Colorado 03 Lady Luck (14 page)

Shit!

“Uh… not sure you know this but I’m married
and the guy I’m married to is Ty.”

“I do know this.”

What the fuck?

I didn’t ask that. Instead, I nodded my
head. “So, you know that, now I’ll tell you that Ty and I are here
for fun and we’re going home tomorrow. This isn’t our circle so our
paths aren’t going to cross.”

“
This…” he paused, “
circle
isn’t often mine either,” he replied. “My
circles are varied and I’d like to speak to you about the
possibility of introducing them to you.”

Shit, shit, fucking shit.

“I think I already answered that,” I
reminded him.

“Lexie, I’m asking you for the opportunity
to speak with you privately so I can fully explain what I’m
offering.”

I stared at him.

Then I said, “No.”

“I’m not sure you –”

I shook my head and stated, “I said no. I’m
married to a good man who makes me happy and I see you’re handsome
and dress nice but when a woman marries a good man who makes her
happy, she doesn’t fuck with that no matter what she might be
offered.”

He studied me through his shades and he did
this for awhile, so long, it made me uncomfortable and it made me
wanted to grab my shit and go, leaving him there but, more
importantly, finding Ty.

Before I could do this, he informed me, “I
suspected this would be your answer.”

I blinked at him then asked, “If you did,
why’d you ask?”

“Because when a man sees another man who has
a good woman who will stick with him no matter what she’s offered,
he wants that for himself. There are not many women who look like
you who would make that choice.” He grinned. “So it was worth a
try. Everything worth something is worth a try.”

“Well, you tried and I’ve decided I’ll take
your effort as a compliment rather than finding it annoying but now
I need to find my husband because I’m hungry and I want
breakfast.”

He nodded. Then he lifted a hand in a vague
gesture of a farewell wave.

Then he said, “I appreciate your time.”

“Whatever,” I mumbled and he again
grinned.

Then he turned and sauntered away.

I watched him go thinking he gave the
impression my response was all the same to him and then I clocked
Bag of Bones watching Navarro move toward the doors to the
hotel.

Shit again!

I toweled off, squeezed the water out of my
hair, pulled my shirt and shorts over my wet suit, gathered my
stuff and hightailed my ass to our room thinking the whole way
there that I’d been right to give up on men while the giving up was
good. Imagine walking up to a woman you didn’t know but did know
was married and propositioning her.

Insane.

I slid in the keycard at our door, waited
for the green light, slid it out and walked in. The minute I did I
heard the shower going as well as the television blaring.
Automatically, my eyes moved to the bathroom door and then I
stopped dead.

The bathroom door was open, I had a view to
the mirror and reflected in the mirror was Ty in the shower.

That was enough. All the beauty that was Ty,
naked in the shower was enough to make me stand there statue-still
and stare in lost but avid fascination but that wasn’t all there
was.

Because Ty wasn’t just taking a shower.

He had one powerful arm lifted, hand pressed
to the tiled wall, his neck was bent, the water beating against his
head, neck and back, his skin was glistening, his eyes were closed,
his other fist was wrapped around his cock and stroking.

And I had it then… indisputable proof that
every inch of him was beautiful.

Every inch.

And there were a lot of them.

A lot.

I knew I should back out, go get myself a
latte, leave him to his business and come back but I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t move because what met my eyes was beautiful and it was
so unbelievably sexy, I was instantly turned on more than I’d ever
been in my life.

In… my…
life.

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I
could only see and feel what was happening to my body watching him
doing what he was doing. Then I had to fight the overwhelming
desire to drop my stuff, pull off my clothes, join him in the
shower, wrap my arms around him and press my body to his back while
he finished.

Or talk him into finishing a different
way.

I got hold of myself, backed up and, as
silent as I could, I opened the door and scuttled through.

Then, wet hair, tacky body, wet seeping
through my clothes, armful of stuff, I found the nearest coffee
cart, bought two lattes and juggled them and my things as I went
back to the room.

Then I stood outside and pounded on the door
with my foot, shouting, “Hands full, hubby! Help me out!”

I waited approximately three point five
seconds before the door opened and Ty stood there in faded jeans
and nothing else.

My mouth went dry.

It was then I realized I should probably
have gone back and jumped in the pool and, maybe, stayed there for
a decade.

Visions dancing in my head, by a sheer
miracle I pulled it together enough to push through the door and
walk by him all the while babbling.

“I got you a coffee. I need breakfast but
before, I need to tell you what went down by the pool and then I
need a shower so maybe we should do room service because my hunger
is eating through my stomach lining and I could use taking off a
couple of pounds but I don’t want my system filled with stomach
acid in order to do that.”

I stopped, turned, dumped everything in my
arms on the floor by holding my elbows out to the sides then I
shoved a hand his way, offering him a takeaway latte.

His eyes were on the stuff now scattered on
the floor then they moved to the latte.

“It isn’t fancy,” I declared and his eyes
moved from the takeaway cup to mine. “Full fat. Considering the
amount of muscle you lug around, your metabolism has to be akin to
Superman’s so you can hack full fat. And no syrup because I’ve
noticed you have a sweet tooth but I haven’t noticed if you lean
toward anything specific, you seem to like it all and you’re a huge
badass, I didn’t want to get it wrong and incur disfavor so the
basic will just have to do.”

When I finally quit babbling and he could
get a word in edgewise, he asked, “Are you all right?”

No. No. It was safe to say I was
not
all right. I’d seen my husband
masturbating in the shower, I’d never seen anything more beautiful
in my life and I was standing in a hotel room probably looking like
garbage when he was three feet away from me looking like the
definition of male beauty and I had a near overpowering urge to
jump him and fuck his brains out.

So no, I was not all right.

I didn’t share any of this but I still
answered, “No.”

His hand came up and he took the latte from
me ordering, “Talk to me.”

“I was at the pool,” I told him and then
sucked back some of my own latte wondering if Ty would find it
amiss if I hit the mini-bar and poured a few of mini-bottles of rum
into my coffee. Say, seven of them.

“Yeah, I know. You left me a note,” Ty
prompted when I said no more.

“A pool, incidentally, that you didn’t join
me at.”

“Lexie, told you, got no need to hang out in
the sun.”

“I know you told me that but there’s a meal
to be consumed, it’s called breakfast and it’s the most important
meal of the day.”

“You’re hungry, eat.”

“Aren’t you hungry?”

“They got a counter at the gym. Had a
protein shake after I worked out.”

My eyes narrowed. “You have a phone, you
didn’t think to call me and tell me you were covered so I could
take care of myself?”

“
No, I didn’t, seein’ as you’re a grown
woman. I assumed you could take care of yourself or, say,
phone
me
you wanna
know what’s happening, not charge into the room throwing
sass.”

My back went straight.

“Throwing sass?” I asked.

“Throwing sass,” he answered.

“What the fuck does that mean?” I snapped
and, surprisingly, his brows drew together and he shared a reaction
with me and that reaction was puzzlement with an edge of
annoyance.

“It means, you barged in here yammering and
then threw a fit about me not joinin’ you at the pool, which I told
you I didn’t do, and you bein’ hungry when anyone knows, they’re
hungry, they should fuckin’ eat, and not phonin’ you when your
phone’s right fuckin’ there,” he pointed to the phone that fell to
the ground when I dropped my stuff, “and you got fingers so you can
also dial me. That’s throwin’ sass.”

I glared at him.

He kept talking. “I also told you this was
your vacation day so I got back, saw you were at the pool and left
you to it.”

“You left me to it?”

“Uh… yeah.”

“Yeah?” I snapped.

His eyes changed at my snap and it was new
to me but I read it right away.

Confusion and annoyance gone, now he felt
anger.

He proved that by biting out, “What the
fuck’s your problem?”

“
My problem, Ty,” I started, not giving one
shit about the fact that this huge man was obviously angry and
angry enough to let it penetrate the impenetrable shields he kept
up to cover his emotions, “is that I wanted to have breakfast with
my husband not be
left to it
.
What, were you gonna leave me out there all day?”

It was then I noticed his body had gone
still but I was still angry. And I knew why I was angry. I was
angry because I was reacting to something different, something
important, something big and it had nothing to do with breakfast
and everything to do with life being total shit and me never being
able to latch onto anything good, anything clean, anything right
and I sensed, no matter what secrets the man standing in front of
me had, he was all three of those things. Therefore right in front
of me I had something I wanted and there I was, in a position where
I couldn’t let myself have it, not until I knew I was right. But I
wanted it, not later, but right then and that pissed me way the
hell off and I was taking all that out on him.

“Hello?” I called. “Did you hear me?”

Then he spoke and when he did it was soft
in a way that made
my
body go
still.

“You wanted to have breakfast with your
husband?”

“
Well, yeah,” I replied. “We did that
yesterday. It was nice. I mean, I’m the kind of person who can be
alone and I have no problem doing that but why be alone when you
can be with someone you like being around? And we’re in Vegas and
we have a vacation day. It isn’t often you get to be in Vegas on a
vacation day so you should live it up. If you don’t want to hang at
the pool, that’s cool. So we have breakfast, go shopping, go to
some crazy Vegas museum or do the Star Trek Experience. I heard
that’s cool and not just for geeks. But whatever we do, we should
do something. And all of this, by the way, was something we could
have discussed over,” I leaned in to drive my point home,
“
breakfast.
”

He stared at me and I let him.

Then he rocked my world again and he did
this be saying in a different kind of soft voice, “Baby, you wanna
have breakfast with your husband, all you gotta do is pick up the
phone and dial. I’m covered, you eat, I sit with you and drink
coffee. But you want me, anytime you want me, that’s all you gotta
do.”

I didn’t speak and again I couldn’t breathe
and there were a lot of reasons for that. The first, he called me
“baby” which was the second time he did that but the first time he
did it without an audience, the first time he did it in that soft
voice, the first time he did it just him and me and I felt that
word rushing through my blood with a warmth I never wanted to
leave. Second, his soft voice was the most beautiful thing I’d ever
heard in my life. And third, him telling me anytime I wanted him,
he was a phone call away was the kind of thing I’d wanted my entire
life and never, not ever, had and there he was, giving it to
me.

“Lexie,” he called.

“Navarro propositioned me at the pool,” I
blurted to cover all the profound feelings I couldn’t quite deal
with feeling right then and he gave me yet another reaction.

His torso jerked back, his brows snapped
together, his eyes narrowed and his big man energy swelled to fill
the room.

“What the fuck?” he whispered.

“With Bag of Bones watching,” I went on.

“What’d he say?” he asked but each word
lashed out like a whip.

“I didn’t let him say much of anything. He
said he wanted to talk privately about an offer he’d like to make
me. I said I didn’t wish to talk privately with him and reminded
him I was married. He did a little pushing. I made it clear I
wasn’t interested. He gave up and walked away.”

Ty stared at me.

“Still,” I continued, “it was an asshole
thing to do.”

Ty kept staring at me but he was doing it
like he didn’t see me.

“Ty?” I called.

His eyes focused on me.

“Throwin’ sass,” he muttered.

“What?” I asked.

“You’re not hungry; you got cornered when I
wasn’t at your back and that’s why you’re pissed.”

“Well, no,” I said. “We were in a public
place. He didn’t push it and told me he knew the answer I’d give
him but it was worth a try. Anyway, I can take care of myself but I
thought you should know and I thought you should also know Bag of
Bones was part of our audience. I don’t know what’s going down with
him but, well… whatever it is, you should know.”

He stared at me again and I didn’t mind
because I was used to that.