Sage stopped in her tracks, collapsing onto the couch as she gave up on being able to catch Pooch. “Yep.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “Pretty sure there were two lines on that little fucker.”
“Pregnant?”Lucas toyed with my hair. “Maybe a baby will make them get their shit together.”
I ran my hand along his sculpted abs as we lay nestled in bed, my head resting on his chest, the boom-boom rhythm of his heart soothing. We’d just had a round of sex and were riding our post-orgasm high. Sexy times with him only got better and better, our love for each other, our bond seemingly unbreakable.
“Remember when we had our pregnancy scare?” I asked, the memory still vivid from being over Sage’s house.
He kissed my head, running his fingers along my arm, his touch forever spine-tingling. “It wasn’t a scare, not for me anyway. I remember hoping you were so we could fast-track and get married.”
“Married?” I blinked up at him. “Marriage is something we’ve never really talked about.”
“Didn’t think there was a need to, considering you’ve talked about wanting a fairy-tale marriage ever since you were a kid. I just figured that much hadn’t changed.”
I giggled internally, appreciating how he paid so much attention to me growing up. “True, but we haven’t talked about howyoufeel about marriage in general and not when a couple thinks it’s the right thing to do because a baby is on the way.” My heart stopped, thinking back to his short-lived engagement. “Why did you propose to Harper?”
He exhaled, a tad dramatically in my opinion. “We agreed to never talk about her again, remember?”
“Sure, but I’d still like to know what made you propose to her since you clearly didn’t love her.”Or so you claimed.
“Macy,” he warned, “I don’t wanna talk about this.”
I shot up, quickly pulling the sheet up over my exposed breast, not giving his gaze a chance to devour them. “You know how much I hate when you put your avoidance hat on.” Although in his defense, he’d not avoided much lately, or maybe I hadn’t presented him with anything he deemed worth avoiding.
“Macy…” he warned yet again, voice and eyebrows raised.
“Tell me why you proposed,” I demanded.
“Seriously? You think I wanna talk about another chick while I’m in bed with you?” The clipped tone of his voice irritated me.
I climbed out of bed, slipped into his T-shirt, then walked around to his side, arms crossed over my chest. “I’m not in bed with you anymore, so go ahead. Spill it, Mr.Avoidance.” I swallowed the lump of emotion crawling up my throat, hating that it seemed like we were on the verge of our first couple fight. Regardless, I charged on like a shark that just got a whiff of fresh blood. “Why did you propose to Harper if you were supposedly in love with me?” It was a question I never knew I wanted the answer to until the moment it consumed me.
Silence choked the room, save for our collective breathing, tension between us palpable.
Lucas got to his feet, slipped into his shorts, and shouldered past me when he said, “Not tonight, Macy.”
Not tonight, Macy?Ugh. Wrong. Answer.
I stalked after him as he rounded the corner and made his way into the kitchen, muscles in his back flexing. God, the fact he looked so damn yummy to my eyes, even when I was pissed off at him, was beyond annoying.
“Lucas, why are you making this such a big fucking deal? Just tell me why you asked Harper to marry you.”
He swung the fridge open, then immediately slammed it closed, feet pounding the floor as he advanced toward me.
For every step forward he made, I stepped backward, until my back kissed the cool kitchen wall.
Eyes the color of anger bore down on mine as our bodies stood flush, our breathing crazy-fast, and I swear my heart ran for cover, skidding down to my stomach for safe refuge.
Determined to know, I said once more, “Tell me why,” waiting with bated breath, watching his jaw tick, the vein on his neck pulse.
He grabbed the nape of my neck, drawing me so close I thought he’d swallow me whole.
“Because,” he rasped. “I had to get the fuck away from you.”
25
Strengths. Weaknesses.
We all have them. Some more or less than others. Lucky for me, my strengths—loyalty, patience, self-control—outweighed my biggest weakness: avoiding conflict.
