31. A Closet Cuddler
A CLOSET CUDDLER
PRESENT
Iwake with Lucas tangled around me, one arm underneath, supporting the place where the pillow ends, and another wrapped around my waist, pulling me closer, binding me to him even in sleep.
Lucas has always been a closet cuddler. No matter how much I tried to get him his own set of blankets, sometime, in the deep of the night, he’d find me, nuzzling into my neck, his beard forever tickling me awake.
It takes long, patient minutes to disentangle myself so I can shower. I lock the door and try to be quick, knowing that if Lucas wakes up, he’ll try to join me.
I change into the only pajamas I have that will hide the rash, a too-old almost matronly nightdress that, other than a small bow in front, could have been worn by Scrooge in A Christmas Carol.
At home, I have a variety of sexy undergarments I wear to convince myself that I don’t hate my body. Of course, that only works when I’m feeling merely bad as opposed to OMG-awful.
On awful days, nothing helps.
On awful days, I usually just curl up with ice cream and my roommates. Though now that Daisy has moved across the country, I guess that’s singular now: roommate. Just Gwendy, when she’s here.
By some miracle, the rash has actually shrunk. It’s receded from my thighs, and though it’s visible along my belly, a normal bathing suit would likely cover me . . . enough.
Lucas is still asleep by the time I come out. I towel my hair gently, the green staining the towels. I haven’t been careful about maintenance, and though I’ve ordered black dye, if anyone looks closely, they might detect the small bald spots the green normally helps hide.
I sigh and head to the balcony, hoping the view will chase away the melancholy.
Unlike Brody and Vi’s balcony, mine is smaller but more secluded. Because my room’s at an angle, I have a smaller slice of that ocean view, but also, no other balconies in sight.
I stand there and let the warm ocean wind dry my hair. The views are predictably spectacular. It’s beautiful moonlit sky reflected across endless expanses of ocean. It’s picturesque palm trees and the ocean symphony of waves crashing.
From behind, I hear the door slide open, and Lucas joins me, placing his arms on either side of me, caging me in. He’s wearing boxer briefs but is otherwise naked, the warmth of his body heat like a blanket around me.
I laugh at how solid he is now.
“What?” He nips gently at my ear, nuzzles against my neck.
“You have muscles now.”
He wraps his arms around my torso briefly, so I can feel the strength of him banded about me. “You like muscles?”
I like you, I think.
“They’re different,” I say.
His arms go back to either side of me, his chest pressing more firmly into my back.
“Different and thus no longer compatible?” He kisses a part of my shoulder, barely exposed from the nightgown, and my reaction is almost embarrassingly immediate, I can’t help the way my entire body cants toward him, my butt pushing into his reaction.
“Physically, we’ve just demonstrated we’re more compatible than we used to be. ”
“I wouldn’t say more compatible.” Because arguing is safer than talking about feelings.
“Are we back to claiming the sex was adequate?”
I laugh even as I remember Khloe’s warning: All we have is nostalgia. “Are you the kind of guy who needs constant praise now? Is that the new Lucas?”
Lucas chuckles, not the least bit offended. I can feel the vibrations of his chest through the thin fabric of my nightdress.
“Given the chance, I think you’ll find I’ve changed very little.”
I smooth a hand down the muscles of his forearm. “I beg to differ.”
“Physically, I’m healthier. The muscles are a byproduct of living a life of abstinence, which then fuels both my home gym workouts as well as weekly sessions with a personal trainer. But inside, I’m still the same awkward nerd.”
I shake my head, because even though I don’t believe him, this is why I ultimately blocked him. “I’m going to need you to talk less.”
Lucas laughs again, his breath hot against my neck. “Explain.”
“Given enough time, you can convince me of anything: The sky is purple. Fish don’t exist. We—”
“I don’t need to convince you the sky is purple.” His breath tickles at the shell of my ear, and when I shiver, he nips it gently.
“Blue light scattering,” I say.
“Fish aren’t technically an evolutionary group,” he continues.
Even though he can’t see, I roll my eyes. “I chose my examples poorly.”
“And we are frighteningly compatible. Meant to be to—”
“Truce,” I whisper, my voice broken. “Please.”
Behind me, Lucas widens his stance to minimize our height difference, and he wraps his long arms around me.
One hand travels up to my breast and even over my nightdress, and my reaction is instantaneous, revealingly, embarrassingly so.
My nipple puckers and my entire body arches into his touch, my head falling back to rest on his broad chest. He knows just how to tease and graze, just how much pressure to apply when he pinches my nipple. “Another demonstration?”
I turn my head, arching into a kiss, and even though the angle is awkward, with my back to his chest, against the cool Hawaiian breeze, it is also exquisite.
His other hand moves downward to cup me over my gown, the fabric too thin to offer any resistance as he presses one finger into my flesh.
Even through the fabric, the dampness is obvious.
I close my eyes, my entire body simmering with want. Against the warmth of his chest, I can feel the thud, thud, thud of his heart, a drumbeat that steadies me, its increasing tempo proof that Lucas is every bit as affected as I am.
“At least admit you want this.”
I move my hips restlessly against his, knowing there’s no way to hide my body’s response.
He uses his legs to nudge mine farther apart even as one hand gathers the nightgown.
Instinctively, my hand stops his, but then I remember the rash there is gone.
We’re still protected by the moonlight. I push past my lingering hesitation and guide his hand down to the hem of the nightgown, helping him gather the long cotton skirt.
The cool air feels amazing against my too-heated skin, and I squirm as Lucas nips at my neck.
“Hold this.” Lucas hands me the fabric he’s gathered, giving me barely a second to respond before his fingers find me again, his fingers slipping easily into my warm flesh.
I close my eyes and clutch the skirt to my breast, leaning forward a little, allowing Lucas to spread my legs even farther as he sinks one long finger deep inside me, pulls out, reenters with two, the heel of his hand rubbing my clit with the perfect amount of pressure.
I gasp and let go of the skirt, my entire body flushing as Lucas chuckles.
He pulls his hand from me long enough to regather the skirt, and my eagerness in helping him is embarrassingly transparent.
He pushes two fingers in again, stroking me in a way that makes it impossible to keep my eyes open, to do anything but focus on the sensation of Lucas teasing me, rubbing and spreading my wetness as his fingers thrust in and out.
I grip the fabric of my skirt as if it’s a lifeline—it’s the only thing I’m capable of tracking beyond my ragged breath, the feel as my muscles clench around him.
“What if this is all I can give you?”
He curls his fingers against my inner walls, and I drop the skirt again, reaching back for him, one arm trying to pull his head toward mine.
I’ve already forgotten what I asked a moment ago, can’t think of anything beyond the fact that his thumb is stroking my clit, and I’m coming, my thighs shaking, my entire body canting forward.
I would fall if Lucas wasn’t there to hold me upright, kissing my neck even as one long arm bands around me, curving me protectively against him.
He waits until I’ve stopped shaking before he picks me up, effortlessly, carrying me back inside and laying me on the bed as if I’m the most precious thing in the world.
“You’re saying just sex?” His tone is incredulous, and it makes sense.
“I’m saying . . . just this week.”
I can hide my condition for a week. I can not-think about Aurora and the girls, not-worry about my mother and Abe, can manage the lighting and clothes and positions.
I can take painkillers and never mention any potential upcoming surgery.
I can take better care of my hair when he leaves in the morning, and if I’m very, very careful, I can have almost a week of Lucas.
It’s the week my father stole from me, after worlds.
Lucas lies next to me, propped on one elbow, his fingers smoothing a sweat-dampened lock of hair away from my face. “Should be enough time to prove how compatible we still are.”
Because I hate the idea of lying to him, I ask, “What if I can only give you a week?”
“I would accept it . . .” He takes off his boxer briefs with one hand before lifting the hem of my pajamas up, looking at me for permission. I stop him when he’s lifted the skirt to my waist. “As a starting offer.”
He braces himself above me, waiting again until I nod before he starts pressing into me, inch by torturous inch. When one of his hands moves to touch me under the nightdress, I stop him by intertwining our fingers, bringing his fingers to my mouth and running kisses along his knuckles.
My entire body arches as he withdraws and then reenters, tilting his hips as he kisses me, setting a punishingly slow rhythm. From this position, all the control is his, despite the fact that I’m theoretically calling the shots, controlling how we are clothed and cloaked by the darkness.
“There is nothing as perfect as your body around mine.” Lucas breathes the words into my skin, and I use my free hand to reach up and around him, twining into his hair. He uses one hand to press my knee up more, angling it toward my chest, allowing him deeper access.
My eyes close again as I try to tilt my hips toward his. My free leg wraps around his hips.
“And there will never be anything as perfect as you and I, together.”
His words flow over me, caressing and also, somehow, destroying me within the same breath.
I use my leg and hands to bring his head and body closer to mine, to fuse our lips together and stop the flow of words I cannot bear to hear.
I clench my muscles and arch my hips until Lucas groans into my mouth.
He arches his neck away from the kiss and shouts something unintelligible as he pulses into me.
Afterward, I don’t protest as Lucas gathers my boneless body to his.
He settles me against him and covers us both with a blanket.
He kisses my head and again, at another point, I feel myself half waking, while Lucas has his arm wrapped around me.
He drops a kiss to my head, and I hear his breath in my hair, feel the way his lips move against me.
It doesn’t count, I want to tell him, but I’m asleep before I can argue the point.