Taunted Souls: A Friends to Lovers Romance

by Janice Ross

  “Lucas!” I screamed. “Lucas!” These cries felt natural coming from my lips.

  My insides flushed over with a powerful energy. I shoved my hips forward into his face, while my fingers gripped onto his wild, dark hair. I had forgotten what real pleasure was. But this was everything I could’ve ever wanted.

  “Five years,” Lucas mumbled against my slit. His words traveled up to my core before racing back down again.

  Five years was a long time to have this level of desire bottled up. I honestly never thought I’d be so lucky to give myself away, just for the sake of love.

  “Ahhh!”

  But after fighting so long, I finally let go. For the emotions that had been locked up for most of my life, I stopped fighting. Between the passion that Lucas fed to the peekaboo area buried on the inside of my flesh and the influx of bittersweet pain over finally giving in, my truth was finally able to manifest all at once.

  And so I sobbed. I fought it out. He commanded my body, my orgasm followed. I no longer controlled things. He did.

  I was sensitive and trembling.

  Lucas placed me on my feet in order to remove the rest of my clothes. He didn’t undress or remove his shoes. His sole focus landed on doing what was needed to satisfy me and only me.

  I sobbed, lightly. His hands reached up to touch my face. I leaned and allowed my head to rest against him. He used his thumb to wipe away my tears.

  “Lucas . . .” I nibbled into his palm. “I don’t want to be without you.”

  This time, I boldly reached up for him. My legs felt right around his waist. The roughness of his clothes should’ve made it uncomfortable to continue, especially against my naked flesh. But I didn’t care. We’d spent a tremendous amount of time staving off our love. That was no longer an option. We pressed on to a new era, a new life, a new love in the here and now.

  —————

  LUCAS

  SHAYNA WAS MORE beautiful than I could’ve imagined. I’d seen her before, but never like this. She had the perfect little nose, beautiful pink lips, and a gorgeous smile that held me close. But her body, shit. Perfect! And her hair carried a refreshing scent, I needed more than a little.

  She lay naked, spread wide across my chest after hours of us exploring each other. I think it had been more than three to be exact. She was exhausted to the point of snoring. Her lips were barely parted as the air rushed out. I woke up with a heavy feeling weighing me down.

  My situation wasn’t an easy one, and would be even more difficult to get out of finally, since Erika hadn’t moved out yet. When I’d decided to take on Erika, I’d been confused, in a devastated state. Shayna had brought me back to a time of my past, when loyalties ran deep and hard times even deeper.

  The thing I’d tried to keep hidden came back. I shook my head and exhaled. Living in the present with the girl of my dreams, I trailed my fingers along Shayna’s shoulders. Her skin was soft, perfect. I slid lower, positioning her petite frame over mine. She fit perfectly on top, in all the right areas. Days like this were meant to live on. I didn’t want to leave, but knew I eventually had to go home because the past still flashed in neon colors.

  “Shay,” I blew onto the top of her hair. My breath was warm, blowing out a heavy, steamy fire.

  Shayna stirred in response. Her lips crashed down on the meaty part of my chest. She went on to trail kisses after kisses across and up, until our lips collided.

  She was no longer my innocent Shayna. She no longer held back. Most importantly, she believed I was now hers. How did I know? In the way she kissed me wholeheartedly. She opened up for me, in return, I wouldn’t and couldn’t disappoint her. When she spread her legs in preparation to mount me, my arms snaked around her hips. She shot straight up, arched her back, took me in and rocked wildly.

  Shayna moaned. She tossed her hair. Her palms gripped and squeezed at her breasts as they fit fully into each palm.

  “Promise me,” Shayna cried out. Her question hung wide out in the air. “I need to know . . . that this isn’t just a thing for you, Lucas, because . . . ummm, it’s not just a thing for me.”

  I thrust my hips up to meet her downward grind. We fed off the passion, the hunger.

  “No negativity. I’ll make it better. I’ll fix this.”

  I allowed her muscles to massage my flesh. “I promise.” For me it was much more than a promise, it was my vow to Shayna. No matter what, I needed her. Erika would have to understand. She had to, God knows, she had to. This night I gave away my heart, my soul . . . my all, and there was no getting them back.

  An hour later, I stood at the side of the bed to watch over the only girl my heart would ever love again. She’d moaned a few times, even clawed and giggled in her sleep. The lights were out and a subtle shine from the moon had sprinkled in drips of hope. I walked over to stand in the moonlight, then took a second to run fingers over my cropped hair. A looming feeling rested in my gut, a hint for what was sure to come.

  I had been able to convince myself three months ago that taking Erika as my wife was the right thing to do. I thought I was doing the right thing. I needed to believe we could be, that I could protect her. I got torn up, confused. In an attempt to protect her, I screwed things up. Erika needed to believe in a love that quite possibly had never taken root. I led her on. Being able to show love to someone like Erika wasn’t difficult. She’d been through a shitload of loss in the past.

  As much as I didn’t want to add to her hurt, I needed to stay true to myself. I could no longer move forward with Erika. If I was forced to continue, I’d never be able to forgive myself and would never be able to let Shayna go again. So I’d be a cheating bastard.

  “Damn,” I mouthed, throwing my fists into the air. If there was some way to go back in time, I’d make the trip. The past always seemed to loom in my present, and knowing now that Shayna had loved me all along, I wouldn’t have wasted the years. Or better yet, I’d only go back as far as the first night I’d met Erika and learn my lesson from there.

  “Damn.” I stepped off and away from the bed, then bent forward to pick up the clothes from the hardwood floor. I paused to look down. The shine from the moonlight stretched across the room. It trailed along the floorboards. I knew every inch of this house. The renovation was our summer project two years back. The memories were still potent as I breathed in the silence and reminisced over our time together so far. And for once in my life, I looked forward to a fulfilling, doubtless future.

  ~

  —————

  SHAYNA

  “WHAT’S WRONG?” I mumbled before kicking myself for saying something so naive. The problem was the fact that he must’ve felt like shit over us. As much as I didn’t want to acknowledge Erika, she was recently a very real part of his life. In acknowledging her, however, did that mean my claim on Lucas was baseless?

  “I’m not a bad guy.”

  “Never said you were.”

  “That stuff with Erika was short lived. Shouldn’t have been a thing in the first place, but would it be better if I’d kept lying?”

  “I don’t know. Can’t be sure.”

  I rolled closer to his firm, muscular chest. My ass backed to his groin while our bodies blended perfectly together. In return, Lucas squeezed my upper body. He pressed me even closer while providing a bearish hug. With our lower bodies already attached to one another, he lapped his legs over the top of mine, then crisscrossed at the bottom. His bulge grew against me. I damn near melted into him and got wet all over again.

  Correction: wetter.

  “Shay, the only thing I’m sure about is you . . . this . . . us.”

  I could feel the pounding of his heart blending with the vibrations of my own. It was the perfect massage to counter the topic.

  “Erika’s gonna hate me,” I whispered as my lips pressed into his forearm. The scent of our bodies made me crave him inside of me all over again. The arms I was already growing accustomed to tightened across my biceps.

 
He kissed the tip of my ear, nibbled and ran his tongue around the edge. Lucas’s hot breath pushed me to the brink of reasoning. A tingly sensation flushed over me. How could something so subtle cause such a reaction?

  “Are you friends? This—” he began before gently thrusting his hips forward. “This is my issue, not yours.”

  “I know, but I’d never get over a guy, specifically my ex-fiancé, moving on within two weeks of calling things off.”

  “It was her decision too.”

  “Yeah, but she’s still living in your house.”

  “Do you want me to leave, Shayna?”

  Kinda felt like I’d done enough.

  “Erika knows what she had with me was doomed.”

  “And now this,” I mouthed.

  “Listen, let me worry about everything else.”

  How could I not care? His words hadn’t soothed me. I knew he meant well, but I had just moved forward. There was no turning back. He had me locked and sealed. To make things worse, I couldn’t say I wouldn’t do it again.

  “Look at me.”

  Without hesitation, I turned around and maintained our proximity. I then arched the top half of my body away from him. His gaze was a familiar one, though for the first time in all these years, I now recognized it as true adoration, hunger, need, longing . . . love.

  A low buzzing sounded off in the distance. Our stare intensified. His chest contracted against mine. He sighed.

  “Give me a second,” he said.

  I studied his movements away from the bed. When he recovered his slacks from a golden corner chaise, he took out his cellphone and glanced at the screen before returning it to the pocket. As soon as he got back cozy with me, it went off again.

  I didn’t wait on him to step away from me. I loosened the grip, since I’d just wrapped my fingers at his sides. Instead of forcing me to tighten my hold, he allowed me to let him go and reluctantly stood up.

  He had to know who was calling. The reaction, after it lit up in his hand, didn’t shift much. His hand went right back inside of his pocket and came out empty.

  “You said it’s over. Are you sure she knows?” I whispered.

  “I’m not that guy, Shayna.”

  Lucas turned back to the bed, took a deep breath, recovered the phone and answered, “I’ll get there in a couple of hours.”

  This time I sat up in the bed, suddenly feeling detached; not from him but myself. I hadn’t spoken with my mother in about two months, since she was taking a journey of self-discovery on some remote island in the South Pacific. I could hear her words, even saw the anger forming on her face as she scolded me as usual. Thank God she didn’t know about Lucas.

  “That’s over?” I asked.

  “I swear, Shayna! There’s nothing left between us. Erika is doing this because I’m moving on.”

  “Because her feelings are caught up!” I countered.

  He leaned his head to the wall and used his right fingers to massage his temples. Knowing him the way I did, he had to be uncomfortable. With the distance now between us, since he was at the opposite side of the room, I cringed when the electronic sound carried through the room like before.

  Neither one of us reacted more than to stare at each other. I’d just given myself to him, knowing damn well this thing was still fresh.

  What the hell was I supposed to do now?

  Then the ringing stopped. Five seconds later, there was the zigzag texture of its noise against his clothes. An additional five and he yanked it back out.

  “I’ll talk to you when I get—” Lucas listened. I listened to him listening to the girl he no longer wanted. My heart pumped quicker. “I’m not arguing with you, Erika. We’ll talk when I get there.”

  I could imagine Erika’s anger. Hell, being an outsider, I felt it for her. My eyes stung for how wrong this suddenly felt, though love was never meant to feel wrong.

  “If you need to go—”

  “I’m not going anywhere, Shay. I fucked up in the past. I should’ve never gotten involved with Erika. We, you and me,” Lucas paused to swipe his hand back and forth, “should’ve been together all along.”

  My mind became captured by a sinking feeling over his words: the confidence and the connection I felt to Erika as a female. I needed to put distance between us, flee this situation. Even the slightest escape would help.

  “I’m gonna get some juice.”

  Before Lucas could object, I leapt up from the bed to rush out of the room. I wrapped a royal-red throw around my shoulders, it cascaded down my limbs. It had been leisurely thrown across a bone-colored, winged wicker chair on the other end of the room. I came so close to stumbling over the top of the armrest.

  Shit! Damn!

  I stretched up on my toes to run for the kitchen while regret sunk low inside of me. I literally saw myself as shit. A sea of doubt flowed through my mind. In my quest for some semblance of satisfaction, I started to regret what I had just done. But there was no one near to promise me it would be okay because my conscience would never lie to me.

  The house was silent, with the exception of a motorcycle in the distance. A motorcycle wasn’t the norm for my block. Can’t say any of my neighbors owned a bike. And if anyone were to make a turn into my development, it had to be with purpose, especially in the early hours. This was a dead-end street. Imagine that.

  Honestly, Shay, who cares?

  I tossed my head. Strands of layered hair whisked around my face. The kitchen floor was cold and though I’d wanted to get away from the drama in my bedroom, I was suddenly ready to embrace the fire all over again. This situation had me going through the motions, running hot and cold, even doubting what I knew to be wrong as right. But could it be right so soon?

  As I prepared to return to Lucas with a slew of questions about us, I noticed the shoes I’d worn, the ones he had removed. They were still in the foyer, tossed on the ground. For all the doubting, I inhaled and smiled. My imagination took off with images of the clothes being torn from our bodies. I even pictured how we’d came at each other.

  Oh, Lucas, I wanted to cry out.

  Reaching for the sandals in the dark, I heard the motorcycle rev up. The sound drew closer, then closer as if it was coming at me. My heart raced. At umpteen o’clock in the morning, who the hell would be playing around on a block that was filled with retirees?

  Pressing to the stained-glass door, I tried to peer out through one of the tiny spots that hadn’t been filled in with frost. The seconds dragged on with nothing to see, in spite of the darkness still looming on the other side of the door. Then I heard footsteps threading up what sounded to be my driveway—heavy, determined steps at that.

  I parted my lips to call out for Lucas, but the words never came. Instead, I rushed toward a window on the left side of the house, right off the living room. The lights were all turned down, from inside the house to the outdoor floodlight. And from the angle I was gazing out of the window, the streetlight at the opposite curb revealed very little.

  Leaning away to look behind me, I considered going to get Lucas because whatever this elusive figure had planned, there was no telling. But then there was absolutely nothing. Silence resumed until it was as it had been when I’d first left out of the bedroom. I no longer even heard the bike. The damn footsteps had come up the pathway. I wasn’t losing my mind, was I?

  Then . . .

  BOOM! Glass sprayed inward, raining past the foyer further into my home. One second the glass was intact, the next it lay in ruins.

  “Help!” I cried. “Help!

  “Shay!” Lucas called out from further in.

  “No, don’t come here!” I warned.

  “Like hell, I’m not coming out there!”

  “No, wait!”

  There was no telling if the asshole was still on the steps. The last thing I wanted was to risk Lucas’s safety, even with me teetering with fear on the edge of the sofa. But then I heard the bike rolling up. Footsteps started up once again, though quicke
r this time.

  I peered back out of the window to see the back of a skinny guy dressed in full black. He pulled a helmet over the top of a black baseball cap, then hopped onto the front of a bike. His accomplice was much smaller and reached lower, about midway up his back. The person wrapped their arms around the guy.

  The past returned like a blinking sign. It went by the name of Van Richards. Shit, he hadn’t crossed my mind in ages. Could he have found me, after all these years? I never went back to Florida, not even my childhood home in Port Saint Lucie. I thought of him very little, in hopes that he returned that simple favor. I was certain he’d never been convicted for his crime. To think back was damaging enough. Yet I hoped he knew I wasn’t one to rat anyone out, because I hadn’t. I only wanted to be left alone. Well . . . at least by him.

  “Shay! Shay!” Lucas’s call grew louder, snapping me from things I should've never revisited. I hadn’t even realized he’d come out. For now, from the corner of my eyes, he appeared to pace in and out of the foyer. “Did you see anyone?”

  I exhaled. Bending my elbows, my fingers instinctively wrapped against the sides of my head. I blinked my eyes closed, imagining the violator. I replayed the image of the guy, as Van’s profile settled in my mind. Can’t say it was him. Couldn’t have been Axel, his faithful sidekick, either. But who, if not them?

  Lucas’s palms landed on my shoulders. The throw had fallen around my lower body. My nipples poked out, not with desire, but fear.

  I heard Lucas speaking, forming what might’ve been sentences, but it was foreign. The words ran together and made zero sense until he shook me.

  “Shay . . . Shayna.” He pulled me to his chest. He’d only managed to throw on his gray boxer briefs, otherwise, he was like before. His lips passed along my forehead, my lips, even my fingers and palms. He mumbled promises to protect me, like he knew of my demons.