Consumed(8)

He immediately corrects me. “Of what she might do to you.” As if to drive his point home, he twists a thick red strand of my hair between his fingers before pressing his lips to it. “There was no f*cking way I was going to let her screw with you to get to me.”

I start to sit up, but the crimson-colored blindfold is still binding my left wrist to the bed. Lucas uses this opportunity to slide closer to me, tugging the sheet back down to my waist. He glides his tongue around my belly button.

I won’t let him do this to take my mind off of Atlanta.

“You should have given me an option. You should have given me a—” I shiver and dig my toes into the sheets as he presses his fingertips against the sensitive part of my hip. “God, don’t do that right now.”

This time he uses his mouth, keeping his eyes on mine the entire time. I sigh. “The point is, I’m a big girl, Lucas,” I say.

“Sam is a crazy one, though.”

“What does she have on you?”

Lucas smiles, probably to make me feel better about the situation, but his smile isn’t reflected in his eyes. “Nothing.”

Nothing my ass. When he came to me last night right after I finished watching the “Ten Days” music video premiere, I was sure he was ready to tell me what Sam was holding over his head.

And now this?

“Don’t treat me like an idiot.”

“I’m not. Sienna, you need to understand—”

“Will you understand if I decide to go my own way?” I clear my throat. “If, after I finish the two days that I owe you here, I go back to Nashville?”

Sitting up abruptly, he looks down at me, his hazel eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. For a lengthy, awkward moment, he doesn’t say anything else, and all there is between us is the sound of angry breathing.

At last he snaps, “Don’t do that shit. It’s what she would do. I love you, and I’ll do everything I can to keep you, but I don’t need you doing what she’s done to me already.”

I suck in a deep breath through my nose. Squeezing my eyes closed to stop the burning at the corners, I exhale through parted lips. I will absolutely not cry because that won’t get anything accomplished.

“I’m sorry,” I say. Because I don’t want to make demands or be anything like his ex, and I feel wretched that he even made the connection. I’ve only met Samantha once, at a birthday party for Cilla, the lead singer of Wicked Lambs, but I learned all I ever wanted to know about Lucas’s ex-wife during that brief encounter.

At the same time, I want to know the truth about why she had so much control over him. I need honesty just as much as I need Lucas.

He traces the oval-shaped outline of my face, studying every freckle and laugh-line, every long black eyelash and every twitch of my lips. Finally, he reaches across my body to unravel the fabric from my wrist. Once my hand is free, he lowers his lips to mine, running his tongue over the center of my lips until I part them and give him complete control of my mouth.

My body reacts to his almost immediately, and I drape my arms around his neck, desperate for some part of him to hold on to.

Screw him for making me feel this way.

When he draws away, his expression is pained. “Let me deal with Sam, with my past. I promise I’m going to keep her away from you. All you need to do is just let me love you.”

God, if only it were that easy.

“I don’t want you to get hurt.” I clench his shoulders more tightly, pushing my fingers against the center of a black and gray five-point star tattoo on the ride side. It matches the stars on his wrists. “You said it yourself that she’ll try to ruin us if we’re together.”

The cocky look that takes over Lucas’s face is heartbreakingly familiar, but I can’t help wondering if it’s not all an act now. If he’s not just as worried about Sam. “I said she’d try, Red. I won’t let a goddamn thing touch you.”

Why does he have to sound so confident all the time?

I’m still worried, but I murmur, “Okay.”

“Good.”

He plops back down on his side of bed, grasping my hips and pulling me on top of him in the process. I dig my knees into his side, which only prompts him to smack my ass. I gasp at the sharp sting, and of course, he grins.

“Sienna?”

“Mmmhmm?” I trace along the intricate tattoos on his forearms, following the path my fingers make with my gaze. “What is it?”