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herself.
    She wanted to tear them off. And tear his clothes off with them. And her clothes. And she’d never, ever wanted anything like this ever. And it should scare her. But in that moment, it just didn’t.
    Because her senses were filled with Lucas and nothing else seemed quite as important.
    A growl vibrated through Lucas’s chest and he slid his hands down to her backside, cupping her, drawing her even more tightly against him, against the firm length of his erection.
    And that, right there, jolted her back to reality in a very big way.
    She pulled away from him, gasping for air, her head spinning. She felt like she’d just broken through the surface of the water. The haze and silence fading. Now everything seemed too clear, harsh, cold and loud. Their fractured breathing a very potent, and embarrassing, reminder of everything that had just passed between them.
    What was wrong with her? What the
hell
was wrong with her?
    “Oh . . .” She put her hands on her lips. They felt as hot and swollen to the touch as she feared they looked. “What just happened?”
    “Something that’s been on a slow burn for a while now just combusted,” he said, his voice strangled.
    “It has not been on a slow burn,” she said. “There’s no slow burn.”
    “Oh, darlin’, there’s a slow burn. Or there was.”
    “No, no there isn’t.”
    “Why do you think we fight so much?”
    “Uh . . . because we don’t like each other?”
    “Verbal foreplay.”
    “No.”
    “Remember what I said, Carly? Either you treat me like you do because you don’t like me, or . . .” He let the thought trail off.
    “I’m not doing playground politics with you, Lucas,” she said, even as she questioned the truth of the statement. “I treat you like I do because I don’t have the patience to put up with a guy who . . . who . . .”
    “Who what?”
    “Who makes me want so many things I can’t have,” she exploded, the words unexpected and not at all what she planned. “Who makes me wish that I could . . . do something more with myself. That I could find a way to just give the world the middle finger and go on with life, like you do. But I can’t. I just can’t, okay? I have to . . . to be this way. I have to keep it all locked up, because if I don’t . . . what will happen? What will people think?”
    “Who gives a damn what people think?” he bit out.
    “I do,” she yelled, fighting tears now. “I do. Because do you . . . do you see what happens when you don’t? When you just quit caring?”
    “Your mother,” he said.
    “And my dad. And your dad. They just didn’t care anymore, and what they felt like doing, what they
feel
like doing is more important than the right thing, or the thing that at least looks right, and our childhoods were . . . a disaster because of it. And I don’t want my life to be a disaster anymore.”
    “What? So you push down all of your desires, blame me, and try to keep me out of your space so you aren’t jealous? Because regardless of what you say, Carly, you are jealous.”
    “No.”
    “Change the way you do things if you aren’t happy, Carly, but don’t make it my problem.”
    “I’m not unhappy with how I do things when you aren’t around.”
    He chuckled, a sound that held no humor. “You make choices, Carly, every day. No one is forcing you to behave this way, and the ‘my childhood sucked’ excuse only holds for so long. So figure out what you want, and do it. But don’t turn your problems into mine.”
    “Get out, Lucas.”
    “You’re dismissing me now?”
    “Yes. You can’t just come into my house and kiss me and then . . . yell at me. Now go away.”
    He nodded his head. “Fine. See you later.”
    He turned and walked out the front door, slamming it behind him. Carly uncurled her fist and saw that the twenty was all balled up in her hand.
    She growled and threw it across the room, not caring that it was a stupid thing to do. Right now,