Page 19 of Luck of the Draw

But it had looked like she was about to say something else. Alarm bells went off in my head. This woman was gorgeous, and something about her—her unstudied beauty, her mixture of strength and vulnerability—affected me more than any woman in who knew how long. But she was clearly keeping a secret, and I wanted to make sure that secret wasn’t a not-so-ex-husband at home in her bed.

“Youaredivorced, right? You’re not avoiding your house because of a Mr. Cinderella?”

We’d reached a red light, and I leveled a quick glance at her. There was no faking the kind of artless horror that filled her eyes. “What? No. I would never do that. He moved out months ago. He’s going to marry someone else.”

Which had to feel like a gut punch if they’d just divorced.

When I’d heard that Marisa was getting remarried, I’d beaten a punching bag until my fists were bloody and then slumped down crying.

I’d known it would happen. That was why she’d left me, wasn’t it? To move on?

Matteo always said I’d dodged a bullet, which only became ironic later, after I failed to. My parents only spoke of her in hushed strains of disapproval, and my sister had taken to calling herputana. My nonna literally spat when anyone mentioned her name, which my mom couldn’t stop, even though she’d asked her not to about a hundred times.

The thing was, it didn’t hurt because I still loved Marisa. I didn’t. It was the feeling of rejection, of not being enough of a man.

“I’m sorry,” I said simply. “I get that. My ex moved on quickly too.”

“I’mnot sorry,” she said, then gasped. A quick glance showed me her eyes were as round as quarters. “It’s the first time I’ve said that, but I guess I really mean it. It…it was hard in the beginning, after he left, but he wasn’t good to me.”

My blood started boiling, and I felt a surge of protectiveness. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“No, nothing like that. I just…I felt invisible in my own house, my own life. It was like I was a house elf, and each morning the house would miraculously be clean and there’d be food on the table—crappy food, because I’m no chef, but whatever. Food is food. But that felt like the sum of my existence. Like I was a convenience, not a person.”

There was something so raw in her, and I stole a glance at her, taking in the dejection in her eyes sucking away the joy that had been there moments before.

“House elf?” I said.

“You’re telling me you haven’t read Harry Potter?”

Her shock was so genuine, her horror so sincere, I had to laugh. “I’ve watched the movies with my niece. I guess I was struggling to imagine such a fine, sexy woman as a creature with golf ball eyes and a loincloth.”

Surprised laughter sputtered out of her, which was good. I’d wanted to make her laugh, to banish the look of dejection I’d seen in a stolen glance. Because I liked her laughter, and because I wanted to make her feel seen. Noticed.Appreciated.Even if this only lasted one night.

“Sometimes I feel like that,” she said, but even in my peripheral vision, I could see her blush. And shit…she was even more compelling like this, so open and lovely, so bashful…and a wave of pure lust shot straight down south. I wanted to show her that I saw her, and that I liked what I saw.

“And sometimes I feel like Moe fromThe Simpsons, selling beer to a bunch of imbeciles, but it doesn’t make me yellow.”

She smiled at me then and reached over and put a tentative hand on my thigh, and it was a good thing we were on my block now, because I wasn’t sure how much longer I could wait to get her upstairs and out of that dress. The shoes she could keep on.

“Is this okay?” she asked, as if there were a single chance in hell I’d say no.

“You touch me wherever the hell you like.” It came out on a growl, and for a moment I worried that maybe it would put her off, but if anything the fire in her eyes blossomed and her hand—those small, perfectly formed fingers—inched upward. And I was so hard it actually hurt.

I parked in the lot outside my shitty apartment and captured her hand in mine, lifting it up to my lips. “Like I said, I’m sorry about the apartment. I wish I could bring you somewhere nicer. You deserve something nice.”

“I don’t care.” She lifted her eyebrows. “As long as you’re not hiding another woman in there.” Her nose scrunched, and I loved how expressive her face was—how her feelings were broadcast to everyone with the shifting of her features. “Or, you know, if you have rats. Rats are a no-go in my book. One time R—my ex jumped on the bed and left me to deal with a rat.”

“No rats. But if there was one, I’d punch it for you.” A stupid thing to say, but I wasn’t thinking much at that point. I leaned forward to kiss her, intending for it to be a simple kiss, but the moan in the back of her throat had me leaning in closer, going for broke, and we really had to get out of the car. I pulled back, panting, and got out, circling around to lift her out. I had to smile when I saw her there, waiting. Looking down at me with trust in her eyes.

Shit. This woman was doing something to me.

But I didn’t have time to think about it as I lifted her out of the Jeep. From the way she moved, it was obvious she expected me to set her down, but I didn’t want to. So I carried her like that, like a princess, all the way up the stairs leading to my front stoop. Her hands were on my biceps, her head was tucked under my chin, and I had a strange feeling of contentment.

Then again, maybe it wasn’t so strange. I had a beautiful woman in my arms, and I was about to get laid. Talk about lucky.

“Damn, Dylan, you got it going on,” my teenage neighbor, Tyrell, said from the next stoop over. Which wasn’t great since it made me sound like I brought a woman home every night. But Tyrell was a good kid, and we played pickup basketball out in the neighborhood court sometimes.

I lifted one hand in a wave. “Aren’t you supposed to be out causing trouble?”

---