RECLAIM MY HEART(47)

And she’d been trying hard all evening not to.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The entrancing strains of that magical music quavered with the rhythm of her heart and threatened to whisk her away. Lucas’s penetrating gaze searched hers. He leaned toward her, and she was hit with a heady adrenalin rush.
“Sorry,” he murmured, “but I’ve just got to do this.”
The apology made her frown, but his lips brushed hers, once, twice, feather light, kick-starting her pulse into a staccato beat that clashed with the dreamy, melodious harmony of flutes. He deepened the kiss, and her whole world became focused on the corporal; the hardness of his chest beneath her palms, the heated scent of him filling her nostrils, lulling all thought. His fingers skimmed over her shoulders and down her arms, settling on her waist, his touch sure, unhurried, deliberate. He slid his hands upward toward her ribcage and breasts, and she bent her elbows and tucked them tight against her, blocking him with her forearms.
“W ~d ktribcagehoa,” she whispered. “Hold on.”
He pulled back a few inches, a question in his eyes.
She smiled, shaking her head, uncertain if embarrassment and simple apprehension were making her feel so overheated or if it was him, his kiss, his touch. “We’re not teenagers anymore, Lucas.”
He grinned. “Yeah, ain’t it great? I know just what to do and how to do it.”
His eyelids drooped subtly and he leaned in, his bottom lip glistening from their kiss, and she nearly surrendered and let him take her wherever it was he wanted to go. But logic snapped on like a glaring light.
She lifted her hand, touching her index and middle fingers to his moist, hot mouth. “Wait.” Indecision forced her gaze to dip, but then she looked him in the eye. “Lucas, what are you doing?”
Deadpan serious, he told her, “I think that’s obvious. I’m kissing you.”
The passion hazing his gaze, roughening his voice, caused the muscles low in her gut to constrict.
“Lucas.” She tried to elevate the volume of her voice but failed. “We can’t do this.” She’d lowered her hand a little, but it remained, hovering between them. The heat of him was intoxicating. It would be so easy to surrender.
“Sure, we can. Let me show you how.” He pressed his body against hers.
Her small exhalation was short, forceful. “You know what I mean. We shouldn’t do this.” But even as she said the words, she had to resist the urge to release a low groan. This felt so good. So very good.
Now he smiled, the intensity in his handsome face relaxing. “Well, that’s a whole other issue, now isn’t it?”
But he stayed close. Too close.
“This will only complicate things,” she told him. “And things are complicated enough, don’t you think?” He didn’t respond, and he didn’t step back. Struck with the overwhelming need to temper her argument, she quickly added, “Besides that, we’re not the same people, you and I. We can’t be, with all the time that’s gone by, you know?”
Nerves tickled at her and every inch of her skin became hypersensitive. Recognizing the hard length of his penis bearing against her hip should have forced her gaze from his, should have had her elbowing her way out of his heady embrace, but that’s not what happened at all. In fact, her own desire flared, white-hot, and when she spoke, it was as if someone else were forming the words.
“We don’t know each other, Lucas.”
Her little speech cleared his dark eyes and he backed away. And even as she was flooded with relief, she was also glutted with disappointment. His hands slid from her waist, and even with the hot summer heat, she felt suddenly chilled. He didn’t agree or disagree with what she’d said, but he did take her hand. And as he led her back to the birthday party, she heard him say, “Guess we’ll have to rectify that.”
?     ?     ?

“Hey, Mom.” Zach plopped down on the ground beside her and the small pile of weeds she’d plucked from the flower bed.
Shaded from the sun by the eves of the house, Tyne sat on the cool, green grass, turning the soil to get it ready for the flats of marigolds Lucas had bought, the only flower hardy enough to survive the sizzling summer heat.
“Hi,” she said, smiling. “I thought you and Lucas and Jasper were doing something this afternoon.”
He nodded, a shank of dark hair falling into his eyes. “We had burgers for lunch, and then hung out in town for a while. Uncle Jasper had some great stories about, well—” Zach’s gaze darted to his hands “—you know, about him.”
“Lucas?"5%n hung o”
“Yeah.”
Evidently, her son was still trying to figure out what to call his father. Tyne smacked a clump of earth with her hand trowel, crumbling the dirt. “I’m sorry I missed that.”
“Then some guy stopped him—” again he stumbled “—you know, Lucas, on the street. He was, you know, the guy was, like, real upset. Said something about changes in a new contract he got in the mail, like, yesterday or something.”
She set the shovel aside. “A contract for a communications tower?”
“Yeah. That’s it.”
“Lucas has talked to him before.” An errant weed, now shriveled by the sun, marred the black soil and Tyne reached over, pulled it and dropped it onto the pile. “But I’m surprised Lucas interrupted his afternoon with you and Jasper for—”
“Oh, he didn’t.” Zach started tugging at a dandelion that was growing between the grass and the bricks that bordered the flower bed. “We were on our way back to Uncle Jasper’s anyway. The guy was, like, really angry, so I told him, you know, Lucas, that I’d, like, walk home.”