“Can’t stand what?” the guy said.
Case gestured at the bathroom door. “I’m waiting for my fiancée to change clothes—”
He knew he hesitated a little around the word “fiancée,” which he was still getting used to—not that he would be using it for very long, since they were already on their way to the wedding. But he didn’t pause in themiddleof his sentence, so there was no excuse for the guy barreling in to interrupt him.
“Oh, man. Believe me, buddy, I know all about it. My wife’s the same way. Takes fuckingforeverto do anything.” He waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the clerk’s office. “She’s in there right now renewing her license—made me come with her for the company—and I bet that’ll take forever too.”
Case didn’t even know where to start with that, but he was willing to try. It would at least be a distraction.
“You’re a grown man,” he said coolly. “Nobody can ‘make’ you do anything. If you came with her, it’s because you chose to, so that’s on you, not her. If you were going to throw a fit about it, it seems like you could have just stayed home. And if youdidcome to keep her company, it doesn’t seem like you’re doing a great job of it, not if she’s in there and you’re out here. So she got a pretty raw deal out of it, as far as I can tell.”
He also wasn’t sure that anyone would drag their license renewal out longer than they had to, so if the guy’s wife did take a while, it probably wasn’t her fault, but that felt like a more minor point.
What he really resented was how the guy had assumed they were going to have fun ragging on women together. Case had run into that attitude before, and he’d never liked it.
When Lydia was involved, even on the periphery, he liked it even less.
So this was the bit hereallywanted to drive home.
“And it’s not that I can’t stand waiting for my fiancée to get dressed because it’s taking a while,” Case said. “I haven’t checked my watch. I don’t know how long it’s taking. I can’t stand waiting because I know she’s going to come out of there looking gorgeous, and I want to see her as soon as I can. Now, in fact.”
As if on cue, Lydia came out of the bathroom.
Case forgot all about the guy he was arguing with. He forgot about everything but the woman in front of him.
Lydia.
In the thrift shop, even the sight of Lydia holding the dress against her body had almost been too much for him. He’d figured looking at her actuallyinit would make his heart stop.
He’d been wrong: it was even bigger than that. His heart hadn’t stopped; theworldhad stopped. The earth was no longer spinning. Any second now, everything around him was going to start floating up into space.
He struggled to think of what to say. He got paid to form sentences, at least occasionally! He had to be able to put his awe into words.
“Wow,” Case said.
Too late, he remembered that the best he’d been able to come up with earlier had been “ditto.” It was a good thing he had all that work with his hands to fall back on, because his brain had definitely been failing him lately.
The tight wine-red velvet hugged Lydia’s curves, wrapping her up like the world’s most tantalizing valentine. Her bust, her hips, her butt, the slight curve of her belly—Case couldn’t lie and say he hadn’t noticed them already, but the red dress made it almost impossible to look anywhere else. The fabric looked so soft that it was easy to imagine touching it, and he couldn’t stop thinking about how touching it would mean touching Lydia too, touching her the way he had in the truck, only this time they wouldn’t have to stop—
Lydia met his eyes. She didn’t seem to mind that all he’d been able to say was that dry-mouthed “wow.”
Her gaze said her temperature was running just as hot as his, and that she agreed that the world had stopped spinning.
That gorgeously sexy dress was an invitation, but it wasn’t a general one. It was for the two of them. Lydia would feel the velvet from the inside, and he would feel it from the outside, and they were going to get the chance to take it off together.
“Your man here is an asshole,” the guy next to Case said.
Case blinked, feeling like he was being drawn out of the best dream he’d ever had. He really had completely forgotten that guy existed.
Lydia didn’t miss a beat. “He’s very muchnotan asshole, actually,” she said, “but you I’m not so sure about.”
She tucked her arm through Case’s and led him down the hall.
With Lydia pressed against him, Case instantly forgot about the guy all over again. He started humming the Wedding March.
Lydia laughed. The sound was lower and huskier than he remembered it being before, and realizing that it was deepened with arousal made heat radiate through him.
“I know some people have a violinist or even a string quartet for this, but I think your humming is just as good.” She squeezed his arm. “I’m glad you like the dress.”
