“Feel? Feel? You feel nothing for me!” I yell in a voice so raw that my throat hurts. “I’m just a dirty little secret you don’t want your family to know.”
“Is that what you think?” he asks hoarsely.
“What else am I supposed to think? You did everything in your power to ensure your family and friends would never find out about me.”
“It’s not like that.” He closes his eyes for a moment as though gathering his thoughts. “I wish I could just…rip my heart out and show you all the crazy things I feel about you.”
The earnest tone of his voice finally penetrates. But I’m not anywhere near ready to let go of my anger and outrage. I cross my arms across my chest. “Well, why don’t you just settle for an explanation? And if I don’t like it, I’ll fucking rip your heart out and show it to you. How about that?”
His Adam’s apple bobs. “I never wanted you just for your body. I wanted you the moment we met because of your loyalty and kindness.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake! And how could you have known those things about me?” Lucas and I met at a Chinese restaurant near UVA where I was waitressing three days a week. He asked me out when my shift was over.
“Because I watched you with Mrs. Ling and overheard that conversation about how you were helping them manage the restaurant after she broke her hip. Not even her own son came back for that.”
“Because he has a career in New York.”
“Which he put above his parents. But you didn’t, even when Mrs. Ling fretted she might not be able to keep you much longer.”
Talking about it takes me back. “Her husband wanted to close the restaurant and retire. He was fed up with the business.”
“And their son wanted them to as well. But you were more concerned about her condition, how stressed she was, than your future unemployment.” Lucas gives me an earnest look. “Do you have any idea how rare and precious that is?”
I don’t know how to respond. I never imagined he was watching so closely.
“When I’m with you,” he says, “I feel like I’m in possession of the most precious jewel in the world. And you’re right: I don’t want anyone else to see it. Because if they do, they’ll covet you and want to take you away. I want to hide you away, keep you under lock and key, so I never lose you.”
A dull shade of red has tinged his cheeks, and his face is set in hard, unyielding lines, daring me to reject the truth of his words. There’s tension in the way he’s holding his body, and I know he wants to shift his weight, squirm, look away—anything but stare me in the eye and wait for my reaction.
It’s my turn to swallow. In those months we were together, I never imagined he could be this vulnerable, that I might have this much power over him…and now, that I would still have such influence.
Suddenly it’s no longer in my heart to be angry. I put my hands on his cheeks.
“I do have a mind of my own, you know,” I say quietly.
His gaze is skeptical. Not because he doesn’t believe me, but rather he doesn’t believe I’ll stay with him. He worries I’ll somehow find him lacking.
I recognize the look; I’ve felt that way myself. My heart aches. I don’t know what or who caused him to think this way about himself, but I hate them for having done it. This kind of self-assessment is pure hell.
“No one is going to take me away just because they want to,” I add. “The only person who can make me leave is you.”
“Then tell me what I did wrong so I can fix it.”
I shake my head. How do I explain to him when his brother said all those horrible things to me at the hospital, they stirred up my old insecurities and sense of worthlessness? I don’t want to relive a second of my past.
Apparently interpreting my silence as my refusal to give him a chance, he tightens his hold on me. “I’m not letting you go.”
Determination glints in his eyes. He dips his head, his tongue brushing against my mouth. My hands are still on his cheeks, and if I want, I can push him away. But I can’t bring myself to reject him after he’s revealed such vulnerability.
He’s never done that before, and I want to show him how much it means to me.
When I meet his tongue with mine, a deep groan tears from his throat. Our lips seal together. I slide my palms up until the fingers tunnel into his damp hair. He tastes like homecoming and Lucas and everything I’ve missed over the last two years.
“Ava,” he whispers, his warm breath against my face.
I shiver. My heart is bursting, and I can’t articulate all the emotions churning inside at the moment. The only thing to do is act.
I pull him closer. Through the layer of my thin sweater, I feel the heat radiating from his bare body. I glide my hands along the strong lean lines of his neck and back. My fingertips tingle as they relearn the beauty of his body.