Page 18 of Sweet Temptation (Love & Legacy #1)

LEXIE

Being a functioning adult every day seems a bit extreme, don’t you think?

—Lexie’s Secret Thoughts

L ucky’s lips are pressed to my shoulder when I wake up. The storm has passed, and the sun is shining through the open curtains. And in the light of the morning, everything feels different.

Harder.

Lucky wraps an arm around me, dragging me closer, and I let him.

Everything’s changed.

He kissed me all night long. Every time he reached for me, his lips brushed my skin as if a magnetic force demanded it. I blame that same force for waking up in Lucky’s bed. I had no intention of staying in here, but damn him for giving me the best sex and the best sleep of my life.

“Stop thinking so hard, Lex.” His sleepy, sexy voice is like nails on a chalkboard.

“I can’t be here,” I whisper, wishing I still had the cover of darkness to hide behind.

But Lucky doesn’t release me. He drags me closer.

Holds me tighter.

Like he can change things by sheer strength.

Why do men always think they can bend reality to their will if they’re strong enough?

“I know for a fact the shop is closed on Mondays, dolcezza . You have time. I don’t have to be at the field for an hour.

It takes twenty minutes to get there. That leaves me at least twenty more minutes of this.

” His hand slides between my thighs, and I forget the argument that was on the tip of my tongue.

That is until the front door opens.

Shit.

“Lucky—” I hiss as his finger strokes me. “Stop.”

“That’s not what you were saying?—”

“Lucky. Lincoln just got home, and our clothes are in the kitchen.” Sex-drunk did not make for the most responsible Lexie. The only good choice I made was making sure we used condoms. Lots of condoms. I lost track after four. Maybe five. And there goes my mind again.

I shove at Lucky’s chest and pinch his nipple when he smiles at me. “You have to get our clothes before Linc sees them. Tell him you’ve got a girl in here. Tell him whatever you have to. Just get our clothes.”

Crap. I think I’m going to be sick, and the big, sexy, asshole next to me is smiling.

“What are you doing? Get up.” I shove at his chest, but he doesn’t budge.

“I got them last night, Lex. They’re on the chair.”

My entire body relaxes, and the fight-or-flight adrenaline bleeds free from my nervous system. Oh thank goodness.

“Lucky,” Linc calls out, and I freeze, right back where I was a moment ago.

“Up here, man,” he calls back, and I stare in shock.

“What are you doing? He can’t know I’m in here.”

He throws his legs over the side of the bed and pulls a pair of boxers up his legs.

Damn. He’s got a great ass. And when he turns and smiles, both dimples popping deep in his cheeks, my heart warms. Stupid heart.

He tosses me my t-shirt, and I slip it on and slide out of bed, searching for my panties.

“You seen Lex?” Linc calls out from what sounds like the other side of the door, and that brings any heat I might have felt right back down to an ice-cold chill filling my veins.

I stare at Lucky, silently begging him to handle this, and watch as he walks to the door, praying he doesn’t say anything stupid.

I should have known. Praying has never worked for me.

Lucky cracks open the door, keeping me hidden, his body relaxed when he sees my brother. “Hey, man.”

“Hey, you seen Lex?”

I stare, frozen as Lucky turns back to me. “Yeah. She’s right here.”

Mother. Fucker.

I’m going to kill him.

“Hey, Lex,” Linc looks around Lucky and grins.

Grins. Like he didn’t just find his sister half naked in his best friend’s bedroom.

“I saw Mom at The Busy Bee this morning. She wants you to stop by the shop today.” He eyes me like I’m not practically naked, then stares at my shirt. “Is that my shirt?”

“No, you ass,” I snap. Ready to physically maim Lucky and not at all sure how I feel about Linc right this very moment. “It’s mine. I stole it ten years ago. Possession is nine-tenths of the law.”

Linc shrugs and smiles. “Took you guys long enough.”

“What?” I ask, nearly falling over as I try to get to the door. I shove Lucky out of the way and stare at the two idiots.

Lincoln is enjoying this way too damn much. “We all saw it coming. Everyone but you.”

“Nothing is coming.” I’m going to kill him, then maim him, then kill him again.

“Uh, Lex,” Lucky starts with a cocky grin, and I point my finger in his face.

“No. Stop. Do not go there,” I threaten, and Linc laughs while Lucky presses his lips together, trying not to smile.

Linc’s maiming can wait. I’ll start with Lucky.

“We are not happening. We are not a thing. This...” I point between us.

“This was a one-time thing. An itch that needed to be scratched.”

“You know, they make cream for that?—”

“I will rip your balls off and shove them down your throat until you choke if you finish that sentence, Lincoln Joseph.”

Lucky laughs, and I turn my eyes on him, a very different kind of fire in them now than just a few hours ago. “You are an asshole.”

I shove his chest and move around him to get to the safety of my room, where I can figure out what the hell just happened.

“This is happening, Alexis. We are happening,” Lucky calls after me.

“There is no we . We were a one-time thing. We ended hours ago,” I try to scream, but my voice comes out hoarse to my own ears as I slam the door.

But not before I hear Linc groan, “One time?”

“Fuck off, asswipe,” is the last thing I hear Lucky say as I slide down the door until my ass hits the carpet.

I knew last night was a bad idea.

W hen some girls stress, they eat.

When I stress, I bake.

A lot.

That explains why I’m drizzling homemade salted caramel on what’s got to be my... I don’t even know what number cookie I’m on. I lost track when I decided to make my fourth kind. I don’t go for salted caramel often, but there’s something satisfying about making the caramel, so I said fuck it.

Shame the dickhead isn’t here so I can tell him he got me to say fuck again.

And it’s the only way he’s ever going to hear me use that word from here on out.

“Hello . . .” Brea calls out as she walks through the front door. “Lex . . .”

I don’t answer her. I don’t need to. She follows the sugary cookie scent into the kitchen and grimaces when she sees the counters covered in dozens of cookies cooling on racks. “Oh shit. Who fucked up?”

I blow a strand of hair out of my face and continue to drizzle caramel.

“Wait. I see lemon ricotta cookies, chocolate chip cookies, and oh wow, peanut butter and raspberry jam cookies? This is bad.” She grabs one of the warm salty caramels and breaks off a piece. “Okay, bad,” she murmurs with a mouthful. “But so good.”

“Thanks,” I blurt out and finish with the caramel and hand her my squirt bottle so she can add a little extra. Brea loves my caramel. Mine is better than hers.

“So, who pissed in your pie?” she asks and squirts some caramel onto an already oozing cookie.

I barely look at her before the timer goes on the batch of walnut chocolate chunk in the oven.

“Shit. Was it me? Should I be worried?”

Once I have the trays from the oven resting on the racks, I stop and look at my best friend. And for the first time in hours, I feel like I could cry.

That thought hits me about thirty seconds before my lips tremble and hot tears sting my eyes.

“Lexie, you’re scaring me. You don’t cry. Like, ever. I cry. I’m the crier.” She moves around the mess I’ve made and hugs me. “Are you okay? Are you sick?”

I sniffle and shake my head. “I’m okay, physically.”

“Your lungs?—”

“Are as good as they get. It’s not my lungs. It’s my heart. My heart and your stupid cousin.” I wipe away the tears with the back of my hand, but they just keep coming. “It hurts, Brea.”

“I don’t understand,” she says softly as she strokes my hair like I’m a child who needs soothing. And right now, I am.

“I slept with Lucky,” I finally admit, and my heart breaks a little bit more.

“That motherfucker. Tell me you slept with him, and then he hooked up with someone else, and I swear to God, I will use the cleaver Nonna gifted me at graduation to chop his balls off.”

I shake my head, wishing I could find that funny.

“I made him promise it would just be one time,” I whisper, hating how weak my words sound.

“Okay, sweets, I’m going to need you to explain this to me because I’m confused.”

I hand her another cookie and slide onto a stool and spill everything.

Everything about the past few weeks.

Everything about last night.

Well, not everything. Just everything she needs to know.

Everything about this morning.

And that’s when Brea stops me, her face ghostly white. “Where was Linc?”

“I don’t know. I figured he was with you.”

She straightens and pushes away whatever she’s thinking. “What did he say?”

“Brea . . .”

“Nope. My meltdown can be later. Yours is today. One at a time. Now, what happened when Linc got home?” Some best friends come in and out of your life like seasons.

I never had a huge group of friends. Most kids were scared of me.

They didn’t understand why I spent so much time in the hospital.

But Brea, Saylor, Aurora, even my cousin Dillan, and Elodie, when she’s in town. .. they’re special. Especially Brea.

I choose to listen to her advice and finish the story.

Tomorrow, we can spend hours making homemade pasta.

That’s how she deals with stress.

Who knows? Maybe we’ll poison both my roommates by the end of the week.

Right now, that doesn’t seem like the worst thought.

And when I’m done filling her in, I’m pretty sure she agrees with me.

I grab a walnut chocolate chunk cookie and break it in half, stuffing half in my face, and wait for her to say something. Anything. And when she doesn’t, I get scared. I don’t think I was wrong, but maybe... I don’t know. “Say something.”

“I can’t, Lex. I think I’m too stuck on the fact that you don’t want anyone to love you because you think you’re going to leave them.” Her eyes fill with tears that match mine.