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He picks a piece of cupcake off his shirt and eats it before looking over at me. “What?”

“I wish I knew how to enjoy life the way you do.”

He looks away. “It’s just a cupcake.”

Maybe it is for him, but it doesn’t feel like it for me.

Somehow, I seem to have ruined the mood, the vibe between us. Lucas sets the wrapper on the table, then gives his attention to the television.

I try to do the same, but I can’t focus on the screen. Every few minutes, my attention is drawn back to him. To the way he absently draws circles on his thigh with his finger, like he’d done with the stars on our night on the roof. To the clear polish on his nails today, his messy hair, and that now familiar scent of sea salt and apples, mixed with cake. To the way the muscles in his arms flex from time to time and the soft, lulling sounds of his breaths. Having so much Lucas so close is invading my senses. He’s making me dizzy, and my body overheated, and my dick, fuck…just being close to him makes my dick stir.

Stop this. What the fuck is wrong with you? As if you didn’t betray Ellis enough already.

But the voice of warning, of clarity, is getting softer and softer, until it’s only a faint mumble.

When Lucas’s hand rests on the cushion between us, lying flat there, my attention is drawn to the prominent veins on the back of his hand and the way his knuckles are slightlybigger than the rest of his fingers. It’s a fucking hand, but I’ve always had a thing for hands, and Lucas’s are really fucking sexy. Masculine and strong, but with a gentleness to them, like they can be firm when needed but soft when the situation calls for it.

I don’t know what I’m doing, why I don’t stop myself, why I let my hand land on the cushion beside his, my finger stroking Lucas’s. It’s something a kid would do, a teenager testing the waters, but I want to know what his hand feels like, want to be able to touch him despite how wrong it is.

Lucas doesn’t speak, doesn’t do anything like suck in a sharp breath or rip his hand away. He simply slides his hand closer, and I touch more of him, rub his pinky with mine while my heart races.

He looks up at me then, Lucas sitting lower on the couch, in a more relaxed position than me. The voice is gone now, blocked out by a desire to feel good, to feel him, to feel connected to another person, because despite the women I’ve fucked since losing Ellis, I haven’t felt the kind of connection that makes me feel alive.

“Hunter…” His voice is low and husky, thick with what sounds like desire and probably some confusion thrown in. It’s how I feel too.

“Lucas,” I reply, hooking my finger with his.

We stare at each other, our eyes drawn together like magnets. Does he feel it too? Can he not look away either?

Before my brain can catch up, he’s pushing closer, moving in, his lips stopping a breath away from mine as though he’s giving me a moment to tell him no.

God help me, I don’t want to tell him no. I want to pull him closer.

When I don’t move, don’t speak, Lucas’s lips press against mine. It’s soft at first, light open-mouthed kisses like he’strying to warm me up, and then deeper, his tongue lashing at my lips, which I immediately open to let him inside. His mouth tastes sweet like the cake he just ate, and the kiss moves faster, hungrier, needy sounds coming from one or both of us, I can’t tell which.

Lucas pushes onto his knees, not breaking our kiss, and then he’s straddling me, his arms around my shoulders and mine around his waist, the weight of him welcome against my thighs. He tastes so good, feels so good, the moment going to my head, making the dizziness heighten and my hunger grow.

My hand finds a home on his ass, squeezing his cheeks as Lucas grinds against me. It’s…too much, not enough, so fucking wrong, but I’m so damn tired. Tired of hurting, of being sad, of feeling alone, and somehow, being with him, the last place I should be, helps.

I give a hungry groan when Lucas bites my lip, rutting on me like he needs this as much as I do. My dick is throbbing between us, his hard against mine as we both take the pleasure dangling in front of us.

But I’ve always prided myself on doing the right thing, and this is so fucking wrong. Lucas gasps when I pull away from him, both of us breathing heavily, eyes stuck on each other. I see the fear in his, the worry about what I’ll say or do, like he’s afraid I’ll stop, but…I don’t. Damned if that’s not the last thing on my mind right now.

I rip Lucas’s shirt over his head. He’s got a great body—lithe muscle, defined but not overly so. He’s not one of those guys who spends too much time in the gym, unlike me. His pecs are firm but not huge, with a patch of hair between them. And those colorful tattoos…damned if I don’t wonder what they taste like.

First, though, I lean in and lash my tongue against his collarbone, taste his heartbeat in his throat, and then Lucas isripping my shirt over my head before sealing his mouth to mine again.

I should get up and walk out of this room right now…but I can’t force myself to do it. I don’t want to stop kissing him, so I turn off my brain and let myself have this, even if I’ll hate myself for it later.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Lucas

Ican’t believeI’m kissing Hunter, that it’s his tongue in my mouth, my tongue playing in his. His hands run up and down my body, grabbing and squeezing my ass, traveling up my back, squeezing my nape, then heading south again. It’s like he can’t get enough of me. I don’t really think that’s true. I think he’s horny, craving pleasure, and I’m a willing body. I tell myself it’s not me specifically he wants, just someone, just release, and I’m foolish enough to let that be me, despite all the reasons I shouldn’t.

“I wish I knew how to enjoy life the way you do.”

It about killed me earlier when he said that, just like it had when he said he sees me. It had taken everything inside me not to kiss him then, not to offer him my body, to take anything and everything Hunter would give me.