“Did something happen at your parents? You weren’t coming home until Sunday, I thought.” He wiped her tears with the bottom of his sleeve. Even in the brisk autumn wind, she noticed he smelled like onions and chili powder.
“No. It’s nothing important. I’m so sorry I interrupted your date. Please go back to her.”
“My date?” Mick looked baffled. “Oh, you mean, Kristine? She’s Rob’s wife. My friend from Norfolk, remember? We were watching the game and making chili.”
Lacey stood there, confused and mortified. This wasn’t what she had pictured. She had envisioned him opening up his door, her planting a sensual kiss on him as she proceeded to rip his clothes off of him. Then he would carry her upstairs and they would make mad, passionate love for at least the next three or four hours.
She wasn’t sure how to improvise her planned seduction, drenched in tears, standing in the middle of a street with armed Marine guards only a few feet away.
“I—” she began, searching for a way to begin. “Vi is engaged. I guess it was a shock, that’s all. It upset me.”
“Engaged. Really? Who to?”
“Some producer. Probably get her own show out of the deal, too, knowing her.”
“Her own show. I’m even jealous of her,” Mick said, trying to get Lacey to smile.
Only more tears came. “It’s not that, Mick. It’s that she’s engaged. All this time I thought the key to a successful career was putting everything else on hold. I thought that’s what she did. But now, just look at her. She has it all.”
Mick gently stroked her quivering bottom lip with his thumb.
Lacey melted at his tenderness. “I’ve been such an idiot—depriving myself of what I really want. Thinking that it might help me focus on some stupid career that probably isn’t even right for me anyway.”
He brushed his fingers across her cheek. “What do you want?”
A cold breeze blew over them, sending the last of fall’s leaves floating to the ground. Lacey slid her hands into her pockets. She couldn’t look him in the eye.
“You,” she answered quietly.
Mick’s mouth curved into a smile as he framed her face in his hands. Her lashes low, she looked up at him. Uncertainty clung to her, and her heart felt exposed, vulnerable—till he angled his face toward her, lifting her chin gently with his hand.
Lowering his lips near to hers, he paused only a moment, and she felt his breath caressing her lips before they finally touched. Then, at the sweet pressure of his kiss, warmth turned to fire as her lips explored him tentatively, then desperately, seizing the passion that burned red-hot in her veins.
The feel of his lips on hers was so satisfying and yet not nearly enough. She urged him on, pressing her body against him, sliding her palms up his arms and across his shoulders, then raking his cool hair with her fingertips. Her lips parted, and she tasted him. Timid at first, then hungry with desire. He moaned in response, a thoroughly masculine sound. There was no turning back.
Mick glanced up and saw they were attracting a few toothy grins from the nearby Marine guards. Firing them a deadly look, he pulled his cell from his pocket and dialed his own number. “Rob, I’m three blocks away. You and Kristine have exactly forty-five seconds to evacuate the premises.”
Lacey heard a laugh on the other end of the phone. “WILCO,” she heard the voice reply.
“Wilco?” she asked as Mick snapped his phone shut.
“Will comply.” He knitted his arm with hers and hurried her up the street.
Darting up the stairs and stepping into his home, the click of the lock behind them sent a thrill down Lacey’s spine. Mick checked the kitchen to make sure they were alone. He returned to her, grabbing a fistful of her hair and eagerly planting his lips on hers again.
“So what happens now, Lacey?” he whispered, making a searing path of kisses down her neck. His warm breath set the tiny hairs on her back on end and the gentle trail of his tongue ignited her senses. “Do I take you out on an official date or two before I try to seduce you?” Unfastening her buttons as he spoke, his mouth reached the skin between her breasts causing her breath to quicken. “Or would you prefer to have the seduction first? It’s up to you.”
Breathless, Lacey thrust into his hands the convenience store bag she had been holding tightly in her clutch. “Um, this might give you a clue.”
He looked inside and grinned. “I see you bought in bulk. We better get started.”
Smothered in a kiss so thorough she could feel its impact down to her toes, Lacey went slack in his firm embrace. “Just take me right now. I’m dying here.”