Roman-1(Lane Brothers, Book 5)(139)
He’s around a lot for a guy who runs his own company and shouldn’t be here unless the agency’s pitching something.
“Dinner. Tonight. My place,” he says, leaning down to plant a swift, hard kiss on my lips.
I know that if I say yes and allow him to get me into his territory I will not be going home without being thoroughly taken. Gregory Lucas has displayed a surprising amount of patience thus far, and now he’s telling me that my time is up. Give in or move over, his eyes say, and I find myself nodding, not willing to move anywhere until I know first-hand what he is capable of.
That one night in his car had trapped me as surely as a fly in a web, and now I want to meet the spider.
“What should I wear?” I ask in answer, taking in the bright, sensual grin.
“Nothing at all, if I had my way, but as you need to get there without being arrested, something casual and comfortable. You won’t be wearing it for long anyhow. I’ll pick you up at seven.”
“Okay.”
“Oh, and Hannah, darlin’?” he asks, stopping at the elevator to spear me with a wicked glance. “Do not wear panties this time.”
Chapter Ten
“You cannot wear that on a date,” Chrissie gasps in horror as she takes in my knee length sweats and old NYU t-shirt with a sneer. What? He’d said casual and comfortable. This is what I wear on quiet nights at home.
“We’re having dinner at his place. He said I should be comfortable,” I defend, watching her rip into my closet with a shriek of impatience.
Her hair has a few new highlights I hadn’t noticed when she’d blown in, demanding a girls’ night. I love girls’ nights with her, but sex nights have her trumped, and I’ve told her so.
“You look like you’re ready to scrub toilets. Why is your closet so empty? God, is that a pair of cargo pants?” she accuses, and I cringe with embarrassment.
No woman under the age of fifty should own a pair, and I know it. I just like them so much.
“Don’t make tonight into such a big deal. I’ve exfoliated, shaved and buffed, and I even spritzed perfume in my hair. It’s fine.”
“You’re having sex tonight. I know, it’s your third date. I will not let you wear that on your first sex night with that man candy. You should be ashamed, Hannah,” she mutters, and I nod in agreement.
My choice of attire is not so much about comfort as it is my need to prove to myself that I don’t care what Gregory Lucas thinks. The fact that my crotch is currently a pantie-free zone tells me how much I am lying to myself.
“Fine then, find me something casual and sex-worthy. If you can,” I dare with a smirk.
Nothing in my closet will ever fit that description, and I know it. I hear her growling with every inspection, until finally she comes out with a white knee length skirt with tiny pink flowers embroidered at the hem and a soft pink t-shirt that’s just a shade lighter.
“Here, this will have to do.”
I change in the bathroom, glaringly conscious that I am naked beneath the skirt, and come out to see her wielding my curling iron.
“Sit.”
She doesn’t go full Monty on my hair, but adds a few soft curls at the end that give me a very girl-next-door kind of look and smears a swipe of gloss over my lips.
“There.”
“Oh, gosh.”
“Yeah. See what a little effort can do?” she asks as I follow her to the door, only to open it to Gregory…
“Well, hello there.”
I can’t blame her for the slightly breathless quality her voice has discovered; I’m breathless too as I take in the worn jeans that sit on his hips just so and a red t-shirt that…wow, his suits really do not do his physique justice.
Gregory Lucas obviously works out. A lot.
“Hi. Han, you ready to go?” he asks, grinning when Chrissie gives me the thumbs up, blatantly checks out his ass, and skips into her apartment with an airy ‘lucky bitch’.
“That’s Chrissie, my neighbor,” I say, grabbing my door and closing it behind me.
He takes my keys and locks up, something I’ve never seen outside of movies, and I feel something frighteningly close to actual like as he enfolds my hand and pulls me along.
It’s only when we’re in the car — this time driven by the man himself — that I feel steady enough to speak.
“Sooo, where are we going?”
“My place.”
“I know that. Where?”
“I have a house in Garden City. It’s been in the family for a while, and it needed some TLC. I revamped it, and it’s home now.”
Okay, wow. I could work an entire lifetime and not afford a house there. Anyone who lives there makes more, way more, than the average income. But it’s weird, I had pictured Gregory living in some glitzy Upper East or West penthouse, not an actual home.