Some other guy might get to put his ring on Kacey’s finger, but Mike was getting her whole hand. Forever.
* * *
KACEY KNEW HOW to play the seductress, but she didn’t know how to be one. Not that anyone except Lacey knew, but she’d only ever had two lovers. Once, several years before, she’d thought herself totally in love with a guy who’d sailed a boat to California to take her on a date. And because she wanted a home and family like Lacey... Bo.
Still, Michael would have expectations. What man didn’t have fantasies about having sex with a gorgeous actress? Few actually got to play them out for real. She didn’t want to disappoint him.
With their handprints drying on the dining room table, she stood with him at the double kitchen sink, washing the excess clay off with lanolin, careful to preserve the gel nails she was never without. And hoped he didn’t notice that her hands were shaking.
Standing so close to him, she could feel his heat. And was incredibly nervous.
Not about having him touch her, though. She couldn’t wait for that. She craved it in a way she’d never ever felt before.
She was scared as hell that she wouldn’t be enough, so she did what she did best. She pushed herself brazenly forward.
The scene was fully laid out in her mind. Hands clean, she opened the refrigerator, as though trying to figure out what she should pull out.
And instead, she pulled off her top. Underneath was a brand-new piece of black lace, purchased that afternoon from a well-known Beverly Hills lingerie store. It covered her nipples but still left them exposed to his view. The cold from the refrigerator was meant to bring them to peaks.
Strangely, she didn’t need it. They were already there. Filing that observation away for closer examination at a future point, she pulled out the bottle of wine she’d also purchased that afternoon and the plate with chocolate Hershey bars and marshmallows.
Michael didn’t like strawberries. Or rich chocolate. He’d said once that one of his fondest memories as a kid was a family trip to the East Coast and a tour of the Hershey factory.
The marshmallows were because she knew she could have fun with them. Just because she’d never been sexually adventurous didn’t mean she was ignorant. In her crowd she’d heard it all.
Wine and goodies in hands, she turned, ready to tempt Michael out of his pants, only to find him gone.
With her sweats still hanging baggily from her hips, her hands full, she went to find him.
He was in the living room. He’d turned on some music and was looking at her collection of movies.
“You never told me you liked Don Knotts,” he said. “And Martin Lewis, too.” Another of his favorites.
“I met Martin Lewis when I was a kid.” Feeling a little awkward, standing there exposed, plate and wine bottle in hand, playing the seductress while he was having a normal conversation, Kacey wished she hadn’t vacated her T-shirt quite so quickly.
“Of course you did.” He shot her a grin, turned back to the movies and froze.
Setting down the bottle and plate with too little finesse, Kacey made a dash for the kitchen and her T-shirt, calling out, “Lacey and I were in a tap number with him on his show,” she said. “We were about four and could barely do a shuffle-ball-change, but we were front and center in this group of really good teenage tap dancers. Martin tapped, too. And at the end of the number, Lacey and I had to run up and hug him, with all of the other kids following behind us so there was like this big ball of kids with their arms around each other with him in the center.”
“Sounds like you would have been crushed.” His gaze grew curious as she came back fully clothed.
She hoped she hadn’t already mucked up his fantasy. Timing was everything.
“No, the worst was the body odor.” So many sweaty teens...
Michael’s laugh set her at ease. Even if she disappointed him sexually, things would still be okay.
“Let’s sit,” he said.
She’d grabbed wineglasses on her way back from the kitchen, thinking she needed a tall glass, and he twisted the cap off the bottle. She still hadn’t gotten used to that—fine California vintages coming with the twist-off cap that used to designate cheap wine.
Because they were going to have sex, Kacey sat next to him, rather than taking that end of the couch as she had the previous week.
He poured and held up his glass. She followed suit. And had no idea what to say. Here’s to great sex between friends?
“To a friendship set in stone,” he said. She clinked her glass to his and tried not to cry. The man was an enigma. And the best thing that had ever, ever come into her life.
* * *