Quitting wasn’t in my DNA. And that sort-of fiancée of Lucas’s—I didn’t like her. In fact, it might be petty of me, but she brought out the worst in me. That same dog-eat-dog streak I’d learned on the field, when all I’d wanted was to win.
Besides, Lucas’s friendship proposal was total bullshit.
I might only have a month left, but I couldn’t just bury my head in the sand and pretend the past eight weeks hadn’t meant anything. I wasn’t buying the fact that Lucas had only been sowing his oats because he and his sort-of fiancée were on a break for the summer.
I’d seen the way his face lit up whenever I walked into the room. I knew the way he curled around me in bed, protecting me. Cherishing me.
I saw it now, in the glazed expression as his eyes moved lower, taking in the low cut of my dress. And that’s exactly what I’d been counting on.
I was still competitive and I still wanted to win. The only difference was I’d traded my sparkly cleats for stilettos.
Score one for me.
This was no accident, me running into Lucas while I was dressed the way I was. I’d been watching for him. Waiting for just the right moment to make my appearance.
“Going out?” The top button of his shirt was already undone, but he reached up to run his finger along the inside of his collar anyway.
“Yep.” I turned back to my own door, sliding the deadbolt in place. We’d see how long he called me friend. “Now that Lauren’s gone, it gets lonely all by myself. So since you and I aren’t . . . you know . . .” I looked over my shoulder and gave him my best buddy-oh-pal shrug. “I thought I’d head over to The Dunes. See if I can find someone new to . . . you know with.”
He licked his lips, a man suddenly in desperate need of water. “We could still . . .” His mouth moved for a second before he finally worked the words out. “You know . . . ?”
As if I hadn’t seen that coming. Of course he still wanted to “you know.” We had that in common. But part of this whole winning thing meant Lucas needed to admit we were more than just friends. I needed him to tell me that even though we might not have a future, that there was something between us even he couldn’t deny.
Most importantly, I needed to hear definitively that he and Aster were no longer an issue. None of that wishy-washy crap he’d given me.
“Huh-uh. No way,” I insisted, pretending to go along with his friendship proposal. “If we’re gonna make a go of this friends thing, which I think we can, we gotta do it right. Strictly platonic.” I beamed at him as hopefully as I could manage. “You’re welcome to tag along, though. I can always use a good wingman.”
It would have been comical to see him weighing my offer, except I wanted him to tell me to shove it. There was no way he wanted to come along and watch me pick up on other guys. I wanted him to go all caveman on me, grab me up, and tell me he wasn’t letting me go anywhere, not like this. Not by myself.
I wanted him to admit we were more than friends. That he wanted to spend my last weeks here buried in the sheets with me. Buried in me.
Instead, I watched him war with himself, and I saw the moment he lost. He scowled and pulled his key from the lock, exhaling as if I’d just knocked the wind out of him. “Sure,” he said, surrendering and looking like a wounded soldier. “I guess. Just give me five seconds to change, then I’ll be . . . ,” he gritted his teeth, “ . . . your wingman.”
It was official. Lucas was the world’s lousiest wingman.
I’d never make new “friends” with Lucas shooting death glares at every last guy who tried to get within five feet of us. If my goal really had been to hook up with someone, I would have been seriously ticked. But as it was, what I really wanted was to get in Lucas’s head and under his skin.
And that part was working, too. Lucas grew pricklier and more brooding as the night went on. I watched as he pounded beer after beer after beer, and it wasn’t hard to figure out why—he intended to drink his troubles away. Maybe in hopes of drinking me away.
But I wasn’t going anywhere.
I started to feel bad for this situation, for him, and I realized I might have made a mistake, bringing him here. The old me never would have cared that I was trying to bend a guy to my will. But Lucas had made me soft. Somehow he’d managed to crack my impenetrable shield.
I wanted to be heartless, but I wasn’t, not completely. I watched as his million-dollar smile dissolved into a dark, brooding scowl. My conscience pricked as his mood grew fouler. Yet there was another part of me that couldn’t help thinking it was sort of sexy, the way his intense brown eyes were trying to burn holes right through me, as if he was trying to kill me where I sat.
If only he’d cry uncle, then this stalemate could come to an end. A really satisfying end.
But it wasn’t for lack of trying on my part. Instead of admitting I was only messing with him, I rubbed salt in the wound, pointing out potential dates for myself by saying things like, “Ooh, what about that guy? He’s got a nice smile.” Or, “I like his ass.” Or the one I almost couldn’t manage to say without laughing, “That guy’s a good dancer—you know what that means?”
Poor Lucas. He did his best not to lose it. He muttered and raked his hands through his black hair, until ultimately, he ordered another beer and drained it, glaring the entire time.
I wanted to reach over and hug him. To kiss away the perma-crease beginning to form between his brows.
I wanted to climb on his lap and whisper filthy things in his ear.
Surrender! I silently screamed.
While Lucas cursed under his breath. I waved down a tall blond guy who’d been giving me the come-hither stare ever since I’d walked into the bar. The gesture was all the encouragement Blond Dude needed to make his move. Twin dimples carved their way down his cheeks, and if this were any other time I might’ve considered him a serious prospect. He gave his buddies the high sign, letting them know he’d gotten the go-ahead—hot chick, five o’clock.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Lucas slurred from over the top of the bottle he seemed to be clutching for support.
“What?” I pseudo-gasped. I managed to maintain an expression of pure cluelessness.
“Wave him off. I’m warning you, Em.”
He was past bluffing, and even though this was what I thought I’d wanted—for him to caveman up—there was something in his voice that rubbed me wrong. Something about the way he said it—the same way the coaches had told me at first that girls don’t play football. That tone shifted something in me.
This little game I’d been playing with Lucas became real, as if he’d thrown down the gauntlet. Suddenly, I was no longer bluffing.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You can’t talk to me like that. You sound like one of my brothers.”
But the alcohol must have blurred Lucas’s sense of self-preservation because he sat up straighter when he insisted, “Good. Then maybe you’ll take some brotherly advice, and tell this douchefuck to walk away, before I tell him for you.”
I sat up straighter too, no longer paying any attention to the guy who was heading directly toward us. “Douchefuck? That’s not even a thing. And since when do you have the right to tell me anything?”
“All I’m saying is, is if that guy makes it all the way to this table, I’m going to knock his teeth straight through the back of his throat.”
Blond Dude was there then, and he’d heard Lucas’s threat.
“Whoa. Hey.” He put his hands up. “Sounds like I’m interrupting something.”
I jumped up and wrapped my hands around Blond Dude’s biceps, which was far less impressive than Lucas’s, almost disappointingly so. It made it that much harder to keep up my end of the act. “Not at all. He was just giving me some brotherly advice.”
His gaze wavered from Lucas to me, probably sizing up our differences. Me, fair and blonde, while Lucas was all dark and brooding. “That dude’s your brother?”
An image of Lucas with his face buried between my thighs
popped into my head, immediately sending a rush of heat flooding through me. God, why did Aster have to show up and ruin everything? “Brother? Gross. No, we’re just friends.”
Lucas’s fist tightened around his bottle. “Walk away, man.” It wasn’t so much what he said, but how he said it. His voice was low and menacing. Even I knew he was way past fucking around.
Blond Dude heard it too, and decided not to chance it. “Maybe another time,” he told me, shedding my hold on him as he lifted his hands in surrender. I didn’t get a second chance to convince him, he hightailed it out of there, leaving me to deal with Lucas on my own.
“Great. Thanks a lot. That one had potential.” He didn’t. After seeing him up close I’d already picked him apart. Too scrawny. Too pale. Too not-Lucas.
“I did you a favor.”
“Really? So now what, I get to go home and spend some time with my vibrator?”
Lucas shifted on his chair and his expression morphed. “Jesus, Emerson. Don’t say shit like that. You know what that does to me.” He wore a pained expression and I knew just the mention of getting myself off was making him hard. “You’re killing me.”
I made a face at him, but it was exactly the reaction I was hoping for. I wanted him to go home tonight, thinking about me, and only me. I wanted him to jerk off with my name on his lips.
“Fine.” I grabbed my beer. “Maybe I should find another table. Clearly, this whole friendship thing isn’t working out.”
“Em, no. Wait. I’m sorry. I can do this. I swear I can.” He gave me a pathetic smile, like it was taking every ounce of self-control he could muster to hold it together. He looked wounded, like a puppy dog.
A really horny, really sad puppy dog.
EMERSON
I was definitely going to hell in a handbasket—Grann would’ve said that, and a whole lot more. I missed Grann at times like these, when I needed advice . . . especially of the relationship variety, which had never been my strong suit. My dad’s mother had been wise and tough, and never one to hold her tongue.
So I’d come up with my own game plan.
Lucas’s problem: he was way too predictable. So not a problem for me, but it made him an easy target. He played the part of the free-spirited beach bum, but his days were well organized. He liked patterns. Schedules.
Even though I wasn’t an early riser, I’d learned over the past two months that he got up early every morning to wax his surfboard, before hitting the corner coffee shop for a bagel and an Americano. After a few hours at the beach, he had lunch at one of three places, depending on their daily specials.
He’d been busier these past few days—I knew, because I’d been doing a little recon of my own. Watching him. What he’d been doing, I hadn’t the foggiest. He still came and went, leaving early as usual, but now he was wearing those suits of his. And he came home later. It didn’t trouble me much, because for the most part I still knew the best times and places to catch him.
Wednesdays were trivia night at The Dunes, Fridays were mail day, and Tuesdays he did laundry. If he were Rain Man, he’d probably watch Judge Wapner.
Like I said, predictable.
“Um . . . hey, Em.” Lucas looked genuinely surprised to find me in line at the post office. After a rash of mail thefts in our neighborhood, we’d all been given the choice of coming here to collect our mail or installing locking mailboxes. Since I was only here for the summer, I’d opted to pick my mail up—and what a coincidence, I was here on Friday too! I’d only been waiting a few minutes before Lucas had parked his car in the lot.
His expression of bewilderment was the same look he’d given me when I’d bumped into him that first morning at the coffee shop, and again when he was buying his weekly lottery tickets at the gas station.
I caught his gaze wandered down my body appraisingly. Of course he checked me out, and so did the guy standing in line between us, who tried to be casual about sneaking a peek. “You look . . . great,” Lucas managed.
Hell yeah, I did. But that was the point, wasn’t it? To be everywhere Lucas was and to make sure he noticed me.
I craned my neck over my shoulder, being far more discreet than he had.
Damn. I’d have to lie. “So do you.” The words stuck in my throat.
He didn’t. He looked like death warmed over. And the shameless side of me hoped to God the fatigue on his face had something—maybe a whole lotta something—to do with me. That he was pining for me. Losing sleep over me.
“I was thinking . . . ,” he started to say, and every nerve in my body strained toward him the way a plant grew toward sunlight.
I held my breath, waiting to hear what he’d been thinking . . .
But then the guy in between us nudged me. “Your turn.”
I glared at the man, who wore a black knit cap and flannel in the dead of summer. “Thanks,” I grumbled grudgingly before turning to the clerk behind the counter.
It took all of three minutes to gather my meager stack of mail, mostly junk and one credit card statement—hardly worth the trip, if not for Lucas. But by the time I turned back to him, ready to pick up where we’d left off, he was lost in his phone, shooting off a string of texts.
“Catch you later,” I said, hoping to break the spell his phone had him under.
But he was chewing his lip and scowling down at his screen. “Yeah,” he answered. He glanced up briefly and, for a second, he wavered, caught between the person on the other end of the conversation he was having and me.
Choose me, I pleaded silently, hating myself for feeling so desperate.
Then I cursed him and the guy behind me in line and the entire postal service, when his screen flashed again—another stupid message. I realized I might as well be whistling in the wind for all the good it was doing me to stand here—Lucas had already drifted away from me again, moving forward a step to claim his spot in line.
I left Lucas to his stupid cell phone, and the text messages that were so important he hadn’t even heard me say goodbye. It was okay though. I’d learned an important lesson: this wouldn’t be the straightforward, surgical strike I’d hoped for. This would require a little more fortitude.
I needed to go home and prepare my next move. Plot my next strategy. I wasn’t used to the long game, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t learn to be patient.
And eventually, I’d wear him down. Mark my words, Lucas Harper would be begging me to come back to him.
LUCAS
By the end of the week I was pretty much dating my conditioner. And also my hand cream and the box of Kleenex on the nightstand by my bed.
If I’d had more free time, I might’ve spent more of it trying to convince Emerson what a colossal fuckup this whole thing had been. But that was the problem. Between all of Aster’s frantic calls to complain about my mother’s meddling, the appointments and the meetings my mother had scheduled, and all the last-minute fires I was trying to head-off during these last weeks before the gala, I’d hardly had a minute to myself.
But that didn’t mean Em wasn’t constantly on my mind. In fact, the more time we spent apart, the more I thought about her. In a perfect world, I was sure I would have done things differently. If there had been a real chance for the two of us, I would’ve found time so we could talk. Tried explaining the way things really were between Aster and me.
Instead, I let myself be overscheduled, in an effort to push Emerson—and the fact that she’d be leaving soon—out of my mind. To obliterate her from my life before she could do it for me.
And at the end of each day, rather than calling Em, the way I would have before, I collapsed onto my bed. I let myself get lost in memories of her . . . dark, explicit fantasies . . . and wished it were her clenched around me instead of my own lotion-covered fist.
But that didn’t mean she wasn’t there. Literally.
I found myself bumping into her at the strangest times, which was partly why I couldn’t stop thinking about her. If I left my house, Em was leaving hers. Wh
en I stopped by The Dunes to catch up with my roommate Zane before calling it a night, she was there. And every goddamned time I ran into the Quick-E-Mart to grab a six-pack, there was my good pal Emerson McLean.
And Em had never been ashamed of that banging body of hers, so there was no shortage of short skirts, revealing tops, or teeny bikinis. There was no place I could look at her that our skin hadn’t touched. No part of her I hadn’t tasted. In other words, just seeing her made my dick hard.
The thing was, though, I was starting to suspect this wasn’t coincidence, all this bumping into each other. Maybe Em wasn’t as cool as she’d pretended to be about the two of us being just friends. Maybe she was thinking about me as much as I was thinking about her, and this was her way of sticking it to me. Her way of making me suffer—by giving me a peek at the forbidden fruit, so to speak.
Making it impossible for me to have a single night’s sleep that wasn’t interrupted by wet dreams of her.
When I’d first met Emerson, it hadn’t taken me long to realize she was used to people underestimating her, judging her book by the cover. It was easy to guess why. A blonde vixen with legs for miles—men treated her like she was an airhead, and women acted like she was a slut. Everyone seemed to sell her short.
But there was so much to Emerson beneath that glitter-encrusted surface. She was smart and driven, which was why she’d be leaving so soon—to start her marketing internship at the PR firm. She was stubborn too, refusing to let people see her vulnerable side. But just because she didn’t let anyone see it, didn’t mean it wasn’t there. She just didn’t want to admit to it.
She was funny too. Sometimes, when it was just the two of us and her defenses were down, she made me laugh so hard it hurt not to be around her.
Maybe I was the one who’d underestimated her. If she really was devious enough to torture me this way, she wasn’t just smart, she was a fucking genius. She’d figured out how to drive me wild.
Unbound (The Men of West Beach Book 2) Page 5