Chapter Twenty Luca #2
Juliette rolls her eyes and swats the end of the bottle, sending it spinning wildly. Luca watches as the light catches off the deep green glass and sends a shower of emerald light shards across the table. It seems to spin forever, time suspended as Luca prays it doesn’t land on her.
The wind picks up, ruffling Luca’s hair and making the bottle do one additional rotation. Then it stops, pointing directly at Luca’s chest. Her gaze connects with Juliette’s, who is staring at her with intense dark eyes.
Luca looks away and sees that everyone’s gazes are bouncing among them, riveted spectators waiting to see what Juliette will ask and if Luca will respond. Heat prickles Luca’s neck. She waves a hand at Juliette. “Ask, then.”
Juliette’s eyes narrow. “I’m thinking.”
“Really? I didn’t think you ever thought before you spoke,” Luca snaps back. Though her retort came quick and sounded confident, she feels like she wants to peel her own skin off. She’s too warm, the prickling sensation growing to an irrepressible itch.
Juliette’s knuckles blanch as she tightens her fists on the table. “Would you ever sleep with another player?” Her question burns through Luca. Every eye is on her, and Juliette knows, without a doubt, the answer. Luca was inches from crossing that line with Juliette the other night.
The longer the silence stretches between them, the more smug Juliette looks.
Luca snatches her beer and sips it. It’s an answer in and of itself.
Tightness winds itself like a spring around her chest, a screw twisting again and again—and it snaps.
Luca puts down her beer. “Excuse me.” She pushes out of her chair and it takes every ounce of her control to not run off the patio.
The night presses in, suffocating Luca. Of course Juliette wouldn’t care if her answer to Remi’s question and her own question humiliates Luca in front of their friends and two incredible tennis legends.
Now they’ll all think they slept together.
And Luca can’t even refute it because she can’t very well explain that “ No, actually, we didn’t sleep together, And I wouldn’t sleep with any other player.
But my very pretty soulmate? Yes, actually, I want that very much. ”
It’s all just a game to Juliette. One that Luca doesn’t want to play.
Even though she wants to throw up after that conversation, her mind supplies her with thoughts of being with Juliette.
The moment in bed when they could trust each other to be vulnerable without the fear of rejection.
When Juliette had told Luca of her fear of being injured again.
In that moment, Luca hadn’t wanted just sex, but also Juliette’s emotional vulnerability.
And Luca doesn’t trust Juliette to put aside her jealousies and games to give Luca that. All she wants to give is the physicality, and that is something Luca can’t give away.
Luca ducks behind the thick foliage that creates a secluded path down to the beach and swerves into the tree line, away from the water.
A faint citrus scent tinges the salty sea air, causing Luca to pause by one of the many potted lemon trees and breathe in deeply to ground herself, but the tangy aroma reminds her of silky curls between her fingers, now just out of reach, and she winces.
Footsteps slap against the path behind her and Luca turns, her anxiety spiking. It’s dark under the foliage, almost too dim to see, but she still recognizes Juliette’s lithe silhouette and curly hair.
“What the hell is your problem?” Juliette yells, stumbling to a stop. There is nowhere for Luca to go except deeper into the trees toward the beach or back toward the house.
Juliette followed her. For some reason, maybe to toy with her again. That thought roots Luca’s feet in place. “I don’t have a problem,” Luca says, hating the tremor in her voice.
Juliette sways. She must be drunker than Luca thought.
The wind picks up and a shimmer of light cuts through the leaves and catches on Juliette’s high cheekbones, the curve of her jaw, the flutter of her lashes.
Luca’s stomach clenches as she remembers her fingers skating across that smooth skin, her mouth rough and hot.
She’s been avoiding thinking about it for two days, and as much as she tries to forget, the memories sear through her.
“No? Then why do you keep running away from me?” Juliette demands, taking a half-step closer.
The irony is a slap in the face. All Juliette’s ever done is run away from Luca. The locker room in Australia, the beach that first night, when she put aloe on Luca’s shoulders.
“Says the queen of running away from uncomfortable conversations,” Luca snaps.
Juliette flinches, having the grace to at least look away, chagrined.
“And I’m not running away. I know when I’m not wanted,” Luca adds. She wishes she wasn’t trembling, that she could remain cold and steely—like ice, like her father had been.
Juliette shakes her head with a wry laugh. “No, that’s not it. I kept kissing you the other night. I wanted you. I still want so much more.” Desperation coats her tone, but Luca can’t fool herself into thinking it’s earnest.
Luca wonders if this is what being lit on fire is like.
The itchiness crawls across her overheated skin, and it only burns more, knowing that Juliette might be the only balm.
“I realized I don’t want you at all,” Luca says, turning her face from Juliette so perhaps she won’t see how much the words hurt to say.
“You’re such a liar, Luca Kacic.” Juliette steps closer, nearly nose-to-nose with Luca now.
The use of her full name has Luca reeling, and she is suddenly too aware of the throbbing beat of her too-fast heart. Anger flashes through her, hot and searing, burning in her throat and pooling on her tongue.
“So are you!” Luca snaps. “You say you want me. Why? And if you do, why do you say things that make me think you don’t?
If you’re just messing with me, Juliette…
” Luca can’t even finish the sentence. Juliette shakes her head, curls bouncing wildly around her.
She breathes out heavily, and Luca feels Juliette’s breath across her face.
They’re so close now, chests heaving and anger radiating between them.
Luca rakes her eyes over Juliette’s ruddy cheeks, the curls falling into her eyes, the intense heat of Juliette’s gaze threatening to light Luca into a burning inferno. Her fists are clenched, as if Juliette’s keeping herself from grabbing Luca and crushing their mouths together.
“Go back to hating me,” Luca says finally. “It’s better for both of us.” She stumbles a halfstep backward.
Juliette licks her lips, drawing Luca’s gaze.
The motion is hypnotic, pulling her eyes to the glossy sheen on her lower lip.
Luca clenches her fists tighter, palms stinging, the pain the only thing keeping her from lunging at Juliette and stealing another taste of her lips.
The air is charged and electric around them, burning hot and about to catch flame.
All they need is a match. The craving to lick every inch of her beautifully tanned skin is driving Luca mad.
Desire and anger and arousal—it’s hard to distinguish between them, and Luca is dizzy.
“I don’t think you want that,” Juliette snarls, she strides forward and Luca backs toward the trees, but there is nowhere to run now.
Juliette thrusts up her jaw. They’re almost nose-to-nose again, but this proximity feels so different from the night before, when they had been trembling together rather than against each other.
Luca attempts to shake the memory of last night from her mind. “Well, I do. And you hate it. You hate that now I don’t want you.”
Juliette shakes her head minutely, her eyes slowly skating down Luca’s face to her throat… her chest… and hips. When her eyes snap back up to Luca’s, they spark with triumph. “Oh, you want me.”
Luca stops breathing for a second. She takes a step back, but Juliette follows, staying just inches away.
“I don’t want you and I don’t need your mind games.
Why do you think I stopped? I don’t have space for you and your baggage.
” Her nerves are raw and frayed, centimeters away from snapping and sending her spiraling.
Luca knows Juliette Ricci will be the death of her and her career.
She has achieved so much, but she craves even more.
Her career has just begun, and she has worked too hard to give it up.
Now she has a target painted on her back, the world number one ranking hanging around her neck like an albatross.
Juliette, regardless of what she says, is caustic and volatile, unpredictable in her whims. So even if Luca itches and desires more than anything to kiss and touch Juliette, she won’t. She can’t .
“I don’t believe you,” Juliette breathes, desperate and shaky.
Luca’s back hits a tree, and suddenly Juliette’s hands are planted on either side of her waist, trapping her against the tree.
She is thoroughly trapped. She wants to snap her body into Juliette’s like they’re puzzle pieces, release the tension from her body, and get some much-needed friction on her itchy skin and throbbing core.
“You believe we have power over who we love.”
Juliette shivers. “And what does this have to do with love? You drive me crazy. I want you, you want me, why can’t it be that simple?”
Juliette’s words are a shower of cold water that extinguishes the passionate heat threatening to overwhelm Luca. “It is never that simple,” Luca hisses, and she shoves Juliette away from her.
Juliette stumbles back, and Luca traipses down the path. This time, Juliette doesn’t follow. Luca doesn’t realize she’s back in the villa and upstairs until she slams her door shut behind her.
She sinks against the frame, pressing her fists into her eyes so hard she sees sparkling ribbons of color. She wants to scream. Luca considers for an unhinged moment abandoning all her common sense and dragging Juliette up to her room to release all the steam burning inside her.
She chokes on a laugh. It’s always been pathetic how wrapped up in her fantasies she’s been.
Even if she wants Juliette to pleasure her, she can’t give in to temptation.
She can’t have that sort of relationship again.
She has too much to lose, and she isn’t certain she could put herself back together again.
Luca’s legs shake, but she gets off the floor. She doesn’t need Juliette Ricci. She doesn’t need a one-night stand. Especially not one with the woman cosmically designed to ruin her.
She might not need one, but she definitely wants it.