Chapter 35

Delilah

“Really?” I frown as I walk up to the couch and notice the new seating arrangement. “I leave to get napkins, and you pull this shit.”

Ivy chuckles as Lawson spreads his legs further apart, taking up the center of the sofa. He was down on one end, Ivy was in the middle, and I was on her right, but thirty seconds later and they’ve both moved.

“You’re as transparent as air,” I mutter to Ivy.

“You can sit on my lap,” Lawson whispers when I give in and claim the end of the couch.

My heart thumps behind my rib cage at his offer, one I’d love to take him up on, but keeping my distance is more important.

“Don’t you have work?” I hand each one of them a napkin and pick my paper plate up off of the coffee table.

“Joel can handle things for the afternoon.” He looks at me with seductive promise in his eyes. “I’m yours for the rest of the day.”

I roll my eyes but grin behind my slice of pizza as I raise it to my mouth.

“If you had a little better work ethic, my car would be done already.”

“I’m not wasting time or money fixing that heap of junk, Delilah.” My eyes widen.

“What the hell have you been doing for the last week and a half?”

He shrugs as if it’s no big deal that I’ve been in a rental car. I shouldn’t complain because the car I’ve had is ten times better than the Corolla, but it’s the principle.

“Fixing bikes. Working on cars that are worth fixing.”

“Unbelievable,” I hiss.

“Who’s up for a movie?” Ivy interrupts, feeling the tension that’s growing by the second in the room.

“I’ve got nowhere to be.” The smug smile on Lawson’s face makes me want to slap him and kiss him at the same time.

After wiping his mouth with his napkin, he stands and takes both of our plates to the trash and even slides the uneaten pizza into the fridge before excusing himself to the bathroom.

“You need to quit whatever it is you think you’re doing,” I tell Ivy with a pointed look. “It’s not helping.”

She just smiles at me. “I’m a virgin, but the sexual tension bouncing between you two is making me tingly.”

“Stop,” I hiss when I hear the toilet flush. “Sex isn’t everything.”

“Sex wasn’t everything,” she corrects. “That man loves you, and you’d be a fool to let him go.”

She snaps her head back in the direction of the TV and scans through the channels as Lawson opens the bathroom door and sits even closer to me on the sofa.

“Game of Thrones marathon?” Ivy asks, already knowing how hot I get for Jon Snow. I refuse to acknowledge his dark hair and blue eyes because it means confessing my attraction to him over the years has more to do with him resembling Lawson than Kit Harrington.

“Love this show,” Lawson says scooting even closer to me.

His warmth, his scent wash over me. God, this man will be my undoing.

“Come here, baby.” His breath heats my neck, and my body responds with goosebumps. “I’ll keep you warm.”

Like the bipolar sadist I am, I allow him to wrap his arms around my back as I snuggle into his chest. I sigh my contentment, and it seems to calm him.

But true to Lawson form he ruins the moment of surrender with his damn mouth. “Try not to think about my cock while we watch Khal Drogo take command of his queen.”

I try to pull away, slapping him the only thing I can concentrate on.

“Wrong,” I whisper when I realize exactly which scene we’re watching. “Daenerys owns his cock.”

Lawson shifts uncomfortably as we both watch the scene playing out on the TV screen in front of us. It looks very similar to the way I straddled him in the truck and rode him until we both came.

He groans and shifts again when my fingers curl against his thigh.

“You own my cock,” he pants, uncaring that my best friend is a few feet away.

I dart my eyes in her direction, but by the way she’s nibbling on her thumb, I don’t think she heard him.

“Hush,” I tell him.

His chest rumbles against the side of my face, but he doesn’t argue. Before long even the battles playing out on the TV can’t keep me awake. The hand roaming from the top of my head and down my back in slow, rhythmic strokes is my downfall.

It isn’t until I feel my body being lifted from the couch that I realize I fell asleep.

I cling to his shirt when he pulls away after placing me on the bed and covering me up. I’m begging without words as I look into his eyes. Normally, I would feel too prideful, but in the quiet of the room, with nothing but care and concern in his eyes, I feel a sense of freedom I’ve never felt before.

“Princess,” he whispers against my cheek.

He could crawl in behind me, spread my legs, and sink deep inside and I wouldn’t object. By the tension pulling at the corners of his eyes, I know he’s well aware of that fact.

His hand cups my cheek just before his lips sweep over mine.

“I don’t hate you,” I tell him. “But my heart can’t trust you yet.”

He smiles against my lips, a reaction I wasn’t expecting. I wait, looking into the blue depths of his soul, once again preparing myself for some remark that’s only going to serve to burn another bridge so precariously built between us.

“That’s the most honest thing you’ve said since we reconnected.” He kisses me again. Soft, sweet, with love, not the fiery passion that seems to overflow between us. “Take all the time you need, baby. I’m not going anywhere.

***

I smile into my pillow, the scent of his skin all over mine from our snuggling on the couch. What I don’t have is the warmth of his skin against my back any longer.

Maybe his promise of not going anywhere was meant in a not-quite-so literal sense, but that doesn’t ease my anger very much.

I stagger to the coffee pot, only to find Ivy already at the small kitchen table.

“Sleep well?”

The playfulness of her voice tells me she suspects more happened last night with Lawson than actually occurred.

“Yes,” I answer honestly. I didn’t realize until he climbed behind me, insisting on staying on top of the covers even after I’d tried to persuade him differently, just how exhausted I’ve been. I haven’t slept well since he showed up in the parking lot when my car broke down, but last night was different. I’m wide awake, though annoyed he’s not here, and ready to take on the day.

“What’s that?” I snap out of it and look over at her.

“What’s what?”

I smile behind my coffee cup.

“That silly grin on your face.” She smiles too. “Did you catch feelings for Lawson?”

“Catch feelings?” I mull over her words while my mind races for an excuse. “I didn’t catch anything.”

“True,” she says with a quick tilt of her head. “I guess since they were always there, you can’t really catch them again.”

“That’s not what’s happening.”

“Tell that to Lawson. He’s head over heels for you.” She points to a set of keys on the counter. “He left his truck. Said he had to get to work.”

“He needs to stop doing shit like that.” I hate the words the second they’re out of my mouth. It’s clear I’m not one hundred percent over my anger. I lock down the vulnerability I showed last night in the soft light of the moon.

“Don’t do this to yourself.” I turn my back to her, adding unnecessary sugar to my already sweet coffee. “You going to punish him for words he said so long ago?”

“He spoke to me like I was some filthy whore,” I rebut.

“He said some pretty dirty things to you on the couch last night while watching TV.”

“Exactly. See he’ll never change.”

She shakes her head in disbelief. “Did you squeeze your thighs together like you did last night when he said that stuff to you two years ago?”

I hiss, jolted by her words enough that I spill my coffee down the front of my shirt. I stare in disbelief, and if I’m being honest a little proud of Ivy as she leaves me reeling in the kitchen.

I’ve thought, probably more often than I should’ve, about that night in my room with Lawson. My mind was overwhelmed then, wondering if Samson was going to tell Dad and Pop about things he’d only suspected. I worried over whether they would kick him and Drew out. I know deep in my heart that had Lawson not done something to push me away that I would’ve done the exact same thing to him.

I can be indignant all damn day, but the outcome would’ve been the same, only he would hate me instead of me pretending to hate him.

Pretending.

It’s the first time I’ve allowed myself to admit the truth.

I’ve never hated Lawson. If anything, seeing him again, feeling his lips on mine, takes me right back to where we were when I was just an immature, inexperienced girl who wanted nothing more than the love of a boy she shouldn’t have wanted in the first place.

“Fuck,” I grumble as I place my half-consumed coffee in the sink and make my way to the bathroom.

I turn the radio up almost loud enough to drown out the thoughts and images of Lawson that bombard me as I strip out of my clothes.

While I scrub his scent from my body and wash my hair, I steel my spine once more. Even with my feelings, there are a million reasons why Lawson and I shouldn’t be together. The only problem is as I rinse the suds from my hair, I can’t think of a single one.