Page 14 of The Temptation

We are now on day twelve, and nothing much has changed. I’m hardly sleeping, which is not helping to curb my sour mood, and the air between Lucia and me is so thick you could cut it with a knife.

We’re still sharing meals together, and she’s yet to cook anything I haven’t liked. In all honesty, it has been the highlight of my stay here. Other than that, though, I’ve been avoiding her like the plague.

I don’t like how she makes me want things I can’t have. That’s why I need distance. Well, as much as you can get when you’re locked in a house with the person you’re desperately trying to avoid.

Every glance feels like a test. Every accidental touch is a reminder. It’s as if my whole body is wired to respond to her, even when my brain is screaming,“Fucking don’t.”And the worst part? She’s not even trying. She exists, effortlessly, painfully, and it’s enough to undo me.

Once my meal is done, I clean up and then go into whichever room she isn’t in and work. Even that isn’tenough to escape her. Her delicate coconut scent seems to waft around in the air like a ghost, soft and persistent, impossible to forget. It clings to the curtains, the furniture … the inside of my damn lungs. It’s like a slow, agonising torture, and a reminder of what I can never have.

Lucia seems oblivious to the chaos running rampant inside me. If she isn’t prepping dinner, cooking, cleaning, or ruining my damn dog with all her love, she’s reading.

I’m really starting to hate those stupid books of hers. I made the mistake of picking one up the other day and skimming through the pages.

My biggest regret to date.

The hero in the story was some brooding, six-foot-five former Navy SEAL-turned-billionaire who rescues puppies andwrites fucking poetry. He was always saying stupid stuff like,“I ache for you, Raquel,”or“I need you more than I need air,”while single-handedly saving her from a group of armed thugs, one chiselled bicep at a time.

Does the dick even realise he’d die if he didn’t breathe?

What bothers me the most is that dreamy look she gets in her eyes while she tears through those damn chapters.

It crawls under my skin in the worst possible way, and don’t even get me started on how she zones out like the world around her doesn’t exist—likeIdon’t exist—because some pretty boy is whispering sweet nothings to the woman within those pages.

Maybe it’s irrational, but I hate that look because it’s not for me.

Am I jealous of some fictional character who probably cried every time his mummy left the room when he was a kid? Maybe. And I despise that, but more importantly, I hate how much it bothers me.

If backyard bonfires weren’t frowned upon in the suburbs, I’d drag every last one of those stupid books outsideand light them up.A big, blazing, glorious fire.I wouldn’t even flinch as I watched the pages curl and blacken and poof into nothing.

Add to that the isolation of lockdown, and she’s got me completely twisted up inside, to the point I can’t seem to think straight.

It rained here all goddamn day.Non-fucking-stop.The kind of rain that seeps into your bones and makes everything feel heavier. I couldn’t even escape this living hell by taking my dog for a walk.

Instead, I spent my time pacing the house while Lucia lounged around with her nose buried in another book.

I’m currently in bed, letting the pitter-patter of rain hitting the tin roof try to lull me to sleep, but just as that hazy edge of slumber begins pulling me under, a sharpcracksplits the air, jerking me upright.

My heart’s pounding in my chest as my hand instinctively slides under the pillow, and my fingers wrap around the butt of my gun.

My first thought is it was a gunshot, but when I’m halfway out of bed, a blinding flash spills through the room, bleaching everything white for a split second. Anothercrackfollows right after, ripping through the sky.

I exhale all the air from my lungs as I ease back onto the mattress, but the calm doesn’t last. Two more booms explode overhead, so close and violent they rattle the windows in their frames.

That’s when the bedroom door bursts open. My arm shoots up on instinct, aimed towards the threat just as the light flips on, flooding the room and momentarily blinding me.

A sharp gasp cuts through the air as my vision clears. Lucia stands frozen in the doorway with her wide eyes locked on the gun now aimed straight at her.

“Please don’t shoot me,” she murmurs, holding her hands up in front of her.

“Jesus, Lucia. I’m not going to shoot you,” I grumble as I lower the gun and shove it back under my pillow. “What the fuck are you doing in my room?” My eyes leave hers, slowly perusing down her tight body. “And where the fuck are your clothes?”

Tonight, she’s wearing a skimpy pair of baby pink lace panties and a tight pink singlet that leaves nothing to the imagination. Her braless, perky tits cause her taut nipples to practically poke through the thin fabric of her top.

My nostrils flare as my gaze snaps back to her face, and the first thing I notice is the quivering of her bottom lip. “I hate thunder. Can I sleep in here with you?”

I rear back. “Fuck no.”

“But Arabella used to let me climb in bed with her whenever we had a storm back in Italy.”