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I captured her mouth with mine. It was something that I hadn’t let myself truly hope for, this time with her. She clung to my neck, fingers digging into my shirt, desperation leaking through her fingers. I turned and carried her up the stairs to my bedroom.
Chapter 19
Evelyn
For the second time today, I was in Lucas’s bedroom. But this was different. This time, soft darkness wrapped around us, and I could feel Lucas’s heart pounding as hard as mine was. He let me slide to my feet before we reached the bed, but his hands didn’t leave me.
Light still poured up from the stairs and through the windows from the floodlights outside. Enough light that I could see him, and enough darkness to make me feel bold.
“Evelyn,” he said, “whatever happens, it needs to be what you want.”
I touched him, reaching out and drawing my fingers up his chest, and he stilled. “This afternoon, before I found the house,” I managed to say. “I was thinking about you. About the way you’d kissed me, and how I wanted more.”
I was glad the semidarkness kept him from seeing my blush. “I was going to try to find you and see if you were busy. I had hoped—” My voice cut off. “I don’t know what I hoped. But it’s not because of what happened today. I’m not... I’m not using you.”
Lucas’s gentle hands drew up my arms and curled around my neck. His thumbs tilted my jaw up so I looked at him. “The thought didn’t cross my mind. But I’m glad you told me.”
I released a shuddering breath. Just because it was something I wanted didn’t mean it was all going to be easy. “I don’t know how to do this anymore. But I do want you.”
Slowly, Lucas leaned down and pressed his forehead against mine. “I don’t care what we’re doing. If you need to stop, we stop.”
I loved him for that. But as he kissed me, heat building under my skin, I couldn’t imagine this man doing anything that would make me want to stop. Lucas was different. My soul recognized it. Reveled in it. This man would never hurt me.
He lifted me into his arms again, this time laying me down on the bed. The kiss was familiar, bordering on the edges of what we’d already touched. He was holding back. Going slow. For me.
I opened my mouth to him and invited him in. Traced his tongue with mine in a way that sent heat shivering down my limbs. I’d pulled away when he touched my skin before, but I was ready now. Still, I broke our kiss apart when his fingers crept under my borrowed shirt. “Lucas, you need to know that what you’re going to see isn’t pretty.”
Nathan had left scars. Patterns that, like the man, had no rhyme nor reason. I never looked in the mirror without clothes anymore. I didn’t want to see what he’d destroyed. Ruined.
Lucas lifted the T-shirt away from my skin, working it up and over my head before tossing it aside. His expression didn’t change as he slipped the straps of my bra down my arms—slipped his hands underneath me to unhook it. That ended up on the floor too. And then he was looking at me.
I don’t think I’d ever been looked at like that before. He was seeing me. Like I hadn’t been seen since this happened. But the scars...
Lucas’s face was troubled as he drew a finger across some of the marks on my skin. I couldn’t look at him, shame and fear rising up to swallow me. It burned in my chest, a ball of hot metal. Nathan had gotten what he wanted. I was untouchable to everyone. Because of him.
Emotion welled up, pain blooming in my chest. I closed my eyes, bracing myself for the moment when Lucas gave me back the clothes and sent me away.
“Evelyn,” he said. I shook my head. “Evelyn, look at me.”
There were tears in my eyes when I did. I couldn’t make them stop.
Lucas’s eyes were fierce in the near dark. No fear or hesitation on his face. Only utter belief in what he said next. “There is no part of you that’s not beautiful to me.” He set his lips to my skin over a line of scars. “These make you who you are, and are a reminder that you survived him. You’re alive.”
He continued to kiss those scars, moving his mouth over them until he reached the one at the peak of my breast. His tongue traced over it, lips curling around it, letting it harden under his lips until it nearly ached.
The gentle, lazy teasing poured pure heat through me. It had been so long, that the simple contact made me wet—made me want more.
“Your scars,” he said, lifting his mouth from my skin for a moment, “are not something you should be ashamed of.” His voice was soft, a whisper not meant to break the moment. “And I will spend as many hours as I can in this bed proving it, if that’s what you need.”
I reached for him, running my fingers through his hair. “I just need you.”
“You have me.”
My whole body shuddered. Lucas touched me with a tenderness that reached all the way to my soul. He took his time, brushing his lips over my skin and taking care to touch each line of scars. His hands stroked down my arms. Across my ribs. Slow and soothing until my body relaxed under his hands.
I hadn’t realized the tension that had crept in. But now that it was gone, I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
