EMERSON
“Are you sure about this?” Lauren asked, turning the tables on me. She did so as she lugged my last box out of our (formerly shared) beachside cottage to my car.
I wish I felt half as confident as she’d been about her decision. For one, I wasn’t moving out to shack up with my hunky boyfriend.
“What choice do I have? This was only a summer thing.” I glanced hopefully toward the street, searching again for any sign of Lucas’s car before slamming my trunk closed with finality.
It wasn’t like I’d needed his help moving or anything. Lauren had already cleared out her things when she’d moved to Will’s place, so we only had my belongings to load up—which amounted to one measly car full.
That was that, then. The last of my things. I sighed and turned back to Lauren. “Besides, I have a new job. I loved spending the summer here, but I can’t hide out at the beach forever.”
She threw herself at me, the kind of hug you give someone taking off on a ten-year space mission. For some strange reason, my eyes pricked with tears. She and I had been roommates for so long—the past four years. And even though she’d been living with Will for about a little over a month now, somehow leaving the house we’d rented for the summer felt so . . . so final. “Let me know if you need anything. I’m only a phone call away.”
I untangled myself from her grip. “God. Don’t be so dramatic. It’s not like I’m never gonna see you again.” I glanced down the street again, wondering if I could say the same about Lucas. The “long distance” thing wouldn’t be that hard, but I hated to leave without saying goodbye.
I got in my car, cranked the AC and the radio, and waved to Lauren in the rear view.
It had only been a week since the gala—since the night Lucas had admitted he loved me. Two weeks that had changed everything. But right now, leaving my summer beach house, it felt like those two weeks had evaporated in a puff of smoke.
I still hadn’t been able to tell Lucas I loved him in return. I’d meant to. So many times.
But it was damn near impossible. Every time I’d opened my mouth to let the words escape, they got wedged in my throat . . . not because they weren’t genuine or because the timing wasn’t right, but because . . . I don’t know, the idea of saying them made me feel so . . . vulnerable.
So exposed.
Even more so than going to Bitsy had, tail between my legs, practically begging for the chance to interview for one of her prized internships.
She’d given me the chance to interview, of course, but with the assurance I’d get no preferential treatment from her. My résumé had gone with all the others, into a mile-high stack on her desk, to be sorted by the other interns already on staff. I had to go through the standard rounds of interviews. It was a full-on dog and pony show.
But I’d done it. For Lucas and me. So I wouldn’t have to leave at the end of summer.
And after all that, this was how he’d repaid me? By not coming to see me off. Maybe this was the reason it was so damned hard for me to open up, to expose myself by telling him how I really felt about him—because I didn’t like being made the fool.
At every stoplight and stop sign and intersection, I checked my phone, searching for some sort of message from Lucas. But my screen remained blank. By the time I reached my new place, I was so livid, I forgot to be bothered by how bland the building was. Or how there was absolutely no ocean for miles and miles and miles.
How dare Lucas ignore the fact that today was my moving day. That I’d no longer be living right next door to him.
That we could never again tiptoe across our lawns for a little midnight hanky-panky.
As I carried my first armload of boxes up to my second-floor apartment, I was already drafting a scorching message to him in my head. I might have a hard time saying I love you, but I wouldn’t have a problem ripping him a new one for leaving me in the lurch.
I almost dropped my cargo when Lucas’s voice hit me from the second-floor landing. “Need a hand?”
Lowering the stack of cardboard, I glared at him. “Lucas? What the crap are you doing here?”
“You didn’t think I’d forget what today was, did you?” He had the nerve to smirk at me.
I would’ve had to be blind not to notice how tempting he looked in the suit that was tailored to show off his broad shoulders and his athletic legs. “Um, yeah . . . that’s exactly what it looked like. You sure didn’t seem to give a crap I was moving today.”
He came down the steps and plucked the boxes from my hands. “You know that’s not true, but I had somewhere I needed to be.”
Somewhere to be. I’d heard that line before—the time his mother had tried to force him and Aster back together. But ever since the night of the gala, when Aster and my brother had up and vanished from the party, Aster had been making herself scarce. She hadn’t responded to voicemails or texts, not even when I tried to inform her just how much money we’d raked in for our cause.
My brain hurt whenever it conjured an imagine of what that might mean. I couldn’t let myself think of her and Seth holed up together somewhere, doing God knew what to each other.
I lifted an eyebrow at Lucas. “Yeah? So, what . . . did your mother find you a new fiancée? Betroth you to someone she approves of?”
He raised his brows back at me, and I hated myself, because his expression made my insides flip, and suddenly I couldn’t remember a single word of the text I’d been formulating. “Actually, from the way my dad tells it, I’m pretty sure you’d more than fit the bill, after everything you did at the fundraiser. Although I doubt my mother would ever come out and admit that.”
I eyed him. “So . . . what’s with the Brooks Brothers? And don’t tell me you were grabbing a beer with your dad today.”
“No, actually. You’re not the only one with a new job,” he said. “Actually an old-new job.”
“What? That’s amazing! I mean, it is, right?” I hadn’t even realized Lucas was in the market for a new job. I knew he had a trust fund—one he didn’t like to talk about—and that he’d been living off of it since I’d known him. But I guess I hadn’t given much thought to what his long-term plans were.
“Yeah, Em. It is. And it’s all thanks to you.”
“Me?”
“You made me realize how important family is. I worked for my uncle for years, thinking I hated it because it was handed to me. That I didn’t earn it, which,” he shrugged. “I probably didn’t. Taking a break made me realize I missed the work.” He laughed. “But what I didn’t get until I met you, was that even though the job landed in my lap, I actually loved working with my family—even when they were a pain in the ass. So I went to my uncle and asked if I could come back.” He gave me a meaningful look. He nodded toward the second floor. “Come on up and I’ll tell you all about it.”
My face grew hot as I followed him. This could be an interesting conversation.
But instead of leading me to the front door of my new apartment, he stopped at the other door on the second-floor landing—the one right across from mine.
“Lucas,” I said, confused when he pulled out a key and unlocked it. “What are you doing? That’s not the right place.”
He kicked the door open, a huge grin taking over his face. “Actually, it is. I thought you’d be tired after such a . . .” He winked at me. “ . . . strenuous day of moving.” He was flipping me shit. We both knew it was only one carload, and as disappointed as I’d been to trade in my beach view, I’d only had to drive about thirty miles.
I’d turned down the Arizona job the second Bitsy had offered me the internship on her staff. Sure, the pay was for shit, the hours would be grueling, and the work intense. But it meant I was one step closer to my dream of becoming a sports agent. Plus, I could stay in LA, which was infinity closer to Lucas than Phoenix, which more than made up for the fact that I’d be eating Top Ramen for the next few years.
I peered past Lucas, into the apartment he’d unlocked. Something in there smelled a million times better than Top Ramen. “I made you dinner,” he said, indicating with his chin that I should go inside. The place was fully furnished, and I mean to the nines. It was nothing like the crappy bungalow he and Zane had shared, which was messy and smelly—everything a bachelor pad should be. This place looked like it was straight out of Architectural Digest.
“Dinner? Lucas, do you . . . actually live here?”
He set the box down and gathered me in his arms. “I know this is a lot to take in, but I wanted to surprise you. You were right about us not jumping the gun to move in together right away.” I had said that. I’d spent my entire life living with other people—I’d gone from my parents’ house straight to rooming with Lauren. I wanted to learn what it was like to live in my own space, even if it was only for a little while.
“But . . . ,” he said, pulling me in closer, and already I wanted him out of that monkey suit he was wearing—there were too many clothes between us. I flattened my palms against his crisp shirt and moved them higher, until I was easing his jacket off his strong shoulders. “I wasn’t ready for us to not be neighbors anymore. I couldn’t stand the idea of you being so far away.”
It was exactly what I’d been thinking. I’d hated the idea of not being able to wake up in the night and wander over to his bed. “And what if I said I thought this was a tad too stalker-y for my taste.”
His kiss was like a drug, and when his tongue flicked against mine I sagged against him. “You don’t,” he declared confidently.
“No,” I agreed. “I really don’t.”
And then the kiss deepened, and somewhere in the back of my mind I heard the door slam behind us. His jacket was on the floor, forgotten. He groaned. “Dinner?”
“Mmm,” I said as I let him slip my sundress over my head. I wasn’t wearing a bra—only panties, and he made short work of those. I curled my arms around his neck as he, arching my breasts toward him as he sucked and nipped at each one in turn. “Dinner can wait.”
I clung to his sinewy arms, and then began exploring the ridged planes of his chest and his abs. I moved lower, unbuckling his pants, my fingers finding the smooth skin at the head of his cock, and my thumb gliding across the small opening. I was desperate to taste him.
There’d be time to worry about things like my new job with Bitsy, and making my way to Ikea to get a couch and a bed, things far less fashionable than the setup Lucas had going on over here.
And maybe, eventually . . . not too long from now, I’d shed my commitment-phobic ways, and consider getting me one of those new-fangled roommates—one with intense brown eyes and the sexiest pecs on the block. One who could make me scream all night long.
Suddenly, I was composing a different kind of text message in my head. But a text wasn’t good enough for what needed saying.
“Lucas,” I said on a gasp. “I love you.”
He looked down at me and smiled. “I already know that,” he said. And then he whisked me off my feet. “Now I’m going to take you to bed and I want you to scream it.”
Want more of
The Men of West Beach?
If you haven’t read Lauren and Will’s story yet,
enjoy this sample of
UNDRESSED
Available Now!