Always His | (Book 3) 18+

ten

AMELIA
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I knocked on Lucian's bedroom door, making sure to be as gentle as possible. I could hear his gentle groan and a few moments later, the door opened to reveal his face and body.

"I told you to go to bed, Mia," Lucian tiredly whispered, leaning against his bedroom doorframe. "What's wrong? You okay?"

"I can't sleep," I mumbled out, rubbing my left eye with the heel of my hand. "Can I... can I stay in your room with you?"

I swear I tried to go to sleep, hence the reason why I'm still awake three hours later. In those three hours, I took a nice cold shower, had several glasses of water to sober up a bit, and tried forcing myself to sleep. I still couldn't sleep and resorted to my last option: Lucian.

"You sure?" He asked, his voice groggy from just waking up.

Now I feel bad...

I slowly nodded my head, hearing his tired sigh before he moved from the doorway to let me in. I looked around the room and rolled into his giant bed, hearing Lucian close the door and get in bed with me. I snuggled into the blankets and hummed tiredly, rolling on my side to find Lucian on his stomach, his face laced with exhaustion as he already fell asleep.

The silence gave me a moment to think. Throughout the week, I read Lucian's messages to me. Yesterday, he sent one more message telling me that he wants to finally explain himself and I'm hoping that he truly meant it. I mean, I'll ask him about it in the morning but until then, I'll just drown in my thoughts—

"Still wide awake?" Lucian's voice rumbled.

"It's fine," I whispered, watching him crack an eye open. "You need to sleep. By the looks of it, you need it."

Completely ignoring me, Lucian wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me to his chest, putting one of my legs up to casually rest on his hip. My cheeks warmed at the position but Lucian seemed much more focused on trying to sleep than anything else.

There has to be something that made him so drained tonight.

"Go to bed," he tiredly spoke. "We have a lot to talk about tomorrow morning."

I didn't respond, feeling his grip slacken as he began to fall into the world of slumber. I rested my head on Lucian's chest, tracing the tattoos going across the right side of his chest. For what felt like hours, all I did was admire Lucian. The amount of times I've memorized his face, gone over each tiny square inch of ink on his body, watched his muscles flex whenever he twitched in his sleep.

For two years I tried to keep my distance from Lucian because I was scared to get my heart broken by him and now that he's caught up to me, I'm terrified to give my heart to him.

I had had a few relationships after my fallout with Lucian and I knew that they weren't really going to go anywhere—most of it was just to keep my bed warm at night, even if that sounds terrible. I feel like my heart knew that he would eventually change my mind but my brain didn't want to admit to it. I didn't want to be weak by going back to Lucian after everything that's happened but I think I've been trying to just move past it.

I was going to hear him out tomorrow and I wasn't going to run again.

I don't remember falling asleep but when I woke up, the sun was beaming directly on my face like it made plans to make my life hell this morning. I buried my face in Lucian's neck with a tired groan, feeling him rub my spine subconsciously.