Lady Luck (Colorado Mountain #3)(25)

He focused on eating. She fell silent maybe reading his mood.

The instant he finished, he sucked back the dregs of his coffee, turned to her and in case Bones was watching from somewhere, he nabbed her behind the neck, pulled her to him, pressed his lips to hers hard, let her go, got up and walked away licking his lips.

They tasted like whipped cream, strawberries, waffles and Lexie.

Fuck.

* * * * *

Lexie

I walked out of the bathroom gussied up in what I thought of as my slut dress. Ty’s instructions had been, “Two dresses. One to get married in. One that’ll get attention.”

I’d never dressed to get attention. I liked clothes, buying them and wearing them but I’d never owned a dress like this and I hoped the one I picked would be the ticket.

I walked into the bedroom to see Ty doing the cufflink thing again, this time he was wearing the deep lavender shirt with a pair of dark blue suit trousers. My eyes took in his male beauty then they slid to my nightstand.

I’d woken up to my bouquet in a vase precisely where it now stood. Upon waking, after seeing Ty’s side of the bed was mussed but empty, processing the fact that I slept on top of the covers in my wedding dress, those flowers in that vase were the second thing I saw after I rolled.

And the minute I saw them, I’d frozen, blinking the sleep out of my eyes, convinced I was seeing things.

Unless Vegas had bouquet fairies as well as one hour tailors, there was no one but Ty who could have located a vase and put my bouquet in it while I slept the sleep of the dead. And, when I realized I wasn’t seeing things, I didn’t know what to think about Ty locating a vase and putting my bouquet in it. I didn’t know him all that well but from what I did know, this seemed a very un-Ty-like thing to do. Therefore, I lay in bed and stared at those roses for what had to be five minutes trying to figure out what I thought.

I got out of bed not knowing.

But I also got out of bed with a warm feeling deep in my gut that felt really, really good as well as thinking that this fake marriage business wasn’t going to be that bad.

Sure, he didn’t talk much.

Sure, when he did, most of it was crude but it wasn’t like I wasn’t used to that from Ronnie, Shift and their crew, in fact, Ronnie, Shift and their crew were worse.

Sure, there were important ways he was closed off. Then again, we barely knew each other. Sharing our deepest, darkest secrets within forty-eight hours of meeting was not something to be expected. I had no idea why I poured my heart out to him last night. What I knew was, when I did, although he didn’t exactly handle me with care, he was honest, he shared his opinion and I just happened to like his opinion no matter that the realization it made me come to didn’t feel all that great. Not to mention, he’d shown himself to be wise.

Sure, he seemed to have no sense of humor but he also didn’t get ticked when I laughed when he didn’t find anything funny. And he didn’t have no sense of humor. His lips curled up last night, I saw them.

He also didn’t like smarmy men with gold chains staring at my br**sts and since I didn’t like that either, I thought it was very cool that he barked at the gross guy who was checking me out making that gross guy stop checking me out.

And he had a way with a compliment.

And last, he was a really, f**king good kisser.

The last part was the part where I wouldn’t go. Not yet. I knew I wanted to sleep with him. I knew that the minute I laid eyes on him. Hell, every woman who laid eyes on him knew that. I also knew I was a thirty-four year old woman who’d had one boyfriend and thus one lover in her life and he wasn’t very good at being the former and (not to speak ill of the dead), although I had no experience of another, he was hit and miss at the latter. I had since had a four year dry spell and my life decisions had led me into a fake marriage with an ex-con who contended he was wrongly imprisoned but wouldn’t elaborate. Furthermore, just the day before I’d decided to give up on men and it probably wasn’t the brightest move to go back on that decision after knowing the man for just over two days. I was thinking maybe I should play this smart and not jump into the sack and give him my “*”.

“You sort your shit today?” he asked and my eyes moved from the bouquet to him.

He was looking at me, my face, not the dress. This was disappointing because I really wanted to know if I’d done what he needed me to do but I wondered if it was like yesterday where he wasn’t going to give it away until he was ready.

About half an hour ago, I’d heard him come back while I was in the bathroom. He’d been gone all day but called twice. Once to say have lunch without him. The other to say have dinner without him. He did not tell me where he was or what he was doing. I also did not ask.

“Ella’s all over it,” I answered.

Ella, Ronnie’s mother was also kind of like my mother since she was really the only one I ever knew. She took me under her wing when I was thirteen and her daughter Bessie and I became best friends. Then she kept me there even after I hooked up with Ronnie and treasured me being there because Ronnie had slipped over the edge but she knew I was the only thing that kept him from freefall. That was, until he went into freefall.

When I explained things to her earlier that day, I skipped the ex-con slash picking him up from a correctional institute slash fake marriage bit and just told her I’d lied about going on vacation and was instead hooking up with a friend who was helping me move to Colorado. I’d explained the lie by saying I didn’t want anything to get back to Shift and, since Honey, Ella’s other daughter, was sweet as her name but not the brightest bulb in the box and had a connection with Shift that had more to do with history and missing her brother than brains, I didn’t want to take any chances.