The Skylar Experiment : Dead Ending (second draft)

97. Because I Love You

LUC

RAY AND LAUREN SHUT THE door on their way out to get the perfectly-timed pizza. I hoped that delivery guy got a hefty tip. I watched Riley hustle away from me and launch back to her feet, inhaling and exhaling deeply.

Light burst from her phone so we could see through the dark basement. 

Curls crowded her face—a delicate face that I could spend all day admiring. But now it was as cross as two sticks. 

Now that I stopped to rethink what happened, how she'd manipulated that fire, I went silent. It was always something with her. Always another surprise. There were things only she could do to me such as stunning me speechless.

I knelt, rubbing imaginary dust off my hands, and rose. I didn't realize I was smiling until Riley moved to the other side of the table to keep a distance between us.

Aw, hell.

The thin shovel laid on the floor. Never thought she could make an object so harmless seem so... troublesome. With a quick wave of my hand, it placed itself back on its hook near the mantel. "You were wielding that thing like I was the poor fly in Gus' lab. Is it messed up if I said I liked seeing that?"

Her eyes put me on the spot. "You have strange taste."

I let my eyes roam over her flushed face all the way down to her neck and other interesting areas. "Don't insult yourself like that." She flinched and I stalked my way to her. Unable to help myself, I smoothed a strand of caramel hair behind her ear.

She did not look remotely swayed and I knew she was going to make me work for it. "You didn't have to be condescending like that."

"I was just trying to show you there's still work to do."

She shrugged my hand off. In the white, narrow glow of her screen, her lashes cast long shadows across her cheeks. "Okay, fine. Point taken. Thanks for being a giant dick about it."

I bridled in a laugh. "Not the worst thing I've heard about me at all."

"You want to sleep in the living room that bad, tonight?" When her eyes pointed daggers at me, I concluded I'd pricked her enough and it was time to catch myself before the wheels fell off the wagon and she'd pick up that damn shovel again.

This was the real losing battle. Not her going against me or whatever bickering was going on between us.

It was convincing her to stand down. I had to swallow that pill, because I didn't want us to go down a bad road over it. It galled me. It was terrifying me to even think about a concession, but I recalled the recent conversation with Harris.

It would never work. Riley wasn't weak and the fire slip-up was another reminder of it, adding on top of the blast when she first confronted a Wanderer and the restroom incident. Not to mention how she could have killed Miles in that classroom.

She was clumsy now but one day she could become someone's worst nightmare. As I stared at her, conflicted feelings made my throat tight. She was a product of the evil sons of bitches.

And any resemblance that tied her to them was hard to watch—seeing her struggle with it... Even harder.

"Luc?" she whispered, and crap. I'd been silent for a long time.

I scrubbed a hand down my face. "Can I... touch you now? I just need to."

Her lips parted, and her eyes were as intense as a blue gas flame in the surrounding dimness. She nodded. I released a long sigh and lowered my hands to her hips. Tugging her to me and pushing up, I sat her on the ping pong table, a spot clear of glass.