She sighed, her eyes drooping. “Better than all right. Want me to get down?” Her ankles remained locked behind him.
His cock waned inside her. “Not unless you want to.”
She stiffened. “We might consider running about now.”
Nick stared down at her. Was this another one of her naughty tricks? “What do you mean?”
“I see a beam of light shining through the hedges, and if I’m not mistaken, there are blue lights flashing on the other side of the judge’s house.”
“Holy shit!” Nick shoved Lacey out of the water onto the deck surrounding the pool and climbed out beside her. In a flurry of movement, he gathered her clothing and his and made a dash for the hedges on the other side of the house, away from the flashlight now shining on the pool.
“Halt! Police!”
Unwilling to face the music naked, Nick shoved through the bushes, dragging a giggling Lacey behind him.
Chapter Six
“Sounds to me like you’re falling hard for Nick,” Kendall teased Lacey the next day at work.
“I’m not falling in love with anyone.” Lacey set a twelve-pack of long-neck beer on the floor beside Kendall.
“What’s it going to take for you to get over your ex and move on?” Kendall stood with one hand on her hip. “I keep telling you, not all men are assholes.”
“It’ll take a knight on a white horse charging in to sweep me off my feet in the middle of one of the Temptation Garden Club meetings.” Lacey pointed at the twelve-pack. “That’s not getting into the cooler by itself.”
“Is that all? A knight on a white horse?” Kendall shook her head and bent to grab two bottles. “Keep dreaming, girl.”
“Speaking of the Temptation Garden Club, are you going with me to the next meeting?”
“Why do you even bother?” Kendall set the bottles in the cooler behind the bar. “Those women don’t give a damn about you. They’re just a gossiping bunch of old biddies who don’t have anything better to do.”
Lacey’s lips tightened. “I don’t know why I still go. I guess I don’t like admitting defeat to anyone, especially them.”
“Defeat?” Kendall stepped back, a frown creasing her brow. “That bastard cheated on you. How is that defeat?”
“I didn’t hold my marriage together. He wasn’t getting what he wanted from our relationship.”
“Because he was a class-A dick.” Kendall rolled her eyes and reached for more bottles. “Not because you were at fault.”
“Still, if I quit going, it’ll look like I’m slinking away with my tail between my legs.”
“I’ll be there.” Kendall slammed the cooler shut. “When is it?”
“Saturday.”
“Saturday?” Kendall’s face fell. “Damn it.”
Lacey’s chest tightened. “You have other plans?” It had been two months since she’d been to the last meeting by herself and she didn’t look forward to going into the lions’ den without a little moral support from a friend.
“I told Ed I’d go to Dallas with him. He’s looking at a stallion that day.” She wiped her hands on a bar towel. “I’ll tell him I can’t go with him.”
“No. You need to go with Ed. He’s your number-one priority now.” Lacey forced a smile she didn’t feel. She couldn’t drag Kendall into her life when she had one of her own to lead with Ed.
“I wouldn’t dream of letting you go back to that horde of back-stabbing bitches without me to watch your back.”
“I can manage just fine.” Maybe she’d skip after all. The thought of going alone held no appeal, even if it was to save face.
“No way.” Kendall hugged Lacey. “I’ll talk with Ed.”
Lacey grabbed Kendall’s arms and gave her a stern look. “Don’t you dare. I assure you I’ll be fine.”
Kendall’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure? Or are you blowing smoke up my shorts just to make me feel better?”
“I’m sure.” Lacey patted Kendall’s shoulders and spun her away. “Now, go get those other twelve-packs of beer. The doors open in fifteen.”
The night passed without incident. In Lacey’s books, anyway. Neither Cory nor Nick showed up. Only one barroom fight, with minimal damage to the premises, and one call to the police. No guys came into the Ugly Stick who interested Lacey enough to flirt with.
She watched the door the entire evening all the way to closing time.
Audrey slipped an arm around Lacey’s shoulders as she placed the last clean beer mug on the shelf. “Go home, girl. It’s been a long night.”
“You’re telling me.” Lacey sighed. The thought of going back to her apartment and lying down on her bed alone held absolutely no appeal. Maybe she’d stop by Judge Stephens’s place and take a dip in his pool. “See ya tomorrow. Remember I’ll be in late on Saturday.”
“That’s right. You have that garden thing to go to.” Audrey shook her head. “I can’t see you rubbing elbows with the matrons of Temptation in a stuffy garden party.” She shrugged. “But whatever blows your skirts up is fine with me. Night.”
Lacey grabbed her purse and keys from under the counter and slipped into her car. By the time she got to the apartment, not a single light shone in the windows of the lower apartment.
The old house appeared closed and uninviting for the first time since she’d moved in. She trudged up the stairs, her ears perked for a voice, a sign that someone wasn’t as asleep as they appeared, but not a sound came from the apartment below.
The air in her apartment was stale, stuffy and smelled of old building. Lacey crossed to the window and slid it open enough to allow the night breeze to enter and refresh the room. She stood looking out across the street at the sleeping houses of the neighborhood as she stripped out of her clothes. For a moment, she stood naked in front of her window, daring someone to wake up and stare back or even yell for her to put some clothes on.
No one did.
After a minute or two, she ducked into a lukewarm shower, toweled off and lay down on her bed, the cool sheets caressing her bare skin. She was tired to the bone. Too tired to even switch on her vibrator.
She laid her arm over her eyes to block out the moon shining through her open curtains. For a long moment, she remained still, waiting…for what?
When she finally gave up on sleep, she reached into her nightstand, yanked out her vibrator and tipped the on switch, setting it into motion. If she couldn’t have sex with a real man, the silver, bullet-shaped little gadget would have to do.
Lying back on the bed, she slipped the cool metal cylinder down the column of her throat, over her collarbone and lower to the tip of one of her breasts. The nipple peaked and knotted into a tight little bead.
Good. But not as good as being with
him.
She refused to name the
him
in her mind, but images of Nick in his coveralls, Nick in a towel and Nick naked couldn’t be erased as easily. As she eased the vibrator downward, over her belly to the thatch of curls over her pussy, she moaned, splaying her knees to the side.
If
he
was there, he’d go down on her, draping her thighs over his shoulders, spreading her open and licking her clit in long, luscious strokes.
Lacey parted her folds with her fingertips and touched the throbbing machine to that special bundle of excitable nerves.
At a single touch, she arched her back off the mattress and dug her heels into the mattress, a louder moan rising from her throat. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to sink deeper into the fantasy of being taken by the cowboy. “Yes, there.”
He’d be wearing his overalls and cowboy boots and nothing else. That way when she slipped the zipper down, she could run her hand across his chest and down to capture his…
She rammed the vibrator into her entrance, the hum of the motor and the sensations it inspired spreading little electrical shocks along all of her nerve endings. Tingling began in her toes and fingers, racing along her system to pool at her core.
Lusty juices oozed from her entrance as she dipped the device in and out of her then up to slide across her clit. “Yes!” she said out loud. “More, please.”
Her imaginary mechanic pumped in and out of her, his dick hard and smooth like metal, only too thin to be real and too cold to make her crazy. After several hard thrusts, Lacey shoved the vibrator to the side, a sob rising in her throat.
Being single and free had its advantages, but lying in a cold bed by herself wasn’t one of them. She longed for strong arms to circle her, a warm body spooning her and a big, hard dick driving in and out until she couldn’t stand it anymore. And not just anybody. She wanted Nick, and no vibrator would take his place.
For a long time she lay in her bed, staring up at the ceiling, sleep a long way from coming.
She’d done it. Lacey Lambert had fallen for a cowboy whose own hang-ups equaled if not exceeded her own. “Hell.”
Nick knew exactly when Lacey made it back to the apartment. He’d been pacing the apartment from the time he got home from the shop to the time Lacey drove up in the driveway. When Lacey didn’t stop at his door, Nick stripped out of his clothes, took an icy-cold shower and walked naked into his bedroom, where he lay across the sheets, praying his cock would ease up.
It stood for over an hour at attention, eager to find Lacey and thrust deep inside her.
So why was Nick holding back? He liked her. Hell, he found her exciting and uninhibited and everything his ex hadn’t been…with him.
Perhaps Cory was right. Not all women were the same and not all relationships ended the same. Yet the residual anger of his divorce left him clenching the bedsheets instead of following the woman up the stairs and burying himself deep inside her. Well past two, he lay awake, but he must have fallen asleep because when he opened his eyes again, sun poured through his window.
He stretched, his naked skin skimming across twisted sheets, his normal boner as hard as it had been last night when he’d wished he’d gone up to the neighbor’s apartment.
A glance at the clock reminded him of his responsibilities. He was already an hour late to open the shop. Nick got up and slipped into a set of coveralls and zipped them up to his waist, leaving the top hanging around his hips. His dick made a tent of the fabric and he thanked the uniform company for recommending he buy the coveralls a size larger.
Barefoot, he walked across the apartment to the kitchen. The place was dead quiet. A note on the counter indicated Cory had left an hour ago for a term exam and wouldn’t be back until that afternoon.
Footsteps above made Nick glance at the ceiling, his hand rising to cup his throbbing dick.
By the sounds of it, Lacey was awake and moving around up there. Lust spiked and his cock hardened even more. Would she be in the mood for a little morning fuck?
Nick shook his head. Only a jerk would rush up the stairs and ask that. He stared at the kitchen, his mind on the apartment above.
What about breakfast? He could ask if she’d like breakfast. That was a neutral request, no strings, just food.
He spun on his heel and marched across the floor to the door, reaching out for the handle.
Before he could twist it, a soft knock sounded.
A grin spread across Nick’s face. It had to be Lacey.
He whipped the door open, his smile sliding downward.
“Julia. What are you doing here?” He glanced over her shoulder to the staircase.
Her brows rose and she slipped past him into his apartment before she turned to face him again. “Expecting someone else?”
Nick glanced at the steps again then faced his ex-wife. “What do you want, Julia? You already have half of everything I ever earned.”
“I don’t want anything, Nicky baby.” She stepped up to him and ran her finger along his jawline. “I missed you. Is that a crime?”
He captured her wrist in his hand and held it away from him. “Julia, you’re a fuckin’ moving violation. Leave.”
“I just got here, sweetheart.” She pulled her hand free and backed deeper into the apartment, finally settling on the couch. “Come.” Julia patted the cushion beside her. “Sit and talk to me for old times’ sake.”
“We have absolutely nothing to talk about.” Nick remained at the door, his eyes narrowed, wondering what he’d ever seen in Julia.
Sure, she was beautiful with her long honey-blond hair lying in smooth waves around her shoulders. She kept her figure trim with a personal trainer and every kind of diet ever imagined. But her blue eyes were cold, lacking the warmth and twinkle he’d come to admire in…
“Did your gardener leave you?”
“Tim?” She waved a hand as if dismissing the younger man she’d had an affair with. “We were never a big thing.”
“Fucking him in my bed was a big thing to me.”
“Oh, Nicky, darling, you’re not still mad about that, are you?” Julia rose and crossed to where Nick still stood and rested her hand on his bare chest.
“Julia, we’re divorced. You shouldn’t be here. You should be with Tom, or Bob or whatever his name is.”
“Tim isn’t a part of my life. He was never as good in bed as you were.”
“So sorry to hear you traded down in the dick department.” The tiny pout on her lips that used to make him do anything for her now only made him mad. Nick recognized it as the pout of a child who was used to getting her own way. He liked a woman who earned her way in the world. One who didn’t take advantage of a man’s good intentions. Nick stepped back and jabbed a thumb toward the door. “Get out.”
“Oh, Nicky baby, you don’t mean that?” She stepped up to him again, walking her fingers up his chest to tap one against his lips. “Don’t you miss me? Even a little bitty bit?” Julia leaned up on her toes and puckered her lips to kiss him.
“Nick have you seen my crystal-studded purple panties?” Lacey sailed through his open apartment door completely naked, her long dark hair bouncing around her shoulders, a twinkle in her deep brown eyes. She stopped at the couch and bent to lift a cushion, her beautiful full ass shining in Julia’s face. “I swear I was wearing them last night before you, me and Cory had sex here on the couch.” Lacey shoved the cushions back in place and straightened. “Or was it while we were doing it in the kitchen?” Her search moved to the kitchen.
Laughter threatened to bubble up in Nick’s chest.
“You had sex with Nick…
and
Cory?” Julia’s eyes rounded, her mouth falling open in a very unattractive gape. Her gaze moved from Nick to Lacey and back. “I don’t understand.”