.”
She eyed him. “Want to give me an explanation?”
The sound of his laugh seeped into her skin. He pulled her legs onto his knees, turning her in the process so that he lay back on the arm of the couch.
“Let’s start with something super low stakes. I know you did your leg workout yesterday, so I’ll give you a foot and calf massage. That’s not too different from the ways we've already touched.”
Joan hesitated. “Will you tell me if my feet are gross? I’m pretty sure my sandals were soaked from the rain.”
“See? This won’t be too weird,” he said. “We’re already acting like ourselves. And your feet are not gross.”
She tensed for a moment. “This stops here?”
He put his hand over his heart. “I swear it. You don’t have to worry about me. This won’t be good for you if you can’t relax.” He smiled sheepishly. “I read about some things, too.” He looked around as though he’d forgotten something. “You have lotion anywhere?”
“Side table there. Underneath those coasters.”
He retrieved it and rubbed some between his hands. The moisturizer had a citrusy scent, and it made her think of making lemonade with him when they were children. This was, of course, a much different activity they were now participating in. She reclined on the cushions as he cradled her foot in his hands. When he pressed a thumb to her arch, she wilted like spinach. His movements swept back toward her heel, eliciting a groan from her.
“Maybe we should just do this every day. How did you get so good at it?”
When she peeked at him from her position on the couch pillows, he watched her intently, and electricity arced between them. With his hands moving against her feet, her heel, her calf, and inching upward, she almost couldn’t stand the anticipation. Then he trailed his hands back down to her feet, and she sighed in relief, or disappointment. She couldn’t decide which.
“I’m just good with my hands, I guess.” When she peeked at him, his eyes were glued to her thighs. He truly was into her legs. She’d never noticed him looking before, but maybe that would be different now that he had more explicit permission.
She let one of her legs fall open. His jaw slackened as his gaze crawled all over her inner thigh, like he was unable to drag his eyes away.
“This is supposed to be friendly.” He chuckled when she let her leg fall even further.
“Feels friendly to me. God, Lucas.” She groaned again. He was moving up and down her calf again, circling her Achilles, and she thought she might float away. The air crackled. Lucas focused on what he was doing, but she could also see the signs that this was affecting him—the tensing of his biceps, the flush in his cheeks, the clenching of his jaw.
She squeezed herself with her arms, then tried to settle. It was a maddening dance of desire and comfort, pushing and pulling against one another.
He finally trailed his fingers along the top of her foot and leaned back. He’d taken his hat off yet again at some point, and his hair was partially mussed, partially flattened. His black T-shirt had ridden up on his back. His eyes were glassy and his pupils dilated. The word “wrecked” came to mind.
“So,” he said. “That was…”
“Yeah,” she said. “Kind of intense.” A hint of self-consciousness crept into her thoughts. This was the first time they’d touched one another with any kind of sensual intent, so there was bound to be some adjustment.
“I should probably get going, though,” he said. “I really do have an early lesson.”
“Of course.” She stood shakily, opening her arms for a hug, and he folded her against him. There was a hunger in his wide stance, in the way he clutched at her, and she noted with another rush of heat that he was a little excited, too, half-hard as her pelvis met his. “I’m a little worked up,” he said sheepishly. “But I won’t push you, I swear. We can think about this for a while. We can change our minds. Or go, like, glacially slow with it.”
Joan remembered Kendall’s comment about a fictional man who apologized for his erections and she almost erupted into hysterical giggles. She clamped her lips together.
“I know, Lucas. I promise.” She opened the door for him. The rain had stopped. The warm breeze and the sound of crickets filled the space between them. She pitched forward to kiss him on the cheek. “Thank you. You’re a great friend.”
“Of course I am.” He put a hand on her shoulder.
She shook the fog from her brain again. “Sweet dreams, Luke.”