“Maybe I’m trying to earn your forgiveness,” he suggested, and in the mirror, his gaze locked on hers, a blue firestorm winding around her, daring her to ask what he’d done that required forgiveness.
Was this an apology for bringing up an alternative to divorce? “Forgiveness for an affair, maybe? You wouldn’t do that.”
His forehead tightened. “How do you know what I’m capable of?”
She spun away from the mirror, about to remind him that he’d been the one to convince her he’d never cheat. His black expression changed her mind. “Because I do. Only someone with a huge ego and a heaping spoonful of selfish has an affair. You don’t have the qualifications.”
They stared at each other for the longest time, and, finally, Lucas blinked, clearing his expression, and gave her a slow smile. “So maybe I’m trying to earn your forgiveness for slaving away at the office. Leaving you alone for days on end, crying into your pillow about how your husband never pays attention to you anymore.”
“That could work,” she said, then squealed as he backed her up against the vanity and slid magic fingertips up her leg, gathering green silk against his wrist.
“It’s been so long, hasn’t it, darlin’? Are you desperate for my hands on you? Like this?” His palm flattened against her bottom and inched under her panties, stealing her breath as he dipped into her instantly wet center.
Yes, exactly like that.
“We have to leave or we’ll be late,” she choked out and squirmed against his wicked fingers. “Rain check. You and me and a coat closet. Nine o’clock. We’ll pretend it’s the first time we’ve been able to connect in weeks.”
With his eyes blazing, he hooked the edge of her panties and drew them off to puddle on the floor. “How about we connect right now and I meet you in the coat closet? But only if you make it eight-thirty and leave your underwear at home.”
As if she could resist him. Within moments, he’d sheathed himself and they joined, beautifully and completely.
She clung to him, wrapped her legs around him and plunged into pleasure. Pleasure with an edge because her brain had left the building, and he’d ended up with a piece of her heart after all. She couldn’t find the courage to shut off what she was feeling.
When Lucas made love to her, she forgot all the reasons why the alternative wasn’t plausible. Lucas glided home slowly, watching her with a searing, heavy expression, and her heart asked, “What if it could be?”
The question echoed with no answer.
No answer, because Lucas was not presenting an alternative to divorce so they could continue having spectacular sex, no matter what he claimed.
Sex wasn’t the basis for a relationship. Sex wasn’t guaranteed to stay good, let alone spectacular. He hadn’t miraculously fallen in love with her. So why had he really brought up long-term?
And why was she so sad? Because his alternative hadn’t included a declaration from his heart or because it felt as though she didn’t know the whole truth?
It didn’t matter. This time she wouldn’t end up brokenhearted and disillusioned because she wasn’t giving Lucas the chance to do either.
They arrived at the benefit twenty minutes late, and it would have been thirty if Lucas hadn’t tipped the driver to speed. Regardless, heads swiveled as they entered the ballroom, and Cia struggled not to duck behind Lucas.
“What are they looking at?” she whispered. “I told you there was no such thing as fashionably late.”
“Maybe they know you’re not wearing any panties,” he said, a lot more loudly than she would have liked, and made her skin sizzle with a sinful leer.
She smacked his arm with her clutch. “Maybe they know you stuffed them in your pocket.”
The swish of fabric alerted her to someone else’s presence. Lucas’s mother. She stood right in front of them, and as far as Cia knew, still possessed working ears. Cia’s smile died as heat climbed across her face.
“Lovely to see you, Mrs. Wheeler,” Cia croaked. The fire in her face sparked higher. “I’m sorry, I mean Fran. You’d think it would be easy to remember. I don’t like being called Mrs. Wheeler, either. Makes me feel like an impostor.”
Where had that come from? She sealed her lips together before more stupid comments fell out, though dragging her son’s sex life into public had probably already killed any warm feelings her mother-in-law might have developed over afternoon tea.
The older woman’s cheeks were a little pink, but she cleared her throat and said, “No problem. I couldn’t answer to it for at least a year after Andy and I married. Such a big change in identity. Wait until you have kids and they start calling you ‘Mama.’ That one’s worse, yet so much more wonderful.”