A giddy anticipation fizzes through my veins, making my skin feel overly sensitized. Even the soft brush of the breeze against my cheeks is a sensual caress.
We pass the leatherworking store with the front window showcasing masquerade masks. Some are traditional, bedecked with beads and feathers and rhinestones. Others are more fanciful. There’s one with antlers and another with bunny ears. But the one that catches my eye is shaped like Batman’s mask.
A sweet, sepia-toned memory unfurls in my mind.
“You remember the time the three of us skipped class to go watch The Dark Knight?” I ask.
He chuckles. “You were terrified Miss Bea was gonna find out and ground you for a month.”
“She did find out. And she did ground me,” I insist. “But only for the weekend.”
“I remember having the theater all to ourselves. I remember you ate a whole bag of gummy bears and got a bellyache. I remember Cash loved the movie so much he made us stay and watch it a second time.”
I nod. “He wanted to dress up like Batman for that Halloween party Megan Jones threw the following year. But we insisted he keep with our Harry Potter theme.”
“That’s right. I was Harry. You were Hermione. And we told him to come as Ron. But who did he show up as?”
“Voldemort,” we say in unison.
I shiver. “That mask he wore was terrifying.”
Luc drapes an arm over my shoulders, pulling me close to his warmth. “He thought he was so big and bad. And then the next day, the National Honor Society hosted a blood drive and the minute that phlebotomist stuck that needle in his arm, he passed out cold.”
“Ha! I forgot about that. Some tough guy he turned out to be.”
“Mmm.” The humor is gone from Luc’s voice when he says, “I reckon he’s tough enough. Just never been partial to needles.”
“I miss him,” I admit. One of the ten million great things about Luc is that I don’t have to couch my words around him. I can tell him anything. He never judges me. “The old him, I mean. The carefree him. He’s so serious nowadays.”
“He doesn’t have much to laugh about.”
The truth of that simple statement is like a ten-ton weight inside my chest. And since there’s no need to add anything to it, we ride along in silence.
“You feeling okay about this?” he finally asks. “About tonight?”
I lift my head from his shoulder. There’s doubt in his beautiful dark eyes. I hope to dispel it by tugging on his ear. When he automatically tilts his face into my palm, I smile because his beard stubble is scratchy and rough. It feels nice. Male.
“I feel great about it,” I tell him truthfully. “Like I said, best first date evah.”
The carriage comes to a stop in front of the spice shop. After helping me down, Luc keeps hold of my hand, and the two of us watch the tired mule pick up its pace once the driver tells him, “Let’s get on home, Harry.” When man and beast and conveyance disappear around the corner, my knees start to quake.
This is it. The end of the date.
I want to look at Luc. Want to see what’s in his eyes. But I can’t make myself turn. It’s like my neck muscles have locked into place.
“Maggie May.” He takes a gentle hold of my chin. “Look at me, sweetheart.”
And there they are. Those brown eyes that dragged me back from the brink when I was fourteen years old. The same brown eyes that push me to an entirely different brink now.
They’re Luc’s eyes. My friend’s eyes. And yet…they’re eyes that I could drown in for the rest of my life.
“Nothing’s gonna happen tonight that you don’t wanna happen,” he whispers. “I’d be happy to kiss your cheek and—”
“Kiss my cheek?” I blurt. “After the best first date ever? Are you kidding me?”
“Okay, then.” He puts a hand on my waist to pull me forward.
When we’re toe-to-toe, he cups my face and there it is. That thing I haven’t seen in his eyes since he pushed me up against Smurf and told me he was going to seduce me. It’s bone-deep, soul-deep, heart-deep hunger.
Lord, I’ve missed it. I didn’t realize how much until this very moment.
The air between us pulses with something sensuous and wonderful. I almost take a page from Sheldon’s book and start purring. But then?
Oh, then Luc kisses me, and the only sound in my mouth is the sweet, low melding of his moan as it mixes with mine. His kiss is gentle at first, but it grows in fervor until my whole body melts into his, my insides going warm and liquid.
Luc is the kind of man who kisses with his whole mouth. He uses his lips and teeth and tongue. Stroking, sucking, tasting. His hands are in my hair, on my face, at my waist, pulling me closer until I’m helpless to resist. Not that I want to.
I have no idea how long we stand on the sidewalk, Luc doing a pretty bang-up job of making up for years of unquenched longing, but someone walking down the other side of the street finally shouts, “Get a room!”
It’s enough to break the spell.
When we pull apart, I’m breathing like I’ve run a race. Luc’s hair is in complete disarray, sticking up all over his head.
Did I do that?
Most men would look boyish. But it makes him look even more rakish.
Now that’s a word I thought only existed in romance novels. It’s also the only one that manages to capture Luc in this moment.
“I reckon…” He has to stop and swallow. His voice sounds like a gravel road. “I better get going.”
Every single one of my nerve endings is sizzling. I feel every inch of my skin, and it wants to be touched, wants to be kissed. It simply wants.
“What if I don’t want you to go?” I whisper, my heart pounding. My stomach turning somersaults.
He groans and pulls me against him again, claiming my mouth in a kiss that threatens to light my soul on fire. There’s a question in the pressure of his lips, in the smooth glide of his tongue. I have the answer.
Yes.
Chapter Eighty-five
______________________________________
Luc
Intimacy isn’t only physical. It’s knowing the heart and soul and mind of another.
I know Maggie. Everything about her from the way she cries at ASPCA commercials to her favorite color of toenail polish—Tempest Blue. I know she likes to sing “Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch” while she’s taking a shower. I know that even though she claims strawberry ice cream is her favorite (because it was her mother’s favorite), she actually prefers butter pecan.
And right now I know she wants me.
It’s there in her eyes when she unlocks her door and beckons me inside. It’s there in her shy smile when she turns on the overhead light and blinks against the glare. It’s there in the catch of her breath when I place my hand on her waist.
I want her too.
Good God, do I want her.
But are we going too fast? I don’t want to screw things up. She said this was the best first date ever. Should I quit while I’m ahead? Turn around and march right back through her door?
She grabs by hand and pulls me across the kitchen into her bedroom. My feet follow her willingly. So does my heart. It’s my head that’s the problem.
I’m thinking too much.
Or not enough.
Damn, I don’t know anymore.
Kicking out of her shoes, she groans and wiggles her bare toes against the rug as if trying to get feeling back into them. It occurs to me that one thing I do know is how to give a good foot massage.
“Go sit on the bed, and I’ll rub your feet,” I tell her.
She arches an eyebrow. “Bossy much?”
I lower my lids and give her my most seductive look. “Only if you like it.”
She bites her lip and giggles before plopping down on the edge of the mattress.
“Gimme.” I motion to her right foot. She lifts her leg high enough for me to palm her heel. When I lift it higher still, her skirt pools aroun
d her thighs, and she leans back on her elbows, her head cocked coquettishly.
She’s about to say something coy, but then her eyes roll back in her head when I press my thumb into the sole of her foot.
“Oh my Lord.” She flops back on the bed. “That’s heaven.”
I can’t keep looking at her lying there, a smile of pleasure on her face, her bare legs a temptation to touch, to taste. So I glance around her apartment instead. Which is when I realize the animals are nowhere in sight.
“What happened to your menagerie?” I work the ball of her foot and her dainty toes with my fingers.
She points toward her bedside table where a bottle of champagne sits in an ice bucket. Beside the bucket is a sheet of notebook paper, folded in half and set up like a tent.
Leaning over, I read the note. It’s from Jean-Pierre. Two neat, succinct lines: Brought the animals to my place in case you get lucky. Laissez les bon temps rouler!
I chuckle. “I like your friends.”
She opens her eyes, but only partway, making her look like a woman recently sated. Making me want to sate her. “I do know how to pick ’em, don’t I?”
I know she’s lumping me into that category of Good Picks, and I show my appreciation by bending and biting her delicate arch. Her breath catches, and goose bumps erupt all the way up her leg.
I want to rub each of them. Settle them with my hands and my lips. Instead, I motion to her left foot. “Next one.”
She doesn’t hesitate to place it in my hands. Her toenails are painted (you guessed it) Tempest Blue.
I work the tension from her sole and her toes, and when I finally lower her leg, I figure I’ve stalled as long as I dare. Time to face the music. To ask her what she wants from this night. From me.
Before I can open my mouth, however, she stands and shakes out her skirt. I’m sad to see her legs disappear under the fabric. But then she goes up on tiptoe to spear her hands into my hair, and the last thing I’m feeling is sad.
She pulls my mouth toward hers, and I don’t deny her. I can’t. Even if I wanted to. Which I don’t.
At first, her kiss is sweet. Soft. Tentative, even. But the instant I pull her against me and touch the tip of my tongue to hers, the sweetness is stripped away and replaced by intensity. She makes a sound in the back of her throat. It’s a humming, appreciative sound. Like she’s tasting something she craves. Something she can’t get enough of.
It’s my favorite sound in all the world.
I want to hear it a million times over. For the rest of my life. All the way to infinity, like her tattoo.
This is what kissing is supposed to be, and I can’t stop. I kiss her until my mouth hurts, until my whole body hurts for want of more. For want of it all.
All of her.
All of us.
Together.
“Luc.” Her voice is low and breathy. It goes straight to my head. And other parts decidedly south of that. “Are we crazy to be doing this?”
Straightening away from her takes every ounce of self-control I possess. And when her hand lands on my chest, delicate and warm, I wonder if she can feel my heart thrashing around inside the cage of my ribs. It’s pleading to be set free. Pleading to be nearer to her. Nestled up next to its match, her heart.
“D’ya feel crazy, sweetheart?” I ask, rubbing my thumb over her lips. They beg for attention even when they’re not being kissed.
She shakes her head. “No. And yes. I don’t know. I was so sure out on the sidewalk, but now…” Her eyes are beseeching. “I’m nervous all of a sudden.”
That makes two of us.
I take off my sports coat and toss it on the foot of her bed. Then I sit beside it and beckon her with a crooked finger. “Come here to me.”
She wrings her hands but doesn’t hesitate. Instead of making room for her to sit beside me, I pull her onto my lap, letting her straddle me.
She’s so warm. So soft. So much a woman.
She makes me feel like a man, and I realize that everyone who came before her was only practice. For this. For her.
“We don’t have to do this tonight,” I tell her, loving this vantage point. Her above me, looking down. That adorable, bitable chin of hers within such easy reach of my lips. “We can take this slow, you and me. Go on twenty dates, if that’s what you want. I want this to be right for you. For us.”
She smiles and tugs on my ear. My cheek falls into her palm of its own accord.
“It’ll be right for us because it is us. But…” She chews on her bottom lip, making my own teeth jealous. “What if you don’t think I’m any good? You’ve had a lot more practice than I have, and I—”
“Hush, woman.” I press a finger over her mouth and groan when she kisses it delicately. “You’ll be good ’cause you’re you. It’ll be good ’cause we’re us. ’Cause we care about each other and respect each other. It’ll be good ’cause I’ll listen when you tell me what you like and ’cause I’ll show you what I like.”
My gaze snags on the locket lying against her pale, smooth skin. I can’t stop myself. I lean forward and plant a kiss next to it, atop her heart. Feeling the steady beat against my lips.
She shivers. Her fingers tangle in my hair, and then she’s falling to the side, pulling me on top of her, and framing my face with her hands so she can guide my mouth back to hers.
“Luc.” My name isn’t much more than a moan.
“Maggie May.” I lift my head, my heart a jackhammer inside my chest. “I’m serious. We don’t hafta do anything tonight.”
She considers this for a while. Long enough that I brace myself to kiss her forehead and leave. Long enough that I prepare myself for a painful drive home.
“Thing is,” she finally says, “I want to do everything tonight.”
The breath that escapes me is ragged. “Thank God.” I rest my forehead against hers and revel in the sound of her giggle.
“Luc.” She presses her fingers against the side of my jaw. “In case I forget to tell you later, I had a wonderful time tonight.”
I fake a frown. “You stole my line.”
Her grin is mischievous, making the gap between her front teeth wink. “It’s a good line.”
Then, for a long time, we kiss. We kiss and touch and, true to my word, I listen when she gasps. I pay particular attention to the spots that make her moan and pant for more.
Reaching for the belt on her dress, I release the clasp. When I lay my palm against her belly, I feel her stomach muscles tighten. And all the while, I leave a trail of kisses from her ear to her jaw and down her sweet-smelling neck.
Tossing the belt aside, I work the side zipper on her dress, and now it’s only a matter of slipping the garment off her shoulders and down her body. This I do slowly. Savoring each inch of newly exposed skin until she’s naked except for her bra and panties, a matching black lace set that I know aren’t part of her Waistband Mondays.
She wore these for me. For us. For this.
She thought about this. And knowing she thought about it, anticipated it, prepared for it is about the sexiest thing ever. Desire makes my skin hot and tight, achy. And when I allow myself to look at the entire length of her, I grow achier still.
I saw her in a bikini plenty of times when we were kids, but this…
Nothing compares to this. This maturity. This intimacy. This trust.
“You’re beautiful, Maggie May.” My voice sounds like it was put through a shredder.
Every muscle in my body is tight with longing. With urging. But I refuse to rush. Not with her. Never with her.
“Luc.” She opens her arms, and I gladly fall into them, finding her mouth hot and wet and welcoming.
When I slip my finger under the edge of her bra strap, she shudders. And when I break the seal of our lips to kiss her soft shoulder, she moans.
I toy with her bra and panties, first with the tips of my fingers, then with my lips and tongue. Eventually, she’s naked beside me. Unwrapped like a present on Christmas
Day.
My blood runs so hot I’m surprised it doesn’t melt my veins.
A surge of sultry heat blooms beneath her skin, dewing it with sweet-tasting mist. I make sure to kiss every inch of it until she’s writhing, her body wanting more than my lips and hands can deliver.
“Please, Luc,” she begs me, and I waste no time ripping off my clothes.
I fish through my wallet for a condom and roll it into place. Then I’m standing in front of her. Naked. Exposed. Not only my body, but my heart.
This is all I’ve ever wanted. I’m giddy and terrified at the same time. But most of all, I’m totally and completely head over heels.
She pushes up on her elbows, and her dark hair falls around her shoulders, making her look like a naughty angel. I feel her eyes travel over me like a physical touch.
“Wow,” is all she says.
Just like that, I’m laughing. And it feels good. It feels right. It feels like it should. Like us. Despite the desire and the pounding of blood, we’re friends. We always have been. We always will be.
She reaches for me, pulling me onto the bed beside her, but I secure her hands above her head. I can’t have her touching me. If she touches me with nothing between us, I’ll lose my mind.
I need my mind to pay attention to the way she moves. The way she sighs. The way she offers pieces of herself to me.
“Luc,” she whispers when I position myself between her legs. My heart stops. I recognize the look in her eye. It’s the look. The one I never thought to see directed at me. “You’ve always been the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” she says.
Her words wrap around my heart, warming me from the inside out. When I slowly push into her sweet, willing body, it warms me from the outside in. I can feel something in the room with us. Something huge and timeless. Something powerful.
It’s love.
Chapter Eighty-six
______________________________________
Maggie
Volume Three: In Moonlight and Memories, #3 Page 18