Page 103 of One More Time
She said, ‘I’m not going to be much help to you right now, but I want you close. Please.’
Nicky pushed up on one arm, trailed the other lazily over her breast. His calloused fingers lifted goose bumps on her exposed skin as he gently stroked her waist, then her thigh.
When his fingers found her wet, needy core she gasped, ‘Nicky.’
‘God, I want to hear that forever.’
‘Okay,’ Lucy mumbled, losing herself in his touch.
‘Everything. Always,’ he whispered, rising up and slotting himself between her welcoming thighs.
When he slid slowly inside her, Lucy was struck by the sudden thought that they were made for each other. It wasastounding, really, that they had found one another at that dumb party a million years before. That they had found each other a second time was nothing short of miraculous. She resolved never to tempt fate again. Another miracle would be asking too much of the universe.
Time lost all of its meaning and power as Nicky kissed her, held her, worked himself inside her. She chanted his name like a prayer. Into his mouth, his ear, the soft curve of his neck that perpetually smelled like clean ocean air and sunshine.
‘Nicky, please,’ she begged when the exhaustion and pleasure had become overwhelming.
He gently brought them both to their sides, his arm tucked under her neck. Her lips found his as he lifted her knee and hooked it over his hip.
She gasped at the friction. At the perfection. Then, Lucy came apart. She pressed her hands on the firm swell of his ass to push him deep and hold him there as the muscles inside her grasped and squeezed at him. She held him close until she could feel the pulse of him inside her and was deafened by his groans and her name breathed out like a sigh when he stilled.
Endings are beginnings. Sometimes, they’re the same.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
LUCY
Lucy was running late. She’d bumped into Tiffy outside the Scala Theater and had been cajoled into giving a ‘fantastic!’ update on Chloe and Chandler that had screwed up her schedule.
Super was finally finishing their residency – which had been extended once, then twice. Tonight was the band’s final show after approximately seven hundred years on tour. The residency at the Lusso was designed as a break from the grind of the road, but three shows a week hadn’t felt like a break from anything for any of them. Even Lucy, who did nothing but watch every performance from the wings like the number-one groupie she was, felt like she could use a few months off.
Lucy had long since memorized Super’s entire catalog forward and back. She still cried every time she heard ‘The Breathing Room,’ but for different reasons than all those years before.
Lucy stood in front of the bathroom mirror, in suite 4023, their home away from … well, the other twelve thousand hotel rooms they’d lived in. She inspected her look against a picture of Madonna on her phone.
Close enough.
The final show at the Lusso happened to land on Halloween, so the band decided to make it a party and give it a theme – Eighties Night. Lucy was dressed as circa-1984 Madonna in all of her MTV VMAs ‘Like a Virgin’ glory. She slipped on a pair of white lace opera gloves and bedazzled her wrist with as many diamond bangles as the costume shop on Charleston had to spare.
She rushed out of the suite, passing Nicky’s bandmate Hooper in the hall.
‘Madonna,’ he said, by way of a greeting.
‘Rick,’ she replied flatly. Hoop was supposed to be Rick Astley from his most famous video, but something about the combo of the tats crawling up his neck, the scraggly man bun, and the long camel raincoat made him look more like a subway flasher.
Hope no one tells him before I have the chance.She loved giving that guy shit almost as much as Nicky did.
Lucy was spit out by the Penthouse Tower elevator into the lobby and raced past the check-in, waving to the now familiar crew stationed there.
Then she thought of something. ‘Oh, Wanda,’ she shouted to the woman behind the desk. ‘Remind your son to email me that admissions essay, okay?’ Wanda’s son wanted to get into UCLA and Lucy had enthusiastically promised to help.
‘Will do, Lucy,’ Wanda called back. ‘Thank you!’
Lucy spun herself through the revolving doors. Instead of their usual black SUV, she found their driver, Sonny, standing beside a Rolls-Royce.
‘What is this?’ Lucy asked Sonny as he opened the rear door for her.
‘The Range Rover is being detailed. And Nick thought this was more on-theme.’
