Page 1 of One More Time
CHAPTER ONE
LUCY
There comes a time in every woman’s life when she finds herself stumbling through the hallway of a five-star hotel juggling a purse, a bouquet of flowers, and a bag full of penises.
At least, that’s what Lucy McManis told herself as she rummaged through the dark, cluttered abyss that was her handbag. Her hands were full, her feet hurt, and sweat from the 107-degree day was rapidly crusting over her skin in the frigid air of the Lusso Resort and Casino, Las Vegas. All Lucy wanted to do was sit down with an icy cocktail. First, though, she had to find her keycard.
She moved her fingers over the mysterious flakes and crumbs that lingered, imperturbable, at the bottom of her purse and wondered if her current predicament was just another one of those milestones that no one had told her about. Like the one where her neck developed a subtle wobble of its own, with no correlation to the movement ofher head. Or, the new one where her feet swelled up simply by looking at a pair of three-inch heels. Bag of dicks – just another signpost on that glorious adventure known as womanhood.
The thought, dubious though it was, gave Lucy much-needed comfort. The angry moan of craft paper losing its battle with physics, however, did not.
When the thin twine handle of the shopping bag gave slightly beneath her fingers, Lucy’s other hand skittered more frantically among the months-old drugstore receipts, multiple hair combs, and a squishy round thing that was hopefully a promotional stress ball.
She’d used the damn keycard to get the elevator to move. Where had it gone?
She grumbled an incomprehensible string of curses, recalling a time when hotel keys were made of metal and big chunks of plastic and reliably sunk to the bottom of lakes, car trunks, and handbags under the weight of their own ostentation. The good old days.
Lucy plunged her face into the gaping maw of her leather bag in a last-ditch effort to find her golden plastic salvation. It only took a moment for the decision to pay itself forward. And it wasn’t with a hotel room keycard.
She felt the collision first on her forehead, which smashed into something warm and solid. Next was her foot, twisting awkwardly over a lump on the floor. Her arm flattened against her body with a thunk that made her gasp. The flower bouquet slipped from her fingers and tumbled away, a very pretty pink bouncing ball. Finally,and possibly most lethal (at least to her pride), came the loud rip of flimsy brown paper.
The shopping bag didn’t just tear, though. No. It exploded. Like a pornographic piñata. Dildos, headbands with bobbing penises, and dick-shaped lollipops flew through the air and scattered from one side of the wide hallway to the other, glimmering like the world’s rudest confetti on the thick chocolate brown carpet.
Glimpsing a pair of black Vans in her peripheral vision, Lucy realized that what she’d crashed into was a man. A rather large man by the sturdy feel of him.
‘Gah! So sorry!’ Lucy bellowed as she tried to mitigate the disaster and stay upright.
She bent over to scoop up the fugitive phalluses as quickly as possible, as though speed could help anyone unsee the abundance of pink, purple and inexplicably green disembodied cocks dotting the hallway.
It was an exercise in futility. The plastic wrappings were too glossy, the silicone too slippery.
‘Man, that’s a lot of dicks,’ came an amused rumble from above her.
Lucy grudgingly accepted defeat and rose to her full height, staring down at the X-rated mess. She huffed, ‘So, so many.’
As Lucy contemplated the logistics of fitting roughly one million penises into her smallish purse, the man spoke again. ‘Lucy Rollins?’
The smooth timbre of his voice sent goose bumps marching down her arms. The fact that he had spoken her name, heroldname, had her heart jumping out of her chest.
She looked up, meeting his eyes immediately. The deep green color she found there had her clutching the wall for support. That color had lived in her memory, had been burned into her gray matter like a brand. His were the only eyes she had ever seen with that particular depth of loden, earthy and warm. He was the sexiest man she’d ever laid eyes on. The sexiest man she’d ever known. The most delicious human who had ever touched her. And he had touched her. Years … decades … a lifetime ago.
‘Nicky Broome,’ she breathed.
‘Oh my God,’ Nicky said. ‘It’s you. It’s really you.’
CHAPTER TWO
NICKY
‘Hi,’ she breathed. Barely a whisper. Really more of a sigh.
‘Hi,’ he replied. He was glad she’d spoken first with something easy to reply to, because his instinct was to word-vomit all over her with inappropriate familiarity.
I’ve wanted to see you forever. Where have you been? I thought I’d never see you again. Where did you go? Why has it been so damn long? Holy shit. Holy shit!
Lucy looked so much the same. There had been no moment of pause, no stutter of his brain to come up with the name to go with the familiar face. It had been years, far more than he had any desire to calculate. Still, he recognized her.
Her hair was a darker brown, shorter. Cut in a sharp bob to her chin, with bangs that dusted the top of perfectly arched eyebrows. She was older, of course. They were both older. But it washer. It was Lucy. He’d have known her anywhere.
