She couldn’t get enough of him. Even when they’d finished making love, when she’d moved past desire into sleepy, sore satiation, she wanted to pull him inside her again and again. She found herself reaching for him across the mattress at night, the warmth of his hard-planed body, the texture of his skin.
They really were going to kill each other.
And yet all Jack had to do was look at her a certain way or smile that half smile or move or breathe and she was lost. Awash in lust.
“I never knew it could be like this,” she admitted. “That I could have all these feelings inside. Jack makes me feel...”Cherished. Desired. Safe. “Alive.”
“Now you’re just bragging, you lucky bitch.”
Lauren returned Meg’s grin. “Well, yeah. But you’ve got Sam.”
“I do,” Meg said with deep satisfaction. “Which is the only reason I’m not jealous. I won’t tell you not to be happy. But be careful, okay?”
Too late, Lauren thought.
“You bet,” she said.
***
YOU COULD TAKEthe cop out of Philly. You couldn’t take the Philly out of the cop. Weddings, funerals, Christmas Eve, Easter, Jack dressed like every other male member of his tribe. White dress shirt, dark suit, subdued tie. The uniform varied only slightly—a pinkie ring for Grandpa Joe, a gold chain on Cousin Pete, a black-on-black shirt for Maria’s boy, Eddie, who was too young to know any better.It’s like a wake at the fucking Corleones, Jack’s sister-in-law Tricia (red haired, Irish, and outnumbered) liked to say.
He wondered what Tricia would say about Lauren. What they all would make of Lauren.
Looking at himself in the mirror, seeing his father’s face above the crisp white collar, his father’s hands at the end of his starched white cuffs, Jack wondered if it was time for a change. Island weddings tended to be casual affairs.
But when he saw Lauren coming down the stairs at the Pirates’ Rest, he was glad he had the suit.
Because she looked amazing.
She glowed in eye-popping red that hugged her curves and glossed her lips. Her eyes were smudged and sultry. Her hair looked like she’d tumbled out of bed, an effect he’d learned women only achieved with a curling iron and serious effort. She wore a tiny diamond in her nose and sparkly earrings. Everything about her was sparkly and shiny and hot. Even her sandals, made of gold leather straps that wrapped around her toes and ankles. He wanted to bundle her back up the stairs and onto the nearest bed. Or over a chair. Against the wall.
Yeah, and ruin her makeup and probably piss her off. Not to mention make both of them late for Luke’s wedding.
That was another thing marriage had taught him. Women didn’t get all dressed up for men. They got dressed up to be seen by other women.
Her eyes widened and took him in. “Wow. Hello, Jack.”
“Hello, Lauren. You look good.”
Her smile increased her glow by another hundred watts. “Thank you. I like your suit.”
“I like your dress.”
“And your shoes.”
Not cop shoes, the standard-issue black shit kickers he wore every day of his working life.
He smiled faintly. “Thanks. My ma used to say you should spend money on your eyes, your teeth, and your feet, because they have to last you all your life.”
“Your mother sounds like a wise woman.” Her smile turned wistful. “My dad would have liked that saying. He used to tell customers, ‘Take care of your feet and they’ll take care of you.’”
Her dad used to own a shoe store, he remembered. It was in her book.
“Here. For you.” He produced the single long-stemmed rose from behind his back, red, fresh, and full, if a little wilted from its brief stint on the front seat of the SUV. He’d bought the flower on impulse, a sentimental gesture. Or a joke.
Her face went blank.
Hell.
