Chapter 17
seventeen
. . .
Jess
It’s almost midnight by the time I finally crawl into bed. The apartment is quiet. Lucas retreated to his room about an hour ago, claiming he had emails to catch up on. I said something snarky about corporate masochism, but really, I was relieved to have a little solitude.
Not because I didn’t enjoy dinner. The opposite, actually. I enjoyed it too much. It felt too real, like we were breaking rules we’d silently agreed to maintain.
Now the lights are off, the AC is humming, and I’m settling into that delicious place between almost asleep and dreaming when I feel it.
Something brushes my leg. Light. Tickling. Crawling.
I kick off the covers and sit up so fast I nearly punch myself in the face. My heart jackhammers against my ribs as I jump from the bed and slam my hand on the light switch so my eyes can scan the room like I’m searching for an assassin.
There it is. On my comforter. In my bed.
Eight legs. Too many eyes. Way too calm for my liking.
“Oh, HELL no.”
I trip over my own feet and launch myself across the room like I’m auditioning for a one-woman Cirque du Soleil show. I grab the closest weapon—my slipper—and shout at the spider like it’s personally threatened me. Because, well, it has.
“Do NOT come any closer. I will destroy your entire bloodline, I swear to God!”
The door bursts open with enough force to rattle the windows. “Jess?!”
Lucas skids into the room, out of breath, chest bare, wearing nothing but black boxer briefs and pure panic.
The light spotlights him, showcasing those broad shoulders and defined muscles narrowing to a trim waist. I’ve seen him in swim trunks at Grant’s pool parties before, but this is different.
This is intimate. This is bedroom territory.
“Are you ok? What happened?” His voice is rough with alarm, and his eyes frantically search the room for danger.
I’m pointing at my bed with my makeshift weapon. “SPIDER.”
He blinks. Once. Twice. “You screamed like you were being murdered because of a spider?”
“A large spider,” I clarify, still breathless, trying desperately to keep my eyes above his neck. “With opinions.”
He follows my gaze and sees it. Then he calmly walks over, grabs a tissue from my nightstand, and handles it like it’s no big deal. Which, to be fair, it isn’t, but I refuse to be shamed.
“You face down some of Hollywood’s most powerful players in interviews on the regular,” he says, his mouth quirking into that half-smile that does things to my insides, “but this is your weakness?”
I cross my arms, realizing too late that I’m in a thin tank top and sleep shorts that suddenly feel much shorter than they did five minutes ago.
And Lucas is standing way too close, wearing only form-fitting boxer briefs that hide precisely nothing.
My skin suddenly does that tingly thing that makes the hair on my arms stand up.
“I wasn’t expecting a house guest with fangs,” I manage, aiming for nonchalance but missing by about a mile.
“That’s what you call me now?” His mouth twitches, and his eyes crinkle at the corners. “I’m hurt.”
I swat at him with my slipper. “Very funny. You can go now.”
But neither of us moves.
The air shifts.
His gaze drifts down over my bare legs, up to the curve of my hip, and to the rise of my chest where the tank dips just slightly.
I watch his throat work as he swallows, and something tightens low in my stomach.
The cotton of my tank top suddenly feels too thin, and my nipples harden under his gaze in a way that’s impossible to hide.
My eyes betray me and do the same inventory on him. He’s all lean muscle and golden skin, with a scattered trail of dark hair narrowing down his abdomen and disappearing beneath the waistband of his boxers. I can see the clear outline of him through the thin fabric, and my mouth goes dry.
When I finally drag my eyes back up to his face, his pupils have dilated, turning his eyes nearly black. Neither of us says anything.
Not with words.
His hands flex at his sides like he’s physically restraining himself from reaching for me. I find myself swaying forward slightly, magnetized.
“Thanks for the save,” I say, my voice a little too breathy, a little too quiet.
“Anytime.” The single word comes out rough, almost a growl.
The tension stretches between us, elastic and charged. For a heartbeat, I think he might close the distance and take the two steps that would bring his body against mine, his hands in my hair, his mouth on me.
He backs out slowly instead, giving me one last lingering look before pulling the door closed.
I sink onto the edge of the bed, my heart pounding like I just sprinted a mile. My skin feels too tight, too sensitive, every nerve ending alive and humming with awareness.
God help me.
I am so screwed.
I fall back against the pillows and press my hands against my eyes as if I can physically push the image of him out of my brain.
It doesn’t work. All I can see is the way his muscles shifted as he moved, the clear definition of his abdomen, the way the boxer briefs clung to the curve of his ass when he turned to leave.
This is ridiculous. I’m a grown woman, not some horny teenager. I’ve seen half-naked men before. I’ve interviewed actors fresh from set and dated reasonably attractive men. None of them made me feel like I might actually combust from wanting.
But Lucas, dammit. Lucas, with his perfect face, surprising cooking skills, and the way he looks at me sometimes like I’m the only person in the world worth listening to.
I grab my pillow and press it over my face, groaning into it.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. We had an arrangement: a clean, professional, mutually beneficial business arrangement with an expiration date. No messy feelings. No inconvenient desires. Just fake marriage, mutual advantage, clean split.
But there’s nothing clean about the thoughts running through my mind right now, thoughts involving Lucas’s hands, Lucas’s mouth, Lucas pressing me into this mattress until I forget my own name.
The ache between my thighs becomes impossible to ignore.
As I squeeze my eyes shut, my hand trails down my body almost of its own accord.
If I’m going to be tortured by thoughts of Lucas anyway, I might as well find some relief.
I slip my hand beneath the waistband of my sleep shorts, and my fingers find the slick heat that betrays exactly how much he affects me.
I imagine those strong hands roaming every inch of my skin, remember the way his muscles moved beneath his shirt as he cooked for me this evening and the way his bare body came to my rescue just now.
My breathing grows ragged as I picture him above me, those piercing eyes dark with want, his voice rough as he whispers my name.
A small whimper escapes my lips before I can stop it, and I press my free hand firmly over my mouth, terrified that he might hear through the thin wall between our rooms.
I work myself faster, chasing the release that builds low in my belly, all the while imagining Lucas’s mouth replacing my fingers, his tongue doing impossibly skilled things that make my back arch off the bed.
When I finally come, it’s his name I barely manage to muffle against my palm, and the satisfaction is both perfect and completely inadequate at the same time.
As good as that was, I know it would be infinitely better with him.
I toss the pillow aside and stare at the ceiling, trying to regulate my breathing. It’s just physical attraction, I tell myself. Proximity and convenience. We’re both reasonably attractive people living in close quarters. Of course there’s tension. It doesn’t have to mean anything.
Except it does. It means something because it’s not just his body I’m drawn to.
It’s the way his eyes crinkle when he laughs.
The focused intensity on his face when he’s working.
How he listens when I talk about my mom, my career, or anything else that matters to me.
The careful way he handled the spider, respecting my irrational fear without making me feel small for having it.
I roll onto my side and stare at the door he just walked through, wishing it would open again. Wishing he’d come back. Wishing a lot of things I have no business wishing.
There are still five months left in our arrangement—five months until I secure my inheritance and we go our separate ways like we planned. Thank God he’s going away this weekend. I need a break.
I slip out of bed and pad to the bathroom, where I splash cold water on my face. The woman in the mirror looks flushed, and her eyes are too bright, like she’s running a fever. In a way, I suppose I am.
I’ve caught feelings for my fake husband.
And as I crawl back into bed, I realize with perfect clarity that I’m in far deeper trouble than any spider could ever pose. While Lucas might have rescued me from eight legs and too many eyes, there’s no one who can rescue me from this.
Least of all myself.