Page 72 of Lucas & Melissa Falling in Love
“A raincheck? What does that mean, Melissa?” His voice goes dark with disappointment. I hate disappointing him—but I need to worry more about disappointing myself right now. I need to get my act together. I’ve already spent more time than I’d ever imagined I might in this bubble Lucas cast around us. He has a way of controlling me, like a snake charmer or something. Not that I’m a snake, but heisvery charming, mesmerizing me with his promise of the elusive magical father and mother of my dreams.
My stomach drops like a cannonball with the realization that I could be worse than disappointed, that things may not turn out the way I’ve dreamed. The wheels hit the runway and we lurch forward as the plane decelerates fast, like we’re about to hit a wall.
Lucas unbuckles his seat belt. Then he leans in close and says, “I’ll take the raincheck until we get back to my place—our place.”
Running a calloused finger down the side of my cheek, down my neck, all the way to my collarbone where I get a shiver, he gives me a smoky smile.
My body is all in, leaning and sizzling, but my head or my heart or something in me is objecting. Loudly. I think about pulling back, but I’m saved by the flight attendant. Again.
“Excuse me. I need to get something from the bin above you,” she says. She gives Lucas an extra creamy smile. That gives me a blip of possessiveness, knocking me into waffling mode. While I had been all set to tell Lucas I was going back to Margo’s and that I’d be getting my own apartment, now I’m silent. As soon as I get my first paycheck I want to move into my own place. That’s my plan. Now I’m thinking I can’t possibly let him loose in this city full of the most predatory women on the planet.
Whatever happened to that decisive Melissa?
I’m starting to think it’s Lucas, his very essence, that’s playing with my mojo. But hell, I’m not that far gone to actually blame my confusion on him. It’s only been a month since my world collapsed, since I lost everything: my business, my home, most of my possessions and all of my money. A month since I met Lucas. Since I started believing that he was maybethe one.
What the hell was I thinking?
First things first. I have to get my head on straight and my life back into gear. I have to stop living at my friend’s place. There’s no way I’m moving from Margo’s to jump into the fire of living with Lucas. I have pride.
Too much, maybe?
No.
The flight attendant leaves.Finally.Lucas stands and pulls out my carry-on from the overhead compartment and reaches out a hand to pull me from my seat. Honestly I’m so tired I could wait, for once, to be the last one off the plane.
“You can sleep later,” he says.
“Not soon enough,” I say, standing in the tight confines right up against his body. His heat has an effect on me, but I clamp down.
“We haven’t talked about where we’re going,” he says with a rumbly voice, the kind with unfair sex appeal. Though, I have to admit, I findeverythingabout Lucas sexy. It’s who he is. Or maybe it’s how I am. Somehow he holds a magic key to all the passion inside me, most of which I never knew I had. To say it’s unsettling is like saying the universe is big. While I’m contemplating the pleasant throb between my thighs that he’s incited, I remain mute, transfixed by the nearness, the heat, his scent.
He kisses my hair and whispers in my ear, giving me the kind of chill that makes me stifle a moan. I bite my lip. Why am I not going home with him?
“I need to go back to Margo’s tonight.” I manage to withhold any sense of apology from my voice, but it screams from inside my head as I stand against him, in his orbit of influence.
“I want you to stay with me until we get our own place. You can go back to Margo’s now to pack. But after work tomorrow I’m picking you up to go to the investigator’s and I want you to have your bags with you. I want you to stay with me where you belong.”
He has me until thewhere you belong’remark. It sounds controlling to my independence-sensitive ears. I pull back, but I’ll never know what I would have said then because the hatch is open and the flight attendant urges us to exit. Since we are up front and first in line with a plane full of people waiting behind us, we have to move.
Lucas hefts the bag with one hand and keeps his other on the small of my back.
The pressure of his hand is scintillating, warm and consoling. But it’s also possessive and, in my current state of mind, that note blares like a fog horn, interfering mercilessly with whatever else is going on.
Holding it together, keeping myself poised and normal and unpanicked while we walk through the endless terminal of the JFK International Airport to the exit, to the outside, is easy. It’s what I do. Put one step in front of the other and focus on the goal while plotting strategically in my head.
When Lucas walks us straight to a limo with a driver holding a card emblazoned with FIERRO, I shouldn’t be surprised.
“Somehow I’d expected an Uber ride with your friend Mickey,” I say as the driver opens the door.
Lucas chuckles and says, “I thought of calling, but I already used up my favors with him.” He slides into the warm back seat next to me. I’d forgotten all about the fact that it’s January and cold here.
“Besides, I’ll need to have a talk with him about who I am and I think it’ll be better to do that over a beer at Evan’s Pub in Brooklyn. He’s a good friend. A good man.”
“Maybe you could give him a job with your company,” I say. Unchecked. I’m more and more often speaking unchecked with Lucas. My mind whirls to figure out what I’ve revealed, how he might interpret what I’ve said, if and if I need to do damage control.
His mouth curves into a slow smile revealing his dimple again and he leans in until I feel the kiss. The sensual firm plumpness of his warm moist lips on mine unnerves me. I would be confused, but the kiss is too heady to allow thought. When I’m ready to deepen the kiss, he pulls back.
“What was that for?” I’m glad I spurt the forthright question because I really do want to know what he’s thinking. For sure. No guessing.
