Page 29 of Fatal Temptation

Lucas’ lips quirked at the corners, and he stepped closer, bringing them nearly chest to chest. Akio tilted his head back to keep eye contact and Lucas slid his hands into Akio’s soft black hair.

“I’m not just talking sex,” Akio blurted out.

“I know.”

The way Akio looked at him? That was far beyond just physical attraction.

As he ran his gaze over Akio’s face, he knew it was much more than that for him, too.

“I think I’m falling for you,” he said, his voice sounding rough with the emotions he didn’t try to hide.

“Really?”

He poked Akio in the ribs, chuckling when Akio jumped and slapped a hand against his chest. The hand stayed there, in the middle of his chest. Akio could probably feel the frantic beating of his heart.

“You don’t think me a liar, do you?” he teased Akio who went bright red in the face and started spluttering.

He shook his head and shut Akio up with a soft kiss to his lips. He pulled back to see a flustered Akio blinking at him, lips parted slightly, that lovely flush on his skin. Those dark brown eyes enthralled him, pulling him into their depths. There were so many emotions swirling around in there and it was all for him.

If someone had told him four years ago that he would end up lucky enough to have someone so sweet, brave, and loyal as Akio looking at him with affection and desire, he wouldn’t have believed them.

“I don’t know what I’ve done to have you?”

“You see me,” Akio said, cutting Lucas off. “You’ve always seen me. You never looked at me as… as Yokota’s son. As someone who was abused and shot his own father. You just saw me as a person.”

He felt tears filling his eyes at the raw emotion in Akio’s voice.

“You have been the only bright thing in my life for so long,” Lucas said, voice barely above a whisper. “Every second I’ve spent with you has been real. There has always been an understanding between us. Something that binds us together. I don’t know how to describe it.”

“How about we just feel it?”

He looked at Akio, the man he was most certainly falling hard and fast for, and he knew in his heart that he would never find someone who made him feel the way Akio did. He was quickly becoming his everything, a lighthouse shining across the sea to call him home.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Lucas

HIS PHONE beeped with an incoming message and when he saw Gemma’s answer to his text, he felt like throwing his phone at the wall. No progress. Almost two weeks and there hadn’t been a single sighting of the truck, the men, or the girls. They were no closer to finding them or shutting down the ring.

He would never complain about the time he’d gotten to spend with Akio, but he’d be lying if he claimed that this case wasn’t niggling at the back of his head the whole time.

“What’s wrong?”

He snapped his head up to see Akio standing in the doorway, his brows pinched in concern.

“Nothing. It’s alright.”

He didn’t want to put any of that on Akio. Since becoming an agent, he’d never been good at leaving work at work. The very few boyfriends he’d had after Chris hadn’t exactly appreciated it. One had gotten mad he wouldn’t share what was bothering him and in a fit of annoyance, he’d shared enough to make the man never look at him the same again.

Akio took a step closer, one hand lifting until he was pushing two fingers against Lucas’ forehead.

“You frown when something’s weighing on you,” Akio said, smoothing out said frown and leaving Lucas fighting a smile.

He wrapped his arms around Akio’s waist and tugged him closer. Akio tilted his head back, his fingers sliding from Lucas’ forehead into his hair until his hand was against the back of Lucas’ head.

“It’s work stuff. It’s not… most people don’t?”

“I’m not most people,” Akio said with a small shake of his head. “Or did you forget my last name?”

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