Divided Interests (Southern Bride 3)

Lucas swallowed hard, as he let his gaze move over my body. Goosebumps erupted everywhere. The way he was looking at me was exactly how he looked at me the first time we ever made love. I could see the desire in his eyes right now, and everything he’d said over the last few days seemed to be ripped from my memory. All I needed was this. A man to look at me like he wanted me. Needed me. Craved me like I was an addiction.

I reached down and grabbed my T-shirt, wrapping it around my head to hopefully keep the paint from dripping on the floor. Then I gathered up my jeans and shoes and tossed them into the paint tray. It was all trash now.

When I looked back at Lucas, my eyes instantly went to his now very hard bulge in his boxer briefs.

My teeth dug into my lip and I had to bite hard to keep from smiling. “I’m going to go get cleaned up. Meet you back down here to take care of this mess?”

Lucas opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. Then he nodded. I made my way through the living room, up the stairs and into my bathroom. I shut the door, then placed my hands on the sink, dragging in one deep breath after another. Memories of Lucas in his shower the other night, making himself come while calling my name flashed through my mind. I jerked my head up and looked into the mirror.

“Holy fuck,” I whispered. “You’re so stupid. Paige, you’re so stupid.”

I threw open my bathroom door, ran over and shut the bedroom door. William still had a land line, so I rushed to the desk and picked it up. Luckily, Jen hadn’t changed her phone number since high school. I dialed and carried the cordless phone into the bathroom before I got paint anywhere.

“I’m not buying,” Jen said when she answered the phone.

“It’s me! Paige.”

“Where are you calling me from?” she asked.

“The landline at William’s house. Something big has happened. A few big things. Okay, huge things.”

I heard a door shut. “I’m alone and ready to decipher his actions. Go. Leave out nothing.”

“Jen, I think he pretended to be drunk that night because he was worried I’d turn him down.”

“Um, hello, I already deduced that.”

I sighed. “Fine, you did. Then, the next day, when I thought he was insulting me by comparing me to Bianca, he wasn’t. As a matter of fact, I don’t think he was trying to do that at all.”

“Okay, you’ve lost me there.”

“Then the pigtails… He was agitated because when he sees me in pigtails, it turns him on.”

She laughed. “He always was on the verge of kinky, wasn’t he?”

“Focus! Jen, I think Lucas still wants me.”

Silence loomed over the line. Oh God, maybe I had read it all wrong.

“I mean, we just had a paint war in the living room, and he stripped down and then I stripped down, and he had a hard-on after looking at me. And his eyes looked like they were on fire. Seriously, on fire. Am I reading into this?”

Then came the laughter. A lot of laughter.

I groaned in frustration and waited for her to get it all out.

“Done yet?” I asked as I turned on the shower water. I needed to get this paint out of my hair.

“Yes, sorry. Oh my gosh, Paige, you’re just now figuring this all out. I knew the moment he walked into that living room and saw you watching Top Gun he wanted you. Everything that man has done has screamed he wants you.”

“Then why did he try to sell the house I love? Why did he want to buy me out, make me give up something he knows I love?”

“I think that was his initial reaction because it makes him think of what y’all lost. What you both used to dream about. Paige, I never truly thought Lucas Foster stopped loving you. He picked a girl who was the complete opposite of you. Then, when you walked back into the picture, he broke up with her the same day. Sure, maybe he had been wanting to end things anyway, but you gave him the reason. You. It was your name he was jacking off to in the shower.”

I let out a breath and leaned against the bathroom door.

“He said he wanted to talk tonight. Asked me to let him make me dinner. He wants a truce.”

My head felt like it was spinning. What did this mean for us?

“Are you having dinner with him?”

“I think so. I mean, yes. Crap, I need to get this paint off and go clean up the living room. We made a mess.”

Jen chuckled. “Lord, I cannot wait to hear how this night goes. Call me if anything major happens. Don’t give him the woohoo tonight. Make him earn it.”