Fighting Fire With Fire - 14

And everyone deserves their happy ending.
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"Bye." I replied, quietly. I opened the door and got out of the car and into the icy night air. Lucas stayed there and watched as I crossed the lawn and opened my bag up. I rummaged around, but couldn't find the spare key. Drat. I must have kept it in my jeans pocket.

I checked each pocket of my skinny jeans in turn, but the key wasn't there. Shit. I had lost the key. "It's okay, Taylor." I reasoned with myself out loud. "You can just wait till Jake gets home from his basketball match and - agh!" What I had failed to remember, of course, was that Manda and Jake had another one of their late night get together tonight. Damn. I was actually locked out.

I turned to see an amused Lucas sat in the driver's seat of his car. Angrily, I zipped my purse up in an aggressive way and marched over to him.

"Lucas." I said through gritted teeth, thoroughly annoyed at myself. "I've locked myself out and lost the key. Do you think you could possibly drive me to Enfield basketball courts, so I can borrow my brothers?"

Lucas looked at me and frowned. "Well, it's so far away... " he said, shocking me to the core. He wouldn't leave me in the lurch, would he?

"Oh." I blinked hard. "Okay then. I suppose I could get a taxi... " I began to fumble in my bag for my mobile, but Lucas's hand reach out the open window and stopped me.

"Don't be silly. I didn't mean it that way. I meant that Enfield is miles away, and my house is practically around the corner. We have about a million spare rooms. Why don't you sleep at mine tonight?"

I was so thoroughly shocked by this proposition that I almost dropped my bag. Sleep... at Lucas's? No - I couldn't - that would be temptation in its highest form. But it was also the more rational idea, the idea that wouldn't cost him loads on his gas tank. Hm.

Seeing my perplexed face, Lucas laughed. "Look, we're BFFs, right? I thought BFFs had sleepovers all the time?"

This made me laugh, and finally, I nodded. "Sure. What could go wrong?"

And those were the famous last words of a doomed young girl. What could go wrong? What could go wrong?! So many things, when your spare room is one away from your totally hot not-boyfriend's, and your whole accommodation is like a fairytale setting, where anything is possible.

Lucas's mother wasn't home, but Lucas called her and explained about a strange girl staying in her house, and she was surprisingly cool about it.

He gave me one of his shirts, which was big and soft and nice smelling, to sleep in, showed me my room, which had a massive four poster bed with floaty white curtains around it, and left me to get ready. I did, and as I changed, I regretted wearing some of the new underwear Manda had brought me - I would feel much less sexy and much less uncomfortable if I were wearing my drab gray set instead of lacy black lady boxers and a lacy black, low cut bra that seemed to make your figure look fabulous.

Of course, nobody would see it, but it would save me from imagining Lucas seeing it. I would be embarrassed if I were wearing my gray set, not strangely hopeful like I was then. I pulled his shirt on - it felt like velvet against my skin - and crawled into the bed.

With all the white curtains drawn, it felt like my very own fairytale wonderland in there. I imagined Lucas coming in at the dead of night and telling me he couldn't sleep with me just a few meters away, and that he wanted me to be his girlfriend once and for all.
And then there was a knock at the door.

"Lucas?" I said softly, and the door opened. He came in with a very determined look on his face. My breathing hitched as I watched him lock the door behind him. He walked right up to the bed, moved the gauzy curtain aside, and sat down next to me.

"Taylor." He began, reaching over to take my hand. "You are driving me crazy. I swear you are. Firstly, you're so beautiful that I can't get you out of my head. Secondly, you're so clever and witty that you're the only girl that manages to keep me on my toes. Thirdly, every time I'm with you, my mouth goes dry and my heart goes into overdrive because I know, I just know, that I won't be able to muster up enough courage to say what I've wanted to say ever since you first hurt me in the park - I love you." He paused, swallowing, and then looked up again. "You haven't changed, not really. Sure, you might put on pretty dresses and wear makeup just like all the other girls, but I want the old Taylor Vixen back. I don't care what you wear, I don't care what you do, as long as you never change, and stay the same way you are now. Because you're perfect."

I think, by this point, that I may have been crying. I don't really remember. What I do remember is the way that it felt to have somebody talk to you like that, the way that it felt to have someone think you're so special. It was a great feeling. A really great feeling. It was like the sun had come out from behind the clouds after days of rain. It was like the rain bursting from the sky onto the dry, parching desert. It was like falling in love.

"Oh." I said softly, my mouth too dry to muster up much. But then I looked into his dejected eyes and I knew he needed more than that. So I swallowed my fear and squeezed his hand. "I - I've always thought I hated you. You were always so perfect, always so idolized, that I felt, at times, like punching you. But when I started this whole farce, things changed. I began to scratch the surface, and you know what? You really are a great guy. You make me smile. You make me laugh. You cheer me up. You help me. You really are everything I've ever wanted, but I didn't realize that. The first time I knew I loved you was in the barn. When I was telling you to go." The lump in my throat was hard to fight, but I managed it. "So... I guess... I love you too."

Lucas's face was the picture of happiness then, his smile so bright and beautiful that I had to fight the urge to squint. He leaned forward at the same time as I did and our lips touched, briefly. I pressed them together again, but he pulled away. He smiled at my impatient sigh and then came close to kiss me properly.

And my world, which had seemed so dangerously off tilt before, righted itself. I felt whole again. My heart was there, alive and hot and racing, in my chest, beating Lucas's name again. I was completed. My chest has always been void forever, even though I hadn't acknowledged it before. Now, because I had found my soulmate, it was filled, and I felt as if I could burst with the love that ran through me for Lucas.

Lucas.

Every cell, every drop of blood in my body, yearned for him now, and I reached up to wrap my arms around his neck. He climbed fully onto the bed, over me, and kissed me with a touch so sweet and tender that I had a hard time keeping the tears in check.

I was completely fine as he pulled his shirt over my head, completely fine as his gaze trickled down the length of my body, looking at me like I was something to eat and he was very, very hungry, completely fine with the way his hands, finally on my skin again, traced a line from the hollow of my neck down to my stomach, completely fine that his mouth soon followed.

I was completely fine with the way his lips traveled lightly across my collarbone and the way he murmured I love you.

My hands were busy too, as I pulled off his shirt and sweats. My fingers acquainted themselves with the flat, hard planes of his muscular torso, and my pulse thundered as he moaned at my hesitant touch.

As you might have guessed, we made love that night. Sweet, slow, almost innocent love. There's never been a time that I've felt more complete than when he was inside of me.

Afterwards, he kissed each of my fingertips, my palms, and my neck, finally coming to rest on my lips. We were both still breathing heavily as he pulled me to him, my back to his chest, and curled me up tight against his body. He reached down and grabbed the thin white sheet, and dragged it over us both.

I shivered as the cool material touched my hot skin, and then sighed as Lucas's grip on me tightened.

I had never been so in love.

I had never been so happy.