21. Steak and Kidney Pie #2
“You don’t think you’re being a bit unfair?” I asked as we rode up to the eighth floor of the posh Georgian building. “It’s not his fault they booted us from the reservation.”
“It’s not his fault at all,” Lucas agreed. “But I need a reasonable night’s sleep to continue doing the business that pays everyone’s salaries. And I won’t get that sleep knowing you’re next to a couple of mercenaries.”
“Didn’t you hire them for protection, though? Seems like that would be the safest place in the world.”
He darted a quick blue look my way. “In some ways, maybe. But leaving you alone in a room with two men isn’t something I ever plan on doing.”
On that note, the elevator opened, and I followed him down the hall, where he opened the door with a swipe of his keycard.
The hotel room was small but elegant, decorated in soothing grays and creams with a view of Hyde Park. It had everything we would need for a comfortable night except one essential item: a second bed.
One king-size mattress dominated the limited space.
One.
As in uno.
As in a single bed designed for two people.
Lucas dropped his bags. “Fuck.”
“Sounds about right,” I agreed.
“Apparently, ‘two double beds’ was wishful thinking.”
“I’m going to leave them the worst Yelp review,” I concurred. “One star: inadequate separation for fragile emotional boundaries.”
Lucas snorted. “Two stars if the sheets are soft.”
We turned to each other with straight faces and immediately started chuckling. Seconds later, I was leaning into the doorframe for support, giggling like I hadn’t in weeks while Lucas was shaking his head and grinning.
The tension that had enveloped us since last night finally cracked like a broken egg.
“I’ll sleep on the floor,” he said once we’d both calmed down.
I examined the narrow strip of carpet between the bed and the wall and then his tall frame.
“You’ll never fit. Plus, you have meetings all day tomorrow.
Your back will hurt, and you’ll probably end up costing your company a billion dollars when you bite the head off the prime minister or someone for saying ‘schedule’ too many times. ”
He chuckled. “I’ve slept in worse places.”
“So have I. We can share.”
The words came out more confidently than I felt, and it didn’t help that Lucas immediately turned to me like he thought I was crazy.
“Lucas, come on. We’re adults, and just last night, we were rubbing up on each other in the onsen like horny dogs. I think we can handle a giant bed with a pillow wall between us. I’m not very big.”
His jaw flexed. For a moment, he said nothing. Then, finally, “If you’re sure.”
I was. And, at the same time, I wasn’t. But I nodded anyway. “Unless you think you won’t be able to resist me.”
That earned me a reluctant smile. Crooked. Dangerous.
“Oh, I’ll behave.” He picked up his bag and tossed it onto the far side of the bed. “You’re the one who brought up horny dogs.”
“And yet,” I sang as I tugged my suitcase toward the bureau, “I will be the one making the pillow wall.”
He laughed again, low and warm, and the tension eased a bit more. A knock on the door revealed Robbie carrying brown paper bags filled with pub food from around the corner.
“All they had left was steak and kidney pie, whatever that is.” He handed me a bag. “So it’s that and English beer. Enjoy.”
The door closed, and Luke and I looked at each other again while the scent of the British staple filled the room.
“Shall we?” he asked almost shyly, gesturing to a tiny table by the window.
I smiled. “Seems like the best we can do for now.”
An hour and three slices of steak and kidney pie later, the practicalities of the situation forced us into motion. We needed to change clothes and get ready for bed, and there was nowhere to hide in the small space.
“I’ll, um, use the bathroom first.” I grabbed my toiletry bag and tucked my sleepwear under my arm.
Lucas nodded absently from where he sat at the head of the bed, looking over a report for the next day.
In the safety of the marble bathroom, I stared at my reflection in the mirror.
What was I doing? Sharing a bed with Lucas Lyons after what had happened between us in Japan was either the most foolish or the most dangerous thing I’d ever agreed to.
And somehow, he was acting like it was just another Friday night with a roommate, or even like we were an old married couple.
But here I was, wearing the silk pajama set I’d bought in Paris.
The shorts and a camisole in deep emerald that Louis had insisted made my eyes pop were modest by most standards but felt scandalous compared to my usual men’s T-shirts and sweatpants from the Goodwill.
I could still go out and swap the set for the latter option, but something stopped me.
Lucas wouldn’t care. I knew he wouldn’t care.
And it wasn’t about pretending to be something I wasn’t either.
For some reason, I wanted to look—no, feel —my best around him now.
I wasn’t sure why. But I didn’t want to second-guess it either.
When I emerged from the bathroom, Lucas was sitting on the edge of the bed in just a pair of black boxer briefs, his chest bare and abdominals crunched as he checked something on his phone.
The sight made me stumble.
I’d seen him shirtless in the onsen, of course, but this was different.
More intimate. The lamplight played across the muscles of his shoulders and chest, and I stared at the trail of hair that disappeared beneath the waistband of his underwear.
The bulge below it reminded me that I knew exactly what it looked like, and also what it felt like when it was larger. Longer. Harder. And rubbing against me.
As if he read my mind, Lucas looked up from his phone and, in one fluid movement, grabbed a pillow next to him and laid it across his lap. “Those cannot possibly be the only pajamas you own.”
Heat flooded my cheeks, but I stood a little straighter instead of hunching my shoulders. “You think it’s easy for me? Look at you. CEO by day, Michelangelo’s David by night. Who looks like that?”
The compliment seemed to surprise him. God, he was beautiful when he smiled.
“You think I look like a Renaissance sculpture?” He glanced down. “I’d like to think I’m a little better endowed, at least.”
“Don’t let it go to your head,” I teased, now grinning hard enough that my cheeks hurt.
I couldn’t seem to stop.
For a moment, we were stuck in an awkward prism of delight that neither of us had a right to enjoy the way we were.
Slowly, our smiles fell away, but we continued staring.
Lucas blinked. “Fuck it.”
He crossed the small space in two strides, then took my face between his hands and kissed me.
The kiss was soft and sweet, nothing like the desperate hunger of the onsen or the surprised intensity of the conservatory. It was a kiss born of affection, not just passion, full of the tenderness I hadn’t known I’d been craving.
I couldn’t help but return it.
I would have kissed him like that forever if he let me.
When he was finished, he set his forehead to mine. “You’ll have to excuse me. I just couldn’t help it.”
God, he smelled good. The ink and leather fragrance mixed with his unique musk that I couldn’t seem to get enough of. I could bury myself in that scent for days.
“We only have a week and a half,” I murmured against his lips, enjoying the way he kept feathering them over mine. “Before we go back to New York.”
I felt him still, felt the subtle shift as he processed what I was saying.
When we returned to New York, this would end. Daniel would be there. His family would be there. We would return to the real world, where I was the cook and Lucas ran a multi- billion-dollar empire, and in no universe would that ever make us compatible.
It wasn’t just the difference in station, either.
It was the facts of our lives.
I preferred—no, needed—a life of quiet predictability.
While I wanted the chance to step out of my shell every so often, I knew what kinds of things were required of a man like Lucas Lyons every day because, for ten years, I had been behind the scenes making the food for every part of it.
Meetings. Dinners. Social functions with two-hundred-person guest lists.
Daniel had the luxury of choosing these things, but as the head of the family, Lucas did not.
Even if, by some miracle, we could make it work, I didn’t fit in that life. I could cater it just fine. But I was no billionaire hostess, no lady of the manor.
And I didn’t want to be one either.
Lucas’s hands dropped as he stepped away. The loss of contact was a punch to the gut.
“I’m sorry. I promised myself I wouldn’t…not like that. Not unless you really wanted it.”
The distance in his voice made my chest tight. I did want him. He had no idea how much.
But it was only going to break my heart, and his brother’s too.
Right?
“Lucas—”
“It’s fine.” He rounded the bed and pulled back the covers on one side. “We should get some sleep.”
I watched him settle into the bed, his back to me, and felt tears prick my eyes as I rolled onto my side and turned off the lights. This was what I needed, wasn’t it? A return to the careful distance that protected us both from wanting things we couldn’t have.
So why did it feel like I was losing something precious?
The space between us felt like an ocean. I wanted nothing more than to be back in that mountain spring. In calm waters I could easily cross.
“Marie.” Lucas’s baritone was a soft burr through the darkness.
“Yes?”
“Can I—would you let me hold you? Just for tonight.”
His voice was vulnerable in a way I’d never heard before. It shattered my reserve.
Without a word, I shifted toward the center of the bed.
Lucas turned, slipped one powerful arm under my neck, and wrapped the other around my waist to hold me against his chest with a sigh that sounded like relief.
We really did fit together like two puzzle pieces, his larger body spooned around my smaller frame, my head tucked under his chin, his warmth surrounding me like a cocoon.
“Just once,” he murmured into my hair, “I want to fall asleep with you in my arms.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
Because while we were admitting hard truths, I felt safe here, tucked in his arms, in a way I’d never felt in my life.
Not in my little brown house in Belmont.
Not in my tiny apartment in Paris.
Not in my room above the garage at Prideview.
Here, in the arms of a man whom I had no right to love, sheltered by his steady breathing and the solid strength of his body, I finally understood safety. I had my first taste of true peace.
When slumber took me, it was with my name on his lips, chanted as a soft prayer.
“Good night, sweet Marie.”