sure that you didnât have a serious head injury be creepy?â This he had to hear.
Emma couldnât help but chuckle with him at the ridiculous conversation. âWell, I mean itâs not like you were watching me through the window or something, but itâs just a littleâ¦awkward, shall we sayâ¦to know that a stranger is sleeping in the room with you when you werenât aware of it.â
Lucas looked at her in disbelief. âStranger? Iâm hardly a stranger, Emma. Weâve known each other for years.â
âYou know what I mean!â 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. âIâm fine, Lucas, relax.â
âYou donât look fine, Em; you look like youâre in pain.â
She wanted to correct him, but got tangled up in his calling her Em. Theyâd always been rather formal with one another, and the fact that he used her nickname stopped her in her tracks. She could only stare at him.
âNow youâre scaring me,â he said and came to sit next to her on the bed. âTalk to me; tell me the months of the year.â
âOh, for crying out loud,â she mumbled, sitting back up, and found that they were nearly nose to nose. âIâm not in pain, not really. I just fell back too hard and it hurt for a moment.â
âYou mean on the fluffy pillows? That hurt your head?â
Emma burst out laughing, she couldnât help it. âYou know something, Lucas? You can be quite funny sometimes.â She leaned forward in her fit of laughter and touched his arm. Suddenly she looked up and met Lucasâs intense green eyes, and her breath caught.
There was something there that stopped her in her tracks: heat and raw, naked desire. Had she ever seen that before from Lucas? No, and sheâd never seen it so starkly in any other man either. Emma couldnât 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 Emmaâs tongue across the lips that heâd dreamed about all night, and knew that all he had to do was move that last little bit and heâd 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.
But he couldnât.
It was one thing to have a one-night stand with someone who meant nothing to him merely to satisfy an urge. Emma meant too much to him to treat her with the same disregard. The problem was that he wasnât 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 good for either of them in the end.
So he pulled back.
Lucas saw the question in Emmaâs widening eyes, and rather than address what had almost happened, he chose to go another route. âYou go back to sleep, Emma,â he said as he stood. âIâm awake now. Iâll check on the weather and see what we can do about your car.â 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. One minute Lucas had been looking at her as if he could eat her alive and the next he was walking out the door as if nothing had happened.
Well, to be fair, nothing actually had happened, but it could have. Emma wasnât a world-class dater but she certainly knew when a man was attracted to a woman, and there was