Hot Pursuit - Denise A. Agnew [37]
Chapter Nine
Lucy stared at herself in the mirror, waiting for Vic Friday evening. She hadn’t dressed up for the party, choosing to wear a set that consisted of a clingy blood-red sweater and matching skirt that hugged in all the right places and ended just above the knees. She skimmed her hands over her curves, wishing Vic were touching. She knew she looked good, and wanted Vic to think so too. Frowning in the mirror, she glared at a single strand of hair at the top of her head that did a dance of insubordination. She sniffed. What did it matter? Perfect wasn’t possible, and Vic liked her just the way she was. Since she’d met him, she’d started to understand what she had missed all these years. Other men hadn’t respected her the way he did, made something inside her feel worthy in a way she’d never noted before the day he walked into her life. Before Vic and after Vic were two different tales. Two different lives.
She touched up her make-up for the second time, adding additional gloss over her red lipstick. Smiling in satisfaction, she tried to banish the last of her nervous stomach. She glanced at her wristwatch—five o’clock. He should be here by now. Worry edged around her attempts to stay cool. Two of her other military boyfriends had been notoriously late almost all the time—it wasn’t like Vic. Vic was beyond punctual. Early, in fact. Called when he said he would, did everything he said he would. Reliability, it seemed, turned her on.
“You’re just nervous because of the party,” she said out loud as she strode back into her bedroom to pull on her knee-high black leather boots.
No need to be nervous because she planned to attend a party at Marisa’s and Jake’s house. Yet she couldn’t banish the wicked dance butterflies did in her stomach.
Honestly, it was ridiculous.
As she shoved her feet into the boots, she wondered if practicality should have won the day. Maybe she should change back into jeans. Nope, she’d done that once already. Enough.
“You’re nervous because he’s late and because…you’re nervous.”
She shouldn’t be. They’d spent every night together at her house since the blizzard. It had taken them a half day to shovel out of three feet of snow, and yet they’d had a hell of a good time together. In and out of bed. Once she could get out of her driveway, she’d driven across town to her studio, Vic’s admonishment to stay safe making her feel cozy and wanted. When she got there, she called him at his request. After going through her finances, she made a decision. Maybe moving to another town with a higher population than Clarksville’s forty-thousand would bring her more clients. Sticking around here meant disaster. She braced herself as she’d thought about it. Jackson Hole, here I come. Vic’s suggestion she consider Colorado Springs left questions dancing in the air. Did that mean he wanted to keep seeing her? That this relationship could continue if she did? Was moving to a much bigger place like Colorado Springs the answer to her career and love life? Her mind had whirled with the implications, just as it did right now. No. She couldn’t count on anything yet, on a week’s acquaintance. It was insane.
They grocery shopped together and discovered she zipped through the aisles and he wanted to go slower. They cooked together and discovered he was the better cook. They fought for the remote control, they even read in bed together. All of it seemed so damn normal and natural and comfortable.
In bed. God, they were great there. As she wandered into the living room and flopped onto the couch, she stared at the darkness cloaking the land outside her front window. Nights would be colder, lonelier when Vic left. And he would. It was only a matter of time. Try as she might to hold herself back from falling for him, it seemed she was doomed. She’d never found herself so filled with passion, so reckless in her needs, so uninhibited in her desires. She thought she knew everything there was to know about sex, but Vic had managed to show her