“Love is selfish, isn’t it?”
We both flinched at the sound of Brooklyn fixing something in the kitchen.
“What do I tell her? She’s going to wonder why I’m not at work. She’s going to wonder about you. Are you just going to disappear? Is that the way it will be? You pop in and out whenever you want, and I never know where you are?”
“No, I promise I won’t do that to you. Tell her you met me a few weeks ago. Tell her I’m your boyfriend.” He smiled—boyish, sweet, innocent… human.
I sat up on the edge of the bed. “Do you want some coffee or something?”
“Yeah, I’d love some.” He caressed my naked back. “You are so fucking beautiful it hurts.”
When he sat up behind me, I felt his body expand. I closed my eyes and heard the sound of his wings spreading. Suddenly they were around me, and I felt as though my body and mind had drifted off somewhere into space… into heaven.
“Does that feel good?”
I could barely speak. He was sucking and kissing my neck, gripping my hair with one hand and teasing my breast with the other.
“Lucian,” I whispered, “I will never get anything done if you don’t stop touching me.” What I wanted to say was that he was ruining me for all others, that nothing would compare to the way he made me feel.
“I can’t help it,” he said.
He removed his hands. I opened my eyes and his wings were gone and he was just a man, albeit a ridiculously gorgeous man. He had the sheet over his lap, and he was smirking with confidence. He knew he had gotten me all hot and bothered. He was a god, truly, a perfect specimen.
“No one will believe you want to be with me,” I told him.
“Stop being insecure. You have no reason to be. You’re insanely gorgeous. Even during your awkward stage, you were beautiful.”
When I scowled, he laughed. “Awkward stage?” I crossed my arms and pouted.
“Yeah, like between eleven and fourteen, the acne… yowza!”
I socked him in his solid arm. “Ha ha, very funny. I’m going to make coffee even though it’s three in the afternoon.”
I put on a T-shirt and underwear. My hair was going in every direction, and I could feel the permanent flush on my face. When I walked into the kitchen Brooklyn was leaning against the counter, cutting tomatoes. She set the knife down without a word, and watched me go to the coffee pot to begin filling it.
“Have you been here the whole time? I thought you left this morning.”
I was smiling and couldn’t stop. “I did. I came back.”
“When she ran into me at the café,” came Lucian’s voice.
We both turned around to take him in, standing in the doorway wearing nothing but a pair of black jeans sans boxers. Dear God.
Brooklyn’s mouth was on the floor. She was taking ogling to a new level.
“Brooke,” I said, “do you mind?”
“Hi,” she said.
He approached her. “I’m Lucian.”
“Lucian,” she whispered, breathlessly.
“Yep,” he said with a cocky grin. Oh geez, he is full of himself when he’s not drunk and emo. He stretched out his arms, and Brooke and I fixated on his flexing muscles. “God, I feel great.” He looked up at the ceiling and said, “I mean it, old man.”
That was the first I had heard Lucian address God directly, and he had done it openly and humorously. I giggled. Brooklyn was still speechless.
“How do you two know each other?” she said finally.
“We go way back,” Lucian replied.
“Well, not really,” I corrected him. “He was in fashion school for a year before he dropped out.”
He looked at me with a scowl and mouthed, “Really?”
“You never mentioned him… or wait, was this the thing you were rambling about this morning?” Brooklyn said. “What was the deal with the wings?”
“I was kidding.” Brooklyn would buy anything. “I was feeling you out to make sure you hadn’t bagged him and didn’t want to tell me. He and I had lost touch, then I ran into him a few weeks ago, and we went on a couple dates.”
She turned her back to Lucian and frowned at me before whispering, “Did you hide him from me because you were afraid he’d like me more?” That was how Brooklyn’s mind worked. She could be arrogant and insulting in one sentence.
I didn’t know if Lucian had heard her, but he crossed the kitchen in two large strides and kissed me. When my knees buckled, his hand went to the small of my back to hold me up.
“I missed you in there,” he said. “Come back to bed.”
“Jesus Christ,” Brooklyn said in a rush of air.
Lucian turned to face her. “Something the matter, Brooklyn?”
He picked me up in one fell swoop and carried me back to my room. The whole time Brooklyn was looking on in shock.
Inside my room, I fake-whined, “But I never got my coffee.”
He set me on the bed, left the room, and returned two minutes later with two cups of coffee. “She was still frozen in shock when I went into the kitchen, and then she tried to flirt with me. I really cannot believe you’ve put up with her crap all these years.”
“She’s not that bad,” I said.
He shrugged and then sat down against the headboard and crossed his legs at the ankles. I couldn’t stop staring at him.