Vulnerable || l.h.

Ten

I sat cross-legged on Luke's bed, math books strewn across the blankets in front of us. As I worked on a practice problem, I nervously chewed on the eraser end of my pencil. I felt Luke's eyes on me. I turned to face him.

"Can I help you?"

Luke gave me a devious smile and pulled on his lip ring. "Yes, you can."

He crawled across the bed over the books and came closer to me. Luke's breath was hot on my neck as he brought his lips down on my exposed skin. I felt a shiver go down my spine. I reluctantly pushed Luke off of me.

"Hey, we have a test tomorrow we need to study."

Luke rolled his eyes. "Mads, you're so uptight sometimes." He reached up and moved a strand of my hair out of my face. "You need to relax, babe."

I gave Luke a small smile as I looked down at my books. He had a point; I was always overly concerned about studying and getting good grades. We had been working on this stuff for at least an hour already and we were most likely going to do really well on the test. Knowing Luke had successfully persuaded me, I closed all of the books and moved them from the bed to the floor.

"Okay." I said returning my attention to Luke. "I'm ready to relax."

Luke's smile grew as he moved in closer to me again. His lips came crashing down on mine. They were warm, but also slightly cold with the metal of his lip ring. Luke let out a soft moan as my tongue found its way into his mouth. As our kiss grew deeper, we shifted our position on the bed, with Luke sitting with his back against his headboard and me straddling him. My hands moved up Luke's stomach, to his chest, and finally rested on his shoulders. Luke's hands remained on my back, pulling me closer and closer to him until it was almost impossible to breathe. As our tongues collided, a small moan escaped my lips.

Luke and I had been dating for over a month now, and it was a day before Valentine's Day. We had kept things a secret at first, but eventually we were ready to make our relationship public. We walked into lunch one day holding hands, which tipped off Ashton, Michael and Calum. They were shocked, but at the same time not surprised. Calum and Michael said they had seen it coming, given that we often flirted with each other. Ashton said he was surprised, knowing about my personal "don't date guys from the hockey team" policy but he was happy for us nonetheless.

A knock on the door interrupted Luke and me. We pulled apart and Luke called the person knocking to come in. It was Luke's mom. She walked into the room and her eyes widened when she saw the position we were in.

"Oh! Am I interrupting something?"

"Yeah mom, you kinda are." Luke replied.

I lightly slapped Luke's chest. "Luke!" he rolled his eyes at me and I looked back to his mother. "I'm sorry Liz, what's up?"

"No problem, honey. I was just making sure that you were staying for dinner?"

I nodded. "Yep!"

"Great! I'll set up an extra plate at the table."

***

After dinner at Luke's house, I walked back to my house. When I got there I walked in and heard yelling coming from my parents' room. This was becoming a regular occurrence; my parents fighting all day and night. I walked up to my room, trying not to alert my parents of my presence. It was always so awkward when I found them fighting; they tried to act like they weren't just fighting and that everything was fine, but it clearly wasn't.

I put my backpack down and walked over to my bed and sat down. I pulled out a shopping bag, which had a rangers jersey and a mixtape in it. They were Luke's Valentine's Day presents, and all that was left was to fill out the card. I finished writing my note, sealed the envelope and placed it in the bag. As I got ready for bed, I could still hear my parents' raised voices. They had lowered the volume a bit, possibly because they realized I had come home, but I could still tell they were arguing. I layed in bed and put my headphones in, attempting to drown them out and give myself some peace.