Mai Tai’d Up (Cocktail #4)(54)
Author: Alice Clayton

After all, we’d just gotten out of long-term relationships. And everyone says that your rebound is the guy you mess around with, have a great time with, before meeting the next real relationship. Could two rebounds cancel each other out? Or would they be double disaster?

I cuddled up to Lucas, his warm arms wrapped solidly around me, and we breathed together. And before I knew it, the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest lulled me out of my head and into a slow, drowsy peace.

“Should I go?” he asked, his voice low and molasses thick.

“You better not,” I warned, burrowing deeper into his arms. And those arms picked me up, and carried me to bed.

He tugged the sheets back with me still clinging to him, pressing my nose into his shoulder, inhaling deeply. “You smell amazing, you know that?”

“I’m surprised, considering I didn’t get to finish my shower.” He chuckled, trying to set me down, but I didn’t want to let him go. He gave in, slipping under the covers with me and turning the light off. I craved him, craved his scent and his touch, and I continued to run my hands along his skin, dancing kiss after kiss along his shoulder as I wrapped myself around him once more. Had it really been so long that I’d been without contact like this? Was I just skin drunk?

Nah. I was Lucas drunk. He was the perfect cocktail.

I yawned, and it almost took my head off. “I’m so tired, but I kind of don’t want to close my eyes.”

He pressed a kiss to my forehead. “You thinking about tomorrow?”

“Yes.” I laid my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. It was literally like a lullaby. “I forgot to tell you—on the news, I saw something terrible about Belize.”

“You did?”

“Yes. It sank.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah. I’m surprised you didn’t know that.”

“Chloe?”

“Hmm?”

“Belize isn’t an island.”

“It broke off first and then it sank.”

“You’re right. I am surprised I didn’t catch that on the news.”

“I guess you better stay stateside, then.” I sighed, snaking my leg over his.

“Can’t do that.”

“I know.”

We both sighed.

But it was naked sighing, so there’s that.

There’s something to be said for being the little spoon. You’re tucked in, you’re cozy, you’re warm and content. Someone is wrapped around you all night, not protecting you, necessarily, but if a zombie were to come in through the window, the chances are the big spoon gets it first, right?

Charles always liked to be spooned, but he didn’t like to be the spooner. Lucas was a great spooner. When I woke up the next morning, I had one giant hand nestled against my belly, the other curled around my shoulder and casually wrapped around one lucky breast. I’d slept like a rock and woke up with a smile on my face. My body felt rested, yet sore in a way it hadn’t in a long time. Or really, never had been. Not quite this way.

I turned in his arms, snuggling into his warm chest, and let my eyes linger on the face I knew so well: the dip above his lip, the long, dark lashes that no boy should ever get to have, the sprinkling of freckles across his nose, that thoroughly messed-up hair. He rocked the bed head, that’s for sure. I blushed slightly as I remembered how those silky strands felt between my fingertips as he pushed into me that first time.

“Oh, it’ll fit,” he murmured.

I bit my lip, a pumpkin grin spreading across my face. Cautiously, I reached out to touch his face. His sleeping gave me the courage to drink him in, explore every contour and nuance of his face without getting caught doing so. I feathered my fingertips across his cheekbone, down to his strong jaw, showing the beginning of a light beard. I ghosted across his eyebrows, his closed eyelids, taking in the palest of lavender veins. His eyes moved under my fingers; was he dreaming? What was he dreaming about? I’d love to know.

I ran my fingers across his sweet lips, lips that I now knew were capable of kissing me like no one else ever had. No one had even come close. Also very capable at the dirty talk, something I’d had no idea I’d respond to. Oh, my, I responded.

“There’s my dirty girl,” he whispered.

I blushed once more thinking about those lips all over my skin, his soft sighs and quiet groans as he urged me on, telling me what he liked and what he loved about my body.

I listened to his heartbeat again.

Tha-wump. Tha-wump. Tha-wump.

As I listened, my brain got involved and changed it to:

Re-bound. Re-bound. Re-bound.

Ugh. I thought about what we’d said last night about the sex changing things, meaning the friendship. Which was more important? Neither us could afford to get hurt again. But this now meant too much to be just a rebound thing. There was no way he could ever be just some transitional guy.

And there was another factor here. I needed to come clean with him.

I’d been less than honest about the canceling of my wedding. I’d let him think, for too long maybe, that Charles and I had to come to that decision mutually. Lucas went through hell because of what Julie did to him. I didn’t want him finding out somewhere, way down the line, that I’d essentially done the same thing to Charles. Different circumstances, yes. Different outcomes, for sure yes. Charles was more about the wedding and the formality of it all than the actual marriage. But Lucas was an all-in kind of guy, and his breakup had wrecked him. So he needed to know from me how I’d really arrived in Monterey. It was time to own this.

I was still musing and muddling this over when his heartbeat sped up, and his breathing lightened. He was waking up. Just as I pasted a smile on, he opened his eyes.

“Hi,” I whispered.

He grinned. “Hey there, chickie baby,” he whispered back, wrapping his arms around me and cuddling me close. Warm. Sleep rumpled. Divine. “How’d you sleep?”

“Like a rock. You?”

“Pretty good, even through the snoring.” He smirked, and I dug into his calves with my toes.

“I don’t snore,” I protested.

“Says everyone who snores.” He laughed, flipping me over and kissing the exact center of my tummy before kissing a path on up to my neck. “You snore, Chlo.”

I pushed on his shoulders, weakly. Because why would anyone stop this? “Shush.”

“Funny, that’s what I was saying about four thirty this morning.”

“Really, shush.” I laughed, wrapping my arms around his neck as he continued to kiss on me. Goose bumps broke out across my skin and my heart fluttered, so full this morning. Then he nudged his way between my legs and nudged against me, making not just my heart flutter.