Delilah Sinclair, decoding themalesex.
Iwake tangledin Luca’s sheets in the middle of the night. My hand searches the space beside me, but he’s not there. The blankets are cold beneath myfingertips.
I sit up, wincing a bit — becausedamngetting attacked by thugs and then fucked within an inch of your life really takes a lot out ofagirl.
My pulse picks up speed as I look around for Luca. Climbing out of bed, I ignore my screaming leg muscles and pull one of his t-shirts over my head. I see a thin line of illumination coming from the crack around the French doors, so I head into the kitchen. The track lights are on their lowest setting, casting everything inshadow.
He’s not here,either.
I’m starting to worry when I finally spot him out on the balcony. He’s stiller than a statue, leaning against the railing in the full dark. Eyes on the water, Fenway bundled inhisarms.
When I slide open the glass door and step out, I watch his shoulders go tense and immediately know that something is wrong. Something has changed, in the hours since my eyes slipped closed, lying in the circle of his arms. Our hearts pounding the same staccatorhythm.
Mine.
Mine.
Mine.
“Luca?” It’s so quiet in the star-studded night, my whisper sounds like ascream.
He turns to me with an unreadable expression on his face. He sets Fenway down, so the dog can run to me, but otherwise doesn’t move. Hell, he barely seems to bebreathing.
Not exactly the reaction I was expecting, after our passionate night together in the shower… and then in his bed… and then in the showeragain…
I take a cautious step toward him, shivering as a cool breeze off the water blows across the deck. Or maybe that cold is coming from his eyes, which seem to be full of ice as they watch me closing thedistance.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, feeling tears build in mythroat.
Ever look back at a moment in your life and wonder how you didn’t see a storm coming until it was already making landfall, blowing out your windows with hurricane forcewinds?
“What’s wrong?” He laughs, but it’s a bitter sound. “Are you fuckingkidding?”
Anger rushes into me. “No I’m notfucking kidding. Are you going to glare me to death, or fill me in on why you’re suddenly acting like a career tribute from District 1 of The Hunger Games?” I tilt my head. “Pegged you for more of a Finnick than a Cato, but I’ve been wrong about guysbefore…”
He lurches forward, as if battling the urge to physically shake some sense into me, but reins himself in before making contact. I blink at him soundlessly, waiting for him to locate his standard sense of unflappable control. Waiting for him to tell me what inspired this radical shift from adoration toanger.
His expression is thunderous — full of so much fury, it makes me take a step back. I don’t know how he shifted gears so fast from the tender man who made me see stars to this seething Spartan glaring at me across a narrow balcony, and I’m not sure I want to know. As I hold his gaze, his hands curl into fists at hissides.
I jerk my chin up, temperrising.
“I don’t understand what possibly could’ve happened between the moment I fell asleep in your arms and now,” I snap, hating the way my voice breaks. “What didIdo?”
Maybe I forgot, watching him in dad-mode with the twins, seeing him do battle for me in the streets, letting him make slow love to me with a level of intimacy I’ve never let myself succumb to before, that this man is notgentle.
Maybe seeing him in a new light lulled me into a certain sort of complacency, until I let down my guard, neglected fortifying those shields I always keep aroundmyself.
Maybe I was so caught up chasing that pulse-pounding, heart-in-my-throat feeling being with him inspires, I lost track of all the reasons I why I should never get involved with someone like LucaBuchanan.
Why I should never get involved withanyone.
Whatever the case, it’s clear I’ve made a miscalculation; failed to see the time bomb ticking down the seconds until it’s already exploded inmyface.
“Just tell me. What the hell did I do?” I repeat, voice strongerthistime.
“It’s what you didn’t do,Delilah.”
What?