Page 38 of Puck Shy

“It wasn’t my idea, but maybe it was in the back of my mind.”

He takes my earlobe into his mouth, and my hips automatically seek out his, but his body is too far away to make contact.

“Tell me, Stevie,” he says. “Tell me you still want me.” He brings his eyes back to meet mine, his gaze now wild and desperate. “Tell me you think of me as much as I think of you.”

My heart clenches in my chest as my mind tries to catch up to my body. I want to throw caution to the wind, to jump his bones right here and now, but my mind is still confused. Still hung up on him going from avoiding me to this. On the fact that he’s still my employer and related to my sister’s partner…not that the latter matters. We’ve already established that Jace, Leo, and Riley are on Team Stevas—a silly mashup of our names that I’ve heard a few guys on the team mumble when they think I can’t hear them.

“Lucas,” I exhale. “You know we can’t.”

He shakes his head. “You know we can.”

I clench my fingers around the stick I’m still holding. “I thought you were over me.”

He fingers a lock of my hair and lets out a sad chuckle. “You saw what you wanted to see, Stevie. But deep down, I know you know that’s not true. And I know you want me, too. You think I haven’t noticed that you watch me when you think I’m not looking?”

“It’s my job to record you,” I try, even though he’s right. I thought I did a better job of hiding it. I see now why he’s the actor, because he sure as hell had me fooled.

He shakes his head. “Why are we denying what’s between us?”

I blink at him. “There’s nothing between us.”

“Bullshit.” The fire he had in his tone when he first walked in has returned, and I shiver. He grasps my chin between his thumb and pointer finger, our mouths a whisper away. “I heard you yesterday, in the bathtub.”

My cheeks flush, and blood rushes to my ears. “You came into my room?”

“You left the door open. You’re lucky it was me who came in and not someone else.”

“You didn’t say anything,” I say, no anger in my tone. I’m just embarrassed I left the door open and he heard me. Now I know why he was so flustered when I met with him yesterday. “Did you listen?” I ask.

His eyes turn dark. “I heard you call my name, but then I left.”

“Is that all you did?”

He bumps his nose against mine. “I may have imagined what you looked like in that tub and what I would do after you came.”

I suck in a breath. My imagination fills in the blanks of what I would want him to do to me. I stare into his blue eyes and lick my lips. “It still doesn’t mean anything, Lucas,” I try one more time. But my resolve to keep our relationship platonic is only a whisper now.

“I know you haven’t been with anyone in two months, Stevie, since our night in the bar together.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “Are you stalking me?”

A small smirk plays at his bowed lips. “No. It was a complete guess, but you confirmed it for me.”

I sigh. “You tricked me.”

He hovers his mouth over mine and draws in a breath. “I haven’t been with anyone, either. You’re all I think about, Stevie. You’re all I want, all I dream of. Let me show you how good we can be together. Just let me in.”

All my fears, all the reasons why I told him I didn’t want to try to date him in the first place resurface.

“This job is important to me.”

“You’d still have a job no matter what happens between us. I’d make sure of it.”

“I told you I can’t be who you want,” I add, trying hard to hang on to my resolve.

He shakes his head. “You don’t know what I want, Stevie. You’ve never asked me.”

“You told me—”

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