Divorced, Desperate and Delicious

He made it all the way to the entryway before every instinct inside him screamed to stop. He swung around, stormed back into the kitchen and dropped his gun beside the phone.

  Lacy stood by the kitchen sink, her arms wrapped around her middle, her blue eyes filled with indecision, hurt, and leftover fear.

  “Jessie sees her ex-husband four days a week,” he tossed out, deciding just to lay down the ugly truth. “She’s planning on remarrying him next month. And when she does, I’ll send her a wedding gift. Hell, she’ll probably send me a wedding invitation. She knows I see other women. She doesn’t care. Hasn’t ever cared. What we had was . . . was convenience and casual sex. And it was all about to end anyway.”

  He raked another palm over his face, realizing how cold and uncaring his relationship with Jessie sounded. He’d used her. She’d used him. Then he accepted it as exactly that—cold and uncaring. And unsatisfying.

  He’d drawn more pleasure bringing Lacy to climax and keeping his pants on than he’d ever found naked and buried navel-deep in Jessie. In two days he’d shared things with Lacy that he’d never shared with Jessie. He’d told Lacy about his parents and his sister.

  You haven’t told her about Sarah.

  The thought hit him upside the head. But I will eventually, he answered back.

  Hell, he’d even told her about his skunk. And while he hadn’t even gone all the way with her, he’d mentally stamped her as his. He’d warned off Jason, and the vet and the FedEx guy could just go to Hell, because he wasn’t going to give her up without a fight.

  “You know what?” she asked, grabbing a glass from the cabinet. “It’s not important. This entire conversation doesn’t matter fiddlesticks. I don’t even know why I asked.”

  “Yes, you do,” he said. By God, if he could admit what was happening, then so could she.

  The phone rang and Lacy reached over and jerked it up. “Speaking,” she practically growled. “Yes, that will be fine.”

  Chase listened while his insides churned. Was it Eric again? Had Lacy just agreed to go to dinner and share a lustful dessert with her impatient vet? He paced the kitchen once and decided without question that Lacy Maguire wasn’t going to be sharing sin with anyone but him.

  He moved past her again, the temptation to snatch the phone from her hands growing stronger, but one look at the squint of her eyes and he decided against it. He’d never considered himself a good leader of the female mind, but something told him he wasn’t the only one having a difficult time facing this thing happening between himself and Lacy. If he pushed, she’d push back. And right now, the only pushing he wanted to do was with both of them naked in bed.

  Chase rubbed his shoulder, which had throbbed since breakfast. Lacy put the phone down. She leaned her forehead against the fridge. Then slowly she turned to face him, opened her mouth to speak, and . . . stopped.

  “Is it hurting?” she asked, gesturing toward his shoulder as he attempted to massage the ache away.

  “Some.” He saw the anger in her eyes fade to concern. He’d take concern hands down over her anger. So he grimaced a little harder than before.

  She sucked in her bottom lip and seemed to consider her next words. “Come on. Let’s clean it again.”

  Chase followed her into the master bathroom. The anger they’d shared seconds earlier seemed to have stayed in the kitchen. She motioned for him to sit down on the toilet He pulled off his shirt and watched her collect supplies. When she had her things, she moved between his legs and leaned over him to place all of the medicines and bandages on the back of the toilet.

  Her breast brushed against his cheek, and he fought the desire to turn his face around and press his mouth against her. Thankfully, she backed up before temptation ruled.

  “It might hurt,” she said, and pulled back the bandage.

  He wrapped his hands around her hips, inched them down to feel if she’d ever put on any underwear. She looked down, and he thought she might ask him to move his hands. She didn’t: a small victory. Then something clicked inside his head, and he realized that this really was war. And his enemies were drawing close. Hunky and Eric might want Lacy, but the real enemy was her ex-husband, whom Chase thought she still loved. It was the only thing that could explain her reluctance to sleep with him. She still loved her ex-husband. The thought left a bitter wrinkle in his brain.

  She spotted his expression as she dabbed cream from a small yellow tube on the wound. “Am I hurting you?”

  Chase smiled at the way she sucked on that bottom lip, as if it pained her to doctor him.

  “I can’t feel a thing.” He let his hands slide to her backside. Nope, no panties. Just Lacy. He remembered how soft she’d felt in his embrace. He remembered exactly where his tongue had been and where it wanted to return. His pants were shrinking again and his shoulder wasn’t the only thing throbbing anymore. He looked up at her lips and she opened her mouth to speak; desire and need echoed in her expression, and she couldn’t mask it. She might love her ex but she wanted him. His breath hitched. He’d take what he could get. Was she about to cave? She inched a breath closer, then he remembered . . . they still didn’t have condoms.

  “It reminds me of my grandmother’s toe.”

  “What?” His brain stumbled around her words. “What reminds you of your grandmother’s toe?” A laugh worked its way from his throat, and he moved his hands around to cup the soft roundness of her bottom.

  “Wait! I know, I know.” She swung around, leaving Chase’s hands desperately empty, as she rummaged through a bathroom drawer.

  For just a second Chase allowed himself to hope she’d remembered a tucked-away condom, but even he wasn’t sure how Lacy could mentally move from her grandmother’s toe to prophylactics. Then again, he wasn’t sure how any thought could have led to her grandmother’s toe.

  “Yes!” She held up a small piece of paper. “The doctor gave my grandmother a prescription for an antibiotic when she had an ingrown toenail that got infected.”

  “I’m still lost.” He ran a hand over his chest.

  “We can get the prescription filled and you can take it . . . for the infection.”

  Prescription equaled drugstore. Drugstore equaled condoms. He stood up and laced his fingers with hers. “Let’s go.”

  Lacy’s brows beetled as she stared at him. “You can’t go. People would recognize you.”

  “Not necessarily.” He winked. “Give me five minutes.” Leaving her with another smile, he took off to the other bathroom, where he’d hidden the supplies Jason had brought over.

  • • •

  Lacy handed the prescription to Mr. Tien, her grocer’s pharmacist. “Is that toe giving her problems again?” he asked.

  Lacy brushed a strand of hair off her left cheek and stared over the man’s head so she wouldn’t have to lie looking into his eyes. “Yes.”

  “I thought she was going to stay in Florida for a few months.” He set the prescription on the counter. “Did it get too hot for her?”

  Lacy panicked, having forgotten that Mr. Tien lived only a couple of blocks from her grandmother’s new condo and knew her grandmother personally. “Uhh, yeah. The heat got to her.”

  “Well, tell her I said hello. Or maybe I’ll see her at bingo Saturday.” He looked down at the paperwork. “It will be about ten minutes to fill this.”

  “Thanks.” Lacy turned around and nipped at her lower lip. A security guard walked past. Could she get arrested for drug trafficking for giving prescription antibiotics to an HPD narcotic officer?

  As she stepped away, she spotted the blond-haired man wearing a baseball cap standing a few aisles away. He looked up at her over the shelves of tampons and Depends. Sucking her bottom lip into her mouth, she noted his dark brown eyes and copper-colored mustache. He smiled, a soft knowing smile that hit a ten on the Richter scale of sex appeal. Her heart did a little dance—a dance of indecision. Was she or was she not going to have sex with him?

  When Chase had told her he’d go wit
h her to the pharmacy, she had thought he’d lost his mind. Why, his face had been flashed across television for the last two days. There was no way he could go out in public.

  When he came out of the bathroom wearing a blond wig, a mustache, brown contacts and a baseball cap, she’d been stunned silent. “I’m told blonds have more fun,” he’d teased her. And then he’d grabbed her arm and hurried her to the car.

  For the first half of the ride, she’d worried that Chase’s rush to get to the pharmacy meant his shoulder hurt more than he’d let on, but then she’d seen the devilish glee in his newly brown eyes. And it hit her straight in her solar plexus; his eagerness to go to the pharmacy had nothing to do with his shoulder and everything to do with another body part.

  And next up to bat is . . . Chase Kelly. The words echoed in her head as she made her way closer to the blond Chase. And as she neared, her palms grew sweaty. Needing a second, she stopped and feigned interest in a display of heating pads.

  She believed him about Jessie. Chase Kelly really was a no-good scoundrel who would sleep with a woman about to remarry her ex-husband and then attend the wedding. He was all about sex, no commitment.

  No involvement.

  Just pleasure.

  Casual sex, he’d called it.

  And wasn’t that how she’d told herself she needed to look at sex? Wasn’t he the perfect guy to school her in no-strings-attached sex? Even if she was wrong, even if the worst happened and she started hearing the wedding march, Chase Kelly would never agree to it. Why, when all this mess with Zeke ended, Chase would leave and never look back. There were too many pretty waitresses with cute asses, and too many hot dishes like Jessie for Chase to waste time on a vanilla wafer.

  She took a deep breath. She could do this. It was the twenty-first century. She was a modern, worldly woman, and worldly women had casual safe sex all the time. All she needed were some condoms and a willing partner. Chase seemed willing. So now all she needed were some condoms and enough courage to go through with it.

  Gut instinct told her Chase intended to buy protection. But as a worldly woman, she insisted on buying them herself. Besides, if she invested some money in this project, she’d be less likely to abandon it.

  Lacy glanced around the pharmacy to find where they might have hidden the condoms. Luck would have it that they would be right in front of the counter where Mr. Tien stood filling her grandmother’s infected toe prescription.

  Squaring her shoulders, she walked in that direction, got within two feet of them, and then lost her courage. Hesitating, she stared down at the row of over-the-counter drugs with fake interest.

  “Looking for something, beautiful?” Chase’s whisper tickled her ear. Or was it his fake mustache?

  “Yeah, I need some . . .” Lacy glanced around the drug section in which she’d chosen to stand: It would have to be the hemorrhoid section.

  She heard Chase chuckle behind her as if he knew her intentions.

  “Can you think of anything else we might need?” Humor laced his voice. “Besides milk and Preparation H?”

  She shoved her elbow back and caught him in his side. He moaned, and not playfully. Remembering his injuries, she swung around. “I’m sorry. I forgot.”

  He pressed a hand against his ribs. “I’m fine.” He managed to smile, but she could see she’d really hurt him.

  “Really, I forgot.” She touched his side.

  He leaned closer. His mustache tickled her upper lip, and then he kissed her. Not the kind of kiss that came with tongue and heat, but one of the soft, sweet kind that promised all the heat and tongue she could want later.

  “I’m fine.” He passed a finger over her lips. “So, what do you say? We need anything else?” He motioned to the condom counter a few feet away.

  She glanced over at the display of bright-colored packages. “Oh. I was . . . I was going to pick some up.” Now there. She’d sounded about as modern as a woman could get. Didn’t she?

  “I’ll get them.” His eyes sparkled and his grin widened.

  “No, I can get them.” She remembered the worldly-woman speech she’d given herself a few minutes ago.

  “I have money,” he said.

  “So do I,” she answered. “I’ll get them.”

  “Do you know what size I wear?” His eyebrow arched, a teasing glint in his eyes.

  She blinked, and her gaze traveled downward before she could stop it. “They . . . I mean . . .” She raised her face. “You’re joking. Condoms don’t come in sizes.”

  He looked surprised. “You haven’t ever bought any, have you?”

  She blushed again.

  He laughed and leaned in so close his body heat warmed her through and through. “They really do come in sizes,” he whispered. “And that’s not all. They come with ticklers, in neon colors, and some even come in flavors.” His lips brushed hers ever so lightly. “Strawberry.” He breathed against her moist mouth. “Chocolate.” He kissed her softly. “Vanilla.”

  With a deep intake of air she fought the heat climbing up her neck. “Well, if they come in sizes, then you’d take a large.”

  He grinned and wrapped a hand around her waist, sliding the tips of his fingers into the band of her jeans. “And I didn’t think you’d noticed.”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t. I just figure if they do come in sizes, what man would ever admit to wearing anything but a large?”

  His laugh echoed in her ear as he pulled her to his chest and kissed her again. Then, with one hand draped around her waist, he slowly moved her toward the display. Lacy looked up and sighed in relief when she saw Mr. Tien was busy with another customer.

  Chase reached over and chose a box. Lacy studied it as he pulled it off the rack.

  “Wait.” She touched his arm. “That has twelve.” They didn’t need twelve. “Don’t they sell them in—”

  “Don’t worry.” He reached out again and snatched another pack. “I’m buying two.”

  • • •

  Chase offered to drive her blue Saturn on the way back, and she agreed; she didn’t know if she could focus on the road with the number twenty-four echoing in her brain. Did Chase Kelly really expect to have sex with her twenty-four times?

  Oh, Lordie! One time, okay, maybe two, and she might be able to escape the let’s-get-married curse, but twenty-four times and she knew she’d have him hog-tied and stuffed in the back of her trunk taking him to Grooms-R-Us to be fitted for his tux.

  She stared at her sandaled feet, concentrating on her painted red toenails. Chase drove a little fast, and from the way the car took the road, she knew he’d turned onto the dirt road that led to her house. He seemed eager to . . . to play a little baseball?

  Twenty-four! The situation couldn’t get any worse. But then he pulled into her drive and she heard him mumble a few choice words. She glanced at him briefly feeling her pulse race at the sight of him. Desire and the need to finish what they had started earlier seemed to radiate from every beautiful inch of his body.

  “Who do you know that drives a purple Cadillac?” he asked.

  Lacy jerked her head up and realized she’d been wrong. The situation had not only gotten worse, it had just gone to Hell in a handbasket.

  Chapter Eighteen