“Only five bucks?” Lacy turned and stared at him. “You’ll have to do better than that.”
“You okay?” His breath whispered across the back of her neck and she flinched.
She hadn’t noticed that he’d finished his conversation. His hand pressed against her shoulder; it felt warm, strong, and . . . masculine. She swallowed, and tried to remember where her brain had been before he touched her. Oh yeah, she’d been thinking about how she didn’t need sex.
“I’m fine. Not a need in the world.” Every nerve in her body slow-danced to a song of passion. She pressed the chilled bottle to her forehead, amazed that between her body heat and the cold beer, a puff of steam didn’t float up to the ceiling.
“Just getting a beer to marinate the steaks.” She looked at the half-emptied bottle in front of her nose. “But I think I’ve drunk my marinade.” Bending over, she hit the button that ejected the cooler from the side of the chair and grabbed another beer.
“Wow!” Chase said.
“Every man’s dream chair,” she said. “It massages, cools, heats, can lift you up when you don’t feel like lifting yourself, and you have your own minibar within arm’s reach.”
“Pretty neat.” He looked from the chair to her as if he wasn’t altogether convinced.
“I hate it,” she confessed, running her hand over the blue leather. She’d used more than two cans of Lysol on the piece of furniture, yet to her, the chair still smelled like Peter’s aftershave.
“Then why do you have it?” he asked.
“Because I’m not a selfish person. There are others to consider,” she said. “Others who love this chair.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Really? Who do you keep it for?”
“Watch this.” She hit the button on the chair’s side. The recliner started vibrating and immediately, Samantha, Leonardo and Sweetie Pie came running down the hall. Samantha, of course, spotted Chase and hightailed it back into the bedroom.
“They love it,” Lacy said, and waved her arm as the two other cats piled into the seat.
“You bought an electronic chair for your cats?” he asked, clearly disbelieving.
“Bought it? Are you kidding? This thing runs about ten thousand dollars. No, it was given to me. I work a clause into most of my contracts. I get free or amazingly discounted merchandise when I do product shoots.”
His laugh was deep. “That explains all the high-tech appliances. And here I thought you were just some kind of weird electronic gadget collector. The TVs, the fridge, the microwave.” He touched his head. “The fish.”
She smiled. “I just take pictures. And the fish was a gift from my friend Kathy’s little boy.” She took another sip of beer. “But if you ask my mother, nothing is weirder than a photographer. She’d rather I work at Wal-Mart.” Lacy gave the wedding photo of her mother one last glance, hoping it would give her strength to resist the temptation standing in front of her. “You want a beer?”
“Don’t mind if I do.” Retrieving one from the opened cooler, he pushed the door closed as if to see how it worked. “Pretty neat.” Standing up, he followed her into the kitchen.
“Thanks for talking to Jason,” he said into the silence.
“It was nothing.” She doused the steaks with beer, then pushed them into the broiler and turned around. Their eyes met—blue to green, green to blue.
“Listen, uhh, Jason thinks it’s best if I lie low for a few days and let him do some digging on the inside while I try to figure out why Zeke’s going after me.” More green to blue. “And I thought . . .”
She stopped listening and watched his mouth move. The memory of their brief kiss in the bedroom made her lips tingle, and the tingling spread. She grabbed her beer and held it up to her cheek, even though more southern regions of her body needed cooling off.
“And I was wondering . . .” His voice became a whisper.
She bit her lip, feeling his heat all the way across the room. Oh, Lord. This man had trouble stamped all over him. He took a step forward. She held out a hand.
“Stop!” Her voice sounded an inch from desperate. “You can stay, but you sleep on the couch. And lose the handcuffs.” And no sex. No sex!
He smiled, his eyes never leaving hers. “Fair enough.”
No, it wasn’t fair. It ranked right up there with locking a hunger victim in Baskin-Robbins in hundred-degree weather and not letting her indulge. Oh, right now, she could really use a triple dip of sex. But was she capable of devouring this man’s body without giving him her heart and soul, without wanting to throw herself on the altar?
She shook her head, trying to clear it. Hadn’t she been against matrimony since her mother’s fourth marriage ended after only three weeks? Hadn’t she sworn to never be pulled into the idea of white gowns, tiered cakes, and wedded bliss? As she grabbed a dish towel and started cleaning counters she admitted: She’d sworn all right. But then came Brian in the twelfth grade. He had hardly popped her cherry in the back of the Falcon before she’d started humming, “Here Comes the Bride” and believing in forever-type love. Sex had caused a huge brain malfunction.
She moved to the next counter. With Peter, she’d promised herself it wasn’t serious, just sex—uncommitted sex and not even good sex. And she hadn’t even experienced her first big O with him when she started thumbing through the bride magazines.
“Can I do anything?” Chase’s question jarred her out of her counter-swiping reverie.
Can you grow a paunch and a wart on your nose real quick, so I won’t think you’re attractive? “No.” the dishtowel she tossed landed in the sink with a wet pop.
The phone rang. On tiptoes, she snatched two water glasses from the cabinet and faced the counter so she wouldn’t have to look at him. Maybe if she never looked at him, she would be okay. But how long could she simply not look? Her answering machine picked up the call again.
She bumped up against the stove, expecting to hear Sue’s voice, and prayed it wouldn’t be her mother.
“Lace,” a male voice said. It sent her into a panic.
One of the glasses slipped in her hand, but she caught it. Placing both glasses on the stove, she swung around and stared at the phone as if the machine might look up at her, wink and say, “Just joking.” It couldn’t be. Surely it . . . No, she hadn’t spoken with him in . . . a year. A year today.
“Listen, I’m on my way over.” Peter’s voice piped through her sound system. “I was going to just send roses, but I wasn’t sure what kind of card to put on them. ‘Happy fifth anniversary’ didn’t seem to fit. Anyway, I picked up a bottle of wine, and I thought I’d just drop by . . .” The phone line crackled. “Are you screening your calls so you don’t have to talk to your mother? Or are you out with those girlfriends of yours?”
A growling echoed in her ears and it took a minute for Lacy to realize it had been her doing it and not Fabio. Why didn’t Peter think she would be out with a man? Why didn’t he think she would be here, fixing dinner for some hot, sexy man? Her head snapped up and she stared at Chase. She was here with a hot, sexy man.
Peter kept talking. “I was hoping we could get together tonight. You know, for old times’ sake, like we did last year. Do you still have that red negligee?”
Lacy clenched her jaw. He expected her to go to bed with him? Again? And after last year’s flop performance? And, ohh, she hated that red teddy!
Needing to wrap her hands around something, preferably Peter’s neck, she found her victim in the dishtowel. After wringing it out until it gave up its last drop of moisture, the counters received another vicious wiping. Only men would think women enjoyed wearing something that flossed crevices never intended to be flossed.
“Put it on, will you?” Peter said, lowering his voice to a husky tone, as if that would turn her on. “Be ready when I get there. You like it fast and hard, don’t you? Damn, I’m getting hard just thinking about you.”
Fast? She liked it fast? Hell, no! Fast was his way, because he couldn’t last. She liked it
slow. Shaking with anger, she looked at Chase, who frowned at the phone machine.
“Excuse me,” she said, and slapped the dishtowel back into the sink. “But I’m going to have to get this call. And ignore everything I say in the next few minutes.”
She cleared her throat, trying to decide how to play it. One more deep breath, and she had a plan. “Hello? Hang on a minute,” she said sweetly into the receiver. She held the phone away from her mouth a few inches. “Hey, Chase sweetie, would you grab me a beer? You know where they are.” Chase started moving to the living room but she grabbed him by the arm, shook her head and pointed to the phone.
“Come on, I’ve shown you a dozen times which button it is.” She glanced back at the phone, trying to think fast. “Not the vibrate button.” She laughed, hoping it sounded flirty, and then cut her eyes at Chase to see if he’d caught on to her plan.
The pinched expression on his face softened and he smiled. She focused on the conversation again.
“Stop it. You are a bad boy. I need to get the phone,” she purred. Then she brought the receiver back to her lips. “I’m sorry. Who is this?”
• • •
Chase crossed his arms over his chest and almost laughed at Lacy’s charade. She sounded like she was reading a bad script from a B movie. The woman really sucked at acting and lying.
“Oh, Peter? I never dreamed I’d be hearing from you. Just a second, sweetheart.”
She moved the phone away from her lips again. “Chase, stop that. It’s my ex-husband. I need to talk to him.” She put the phone back to her ear. “What’s up, Peter?” she asked.
Chase leaned against the wall and listened.
“What? Yes. I do have company.” Lacy’s grip on the phone tightened. “Why would I lie?” She stared at the ceiling and her foot started tapping on the white tile floor. “For your information, I’m over you. Been over you. And there is someone here.”
The woman needed help. Feeling quite helpful, Chase moved closer and wrapped his arms around her waist. She jerked and a little squeal slipped from her lips. When her wide eyes met his, he pointed back at the phone. She blinked, but seemed to understand. “Stop it . . . Chase.” This time her voice came out wispy.
He pressed his mouth to the curve of her neck. Another squeal left her lips. “Please. I need to . . . get . . . this call.” Her head leaned back, offering him all the neck he could want. And he wanted. He moved his hands over her abdomen, upward, until the backs of the thumbs brushed the outer curves of her breasts.
“Ohh!” Her breath came out in a whoosh. ‘‘Peter, I think . . . I think this is a bad time.” Her voice sounded winded, honest—and sexy as hell.
He bathed her ear with his tongue.
“Oh, heavens,” she said. “I’ve got to stop this.”
If that jerk didn’t believe her now, he was as hard of hearing as Chase was hard. Taking full advantage of the situation, he pulled Lacy closer. Her soft bottom pressed against the growing heat between his legs.
“Why would you say . . . that?” She frowned into the phone. “I am not pretending . . . anymore.”
That did it. Ready for her to get off the phone, Chase leaned closer, sliding his fingers up under her shirt. Her skin felt like silk, soft, moist. He dipped a finger beneath the elastic waistband of her sweats and circled her navel.
“Lacy, hang up. Would you, babe?” he said, close to the receiver and loud enough for the jerk on the other end of the line to get the message. “You can talk to your ex later.” He let his tone drop an octave. “I need you right now.” And he did. Oh, yeah.
Her sharp intake of breath brought a smile to his lips. He pulled his hand upward, glided his palm around her flat abdomen and higher, until the swell of her breasts brushed the sides of his thumbs. She melted into his touch, then leaned against him as if her knees might fold. He ached to explore higher, to hold the weight of her breasts in his hands, to know the feel of her nipples hardening between his thumb and forefinger.
Good sense told him not to go into high gear. Before he took it further, he needed to know how much of what happened here was for the phone call’s sake and how much was . . . real. But damn it, this felt real. Did she feel it, too?
His sex throbbed with need, her backside brushing against him, and he inhaled with the pleasure. He glanced down over her shoulder and could see her nipples pressing against the cotton shirt. Oh, she felt it all right. And so he glided his hand across her abdomen again, her head rolling back against his chest as she moaned. He smiled when he realized she held the phone out in front of her as if she’d forgotten Peter entirely.
Chase pressed a moist kiss to the line of her jaw, moving slowly to her ear. “Don’t forget the phone,” he whispered, and dipped his fingers into the waistband of her sweats again.
She snapped the phone back to her ear and cut her gaze to him. In those blue eyes he saw a mixture of emotions: passion, gratefulness, and . . .
Fear?
Wrapping her fist around his wrist, she jerked his hand from the waist of her pants and took a step back. That one little in-reverse motion said so much. Had he read her all wrong? Had she not . . . not been a part of that? The panic in her eyes slammed into him with accusation. But damn, he’d never attempted to park his car in a no-parking zone. And until this moment, he hadn’t seen the will-be-towed sign.
She slumped against the counter then brought the phone back to her mouth. “I’ve got to go.” No pretense, no innuendos, just sheer panic sounded in her voice. Damn!
Chapter Ten
Divorced, Desperate and Delicious Page 11