Page 91 of The Wake-Up Call

“Why not?”

I narrow my eyes at him, but I’m tingling. I’ve spent all day avoiding that tingle.

“You don’t get to be jealous,” I tell him. “You don’t even like me, Lucas. In fact, I’d say this isn’t about me at all. It’s about another man. It’s a stupid macho possessive thing and it’s a total red flag for me, if you didn’t have enough of those already.”

“I can assure you,” he says, “I am not thinking about Louis right now. I am thinking about you.” His tone is clipped, and his eyes are all darkness. “Are you going to let me in?”

“Why would I let you in?”

He doesn’t answer that. Not as if he doesn’t know, more as if he thinks it’s obvious.

“You’re being completely obnoxious,” I tell him. “We had rules. You’re breaking them.”

“Tell me to leave, then.”

We face off on either side of the threshold. Slowly, slowly, his gaze shifts. Taking me in. My jumper dress, leggings, the woolly socks I slipped on when I got in the door. Back to the neckline of my dress, the only place where I’m showing skin. As he lifts his eyes to meet mine again, I feel like he’s stripped me bare. The tingle is a buzz now, insistent, like the giddy rush of a tequila shot hitting your stomach.

“We said one night,” I say, but even I can hear the lack of conviction in my voice.

“Then I’ll leave,” Lucas says, not moving an inch.

I say nothing. He waits.

“Is that what you want, Izzy?”

It absolutely isn’t. We made those rules for a reason, though. One night felt safe—I could do that without getting hurt. But to give him more than that, this man who drives me mad all day, who goes out of his way to make my life difficult, wholaughedwhen I told him I had feelings for him?

That would be dangerous.

“Tell me to go,” he says, his voice low and rasping as he stands there in my hallway, one step away from coming in.

But I don’t. Despite all the reasons I should, that low hot buzz has set in, and no part of me wants to send Lucas away. I know what it feels like between us now. He’s not just some abstract fantasy. He’s real, and that’s even harder to resist.

I cross the threshold between us and kiss him hard, pulling him inside, letting the door close behind us with a short, sharp slam.

•••••

He doesn’t stay over, he just... doesn’t leave.

We doze for stretches at a time, but the whole night, we’re in bed together. From the moment he crosses into my flat and hitches me up against him, he barely says a word in English. He whispers Portuguese against my stomach, my thighs, the back of my neck, but we don’t talk.

I wake again at seven, lying flat on top of him, my ear pressed to his chest, my legs falling on either side of his. I can’t believe I slept like this—I can’t believehedid. His body is warm beneath mine, but I’m cold—the duvet is on the floor somewhere. I lift my head, resting my chin on his ribcage, looking up at him. He shifts beneath me, and the feeling of his nakedness sends a ripple through me, tired and distant but there.

He opens his eyes and lifts his head to look at me. We say nothing. I wonder if I should feel embarrassed, or shy, but I don’t—I can’t muster the energy.

He rubs my arms. “You’re cold,” he says. His voice is throaty and warm.

I twist to the side, rolling off him, reaching over the edge of the bed for my duvet. He pulls it up for me and makes sure my feet are tucked in. I settle on my side, and he does the same, his handfinding its way back to my hip. That casual touch doesn’t feel strange, which is strange in itself.

“Sorry,” I say, my voice a little hoarse. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

He regards me steadily, brightly lit under the bedroom light we never turned off last night.

“It doesn’t have to be just one night,” he says. “Or just two.”

I can already feel how much I’ll crave him when he’s gone. The idea that I could dial down the desire with a night in bed feels so stupid now that I know his body like this. I know the sounds he makes, the way his hands shift over my skin, the casual confidence with which he drives me crazy.

I should shut this down. It’s a bad idea on so many levels I’ve lost count.

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