The Criminal and The Vigilante (boyxboy) Bk 3

Chapter 11: Furrowed brows and a Stronger Reslove

Chapter 11

~Lucas’s POV~

The silence was deafening.

I kept glancing at him from the corner of my eye as he prepared for bed and not once did he look at me and we uttered not one word to each other. I found myself wishing for even the faintest sound to echo though the large guest house.

Maybe a laugh from Scottie whose room  was right next to ours or a growl from Marcus who had yet to come back since he left hours before. Anything to dispel the silence that was piercing my eardrums, but nothing offered relief.

I was naked from the waist up and my flimsy boxer shorts did nothing to shield me from the chill that swept through the room. The floor boards creaked under my feet as I made my way over to the bed.

I wrapped the thick blanket around me and was instantly enveloped in its warmth and when I was settled, I turned my head to stare at my silent lover. He stood by the window, looking out into the darkness below, completely unmoving. The only indication that he was even breathing was the gentle rise and fall of his bare chest.

“Aren’t you cold?” I asked, taking a chance at forming the conversation we hadn’t gotten around to as the day had dragged by.

He shrugged in response, his eyes still firmly fixed away from me.

There was this feeling I used to get when I was younger, whenever I was trying my hardest not to cry after being scolded. The feeling as if some unknown force creating a vise over my heart and squeezing then squeezing some more. I always hated that feeling and that’s exactly how I felt as I watched Adrian. I had hurt him with my accusations and my hasty decision to call it quits and I knew that now.

I sat up in bed, not caring that the blanket had slid from my shoulders and the cold was once again seeping into my skin.

“Are you coming to bed?” I questioned and I flinched at how small and uncertain my voice sounded in the silence. I had no idea what he was thinking as he stood there and a few minutes passed before he even bothered to answer, but when he did  it wasn’t exactly what I expected to hear.

“How did it feel seeing him again?” He asked quietly, his body still angled away from me but I could feel the tension pooling off him as he stood there. I didn’t try to pretend I didn’t know who he was talking about. The time for games had long passed.

“I haven’t seen him yet. He’s grounded.” I replied equally soft but the stiffness didn’t leave his body.

Two days ago I had been ready to end it all, to throw away everything we had because he’d been indirectly responsible for Thomas’s injuries. I’d spent months trying to convince him to do this and do that. To change for me, to alter his entire world just to accommodate my needs and the one thing he ever asked of me I couldn’t give him.

It took me this very moment as I watched my lover in pain to realize how selfish I’d been. To realize how much of a toll my pining over Laken had taken on him and through it all he’d still stuck by me, hoping that one day I’d only see him.

I could see the sadness in his eyes from my seat on the bed and I was ashamed. My problem was that I thought of him as the big bad drug lord; the man who could feel no pain. For some reason I had created a picture of him in my mind; a picture that portrayed him as indestructible and I had treated him as such.

I hadn’t cared if I’d upset him, I hadn’t cared that he’d loved me and for whatever reason, I understood it all now. Everything came crashing down on me on this night. Maybe it was the stillness of it all, the tranquility, maybe it was my own happy thoughts of this place that led me to really evaluate myself and the role I’d played in our relationship, I really didn’t know.