15. charlee
FIFTEEN
charlee
“Head up Main toward Lincoln.”
For the first two blocks, I was too angry at him to talk.
By the third block, an awareness of the fact that I was in Lucas’s truck began to take hold of my body. I came to life for him in a way that had never happened with anyone before. I thought for certain the memory of him had grown to ridiculously epic proportions. After all, we’d never even had sex. I’d been a virgin, terrified of getting pregnant even when all of my friends were on the pill with no issues. It might have been irrational, but Lucas had honored my wishes. Waited for me. And maybe that was one of the things I appreciated most about him.
But the things he had done to me? My body always sang for him, and that was when we were teens. Now?
Let’s just say. . . there is a side to me that is very comfortable outside the limits of societal acceptance.
What. Did that. Mean?
“I’m not trying to get a rise out of your father,” Lucas said, breaking the silence. “I’d be pleasantly surprised if we didn’t.”
I looked over at him. Bad idea.
There was hot, and then there was. . . hot . Lucas fell into the latter category, and any woman worth her mettle knew the difference. No guy could fake that level of confidence, of comfortableness in his own skin. It was incredibly sexy. But also extremely dangerous.
I needed out of this truck before I did something stupid.
“Pleasantly surprised?” I said. “As in, we fake date. He doesn’t flip. And then what? We date for real?” Had to call a spade a spade here.
His clenched jaw said as much as any words that would come out of his mouth. Good. We might as well both be frustrated as hell.
“Lucas,” I said, remembering I was a grown-ass woman who’d vowed to stop playing games with the whole dating thing. It never led to anything but mixed signals and frustration. “What are we doing here? I reached out the olive branch and you—”
“Charlee. . .”
“No, I need to say this. Since the second I saw you last week you’ve been giving me mixed signals. Avoiding me. Pushing me away. But the way you look at me. . .”
“Charlee,” he warned again.
“If you’re going to say something enigmatic like you’ve been doing, please save it.”
“I don’t know where I’m going.”
Oh.
“201 Lakeside,” I said, feeling like an idiot.
“Lakeside?”
“I bought a small house last year.”
“Nice,” he said, turning left. I hadn’t even been watching where we were going. “As for that olive branch. . .” He shrugged. “Like I said, I’m not convinced much has changed since I left.”
I wanted to rail at him. To tell him he was being a complete asshole, that obviously things had changed. I’d changed, even if not as dramatically as him.
Except.
There was a kernel of truth to his words that kept my mouth clamped shut.
By the time we pulled up to my house, a two-bedroom lakeside cottage that I simply adored, every muscle in my body was tense, my hands one step away from shaking. This afternoon had not gone at all as planned—not that I had a plan. All I knew was that Lucas had the upper hand at the moment, and it sucked.
I was about to open the truck door when our eyes met one last time. Zero words were necessary to interpret the look he gave me. The same electricity that had always been between us charged the front seat of his truck in a way that glued me to my seat.
I couldn’t move. I could barely even breathe.
When Lucas lifted himself up and began to lean toward me, I could hear my own heartbeat. For a second, I thought he might kiss me, but instead he reached over, splaying his hand on my leg as familiarly as he might have done years ago.
The heat from his strong, capable hand easily penetrated my leggings. I stared at it for a second until my gaze meandered upward to his forearm. I wanted to touch the veins there before moving my hand upward to his tattoos. Trace them with my fingertips, ask him where and when he got them. What they meant.
But then all thoughts fled as his hand inched upward, so goddamn slowly. The whole time he watched me, saying nothing. When there was nowhere else for his hand to go, Lucas’s thumb continued exploring on its own. Gently it moved, circling and lowering to the exact spot where my clit was below the material of my stupid leggings. He pressed, ever so slightly, before his hand retreated back to where it began. Once again on my leg, Lucas’s fingers clenched, his forearm tightening.
Then, his hand was gone.
What. The hell. Was that?
“If we were to do this,” I heard myself saying. “What are the. . . parameters?”
Lucas sat back.
Was I really considering this?
Madness.
Natalie would kill me. My fiercely independent I am woman, hear me roar was already dying a slow death inside me that I was even considering his proposition.
“Parameters,” he repeated. “Good question.”
Oh, man. Was I really a few seconds away from coming just because this man had touched my leg? “This is nuts.”
“You know what’s nuts, Charlee? How fucking badly I want to tear those leggings off your body. But I won’t.”
“Because?”
“Because parameters. No sex.”
“You’re punishing me for holding back in high school.”
He was already shaking his head before I finished my sentence. “Oh no, don’t you fucking do that. It’s not punishment but preservation. It’ll be bad enough if this doesn’t work out without knowing what it’s like to be inside you.”
Holy shit.
The visual on that.
There was only one answer here. Hell. No. Abso-fucking-lutely no.
But apparently, I was a glutton for punishment. “I have a parameter too.”
“Send it.”
I swallowed. “No more mystery. If I ask a question, you answer it. Unless it’s something you’re truly uncomfortable with. Otherwise, full disclosure. If I’m going to open up, you are too.”
He was going to say no.
I could tell from the look on his face it was that horrifying of a proposition to make himself vulnerable to me. But I waited. Tried to be comfortable in the silence even if it was really hard to do.
Our eyes met.
He didn’t smile. Or frown. Or scowl. Lucas was utterly unreadable at that moment, and I got a glimpse of the warrior just then.
Which is why I could not have been more surprised when he said, “Done.”