Page 77 of One More Time
Lucy stretched back out, lifted her knee so that the smooth skin of her inner thigh slid againstev-ery-thing.
‘How about the one on your back?’ she asked softly.
‘Which one?’ He knew which one.
‘The cassette tape.’
He made sure she was with him, focusing her blue eyes on his, so she wouldn’t miss anything.
‘I wanted to put it here,’ he said, moving her hand from his waist to the left-center of his chest, right over his heart. ‘But I knew that seeing it every day would be too hard. Iput it back there so I could choose when I look at it. When I need it.’
Lucy’s expression stumbled from amazed to confused to reverent in about ten seconds. Her mouth came down over his. Stole his breath and his thoughts and any lingering doubts he might have had about the two of them.
As she lifted up on all fours and straddled him, Nicky knew –knewlike he knew his own fucking name – that he and Lucy were meant for each other.
Nicky understood that he would always be more fearless than she was. Maybe his disappearing act had made her careful and guarded. Maybe she was always that way. Didn’t matter. It was how things were right then. Confident and intrepid were a way of life for him. Stripping away pretense and humility were the norm. Hell, baring his damn soul to the world was the first line of his fucking job description.
He just had to make her see what he saw in them.
That was it, he thought to himself as Lucy took all control and took him deep inside her.
It was the calming.
It was the fit.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
LUCY
Lucy stepped into her suite with her mind still buzzing from Nicky’s confession about the tattoo, and the orgasms that followed. As a person who hadn’t felt strongly enough about anything to have it emblazoned permanently on her skin, the fact that he had her name on him felt significant.Permanentin a way that had nothing to do with the ink itself.
‘Hi,’ Chloe said, emerging from her room in a floral silk robe and wearing little moon-shaped sheet masks under her eyes. ‘How are you?’ she asked in a tone that Lucy recognized as deep concern. Lucy’s guilt and shame from earlier in the evening flared right back up again.
‘I’m good. I’m fine,’ Lucy sighed.
‘How’s Nick? Still itching to go three rounds with Devin?’
‘No, he’s …fine.’ Lucy inhaled deeply. ‘I’m so sorry about all that, Clo,’ she said, wrapping her daughter in a tight embrace. ‘I guess I need to have a conversation withDevin. He clearly has some unresolved feelings about the divorce. I just didn’t know—’
‘It’s been almost two years, Mom. And he’s a grown-up. I think it might just be that he’s never seen you with someone else since. And so happy, too. That’s on him, though. His shit to work out.’
‘Maybe,’ Lucy tried. ‘But I could have done more. Noticed something. Been more considerate—’
‘Uh, pretty sureheshould have been more considerate tonight.’
‘Yeah, but he was drunk,’ Lucy said in a voice that she realized too late was actually quite small and sad.
‘Unless somebody else forced his mouth open and tipped the bourbon in, I think that isalsoon him.’
Lucy huffed, ‘Yeah.’ She meant it, but someone needed to tell her guilty conscience.
‘Okay,’ Chloe said, her voice lighter. ‘Enough of this heavy stuff.’ She stepped out of Lucy’s arms. ‘The wedding stylist gave me this goop to put on my hair tonight. She told me to comb it through completely and wait thirty minutes before taking my shower. So, I need your help. We’re on a deadline here, lady. The bride needs her beauty rest.’
‘Lead on, Bridezilla!’ Lucy teased.
Fifteen minutes later, Lucy was pretty sure she’d ruined her favorite sleep shirt, and that they’d dirtied every single towel in the suite.
‘Is this just overpriced mayonnaise?’ Lucy laughed as she combed through the great globs of white stuff in Chloe’s hair and slapped them from the comb into the bathroom sink. ‘I think this is just mayonnaise.’
