Page 59 of Lucas & Melissa Falling in Love
While I watch her undress, I listen to her phone conversation. It’s unavoidable because Margo’s voice carries loud and clear even across the Atlantic. I notice the change in Melissa’s voice, in the tenor, and even the energy in the room all change when Margo asks her when she’ll be coming home.
Melissa slips a gaze at me and says, “I’m not sure. Not too long. I have a lot of things on hold, things I need to do back home.”
Then I hear Margo say, “Are you still taking the job at the bank?”
Sitting up, I want to snatch the phone from Melissa and ask her what her friend’s talking about. But I know this is foolish and I restrain myself to hovering over her shoulder. Though I try preventing it, I know I’m frowning and I try to make my face neutral.
Melissa moves away from my intrusion on her space and says, “Of course I’m still taking the job at the bank. You do remember that I have no money, right?”
Margo laughs and says to call again soon and send pictures and Melissa ends the call.
“What the hell, Melissa?” I say, keeping my voice down, but my heart rate is still up and I can’t help feeling like the rug has been pulled from under me. The feeling of well-being that infused me is vaporized like it was never there. I know I’m overreacting, but I can’t help it, can’t help feeling threatened, like myworldis being threatened. I feel like Melissa is not with me, not in the same place I am in our relationship. Once again.
“What do you mean? The job at the bank?” she says as if she’s surprised I’m asking.
“I never heard about any job at a bank. When were you going to tell me?”
“There’s hardly been a chance for it to come up. What with the sudden family emergency trip to Italy and all.” The last is spoken with no small amount of sarcasm.
I want to be angry, but it would only be a disguise for how I really feel, hurt. Hurt to know that she still hesitates about our relationship, that she’s throwing up obstacles to it still.
“Would you not consider quitting this job?” I ask, quiet, serious. She looks at me puzzled, and then with consternation. Finally, she puts her emotions aside and she is the practical woman, all business and rational reason. She is wearing only a silky camisole which covers almost nothing.
“Of course not. I would never give up my independence, my own income. That’s the way to sure trouble. Look what happened to my mother—I mean my birth mother. She lost me because she had to rely on my stinking birth father.”
Hearing her words, I nod, responding with reason, understanding. But the feeling of loss is still there, even if I’ve only lost something I imagined, something still to come.
“Maybe over time you’ll change your mind,” I say.
“Lucas,” she says. “You can’t expect me to change my life overnight. I agreed to come here with you, but I never agreed to stay. Hell, you probably didn’t know if you were going to stay either—admit it.”
I only need a flicker of thought to know she’s right, that I was never sure until I saw my father, what I wanted to do. But that was all predicated on Melissa staying with me.
“Have I been a fool?”
“No.” She says this with such confident finality that I’m immediately relieved. And I laugh.
“You spin my head, lady.”
“You’re no fool, Lucas. No one would accuse you of that. But you are fast. Too fast for me. I’m a steadier, plodding and planning kind of girl, the kind who needs to be prepared ahead of time, to work everything out and—”
“Say no more. I know I’m rushing you, I know I’m ahead of you. But I can wait.” I shudder at the knowledge and think again that I may be foolish. What if I’m waiting for something that will never happen?
That’s the risk I need to be willing to make. Melissa is worth it, what we have is worth it.
She yawns and I laugh.
“I need a nap, Lucas.” She lies down in my arms and I hold her, finally relaxing and staying in the moment. I’m determined that Imuststay in the moment from now on, well aware of the near impossibility of that task with my family pressing me about the future and the legacy of Fierro Motor Company looming from the past.
“You won’t mind if I assume that ‘nap’ is a euphemism,” I say, slipping my hands under her camisole.
She laughs, but she doesn’t swat my hand away or discourage me in any way as I probe her, searching every lush, satiny inch of her body until I reach her plump breasts. Finding her nipples erect, I toy with them and move my body closer, pressing my erection against her thighs. Lazily circling the deepening purple of her areolas, I squeeze the nipples and my cock jumps as I hear her mew of pleasure.
I want her to touch me, badly, but I want to touch her more. She turns to me as if she can hear my warring needs.
“If you could have me do anything to you right now, Lucas—and youcan, by the way—what would you most want me to do?” She moves close to me now, the tiny slip of a nightie posing almost no barrier between our skin. I slide my hands down her body to feel that she’s wearing no panties. My cock jumps again. My mind is blank.
“It’s a trick—you know I have no answer. There’s no right or wrong.Everythingand anythingis my answer.”
