Safe in Clua

TWELVE

Laia

Still in my green pajama shorts and my favorite washed-out gray tank, I poke my head into the cleaning cupboard under the sink. There must be a dustpan in here somewhere. Stress cleaning only works if you have things to stress clean with. Pressing the palms of my hands to my eyes, I suppress a yawn. Sleep came far too easily last night. So did the sex dreams. Wet Felix and that V of muscle that dips into his shorts.

Too much sleep and too many sex dreams. I feel over-rested, but jittery at the same time, but like I kinda want to go back to bed and make the most of my reprieve from the usual Damon nightmares.

I pull out a cardboard box and open the top flap. No dustpan, just an old house phone.

A cell. I still need to get one. My old one is hidden in the back seat of a bus, heading to God knows where, taking its traceable GPS, and hopefully Damon, with it.

I scrub my hands over my face and sigh, long and hard. The Felix effect officially fading, letting Damon’s presence snake its way right back in. It takes up root in the base of my skull, radiating a hum of paranoia and anxiety down every muscle, vein, and bone in my body. My lungs even shrink in on themselves almost as if they’re scared to expand fully—just in case.

Rubbing my hands down my thighs, I push to my feet and turn to take in the view from the kitchen doors. Focus on the good. I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth. Take in the swaying palm trees and the deserted beach beyond them. Focus on the good.

The rumble of something that sounds an awful lot like a vehicle pulling up in my drive breaks through the quietness of the morning.

I squint like it’ll let me hear better. The engine cuts out. A door slams closed. Mrs. Devon? Maybe? I scrape my hair back and retie it into its knot as I walk through the hall to the front door, the unease I haven’t felt for two whole days prickling over my skin and drying out my mouth.

I turn the key in the front door, its I love Clua keyring jingling against the truck key as I open it just enough to see…

An ass hanging out of the hood of the Truck. Green board shorts, Converse, and a calf tattoo.

Tingles take the place of the unease. My fingers automatically lift to stroke across my lips—to reminisce over the feel of his mouth against them or for drool-prevention purposes, I’m not entirely sure. I lean my shoulder on the door jam. We didn’t discuss this, I don’t think. I was pretty hazy and kissed out by the time I floated into the house last night.

I purse my lips to the side and tilt my head until it, too, rests on the door jam, still very much staring at his ass.

Before I’ve quite figured out what to say?, or how to feel about his unexpected presence here once again, he straightens—all chiseled, six-foot-whatever of him.

A sharp jolt of air releases from me when he turns and his stare meets mine, scratching his forehead, his bicep all kinds of bunched with the action. I swallow and avert my gaze, another little pant of air escaping.

“Hey.” He grins, blasting me with his dimples when I look up again. “I was passing and” —he clicks his tongue against his teeth and twists back to look at the truck’s open hood— “I figure this truck of yours could do with a proper once over.”

I step out of the door, grabbing my keys as I go, carefully tiptoeing, barefoot, down the short path of flat stones to the driveway. It’s still early. The air is still a little damp, the ground still cool with condensation, the fresh scent of morning still lingering. I hug my arms around myself. “You really don’t have to do this.”

He rocks back on his heels when I stop in front of him, gaze dropping to my lips.

I press them together.

“I’m pretty sure it’s just a burnt-out spark plug. Easy fix.” He absentmindedly scratches his chest.

I clear my throat and look anywhere but his hard, sleeveless-tee-covered torso, my fingers wrapping around my pendant. “Felix, last night—yesterday—I didn’t mean to—”

“Kiss me again?” His smirk is amused, but not mocking, his head cocked to the side at whatever he reads from my blazing cheeks. “Don’t worry about it.”

I force a smile and nod. “You really don’t have to fix the truck, though, I can take it somewhere.”

“No need. I’m here now. Keys.” He holds his hand out. “I’ll have it done within the hour.”

I chew on the inside of my cheek and shoot a glance to the truck and the toolbox balanced on the side of its open hood. It would be nice not to sound like a kamikaze bomber every time I pull up somewhere. My lips purse with indecision. He is already here.

I thrust the keys out to him before I can change my mind. “Okay. Yes. Sorry. Thank you.” My eyelids flutter at the sudden heat in his stare. He’s not looking at my face. I’m not even sure he heard my torrent of randomness. Good. No. Baaaaaad.

Pajamas. No bra. That’s me.

The look on his face paralyzes me. It’s—well, it’s intense. Serious. Really fricking hot.

I practically throw the keys at his chest and back up. Fold my arms across my stretched out-with-age tank and turn for the house.

I suppose it’s too much to ask for him not to notice how short my shorts are?

Felix

Fuck, those shorts.

I swallow hard as soon as she’s in the door. The air is filled with her vanilla scent. The same vanilla scent that lingered on me all the way home last night. It’s not helping. Neither is her ass in those shorts—or the thinness of that tank.

Maybe it wasn’t such a bright idea to show up unannounced.

I just. I wanted to prove to myself that last night, yesterday, the way it felt to kiss her, the attraction I can’t seem to shake? are all just a one-off—or twice off. A random occurrence. Something I don’t want to happen again. Prove to myself that it’s only friendly concern that had me waking up this morning uneasy, thinking about her driving that death trap of a truck.

The curtain that covers her living room window twitches. Staring at her fucking window like a pervert probably isn’t going to make her more comfortable around me. I turn stiffly and grab the socket wrench from my toolbox.

It’s still there. The attraction. The interest. Just as strong. Maybe stronger. I need to focus. Get this done then put some distance between us.

Forty-five minutes later, I think I’ve fixed the problem. Sweat rolls down my back, sticking my shirt to my skin. I drag it off, wipe my forehead, then throw it through the back window of my pickup. With any luck, the old banger won’t sound like it’s about to explode when she turns the ignition now.

“I brought you some water.”

Her voice trails off when I turn, her tongue peeking from between her lips, gaze slipping down my body.

The air thickens, the humidity multiplying, losing all oxygen, and I can’t even blame it on the shorts. She’s changed into denim cutoffs and a loose gray shirt, but still, I can’t seem to look away.

Even with Rosa, it wasn’t this intense.

With Rosa, it was love at first sight. She was my fucking world for the short time I had her, but this thing with Laia is different. Completely different. Guilt creeps into my consciousness and I wipe my hands off with a rag from my toolbox. What the fuck am I doing comparing this—this infatuation with what I had with Rosa?

“Thanks.” I take the bottle from her and turn back to the engine. “Start her up.”

Without a word, she climbs into the open driver’s side door. The engine rumbles but starts the first time without a single splutter or whine, revving loudly until she cuts it.

A grin lights her face through the windshield. Unguarded, lacking the wariness she usually watches me with.

She hops out of the driver’s seat as I slam the hood down and step around to meet her.

She almost crashes right into my chest.

My hands automatically drop to her hips to steady her before she topples backwards.

She jerks back, her face flushed from her hairline all the way down to where her sun kissed skin disappears beneath the V-neck of her shirt. “I … I’m sorry. It’s just that’s the first time I’ve started her up and not feared for my life.”

“No worries.” I tip my head back and stare at the cloudless blue sky, willing the tension from my body. I need to stay away. “Listen. I gotta go.”

“Wait. Can I pay you?”

“I don’t want your money, Laia.” I drag my fingers through my hair. “We’re friends. Right? Friends help friends around here.”

She swallows, blinks, presses her pouty lips together. “I feel bad. At least take some pie.”

I’m unable to keep the smirk from my face. Unexpected. Really fucking unexpected. Maybe that’s the attraction. “Pie?”

“I’ll pay you in pie.” The second the words are out of her mouth she rolls her eyes and scrunches her nose.

I know that look, she does it whenever something random escapes her. She did it after she kissed me too. After every time she’s kissed me. I grind my teeth and curl my fingers against their sudden urge to tug her bottom lip from between her teeth.

“Forget it. Stupid idea.” She shakes her head, and her hair falls over her face. “You said the other day you’d like to … I thought…”

I go to brush it back behind her ear without thinking but drop my hand.

She flinches regardless and backs up. “I’m sorry, I just…”

Something tugs hard in my chest at her sudden uncomfortableness. “Any other day I’d love some pie. I just really gotta get going.”

“Of course. You have to go.” Wide green eyes peek through long dark lashes, pulling at something I’d forgotten existed—something I’m not sure I want pulled at.

“Come with me?” The words are out before I can stop them. Before I’ve even decided if I want her to. She’s rubbing off on me. “If you’re not doing anything.”

“I’m not,” she blurts out then holds her breath, her face scrunching. “I mean, I don’t have plans.”

I rub my fingers over my mouth to stop my laugh. We’re like a pair of fucking teenagers.

That in itself should tell me everything I need to know. I don’t do this. I do sex with no strings. I fuck, then leave before morning. This won’t end well. “I need to pick some stuff up half an hour up the coast.” Someone should probably tell my mouth that.

“I’ll need to be back by one.”

Reaching through the back window of the pickup, I grab the clean shirt folded on the back seat and pull it over my head. “It’s only nine, we’ve got time.”

She glances over her shoulder to the house. “I guess I better lock up then.”

I watch her jog up the path and disappear into the house. What the fuck am I doing? I don’t do this. I don’t fucking do this.

“We good to go?” Her soft voice pulls me from my jumbled thoughts when she returns a minute later, a shy smile lifting the corner of her lips.

And suddenly I know exactly what it is about her I’m finding impossible to keep away from. It’s the lack of pity when she looks at me. The absence of sadness in her tone when she speaks to me. It’s that she doesn’t know my past—can’t see that I’m broken.

And as selfish as it is, I don’t think I want that to change.