Well Suited (Red Lipstick Coalition #4)(54)

She made a face.

“What? Kids are expensive.”

At that, she laughed, the sound musical and vibrant. “I just imagined a toddler version of our baby sitting at a crystal ball.”

I felt my smile all the way into my bloodstream. “Did she look like you or me?”

Color bloomed in her cheeks. “She had your eyes.”

“Boring brown?”

“They’re not boring. They’re hypnotic, a place without depth, a place to get lost. I’m fairly certain that was how you got me to sleep with you.”

“I thought it was my smell,” I countered.

“That too. You smell incredible.”

“I thought you were going to climb me like a ladder right there in the middle of the club.”

“You made me feel…” She paused, correcting herself. “You make me feel like I’ve been starving my whole life, and I thought my depravation was just the way life was. That living in a constant cycle of exhaustion and retreat was just how relationships worked. That’s the best way I can explain it—I was starving, and you are a feast. You even engage my salivary glands.”

“I’ve never felt so desired as making your mouth wet.”

“That among other things.” She was smirking, smug and wry and absolutely gorgeous.

“Kate, are you coming on to me?”

“Maybe,” she said, making a show of taking a bite of her dinner, which—thankfully—was almost gone.

“You know something, Kate?”

“What?”

“I sure am glad I knocked you up so I could woo you.”

She laughed, that musical sound I loved so well. She was Kate through and through, soft and smiling. Katherine was long gone.

Served her right. It just wasn’t fair to be the only one.

In my life, there was one thing I knew I would have—a family. It was a construct I only understood in theory, pictures painted from television and movies and Norman Rockwell paintings. I’d never known what it was like for the mother and father to be in love, to be a team. To raise their children in a safe, secure place, not the kind that had come from crime or depravity but security born in love. I wanted family vacations in the Hamptons. I wanted road trips and a family dinner every night. I wanted matching Christmas pajamas and soccer practice.

And I wanted it with her.

Everything I’d ever wanted was sitting across from me, smiling only for me.

“What do you say we get out of here?” I asked, echoing the phrase from the first night, that night.

Recognition lit her smile. “I’d say, lead the way.”



?





Katherine

As I watched Theo’s broad fingers slip the knot out of his tie, a thought crossed my mind that I couldn’t shake and didn’t want to.

Maybe magic is real.

In his way, Theo was magic. It was in everything he did, every touch, every word, every action. And the real magic was in how I’d been affected. Because the way I felt and the depth I felt it was beyond my understanding, a foreign flicker in my chest, my attachment to him a hook in my heart. The thought of being parted from him gave me physical pain, an ache and longing so deep, I couldn’t fathom its meaning.

Not unless magic was real.

Which meant I’d been wrong all along.

He turned, pulling his shirt out of his waistband, hands moving for the buttons, but when he saw me standing there, in the middle of the room, staring at him while I tried my best not to cry, he stepped into me and framed my face with his hands.

“What’s the matter, Kate? Is something wrong?”

I shook my head, overcome. “No, everything’s right. I…” I swallowed the stone in my throat, forcing admissions and truths down. I’d deal with them later. Right now, I only wanted one thing. “Kiss me, Theo.”

But for a breath, he watched me. His own admissions hummed through him, but he didn’t speak.

And then he gave me what I wanted.

His lips.

The surge of emotions in my chest didn’t ebb like I’d hoped. It wasn’t a distraction. It was an amplifier. I felt the change in me, felt the stir of it against my skin, felt the thrum of it in my pulse.

I was not myself. But I was more myself than I’d ever been.

I didn’t understand it, but I didn’t want to fight it. I’d been fighting myself for far too long, and I could feel the release of my grip on who I’d thought I was, what I’d thought I wanted.

And it was all because of him.

He held my face like I was a precious thing, kissed me as if he’d never kiss another woman, touched me like I was a treasure he’d searched for his whole life.

With deft hands, he undressed me, never breaking the kiss. My dress slid to the floor, our languid lips slow and deliberate as he slipped his hands into my panties and pushed them over the curve of my ass. My bra, unfastened with a neat snap of his fingers, joined the pile, and when his hand was free, he palmed my heavy breast, testing the weight with tender reverence.

My fingers weren’t still either. They made quick work of his shirt buttons, his belt, his zipper. He kicked out of his shoes, stepped out of his pants, pulled my hips toward his when I slid my hand down his back and into his underwear. My intent was to remove them, but my hungry fingertips wanted to taste his skin, the soft curve of his hard ass a wonder of musculature.