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Lucca

We spent the last few days playing a game of cat and mouse. Surprisingly, I’m the mouse in this scenario, and Claire is the cat that stalks me like she is ready to pounce. If she is not actively pouting, she spends her day trying to tantalize me, so I’ll lose control again.

It’s quite adorable, really.

I don’t really want her to stay in the room beside me, but I know it’s the only thing to keep sane. There is no way I can control myself when she is in my bed. The first night only proved that.

Flopping down on the couch, I turn on the TV and put my feet on the coffee table. I just start flipping through the channels when Claire’s sing-song voice fills the space.

“Lucca…” I turn my head to look at her. “I couldn’t find a towel,” she explains innocently while standing in the doorway completely naked.

I want to yell at her, cuss her out and send her back to her room to get dressed. I want to be angry at her, angry at myself for being so weak and fucked up in the head. I want to get up and walk out of here, go to a bar and find some random woman, so I can either drink or fuck Claire out of my mind.

Instead, I drop the remote.

A sinister smile spreads across her face.

My brain shuts partly off, and my gaze lowers on its own. I take in her naked form. She is breathtaking. Her tits are just the right size, looking like they would fit into my hand perfectly. Pink nipples I can imagine sucking into my mouth. Her smooth belly and flaring hips that lead down to the land that I refuse to acknowledge.

Fuck me, I want her. I can taste the desire on my tongue.

“You know where the towels are,” I try to say, but it comes out more like a groan.

Dragging my attention back to the TV, I pretend to be interested in the cooking show that’s playing on the channel I landed on.

I feel her move closer before I see her out of the corner of my eye. She thinks she’s smart, that she’s going to pull one over on me. That I’m going to break again like I did the other night, and if she was any other woman, I wouldn’t have thought twice.

This is Claire, though. Not just any woman.

Burying the arousal as deep as I can, I shove out of the chair, causing her to stumble backward. Her eyes are wide for a second before they return to their seductive nature. Genuine anger mixes with the desire pooling in my gut.

“Get dressed right now!”

Claire’s pink lips form a pout. “I can’t. I’m all wet.”

She thinks she’s so smart. She doesn’t have a fucking clue what I would do to her.

Shoving past her, I walk into the bathroom and grab the towel that’s in plain sight. I stomp back into the bedroom and shove the towel into her hands.

“Where did you find this?”

I roll my eyes and suppress the grin threatening to appear on my lips. “Hanging on the towel rack. Now go get dressed. The next time I see you, you better have clothes on, and I mean it, Claire.” I try to keep my voice stern and serious.

As funny as this might be, she’s straddling the line of my insanity. One wrong move, and we’re both balancing on the edge of a knife’s blade.

“You act like you don’t want me, but that bulge in your shorts says otherwise.” Her emerald eyes gleam with satisfaction.

My cock stiffens to an almost painful degree. Guess I’ll have to drop her down a peg or two. “Yeah, my cock is rock hard, but it would be hard with any red-blooded woman standing in front of me with her tits and pussy showing.”

In an instant, her demeanor changes. Her shoulders slump forward, and her eyes divert to the floor. She wraps the towel around her middle, covering herself up.

Almost instantly, the guilt hits. “Look, Claire, you have to…”

She waves me off and tightens her hold on the towel. “No. I get it. I’m good enough to suck your dick, just not anything else.”

I’m at a loss for words. What is my response to that? I told you not to push me? I warned you? I have to remind myself that Claire doesn’t know what she truly wants. She is still so young and naive to the world. She thinks that I’m the man for her because I’m the only one to have ever paid her an ounce of attention, but she doesn’t need a man like me.

“Classes start tomorrow,” I tell her to change the direction of our conversation.

“Good. I can’t wait to get out of this apartment and away from you!” she sneers angrily and disappears back into the bedroom.

I’m conflicted on how to move forward. Apologizing won’t help. Pushing her away is the only thing I can do. I’ll never forgive myself if I saved her all these times from the bad men in my life, only to ruin her myself.Content © NôvelDrama.Org 2024.

Now, I just need to make her realize that I’m not the one for her. I need to push her away, make her lose interest in me. The question is, how?

I stand at the window, looking through the glass at the people walking the streets below when an idea crosses my mind. The only way she is going to let me go is if I twist her misguided love into hate. I need her to hate me. If she hates me, then so be it. At least I won’t destroy her life.

Walking to the kitchen, I open my junk drawer and pull out a piece of paper and a pen. I stare at the blank page for a few seconds before I bring the ball of the pen to the paper and start writing…

Claire,

I’m sorry, but I can’t let this go on any longer. You know I care about you, and I want to keep you safe at all costs. You are like a sister to me, and that’s the way it needs to stay.

I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I’ve been seeing someone. That’s why there can never be anything between us. Because I’m in love with someone else.

I’m gripping the pen so hard it cracks in my hold. My chest aches, and there is a distinct pit forming deep inside my gut.

I imagine her reading this, reading this lie. It would break her heart.

Fuck, I can’t do this. I can’t let her hate me. It would not just break her. It would break me as well. I’m about to rip the letter up when I hear Claire leaving her room.

The sound of the bedroom door opening has me shoving the paper back into the drawer before slamming it shut.

Claire appears a moment later, now fully dressed. Her hair is still wet, and her mouth is still set into an angry frown.

“You need something?” The words come out much rougher than intended, and I almost apologize.

“Well, I was hungry, but I just lost my appetite,” she sneers at me before spinning around and stomping back to her room. The door slams hard enough to rattle the glass sitting on the kitchen counter, leaving the tension in the apartment thick.

One thing is clear now. I don’t want her to hate me. I also don’t want her to view this place as a prison, even if that’s what it is. I want her to be happy, smiling, and enjoying life. Maybe it’s time for a truce?

I decide to order some Chinese from a place around the corner. The doorbell rings in under twenty minutes. With a hot bag of food in hand, I close the door and turn around.

Claire’s head sticks out of the room, making me smile.

“I thought I heard the doorbell ring. Your doorbell is very loud, by the way.”

“There is a doorbell extender in each bedroom. That’s why you heard it.”

“Oh…” She looks at the bag in my hand as if she is trying to decide whether to go back to her room or come out and eat.

“I got sesame chicken,” I tell her, knowing that’s her favorite. “Come on. Have dinner with me. We’ll watch a movie or something.”

A tiny smile plays on her lips. “That sounds so… normal.”

I walk to the table and put the food down. Happiness blooms in my chest when I hear her approach. She takes a seat and sits patiently until I open the bag and place the box in front of her.

“I need my phone,” she tells me in a stern voice, and I wonder how long she has been thinking about making that demand.

“You could have packed a bag when I gave you the chance, but you chose to be a brat.”

“Well, you acted like a psycho, and I still need my phone. I want to call Carter.” At the mention of his name, my mood sours immediately. “Lucca, I know you don’t want me to talk about Carter-which, as we established, is absolutely not you being jealous-but I need to apologize to him. He got hurt because of me.”

A snort escapes my throat. I know she is right. Carter has done nothing wrong. I beat him up, and I haven’t even apologized for it myself. Problem is, every time I think about him, I see his hands all over Claire. I know it didn’t happen, but it’s like once I imagined it, the fake image burned itself into my mind.

“Lucca, please…” She looks at me with her big green eyes and her lip pulling up into a small pout. “He is my friend. The only friend I had in the last two years. I promise we are just friends, but I care about him. I just want to apologize and make sure he is okay.”

She keeps staring at me with her puppy dog eyes. Fuck, I would do anything for her when she looks at me like that, which is a fact she can never know about. That little minx will use it on me in a blink of an eye.

“How about we drive over to your house in the morning to grab your phone?”

“Okay.” She beams at me, the widest smile spread across her face. “And you’ll be okay with me calling Carter?”

“Yeah,” I say, but it comes out in a grunt, which only makes Claire giggle.

Fuck me. She has me wrapped around her little finger, and she fucking knows it.