Wait for Me by Samantha Chase Read Free Book Online Page B

disbelief.  “I know it’s fine and all and it’s not like I thought you were being creepy or anything…”
    “Creepy?” he chuckled.
    “Yes, creepy.”
    “How would taking care of you and making sure that you didn’t have a serious head injury be creepy?”  This he had to hear.
    Emma couldn’t help but chuckle with him at the ridiculous conversation.  “Well, I mean it’s not like you were watching me through the window or something but it’s just a little…awkward, shall we say…to know that a stranger is sleeping in the room with you when you weren’t aware of it.”
    Lucas looked at her in disbelief.  “Stranger?  I’m hardly a stranger, Emma.  We’ve known each other for years.”
    “You know what I mean!” she said and flopped back down on the pillows and then winced at the pain it caused in her head.  When Lucas immediately jumped up to see if she was all right, she held out a hand to stop him.  “I’m fine, Lucas, relax.”
    “You don’t look fine, Em, you look like you’re in pain.”
    She wanted to correct him but got tangled up in his calling her Em.  They’d always been rather formal with one another and the fact that he used her nickname sort of stopped her in her tracks and she could only stare at him.
    “Now you’re scaring me,” he said and came to sit next to her on the bed.  “Talk to me; tell me the months of the year.”
    “Oh for crying out loud,” she mumbled and sat back up and found that they were nearly nose to nose.  “I’m not in pain; not really.  I just fell back too hard and it hurt for a moment.”
    “You mean on the fluffy pillows?  That hurt your head?”
    Emma burst out laughing; she couldn’t help it.  “You know something, Lucas?  You can be quite funny sometimes.”  She leaned forward in her fit of laughter and touched his arm.  Suddenly her laughter stopped and when she looked up and met Lucas’s intense green eyes, her breath merely stopped.
    There was something there that had never been before; heat and raw, naked desire.  Had she ever seen that before from Lucas?  Mentally she told herself no and that she’d never seen it so starkly in any other man either.  Emma couldn’t look away; she matched his heated gaze with her own and licked her lips in silent invitation.  Leaning in ever-so-slightly, Emma secretly hoped that Lucas would close the distance between them and finally she would know what it felt like to be kissed by him. 
    Lucas watched the movement of Emma’s tongue across the lips that he’d dreamed about all night and knew that all he had to do was move that last little bit and he’d be able to taste her for himself.  Her eyes were locked on him and he felt his entire body tighten in anticipation.  It would be so easy to take what he wanted and he was confident in the fact that Emma was feeling the same way, too. 
    But he couldn’t.
    It was one thing to have a one-night stand with someone who meant nothing to him and have it happen to merely satisfy an urge.  Emma meant too much to him to treat her with the same disregard.  Not that he could; not really.  The problem was that he wasn’t looking for a relationship.  No, Lucas was at a point in his life where he needed to work through his own demons and sleeping with Emma, while satisfying on many levels he was sure, would not be something that would be good for either of them in the end.
    So he pulled back.
    Lucas saw the question in Emma’s widening eyes and rather than address what had almost happened, he chose to go another route.  “You go back to sleep, Emma,” he said as he stood.  “I’m awake now; I’ll check on the weather and see what we can do about your car.”  He never looked at her; he simply turned and walked out of the room, gently closing the door behind him.
    How was she supposed to just go back to sleep now? 
    Carefully lying back down with more calmness than she actually felt, Emma had to wonder at what just happened.