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Then, two. Three, five, ten, fifteen.
Thirty minutes.
Lucas didn’t answer.
Maybe he’d… fallen asleep.
Or maybe he’d gotten hungry and decided to grab a snack. Knowing him, that involved something more sophisticated than opening a bag of cereal and a carton of milk even at one in the morning.
Or maybe…
“Jesus Christ,” I said into the empty room. “Listen to yourself, Rosie.”
I cursed, realizing that not only was I being ridiculous, but I was also on my feet, pacing in front of my bed, and about to give myself a headache.
The intercom downstairs blared through the apartment, startling me and making me drop the phone on the floor. The screen lit up at my feet.
Lucas:It’s me.
I left the phone there, not caring about anything but the door.
Because… he was here.
I ran to the entrance and when I buzzed him in and threw my door open, my panting had nothing to do with my sprint.
The handsomest face I’d ever seen in my life appeared in the hallway after a few seconds. And the man that had somehow become my favorite person in New York City—in the country, the whole world—made his way to me.
“This is why,” he said, smiling his Lucas smile. The one that was bright and happy and had the power to set a flock of birds free in my stomach. To make my skin tingle and every nerve flutter. “So,I wouldn’t run here, uninvited, and show up past midnight at your door. That’s why I wished you hadn’t told me you missed me.”
My heart sung.
“You said you missed me,” he repeated, as if he was still processing my words.
And without meaning to, without knowing how, I threw myself at him. I would have climbed him up like a tree, had I not known that his leg was not up to the task. But I still tangled myself around him as best as I could. Breathed him in, welcomed his scent, the toned muscles under the layers of clothes he wore against the chilly weather of New York. Welcominghim.
“And it’s the best thing I’ve ever said,” I told him, the words spilling out of me and falling on his chest. Close to his heart, where I wanted to burrow myself. Then, I said something that perhaps I shouldn’t have, but I wasn’t able to stop myself anymore. “I’ll say it again if it makes you stay. I’ll say it a hundred million times.”
His arms tightened around me, the long breath he let out warming the skin of my neck.
And because he’d cracked me open and everything was coming out now, I continued, “I’ve missed you since you stepped out of this apartment, hours ago. And I had missed you for a long time before then, Lucas.”
Lucas’s chest rumbled with a deep growl that rattled me with anticipation, need, with whatever this thing growing between us was.
Then, his arms were around my waist, and he was walking us inside, the door closing behind us. The next second, I was pushed against it.
Lucas braced his arms on each side of my head, caging me against the wooden surface.
“Again,” he commanded, meeting my gaze. “Nobody has ever missed me that much or needed me like this. Say it again.”
My mouth dried at the look on his face. At the way his eyes darkened, and his jaw turned into a sharp line. “I’ve missed you, Lucas. So much. Please, stay with me. Stay tonight.”
Stay tonight and every single night after that.
His right hand came to cup my face, the pad of his index finger trailing across my cheek, to my bottom lip, swiping along the line of my mouth. “If I stay…” He closed his eyes, exhaling shakily. “I’ve seen you come apart before my eyes, Rosie. And I barely had the chance to touch you. If I stay, that’s going to change. If I stay, we’re going to fuck.”
I shivered at the thought of how much I wanted him to follow through with that warning. “Good.”
“I need you to hear something,” he said, his gaze hardening. “I am leaving in a week, and I was serious when I said that I can’t— My life is in shambles, Rosie. I have nothing to offer. But I… I’m selfish when it comes to you. I’ll give you my mouth if you ask me. My touch, my body. It’s not much, certainly less than what you deserve, but if you want that, if you want me—”
