Chapter 12
?
I’m an attention hog, too.
Clara
Crossing my legs over Lukas’s lap, I smile at the stupid cuteness taking place on the pages before me. My toes might be wiggling, and I might be far too engrossed to realize the possessive hand on my thigh is a little less-than-friendship-levels-of-friendly.
It’s not uncomfortable, though. Not even a little bit.
Or else I would not still be merrily reading.
Obviously.
I gasp, clapping my hand to my mouth when the male lead drops to his knees, bows his head, and begs. Yes. Please. Fabulous. Thank you, ma’am. I’ll have another.
Lukas’s thumb moves against me, mindless, as he scrolls on his phone, and I catch the edge of his smile when I look up off my book. He’s not paying attention to my leg in his grip. He’s not even paying attention to me. At all. He’s focusing entirely on his phone.
As though I’m not sitting here. On the couch with him in his bedroom. Wiggling my toes adorably.
That he hasn’t thrown his phone across the room, reeled me in closer, and demanded a play-by-play of my book yet is actually impossibly offensive.
Twisting my left wrist toward me, I look at the feathering ink of his signature. Then I subdue a very real, very aggressive need to march from his bedroom, gather my glitter pens, and return the favor with sparkly vehemence all over his body.
Glittery muscles. Speckled in Clara’s. Dappled in hearts.
Obviously, I have lost my mind.
Still in his little phone world, without me, Lukas splays his caress higher, dipping fingers beneath the skirt of my nightie toward the skin-tight shorts that spare me from chaffing. He then rides his touch back down to my knee. The motion repeats, and I watch over the pages of my pink paperback.
Up, up, up.
Down, down, down.
Scroll, scroll, scroll.
This feels…wonderful. It sends a frisson of heat rippling through me.
His fingers begin kneading into my muscles, and I settle, pampered, drowning in the incredible sensations. I wish I had another book. I’ll be done with this one in a few minutes, and then what will I do? Pretend I haven’t finished so I can stay right here for several more hours?
Maybe I’ll pretend to fall asleep.
I know I’ve seen him bench over twice my weight before, so he could absolutely relocate me with ease, but maybe he’ll contend to stay trapped all night instead of trying to move me. Curling up to enact my heinous scheme, I yawn and let my book slip from my fingers.
“Tired?” Lukas murmurs. Immediately. As though he is paying attention to me. At least a little bit.
Who? Me? No, no. I’m not tired at all. I am passed out. Gone from this world. Sorry, mister, you are too late.
Already very clearly asleep, I make a tiny, asleep person sound.
He chuckles. “Staying with me tonight?”
My heart flutters. What a lovely idea. Will you pay attention to me if I stay with you, I wonder?
“Want me to carry you up to the loft?” He kisses my temple. “Tuck you into bed with me?”
That sounds terrifying.
Is he small? Absolutely not.
Am I? Yeesh. Also, no.
Therefore, I’d rather us not break all the bones in our bodies when he loses his balance and we go careening down the stairs.
For self-preservation reasons, I open my eyes.
It is too late. Lukas has already swung my legs off him, stood, and scooped me up.
Losing my book on the couch, I squeak as he hefts me against his chest like I’m a petite princess. Opposite of a petite princess, I grip onto him for dear life, catching his hair in my grip.
His voice rumbles, “If you start pulling my hair, I’m not sure I’ll make it to the bed in one piece.”
“Sorry!” I free the silken strands, latch onto his shoulders, cling.
Nonchalant, he strides to the stairs, taking them steadily before delivering me into the soft cocoon of his unmade bed.
Lost amid the rumpled sheets, I barely have a moment to suck in a breath before Lukas settles on top of me.
Palms planted on either side of my head, he smirks, kneeling around me, eyes agleam, dark hair resting over his broad shoulders.
The strands shift where they fall beside my cheek, tickling my neck, as he dips and presses a kiss to my forehead.
My eyes close, and peace overcomes me.
Even though I know this is it.
Friends or not, Lukas is a man, and I’m not oblivious to the attraction between us. He doesn’t leer or sexualize me, but there is a heat in his eyes sometimes that relays nothing more than blatant desire.
Tomorrow morning, I’ll leave my bunny off my calendar while I wrestle with what it means to have someone I almost trusted ravish me. Or…maybe…just maybe I’ll put the bunny in its place anyway and recognize, fully, that if I’m ravished tonight, it will not have been anything close to assault.
Already, I’m fairly sure we’re not just friends. I may neither have experience with friendship nor romance, but even I know there’s something more here. Something wonderful.
Lukas’s hand settles against my waist, fingers indenting my softness. His lips move to my cheek, the corner of my eye, the curve of my jaw. “What do you say when you want something from me?” he murmurs in my ear.
I shiver as his breath coasts against my skin. “Please.”
His smile spreads against my cheek. “Do you wanna stay here tonight, E-clair-a?”
Desperately. “Will it be a bother?” I ask. “I’m probably a bed hog. I sleep like a starfish.”
“Good. Cover my entire bed in you.”
I flush. “Are you…sure you want that?”
“Yes. Completely.”
My heart can barely handle this.
His fingers move from my waist to my cheek and caress.
This is nowhere near friendship-level-friendly.
I know that.
I’m not… I’m not stupid.
A sound far from friendship-level-friendly escapes me when his mouth hits my neck, warm, partially open, kissing. He stops, whispers, “You can stop me, can’t you?”
Gripping the sheets, I remember whose name is on my wrist and fight for a breath. “Yes.”
“If you want to, you can, can’t you?”
I repeat, “Yes.”
Low, he adds, “If you want to, will you?”
“Yes.”
Quietly, breath running against my skin, he says, “Are you going to?”
Every place he’s touched buzzes. “No.”
“You’ll be able to sleep here, with me?” he asks.
Sleep? Freeing the sheets from my grip, I reach for him, plant my fingers against the t-shirt covering his chest, let his heat soak into me. “We’ll be…sleeping?”
His head lifts, and the look in his eyes is nothing short of starved. “Do you…want to do something other than sleep?”
Red erupts in my cheeks, and I lose all my gall. Humming with sudden anxiety, I whisper, “Do you…not want to?”
“If you don’t want to, why would I want to?”
My heart sinks. “You don’t want to?”
“Not if you don’t.”
“But if I do…?”
“Do you?”
I chew my lip, practically gnawing. “Well, I don’t know.”
Breath leaves him, and it almost seems…relieved? “Then you don’t.” Pressing against my chin, he frees my lip as he forces them to part. “We went over that.”
“Right.” Yes. We did. Oh so long ago. If I don’t know what I want, then the default answer is no. I’m being a horrible person. I don’t even know what I’m doing. I just… I just wanted him to look at me, so badly, and now he is, yet now I’m chickening out. I exhale, wincing. “I’m sorry.”
“I need you to tell me if you want to stay here tonight. I always want to be around you. But I need you to not resent me, so I need you to only be around me when you want to be. Does that make sense?”
That makes a lot of sense. I drop my gaze, toward his body. The planes of his muscle press against the fabric of his shirt. I’d be an idiot to not want to be around him, in any capacity. “Stay here tonight…to sleep? Just sleep?” I ask.
“That’s right. I’m not prepared to say either of us is ready for anything else, emotionally, but I am at your mercy.”
My heart seizes with how painfully gentle an idea that is. For the first time in my life, I feel as though I am in control.
“I could sleep right here…in your arms?” I whisper, looking back at his eyes.
“Command me to the extent of your desires, Clara. I’ll do anything for you or to you that you want. Which means I will also carry you to your room if you wish.”
I do not wish to be carried ever again, actually. My nose wrinkles.
He chuckles. “Or I’ll let you walk there, but I’ll escort you and kiss your fingers as I bid you adieu.”
An excellent option, to be sure; however, I’m very comfy cozy here, and the idea of commanding him sends a thrill through me. Command him how? To what extent would I have the nerve?
Drawing my touch up to his cheek, I revel in the way he shudders, sinking deeper and closer as his eyes half lid. I comb through the dark strands of his hair.
He is my first friend.
Do I risk that and ask him to kiss me?
Am I going to take the chance on starting something like kissing in his bed?
Careful, shaking, I lift my knuckles before his lips and whisper, “Kiss?”
He etches his touch up the full length of my arm sending ripples and sparks through me, before gripping my wrist, holding my eyes, and kissing.
Surges of want rattle me.
But do I want him because I think he wants me? Or do I just want him on my own? Or…horribly…do I want him because I need somebody? Anybody.
If I’m not sure, he says the answer is no.
It’s hard to say no, when he’s looking at me like this.
But I am unsure what I want right now. And I’m scared to ask for more from the person who has given me the most in my entire life.
So I squeeze my eyes shut, gather my sense, and whisper, “Escort me to my room…please.”
His touch falls from me; I feel the loss integrally. Then his weight abandons the mattress around me. Gently, he pulls me up, helping me to my feet, and takes me back to my room.
Without his touch on me, it is no easier to breathe, and I am no less confused about what I want, but there is something so beautiful in the way I said no, and he listened. Without complaint. Without compromise. I said no, and he bowed his head, letting his nose graze the ink on my wrist.
I turned him down, and he still said, “I’m proud of you, cupcake. Sleep well.”