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LUCAS
Imust have slept like the dead.
My head’s in a fog when I open my eyes, but it’s a different sort of fog than the one I’ve experienced lately. Too many mornings in a row, I woke to a pounding head and a sour stomach. This is something entirely different. The fog results from a deep, heavy sleep. I can’t remember the last time I slept so well and completely sober.
Maybe not completely. There are all sorts of drugs for a man to indulge in. Not all of them come in a bottle or a baggie.
Like the sleeping woman in my arms.
I never thought I’d find something as cleansing as fighting. Last night with her brought me a peace I’ve never known. I felt whole, if only for a moment or two. She wiped me clean. She took everything I poured into her, and she stayed. She didn’t run away. No, on the contrary. She curled up beside me and slept with her head on my chest most of the night.
How am I supposed to stay away from her?
How am I supposed to give this up?
I’d stay here with her forever, but certain things can’t be put off. I gently disentangle myself, leaving her curled up on her side—her favorite sleeping position, I guess. She’s still out cold, not so much as stirring when I get out of bed and draw the covers over her shoulder.
It’s a blessing, her being fast asleep like this. I’m not sure what to say, which is increasingly the case with me. I never considered myself someone afraid to say what was on his mind.
But what is there to say, after all? We both know this shouldn’t be happening, that there are rules, and we’re breaking every one. It’s wrong. It could mean a lot more grief for both of us.
Yet there’s no stopping, and we both know that. She proved it to me last night. The way we connected—I didn’t think such a thing was possible. I thought for sure I would scare her away. I showed her the darkest part of myself, a part I’m hardly proud of. Even that wasn’t enough to make her want to disappear.
I pull on my pants from last night before wandering out to the kitchen, where I stop short at the sight of the carnage I caused. I even forgot about that. I was going to make coffee, but the machine was one of last night’s casualties.
I haven’t yet decided whether to wait until Delilah wakes up to start pulling shit together when there’s a knock on the door. I’m getting sick of visitors. I ignore whoever it is and pretend I’m still asleep, but that might only make them knock harder and thus wake Delilah. All I need is someone to see her here—or Charlotte, if it’s her in the hall.Shit.She’s been quiet all this time; of course she’d eventually come knocking.
I rush to the bedroom door and close it quietly before crossing to the front door, where another round of knocking has begun. “Okay, okay,” I mutter. If it is Charlotte, I sure as hell can’t let her in to see the apartment like this. Or Delilah.
I intend to only open the door wide enough to look through—whatever this is can wait—until I see who’s on the other side, and my stomach drops.
“Lucas.” As always, there is a smug note in Xander’s voice. The voice of a man who thinks he owns everything and everyone. And if he doesn’t yet, he will eventually.
It’s only when he scowls that I remember what I must look like. “Good morning,” I murmur and rub my chin with my hand. “It’s a surprise to see you.”
“Evidently.” He looks me up and down. “I would like to speak with you, and I don’t have time to wait around.” In other words, he’s coming in whether I like it or not.
It’s like being in one of those old nightmares from when I was a kid. Showing up to school in my underwear or being forced to give a presentation in a class I had never attended. Then I could wake up, relieved none of it was real.
No such luck this time. I have no choice but to open the door wider and take my medicine.
He says nothing about the splintered wood and random small appliances strewn over the floor, settling on lifting his eyebrows until they nearly disappear into his hairline.
“I thought I saw a rodent running around here.” I don’t expect him to take me seriously, and I’m right.
He snorts, eyeballing the mess. “It must have been a big one.” He makes a big deal of stepping over one of the larger pieces of the chair I smashed.
“What can I do for you?”
Jesus Christ, I must reek of pussy even at a distance. My neck stings where Delilah raked me with her nails—I’m sure there’s dried blood there.
She managed to land a few solid punches, and my hair is probably sticking straight up from the way she pulled it. Even my lips sting from her vicious kisses, swollen and raw. I know what I must look like. A man who either brawled or fucked himself half to death last night. Not the headmaster of Corium.
Xander lifts an eyebrow. “You can tell me what the hell is going on with you. You know I don’t make this trip because I find it pleasurable.”
“I’m sorry you felt you had to come all this way. A phone call would’ve told you everything you needed to know.”
“Would it have? Some things a man has to see for himself. Especially when he can’t always count on people to give him the full story.”
