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Shoving past him, I plant my feet and cross my arms over my chest. With a sigh and a shake of his head, he closes the door.
I should feel some sense of victory, but all I feel is unsteady. The fierce protectiveness I felt when he walked out of his mom’s house tonight—wearing that eerily familiar, brave mask—hasn’t faded. Even though I know he’s right, and we aren’t kids anymore. But I can’t help what I feel.
Since that first night in my parents’ backyard, when he opened up to me about what it was like in his house, I’ve cared.
When he doesn’t say anything, just watches me with jaded blue eyes, I bite my lip. “I, uh, told her off. After you left.”
His brows skyrocket. “What?”
I wince. “Not my finest moment.”
Humor flares in his eyes, then fizzles. “Why are you really here? I don’t need a cheerleader anymore, someone to tell me my mom sucks and I’m awesome.” He points at his chest. “Grown man, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Literally impossible not to notice,” I mutter, then screw my eyes shut like I can teleport myself away. “Forget I said that.”
“Nope.” There’s a smile in his deep, silken voice.
My eyes snap open to find him a step closer, staring at me with an intensity that turns my insides to jelly.
“Lucas?” I whisper, either a plea or denial.
“Why did you come?” he asks again, but there’s too much golden skin filling up my vision and too many muscles everywhere and my brain isn’t working.
I shake my head helplessly. “I-I don’t…” Words fade on a sigh as something inside me, some tension or angst or maybe denial itself, disintegrates. And I know why I followed him. Why I’m here. There’s no point fighting it.
I want him. Innately. Undeniably. With every fiber of my being.
Connected as we’ve always been, a new awareness blooms in Lucas’s eyes. His jaw tenses, his gaze so vivid and concentrated that I tremble a little. My gaze flickers across his chest, broad shoulders, trim waist. My fingers burn with the need to touch him. My cheeks and chest flame with heat, my pulse patters fast, and my breath comes short and shallow.
“Celeste.” My name isn’t a question anymore—my face and darting eyes have already revealed my secrets.
He takes two steps forward, close enough that I can feel the heat of his body on mine, feel the ephemeral cord that connects us grow heavy and taut.
Blood beats a thick, demanding cadence between my thighs. Is this really happening? The errant thought comes and goes, whisked away by the all-consuming present.
His eyes scan mine, expression unreadable to anyone who hasn’t known him a lifetime. But I have, and so I see the need held in check by iron will. The uncertainty, too.
The beautiful eyes I’ve loved and loathed in turn drop to my mouth. “This is your choice,” he murmurs, the gravelly words clenching muscles low in my body.
My skin twitches and tightens in anticipation and maybe a little fear. There’s still rationality somewhere inside me. Enough to know that this will change everything.
But I can’t seem to care.
My hand lifts and presses to his warm chest over his heart. His tall frame shudders, his eyes burning brighter, the blue searing. My chin lifts at the same time his head lowers, and our kiss feels like the first and last, a mingling of our breath and souls.
The gravity of it is too much, almost physically painful, so I do the only thing I can think of and close the final distance between us. The moment my breasts brush his chest, his restraint snaps.
One hand anchored in my hair, he tilts my face for a better angle. Our kiss turns deep and hungry, an artless frenzy of teeth and tongue.
Overwhelmed by the sensory onslaught, my knees weaken. Powerful arms wrap around my waist, supporting me and sealing our bodies. The thick, hard line of his arousal presses into my stomach. Sensation jolts through my core, quick and almost violent as my body cries out for him.
The kiss softens, his tongue flicking against my top lip followed by a gentle nip of teeth, then his mouth drags across my cheek. Hot breath fans my ear, making me shiver, and he rains kisses beneath my ear and down my neck.
His arms loosen, hands flowing up my back, down and across my stomach before grazing and cupping my breasts. I gasp, my nipples tightening to tender points.
Lucas stills, his mouth lifting from my neck. My eyelids flutter open to find him gazing down at his hands like they belong to someone else. He squeezes my breasts gently together, thumbs brushing across the peaks. The friction makes my breath catch.
Warmth cascades through me and his erection, tucked tight against my stomach, hardens to steel. My own hips jerk forward instinctively, that yawning ache inside me intensifying.
