“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.

I bit down on my lip, my body wanting to stop the words I needed to say. But before this went further, it was going to go from playful to primal in no time. I needed to say some things.

“Lucas,” I said, trying to pull him up toward me.

“Mmm?” he replied, his lips tickling and sweet.

“We need to talk about a few things, before you leave tomorrow.”

“You want to talk”—he pressed against me with a very specific part of his anatomy—“now?”

“Oh, boy . . . ohhh, yes . . . Wait—yes, we need to talk,” I said, leaning up on my elbows so I could see him. I traced a hand across his face, running my thumb over his lips. “And then hopefully we can go right back to this right here,” I said, lifting my hips slightly and bumping him right back.

“Talk fast, woman,” he said, rolling off of me and resting his head on his elbow. His other hand, however, continued to roam.

Now I had the floor, and I didn’t know where to start. Was I making too big of a deal of this? Should I just rip off the Band-Aid?

“Last night was . . . wow. I don’t even have words for last night.”

“You said some words last night,” he murmured, his hand dipping just below the sheet and cupping my breast. My toes pointed. Literally. Reflex. He did it again, and the same thing happened. So much so that the sheets rustled. Lucas looked down toward the bottom of the bed, and touched me once more. Toe point. The scientist in him was delighted. Boob. Toe. Boob. Toe.

“This is an interesting phenomenon,” he mused.

Meanwhile, I was coming out of my skin. “Could you—and I promise I will never say these words again—please stop touching me? It’s hard to think straight when you do that.”

He was a scientist, yes, but a boy first, so he touched me once more, then moved his hand safely above the sheets. “Best behavior, I promise.”

“Anyway, so, yeah. Last night, amazing. And I’m hoping, I mean, when you get back from Belize, that there’ll be more nights like that?”

“Um. Yeah,” he said, grinning so big I thought his head was going to split.

Band-Aid. Pull off the Band-Aid so you can get back to the boobs and toes.

“I left Charles the morning of our wedding,” I said in a rush, instantly feeling better for saying it. Looking down at my hands, I continued. “I had this sudden moment of clarity, and I panicked at the thought of getting married to someone I wasn’t in love with, not truly crazy-in-love with, and I panicked and I ran. He never made it to the church, he was still on the golf course with his groomsmen when I ran, but I did in fact run.”

I chanced a look up, saw that his smile had dimmed, and pressed on. “And then when I met you, I realized, holy fudge, we have so much in common, but holy fudge, Julie just did almost the same thing to you that I did to Charles, and there was no way I could tell you what I’d done. And it was all so new and fresh and raw, and I was just figuring out what I wanted to do up here, and if I could truly stay and live here, and then you and I started spending so much time together, and holy fudge, Lucas, you’re the best, and we were spending so much time together and then my mom and dad were here, and I was so afraid something was going to come up about the wedding and you’d find out that way, and I knew it would be better coming from me and—”