Page 59 of Pucking Sweet

“Why?”

“Because I want to know,” I cry. “I want you to be real with me fortwofreaking minutes. Is that too much to ask? Drop the bravado, drop the bullshit, and just be a person with me, Lukas. Why are you pushing me on this?”

He just shakes his head. “No, why were you going to have sex with him tonight? That’s the question I really want to ask.”

I’m not going to hide from this man. What would be the point? He has the uncanny ability to see through me anyway. I look back out the window, watching the city flash past. “Because I’m tired,” I admit. “I’m tired of holding it all together on my own. I guess I just wanted to feel something other than hurt and alone tonight, even if it only lasted for a moment.”

Silence hangs in the air between us.

“I was jealous,” he says, breaking the tension with the swing of a hammer.

Suddenly, I feel like I can’t breathe. I don’t dare look at him. “What?”

“I knew what you wanted from him. I saw it from the balcony. I saw your face, all lit up by the strobes. You looked like a fallen fucking angel, and I knew what you were chasing…and I was jealous. I almost tripped down the stairs trying to get to you.”

“Why were you jealous?”

“Because take however tired and lonely you feel and multiply it by about twenty-seven years. Add in a dash of abandonment issues and a sprinkling of abuse, and you’ll have some idea of what it feels like to go through your entire life wanting things you can’t have.”

Tears sting the corners of my eyes as I search his face. He’s only showing me the profile. Any more might be too revealing for him. But his words are revealing enough.

“I wasn’t jealous just in that moment,” he goes on. “Jealous is my natural state of being. It comes from having to fight for every single thing you earn, watching while the rest of the world is casually handed things.” He turns, looking me dead in the eye. “That shitty asshole didn’t do a goddamn thing to earn you. He didn’t put in the work. He didn’t have your trust. Hell, you were inching the fuck away from him half the time. But he was going to know what it feels like to be inside you? I couldn’t let that happen.”

“Shouldn’t it be my choice who I sleep with? Not yours?”

“Yeah, well, I’m an imperfect fucking person. But you already knew that.”

From the front seat, the driver awkwardly clears his throat. “Uhh, guys. We’re here.”

I sigh, leaning against the door as we pull up at the valet parking stand of our hotel. As soon as the car stops, I get out. I feel like I can’t breathe. This day was already a disaster. Now this night is shredding me at the seams. Lukas is shredding me. What the heck is he even saying? He wants me? All this time, he’s wanted me? He just knows he can’t have me.

I’m sure there are reasons why that’s true. Good reasons. But for the life of me, in this moment, I can’t remember a single one.

He follows silently behind me into the hotel lobby. The concierge greets us. Otherwise the lobby is empty. It’s late. I don’t see any other Rays, and I’m definitely looking. My heels click as I make my way over to the elevator bank. Lukas follows.

I take a deep breath, readying myself as much for a ride in an elevator as sharing it with this man who keeps hogging all my air with a look and a touch. I press the silver “up” button and the mirrored doors open. The back of the elevator is mirrored too, and I get a full look at Lukas and I together as we step in.

Sweet heavens, he’s so handsome. I mean, I always knew he was, in a rough-around-the-edges sort of way. But now the lumps and scars tell the story of his life—his injuries, his fight to earn his way to the top of his sport. He works so hard. And, like me, he’s tired. Andhe’s alone too. We’re alone because it’s easier. It stops us from getting let down, getting hurt.

We turn as one, away from our reflections. “I’m on five,” I say, pressing the button.

“Six,” he says from behind me.

I press the number six and the car rattles upwards, the wall panel beeping with each floor we pass. So long as we’re moving, I’m fine. It’s when elevators stop that the panic sets in. I watch the numbers glow and change as every fiber of me feels pulled to the man standing behind me.

We pass the fourth floor, and the words come tumbling out of my mouth. “Lukas, you can have me.”

21

“What did you just say?”

Behind me, I can feel the tension rolling off Lukas in waves. I don’t dare turn around. “You think you can’t have me, and I’m saying that you can. I mean, if you—only if you want to,” I finish, tucking my hair behind my ear.

The elevator stops at floor five and the doors whoosh open.

Lukas shakes his head. I see the reflection of it in the steel wall panel. “Just get out, Poppy. You’re still drunk. Go sleep it off.”

I spin around, eyes wide. “I’m totally not. Look!” I stand on one leg, wobbling a bit as I tap my nose with my left finger, then my right. “That’s just the heels,” I say defensively, lowering my foot to the floor.