Page 21 of One More Time
He put his mouth on hers, and she opened hers immediately. Her hand reached around and grabbed the sleeve of his shirt, twisting and pulling it as though trying to drag him into her lap.
He smiled into the kiss, and he could feel her smiling back. Felt her chuckle on his tongue.
Who knew laughing and kissing at the same time could be so hot?
They went at it like that for a while, kissing like it was a job they were both determined to do well. They kissed untilhis cock against his fly was painfully hard. Until Lucy’s cheeks were pink and her lips raw. Cars passed, headlights streaming over them like strobes. Nicky’s knee jangled the keys in the ignition. The music around them drifted in and out from one song to the next.
Finally, Nicky came up for air. Made the long, slow trip back to reality. ‘Shit, where am I?’ he breathed against her lips.
‘Here,’ she said, laying cool fingers on his cheek. ‘Couple more blocks to the house.’
Nicky threw the Jeep in gear and peeled out.
CHAPTER NINE
LUCY
Present
Lucy woke up in a Nicky Broome–induced haze. She had somehow managed to keep functioning, but had to battle past Nicky-shaped thoughts and memories at every turn. She found herself starting a task, and then slipping into deep contemplation over the possible subtext embedded in ‘I want to take my time with you,’ only to snap out of it and find that twenty minutes had passed.
Her plan had been to get some work done before the day’s wedding madness began, so she’d grabbed her laptop and a mug of steaming coffee and built a nest of pillows on her king-sized island of a bed. She then spent at least thirty minutes staring at the weirdly compelling hotel room art across the room, and exactly zero minutes working on the requests for external review she’d intended to finish.
The upcoming twelve-to-fifteen-month marathon oftenure review required slow, steady progress. Deadlines loomed just all over the damn place. Personal deadlines, committee deadlines, tentative deadlines that depended on other deadlines.
While Lucy had been allowed a lighter teaching courseload for the fall semester so that she could focus on tenure, it was hardly a break. She was to be inspected, reviewed, assessed, and judged by no less than three different committees and four different administrative bosses. There were external reviews, internal reviews, and probably a cavity search at some point – the notification of which was likely buried in the fine print of one of the thousands of forms she’d filled out both online and on ancient onionskin in triplicate.
Tenure review was the culmination of six years of work at the small liberal-arts college where Lucy was an associate professor. It was also the final leg of a journey that had begun at eighteen when she’d fallen head-over-heels in love with life on a college campus.
There’d been some detours that delayed her trajectory. When she married Brandon and then when Chloe was born, she’d taken years away. But then she’d gotten back on track. She’d earned her PhD and begun work as an assistant professor. Turned that post into an associate professorship on a tenure track. She’d stuck through the hard times, like the time she thought another university somewhere, maybe out west, might offer her more freedom. But Lucy had made the best of it so that Chloe could get all four years of high school in the same place.
Later, she’d muddled through other professional bullshitwhen Chloe decided to stay in town to go to college. Something about the allure of free tuition, with Brandon waiting in the wings to drop a hundred grand a year, had almost made Lucy feel like the balances with her ex were even. Now, the finish line was finally in sight. She’d done her time. Put in all the effort humanly possible. She would finally become a fully tenured professor.
Tenure would mean a raise and job security. She might be able to buy a hybrid or something, or finally travel somewhere other than conferences. She could study what she wanted, come up with inventive new classes, write when she felt compelled to and not because she needed to pad her review package to impress her colleagues. It was all she’d worked toward for decades.
The only thing that worried Lucy just a little was that she wasn’t the least bit excited about it. But surely that was normal? The excitement would come after, when the goal had been achieved. She was sure of it.
Lucy’s phone buzzed from somewhere, the sound muffled by the thick bedding all around her.
She dug the thing out of its fluffy tomb.
KimmyR:Landed. Should be at hotel in 15.
Great, she’d gotten nothing done, and she was late.
Lucy rode the special dedicated elevator to get to the special dedicated lobby, because naturally the Lusso Resort hadtwolobbies. The entrance for regular folks was spitting distance from the gaming tables and slot machines, and glitzy in an obvious ‘as seen on TV’ way. The other lobby, exclusively for penthouse guests, was hard to find and out of the way. In Las Vegas, hard to find and out of the way were privileges one paid handsomely for, apparently.
The Penthouse Tower lobby was bathed in rich, comforting earth tones, from the plentiful soft seating to the lush carpets. It had high ceilings, wood paneling, and in keeping with the Las Vegas custom of never letting humans see daylight ever, it perpetually felt like ten p.m. in a very exclusive gentleman’s club. It was impressive, but Lucy couldn’t escape the uneasy feeling that she’d somehow been transported inside her ex-husband’s brain.
Lucy spotted Kim the moment she glided through the revolving doors.
‘Oh my God! It’s so good to see you!’ Lucy cheered as they swept each other into a big bear hug.
‘It has been too damn long,’ Kim said sincerely in Lucy’s ear. ‘Holy shit, where are we right now?’ Kim added, looking around the space.
‘I fear that we’re inside Brandon’s id,’ Lucy replied.
‘God, I hope not,’ Kim grumbled, with her eyes on a massive chandelier.
