Easy (23 page)

“Jacqueline?
Why—?” He cut himself off at the look on my face, pulling me inside and
shutting the door behind me. “What’s wrong?” His hands gripped my elbows as I
stared up at him. He was wearing drawstring pajama bottoms and a dark t-shirt,
the sexy lines of his tattoos spilling from his sleeves to his wrists. He also
wore thin, black-framed glasses that accentuated the blue in his eyes and his
dark lashes.

I took a breath
and blurted everything out before I was too chickenshit to say any of it. “I wanted
to tell you that I just—I miss you. And maybe that sounds ridiculous—like we
barely know each other, but between the emails and texts and… everything else,
I felt like we did. Like we do. And I miss—I don’t know how else to say it—I
miss both of you.”

He swallowed,
closing his eyes and inhaling slowly. I knew he would be all rational and
do-the-right-thing and he would push me away again, and I was determined not to
give him that chance. But then his eyes flashed open and he said, “Fuck it,” pushing
me against the door, slamming his forearms on either side of my head and kissing
me more forcefully than I’d ever been kissed, so firmly that I could feel the
ring at the edge of his mouth scoring into the surface of my lip.

He pressed his
hard body against mine and I pressed back, grabbing handfuls of his t-shirt and
fitting myself to him while his tongue stroked the interior of my mouth. When
he drew back a fraction, I protested with an embarrassingly inarticulate sound
and he chuckled softly, but he was just removing my coat and towing me to the
sofa. Sitting, he dragged me astride his lap, cradling my head in one palm and
crushing me closer with the other.

We parted, breathless,
and he tossed his glasses on the side table and tore his t-shirt over his head,
and then removed mine more gently. His warm hands spanned my sides and held me
tighter as our lips moved together, his tongue making languid, sweeping passes
across mine. I wound my arms around his neck, opening my mouth and taking him
in. When he kissed the corner of my mouth and dipped his lips to the hollow at
the base of my throat, my head fell back. I couldn’t stop the soft keening moan
his light sucking kisses triggered.

“You have a
freckle here,” he whispered, sweeping his tongue over a spot just under my jaw.
“It drives me crazy every time you’re above me. I just want to do this…” The
gentle draw of his mouth pushed me over the edge, and my knees tightened around
his hips as I rocked against him.

Light eyes smoldering,
he removed my bra, outlining concentric rings with his fingertips, touching me
so softly that I grew dizzy wanting more. His hands cupped my breasts, thumbs
brushing the undersides, and I leaned my face down to his and sucked his tongue
into my mouth, sliding my hand down his taut abdomen and lower over the front of
the soft flannel pants. I tugged on one of the strings.

“God, Jacqueline,”
he gasped, straining against my hand while his arms snaked around me, fingers stealing
into my hair at the nape as our mouths devoured each other. Breaking the kiss,
he pressed his forehead to my shoulder and groaned, his teeth clenched. “Tell
me to stop.”

Confused, I shook
my head, though I had no idea if the action was fervent or imperceptible. His
breath fanned over my breasts and I bent to his ear, my voice a murmur. “I
don’t want you to stop.”

Wordlessly rolling
us down and onto our sides, he unzipped my jeans and slipped his hand between
the insubstantial fabric of my underwear and my skin, his fingers searching for
and finding the place he sought as he kissed me. I gasped his name into his
mouth, my fingers digging into his bicep, and his voice was a low growl in my
ear. “Jacqueline. Say stop.”

I shook my head
once, my palm sliding down to press against the evidence of what his body
wanted from me. “Don’t stop,” I breathed, telling him that I wanted what he
wanted, unconditionally. I kissed him back, sure in the knowledge that my
actions and words were all the confirmation he needed to continue.

I was wrong. “Say
stop, please.
Please
.” The last whispered word was a plea I couldn’t
deny, even if I didn’t understand the reason for it.

“Stop,” I
whispered, not meaning it, not wanting it, and he shuddered and removed his
hand from me. Curling my hands between our chests, I didn’t move away, didn’t
speak. I just lay in his arms for long minutes, until his breathing slowed,
finally becoming deep and even.

Landon Lucas Maxfield was asleep on his sofa. With me.

***

I woke to the muffled sound of
Francis yowling to be let inside. Disentangling myself from Lucas cautiously, I
slid from the sofa and went to let him in, grabbing my bra and long-sleeved
t-shirt and pulling them back on. A gust of chilly air entered with Lucas’s cat,
and I shut the door as soon as he fully cleared the doorway. After wrapping his
tail around my leg for the span of two seconds, he stalked off to the bedroom,
and I supposed that was as thankful as he ever got.

I returned to the
sofa, but I sank to the floor and examined Lucas instead of waking him or
snuggling back into his embrace. With the planes of his face partially obscured
by his dark hair, his full lips slightly parted and thick lashes combined in sleep,
I could see the boy inside the man more clearly than I had before. I didn’t
understand what happened earlier, why he made me stop him or why he held himself
apart from everyone, from
me
, but I wanted to understand.

I guessed that the
rose tattoo was a possible clue, given its placement over his heart. Most of
the ink on his arms consisted of symbols and intricate motifs, and I wondered
if any these were his own design. He shifted onto his back then, and I could
finally read the words on his left side:

Love is not the absence of logic

but logic examined and recalculated

heated and curved to fit

inside the contours of the heart

I needed no more
proof to know that somewhere in his possibly not-so-distant past, Lucas had loved
someone, deeply. Someone he must have lost, because she didn’t appear to be
around. And then I looked more closely at the tattoo banding the upturned wrist
that lay near his face. Within the inky pattern, masquerading as normal pink
skin within the design, was a thin but jagged scar. It ran from one side to the
other—all the way across, contained by the black tattooed lines like hidden
code.

His right wrist was
circled with the same banded design, and watching his face for signs of
wakefulness, I lifted it from his chest and gently turned it to check. It, too,
was scarred from one side to the other—the scar hidden skillfully by the tattoo
artist.

Stunned, I sat on
the floor, watching him sleep. I had no idea if this was something I could ever
bring up with him—if it was something he’d ever willingly tell me. Even having
spent my fair share of days and nights miserable over the breakup with Kennedy,
I was never depressed enough to consider suicide. I had no idea what it would
take to get to that hopeless point. Not really.

It was late, and I
needed to get back to my dorm. Our class—my class—began in only eight hours. On
the kitchen counter, I found a discarded envelope and I scribbled a note letting
him know I’d gone back to the dorm and would see him tomorrow.

“Wait.” Lucas’s
voice stopped me with my hand on the doorknob. He sat up, slightly disoriented
from sleep.

“I didn’t want to
wake you, so I left a note.” I picked it up from the end table, folding it and
shoving it into my pocket. I was so overfull of words to say and questions to
ask that none would come out.

He rubbed his eyes
and stood, stretching his neck to the side, extending his arms back, eyes
closed. His biceps and pecs flexed from the movement, and I wanted to stop
staring, but couldn’t until his eyes flashed open. “I’ll walk you out to your
truck.”

He turned to grab
his t-shirt and pull it back on, and I was able to ogle him shamelessly again.
Across the top of his defined shoulders and back were more inked designs and
scripted words, but the t-shirt covered them much too abruptly. He disappeared
into his bedroom and came out wearing his hoodie and a very beat-up pair of
Sperrys I’d never seen him wear. Boots were his standard footwear.

“Francis is on the
bed? Unless he’s developed opposable thumbs, I guess you let him in.” Crossing
the room to me, he smiled.

I nodded as he neared,
and his smile ebbed. I knew he was thinking about what happened before we fell
asleep wrapped up in each other, wondering what I thought about him pleading
with me to say
stop
when I’d made it clear that I didn’t want to. If he only
knew—my confusion over his strange rejection was nothing to the apprehension
over what had caused the scars on his wrists.

Chapter 19

After a week of Lucas ignoring my
existence while we were in class, I wasn’t sure what to expect Monday morning. The
alteration was minor, but undeniable. When I entered the classroom, his eyes
met mine, the barest suggestion of a smile playing on his mouth. Everything
about him had grown familiar. The night I danced with him, his features had merged
into an exceptionally crush-worthy guy. Now, he was all sharp angled jaw and
strong chin, his nose with the slightest hint of a prior break. A crescent-shaped
scar sat high on one cheekbone, and his colorless eyes were sometimes a little
eerie. The fringes of his bedhead hair were just long enough to soften the
whole; if he ever cut it short, he would look like a completely different guy.

He returned his
attention to the ever-present sketchbook, and I pulled my gaze forward in an
effort to keep from pitching down the steps. Just hours before, he’d held my
face in his hands, pressed me against the door to my truck and kissed me as
though we’d done what I’d wanted to do. I’d driven back to my dorm in a state
of bewildered lust.

Sliding into my
seat next to Benji, I withstood the temptation to look over my shoulder. If he
wasn’t watching me, I’d be disappointed. If he was, I’d be caught.

The girl on my right
was giving her usual Monday morning weekend recap to her neighbor… and the two
or three dozen other people who could hear her. Benji pantomimed her perfectly,
if a bit dramatically, and I pretended a coughing fit to hide my laughter.
Unfortunately, the coughing drew her attention.

“Are you
dying
or something?” she asked, affecting a perfect sneer as I shook my head. “Well,
hacking up a lung out in public isn’t all that attractive—just sayin’.”

My face flamed,
but then Benji leaned up and spoke around me. “Um, giving half the class an
exhaustive summary every Monday morning—in lurid detail—of how much of an
alcoholic skank you are?
Isn’t all that attractive, either
. Just
sayin’.”

She gasped as nearby
people snickered, and I caught my lower lip between my teeth while trying to
stare straight ahead. Thankfully, Dr. Heller entered then, and class started,
and I went back to fifty long minutes of attempting to forget Lucas’s presence
three rows back and five seats over.

“So… nine days
’til the final.” Benji stuffed his backpack and smirked at me while I packed
mine.

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Nine days until
no more…
restrictions
.” I rolled my eyes directly at him as his brows
danced up and down. “Eh? Eh?”

I couldn’t help
checking to see if Lucas was still in the room. He was talking to the Zeta girl
he’d spoken to before—but he was watching me over her head.

Benji sidled by on
his way to the aisle, a grin splitting his face. “I’ll take
Hot Tutors
for $200, Alex,” he said in an unnaturally feminine voice before he began humming
the
Jeopardy
theme song. He was
still
humming it when he smiled
at Lucas just before exiting.

I hoped I wasn’t
blushing as Lucas fell into step with me, but neither of us spoke until we were
outside. Clearing his throat, he gestured toward Benji’s retreating back with
one shoulder. “Does he, um, does he know? About..?”

He worried his
bottom lip and the small silver ring, a slight frown on his face.

“He’s actually how
I figured out… who you were.”

“Oh?” He walked
with me toward my Spanish class, as he had once before.

“He’d noticed us… looking
at each other,” I shrugged, “and he asked me if I went to your tutoring
sessions.”

Closing his eyes
for a beat, he took a breath. “God. I’m so sorry.” I waited, hoping he would
tell me the reason for the Landon/Lucas charade, finally. We hiked across the
hilly campus in silence for a minute or two, every step taking us nearer to my
class. Without a single cloud in the sky, the sun warmed us in direct patches
of light while we froze in the shade cast by trees and buildings.

 “I noticed you
the first week.” His voice was soft. “Not just because of how pretty you are,
though of course, that played into it.” I smiled, watching our feet as we
matched our steps. “It was the way you lean onto your elbows when you’re listening
in class, when something catches your interest. And when you laugh, it’s never
to get attention, it’s just—laughter. The way you obsessively tuck your hair
behind your ear on the left side, but let the right side fall down like a screen.
And when you’re bored, you tap your foot soundlessly and move your fingers on
the desktop like you’re playing an instrument. I wanted to sketch you.”

We stopped and
stood in a square of sun, well away from the shadowed entrance to the language
arts building. “Almost every time I saw you, you were with
him
. But one
day, you walked up to the building alone. I was holding the door for several
girls in front of you, and I waited for you to catch up. When you reached me,
you look pleased, and a little surprised. Unlike the others, you didn’t expect
the door to be held for you by some random guy. You smiled up at me and said,
‘Thank you.’ That was the last straw. I prayed you’d never come to a session,
and not with him. I didn’t want you to know I was the tutor.