Chapter Fourteen #3
I was. I really was. With my cheek pressed to Lucas's chest and the reassuring thump of his heart filling my ear, tension drained out of my spine and my stomach growled. In the quiet of my kitchen, it was loud.
"Do you think you can eat that sub you brought home?" Lucas asked, his voice gentle, his fingers threading through my hair.
"Yeah, I should at least try. If I don't, I'll wake up in the middle of the night starving." Middle of the night kitchen raids never went well, even in an understocked kitchen like mine.
"Where do you want to eat?"
"I'll just sit on the floor in here," I said.
Lucas released me to go grab my sandwich and I sat, leaning against the wall.
Tomorrow, I was getting a table and chairs.
Nothing fancy, just a folding card table and some folding chairs.
They'd come in handy later when I needed extra seating, and I was getting tired of eating breakfast standing up.
Lucas handed me my sub and a paper towel before taking a position across the room, leaning against the wall, his arms folded across his chest. I wasn't sure I had an appetite until I took the first bite of the meatball sub. It was cold, but it was still delicious.
The second the tang of marinara sauce hit my tongue, I realized I was ravenous. As I chewed and tried not to look like a pig, I thought about what had happened. Everything. Aiden firing me and my moving in here. Getting jumped in my yard, the threatening note . . .
I needed to figure out what to do.
I knew what I should do. And I knew what I wanted to do. Halfway finished with my sub already, I swallowed and looked up at Lucas. There was worry in his green eyes.
I didn't know if I liked that or not. I didn't need another overbearing male worrying about me, but it was nice to know he cared.
Unless he was just worried I was going to get killed and then he wouldn't be able to have sex with me anymore.
That was a possibility. At the moment, it wasn't important.
"I don't want to move back in with Aiden," I said. "I want to stay here. In my house."
"I get that," Lucas said evenly.
"But you think I should move back into Winters House."
"You'd be safer."
I looked down at my sub and took another bite. I couldn't argue with his logic. Winters House was on ten acres, behind gates, and built like a fortress. It wasn't impenetrable, but it had layers of security. Intruders were far easier to spot than they were here.
Lucas interrupted my thoughts.
"Unless you stay at Winters House twenty-four seven, you'll still be exposed. You've got a solid security system here, and I'm next-door."
"I don't want to move back into Winters House," I said, resting my head against the wall and closing my eyes. My voice wavered with tears and exhaustion. "I want to stay here."
"Then you'll stay here. You need to be careful. We'll talk about taking precautions in the morning. For now, you need to eat, and then I'm taking you to bed."
Tears pricked my eyes again. Dammit. What was with all this crying? Lucas's gentle consideration when I suspected he'd rather just tell me what to do softened something inside me.
I didn't know what to say, so I finished my meatball sub and stood so I could throw out the wrapper.
"You look like you're about to pass out standing up," Lucas said. He wasn't wrong. I could feel myself wobbling a little. Every muscle in my body was drained.
My brain was done. Just done.
I didn't want to think about anything. I wanted to sleep.
Lucas wound his arm around me and urged me down the hall, stripping off my clothes and nudging me onto the futon. He disappeared into the bathroom for a few minutes before he came back and started to undress.
I don't know what I was expecting. My mind was too sluggish to consider sex. Watching Lucas strip through half-closed eyes, it occurred to me that it might not be time to pass out quite yet.
Lucas wasn't my boyfriend. And I wasn't a client.
He wasn't spending the night on a futon too small for him because it was fun. Our whole thing was about sex. That was why he was here.
It was okay. I'd get into it as soon as he started touching me. With Lucas, it didn't take much. He slid beneath the blanket, lying on his back. I rolled into him, hiking one knee over his legs and pressing my palm to his chest, intending to let my hand drift south.
My fingers skimmed his warm chest, dipping into the grooves of his muscles, tracing the line of his abs. He caught my hand when it hit his hipbone, wrapping his fingers around mine and pulling them back up to press my palm over his heart.
"Go to sleep, Princess."
"But—"
Lucas passed his hand over my hair, starting at my temple and sliding around the back of my skull and down my neck. "Go to sleep. If you're too wired to fall asleep, I'll fuck you. Promise."
I grinned into his chest and let my eyes close. I doubt it took more than another minute or two before I passed out, lulled by the heat of his hand stroking my hair and the pulse of his heartbeat echoing in my ear.