Page 40 of Sweet Temptation
Then her nose scrunches up like she just smelled something bad. “How many women have you said that to?”
“Not as many as you think.” I act like I’m going to drop her again until she tightens her hold on me.
“Which makes it one too many, Lucky.” She pulls back and runs her thumb along my jaw.
One single touch, and it threatens to take me to my fucking knees.
“Ask me why, Lex.” My voice sounds pained and foreign to my own ears. “Ask me.”
Her face pales, and she pushes off my chest. “Lucky... I don’t feel so good.”
“What’s wrong?” I walk out of the ocean, ready to grab the keys and the car and take her to the hospital. “Lexie?—”
“Migraine.” She closes her eyes. “The new meds I’m on—they give me migraines.”
She rests her head on my shoulder.
I bypass my board and her towel and walk back to the still silent house. “You want me to take you to your room?”
“No,” she whimpers. “Aurora’s in there. No one’s in my mom’s room.”
I carry her up to the third floor where Cooper and Carys’s room takes up the entire space and lay her down on the bed. “You want me to get you medicine?”
“Yes, please. It’s in a bag on the nightstand.” She tucks herself into a ball, and I say a quick prayer my cousin doesn’t wake up, thinking I’m a deranged stalker, and scream or attack. I wouldn’t put either past her.
Luckily, Aurora doesn’t even hear me walk into the room, and I grab the entire bag of meds sitting on the nightstand next to the empty side of the bed. Then I grab a bottle of water from the kitchen and head back up to Lexie.
“Lex,” I whisper as I walk back in. I may be an asshole, but I’ve got a sister and a mother who both get migraines, and I know better than to be loud. “I’ve got your meds and some water.”
I look at the bag and realize I have no clue which of the dozen plus bottles she needs.
She opens her eyes and quickly looks through the bag, then takes two pills without bothering with the water and lies back down.
“Want me to shut the curtains?” I don’t bother waiting for her to answer before I start closing the heavy drapes.
“Thank you,” she whispers. “You might have a little hero in you after all.”
I pull the throw blanket off the foot of the bed and cover her with it, then push her hair off her forehead. “Don’t tell anyone, okay?”
“Promise.”
LEXIE
I used to hope it was you and me in the end.
That was before I realized how soon the end would come and how selfish that made me.
—Lexie’s Secret Thoughts
“Are you sick of serving pumpkin coffees yet?” Amelia asks, as she walks through the swinging doors from the kitchen, a piping bag in one hand and a beautifully iced cupcake that smells like fall in Kroydon Hills in the other.
“Never,” I tell her with complete honesty. “Bring it on.”
“Here.” She hands me the cupcake. “Taste this and tell me what you think. I’ve been playing with a new recipe.”
I break off a piece of the surprisingly fluffy cupcake and pop it into my mouth. “Honestly?” I ask, feeling bad when she nods. “Maybe try green apple. It’s too sweet. The pumpkin is overpowering, and whatever kind of apple that’s in there is too sweet.”
“Shit. Okay. Back to the drawing board.”
