I tried to give him privacy to dress but it was hard to keep my eyes focused on something else. It wasn’t entirely my fault! Lucas was making no move to take his clothes and go dress in the bathroom either.
Licking my lips, I glanced around the room but my eyes instantly darted back to Lucas who was busy searching through the boxes for his clothes. Straightening, he dropped the clothes on top of the box and glanced over at me.
“What did you want to talk about?” he asked.
“Uhm. . .about us,” I stuttered. “I. . .I want us to take things slow.”
“Even if it’s not what you usually do?”
I blinked at him in surprise. Lucas gave me a small smile as he turned around. My lips parted in a silent gasp when he just dropped the towel to the floor.
“You would’ve had sex with Grayson if your father hadn’t walked in the two of you and you didn’t even know him for that long,” he said as he pulled a pair of grey sweats up his legs. “Why do you want to take things slow?”
Bending, he picked up the towel and threw it over the top of the door before turning to face me. For a moment my eyes dropped to his crotch but I immediately looked away.
“How do you know about Grayson and me?” I asked him instead of answering his question.
Lucas took a seat next to me on the bed but thankfully kept a respectable distance between us. From the corner of my eyes I watched him as he rubbed his palms over his thighs a few times before he gripped his knees.
“One of my. . .abilities is the fact that I can. . .to put it in simple terms; I can read minds. Some people don’t have walls up to block me out. Sometimes when Grayson’s distracted, he lets his walls down.” He paused. “While I was staying with Erik, he came to visit. He has a very graphic mind.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry for?”
I sighed. “For having sex with someone else when I knew that you’re my mate.”
Lucas reached out, took hold of my hand and entwined our fingers. My eyes darted up to his and widened when I found him smiling at me. He looked amused instead of angry.
“You’re not mad at me?”
“I’m. . .not made. It’s not something I like. I don’t want other men thinking about you but I know that there’s not really anything I could do about it.” He gave my hand a squeeze. “You’ve been with other men before me.”
“Like you’ve been with other women before us.”
Lucas shook his head. “I haven’t.”
“What?
He looked away but not before I saw the colour flooding his cheeks. “There wasn’t anytime to be with anybody,” he said softly. “Ariana was my first.”
Wow. I blinked down at out hands as I tried to process the things he just told me. So that time at the tattoo studio when I was teasing him, I had been right all along. But he had told me. . .
“I haven’t like about that,” Lucas muttered. “Some people want tattoos on weird places.”
“Are you reading my mind?” I asked him.
“No,” he rolled his eyes. “I know that you’re thinking about that day. I’ve seen plenty of people naked, but I never touched anyone in a sexual way before Ariana.”
I smiled. “I’m kinda looking forward to teaching you.”
Lucas raised an eyebrow at me. “You want to be my teacher?”
“Well, obviously you already know what you’re doing when it comes to sex, but I must warn you that my taste are different than my sister’s,” I told him.
The colour in his cheeks deepened but he nodded. “Noted.”
I swallowed, reached up to run a hand through my hair. After blowing out a deep breath, I looked up at him and told him what I had been planning on telling him the moment I realized that Ariana had been right.
“I want the kind of bond you and Ariana have but I don’t want to rush things. Things haven’t been that great between us and I know we’ve been talking a lot over the last two years, but I’m. . .scared.” I paused but when he remained silent I continued. “Trusting you is going to be hard for me.”
“I know,” he sighed. “I promise you that I’ll do my best to make up for everything.”
“I know you will.” I pulled my hand from his and stood to stare down at him. “Here are the rules. No touching underneath clothes, I’m up for kissing but nothing beyond a few make out sessions. No sex until I’m ready.”
“Okay.”
“Okay,” I repeated.
We stared at each other silently for a few seconds until Lucas stood and reached out to grip my hips. He pulled me closer and then reached up to slip a hand into my hair. I held my breath when he leaned closer, but he didn’t kiss like I though he would.
Lucas pressed his lips to the corner of my lips and leaned back. “I won’t do anything unless you make the first move.”