Love Punched | COMPLETED

33. Knowing Lila

(Trigger Warning: This chapter contains mentions of abuse, assault, nudity and sex. Dark themes ahead so read at your own risk. But it is certainly important.)

13 HOURS AGO

(Lila's P.O.V)

I rushed out of his house, my heart skidding in my chest and my cheeks burning up.

I was...I was...

I was blushing! Fuck.

I felt uncomfortable whileas Derek felt at home when he teased me, trapped me in his embrace. So close.

He called me adorable. Delectable.

He cupped my face.

He was handing out such weird compliments like flyers on a street!

God, we'd been so close.

I'd felt his breath on my lips and seen that look of pure, undiluted want in his copper eyes as he stared at me. I'd felt it all, the warmth of his skin of mine, the feeling of being in his magnetic orbit and I'd been unable to deny.

That manly scent that was all Derek Greyson had encompassed me so fully like a burning embrace of a forbidden fire.

I'd been off-kilter.

And I have zero clue how I managed to come off as indifferent as much as I did. How I teased and bantered while my stomach filled with butterflies - those darn things - and I pictured myself as the Wattpad heroine getting her real spark-filled kiss.

I don't know when it happened, how it happened but these feelings were so unrequired. I hated them but at the same time...

I feel warm and fuzzy and just a look at his coppery eyes, his dimpled smile and tempting lips induces foreign feelings within me.

I shook my head quickly as if it would help clear my mind. 

It didn't.

I steadily took a few calming breaths and hoped my betraying heart would calm down from its galloping. 

It didn't but I almost enjoyed that high.

As I entered my room, alone at home, I felt a damper on the feelings I'd been experiencing.

I couldn't face our friends or Derek himself after the little spectacle of our almost-kiss so I ran out. Like a coward.

I wasn't a coward.

I'd trained and learnt so much just so I wouldn't be helpless. But it wasn't something I could use when it came to these matters of the heart.

In the silence of the room, the dark engulfed me and a sense of despair filled the air. I'd become accustomed to the loneliness. In fact, I liked it a certain bit. The peace and calm that Derek had been disrupting since day one of his arrival in Ladenhill.

And without me realizing, I'd crawled out of my shell. The protective gear I'd adorned myself with so I wasn't impenetrable but no could see all of me had been rendered useless because the dimpled-guy had started chipping away at it.

It felt like drowning under the sea to me. Because I wasn't stupid enough to not realize what path I was headed down with these skipped heart beats, small smiles and thinking of Derek.

But he wasn't good for my heart at all.

I never would've expected anyone to swim down the ocean of my demons and my aloof behavior to reach the chest where I kept my heart locked. Derek had almost found the key to unlock it and it was such a scary thought.