Page 141 of Vicious Games

I turn around and melt a little at the sight before me. Lucky is sprawled across the bed as if he owns it. Because let’s face it, he does, in the way only someone like him can. The sheet hangs low on his hips, barely clinging to modesty, and the candlelight throws golden shadows across his bare chest. Muscle and sinew, all hard lines and soft tanned skin, as if he were carved from something ancient and wild and… all man.

His eyes are half-lidded but locked on me with that look he gets when he sees more than I want to give away. That look that tells me heknowsme, whether I want him to or not. The look that says he can read my every thought, expose every secret.

He shifts slightly, one arm tucked behind his head while the other reaches toward my side of the bed. “Seriously, Frankie,” he murmurs, voice like gravel and velvet, “stop looking at me like you’re already gone. You’re not. You’re here. With me. So be here… with me.”

And just like that, my heart does that stupid thing again—stumbles, catches, aches. Because I want to go to him. God, I want to. But I also want to run. Run as fast as I can away from the suffering I’m sure is close behind.

“Have it your way, then,” he says before throwing the covers aside and rising from the bed in one fluid, unbothered motion, completely unapologetic in his nakedness as if shame were a foreign language. “If you don’t come to me, then I’ll come to you.”

My breath stalls as he crosses the room like sin made of flesh. Once he’s too close for comfort, I take a step back until the cool glass of the window is at my spine, stealing the warmth from my skin. Still, Lucky doesn’t stop. He marches right at me, crowding me to the window. One of his hands finds my hip, his fingers curling around it as if my body has always belonged to him, while the other gently tilts my chin up until my gaze is forced to meet his.

“Hi,” he says, low and warm.

“Hi,” I echo, my voice barely above a whisper, hating how my body betrays me and melts into his touch, arms winding around his neck as if they’ve missed him.

“Let’s have it then,” he murmurs, thumb brushing along my jaw. “Whatever’s in that pretty head of yours, say it. Let’s talk it out.”

“I’m not sure you’ll like what I have to say.”

He lets out a smile—one that is slow and too damn sexy for his own good—before tugging at the belt of my robe. It falls open with ease, his smirk widening now that he has full access to me.

“Say it anyway,” he says, letting his palm drift down from the curve of my collarbone to the softness of my belly, lingering there. “I’m sure I can find a way for it not to sting so much.”

My heart pounds with the intent in his eyes. “Tonight was…. wonderful.” I swallow hard. “But we… us… can’t happen.”

“Is that so?” His hand glides up, warm and steady, his touch both soothing and maddening. “Tell me why not. I’m listening.”

“Because,” I begin, but the word disintegrates the second his fingers brush over my nipple, teasing it with just enough pressure to make my knees go weak.

“You were saying?” he asks, smug and infuriating, and beautiful in a way that makes me ache.

“How am I supposed to have a serious conversation with you when—”

“When what, Frankie?” he interrupts, voice darker now. “When I touch what’s mine?”

“I’m not—” but my protest dies on a moan as his mouth closes over my nipple, sucking, claiming, before pulling back with a loud, wet pop that echoes in the silence around us.

“You’re not what?” he murmurs in amusement. “Mine? Yeah, Frankie. You are. You’ve been mine since the second you walked into my world. Might as well wrap that pretty head around it now because, like I told you before, you can’t get rid of me now. I’m not going anywhere. Not now. Not ever.”

His conviction is what shatters me.

I shove at his chest with everything I have, pushing him back a step. “Don’t say that! You can’t say stuff like that to me.”

“Why not?” he shoots back, steady and unflinching, fingers firm beneath my chin as he holds my gaze. “This… us… it’s happening. So go ahead, lay it on me. Give me every excuse you’ve got. Tell me why you can’t be mine! Go ahead! Say it!”

“Because!” I shout back.

“Not good enough! Tell me!”

“Because… everybody leaves!”

When the words fall out of my mouth, Lucky isn’t the only one shocked by them.

Is that the real reason why I don’t think we have a future?

Because my baggage somehow has affected all my relationships, all my decision-making, all my hopes and dreams for something real?

Am I making excuses to not be happy for fear of actually being happy and having it ripped from under me?

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