called back before closing the door.
When she emerged twenty minutes later, he gave her a lingering pat on her bare butt and took her place. While he conducted his business, she opened up her overnight bag. Only to realize she’d somehow packed one of Belle’s shirts instead of her own.
In theory, the two of them were roughly the same size, but the same could not be said for their breasts. Still, that tee was all she had, since Lucas’s clothing wouldn’t fit. Good enough.
A couple minutes later, the door to the bathroom opened, and then he was studying her, his lips twitching in an altogether annoying fashion. “That shirt is—”
“Can it.” She tugged at the chest of the t-shirt again, hoping the material might abruptly loosen and decide to stretch more over her breasts. “I may be too much woman for this shirt, but I consider that a flaw in its design, not mine.”
He took a step forward and tucked a runaway strand of hair behind her ear with gentle fingers. “I was about to say that the shirt looks amazing on you. It emphasizes some of my favorite bits. And if you wore just the shirt…”
His eyes grew cloudy, and Mr. Perky sprang to life once more.
After one more futile tug at the chest of the tee, she gave up and laughed. “I should have known you’d love me in a too-tight top.”
“Yup.” He grinned at her, shameless. “You really should have.”
After slipping on her socks and sneakers, she slid her keycard into the pocket of her yoga pants. “I need to get to my room and pack for the outing today. Change shirts, too.” She hesitated. “Do you want to come with me, or would you rather—”
“Are you kidding? Of course I’m coming with you.” He hurriedly donned his usual work clothing and shoved his feet into a pair of flip-flops. “I intend to spend as much time as possible looking at you in that shirt. And while I was in the shower, I realized I don’t even have your contact information. I need to get that before you leave for the day, just in case.”
His stride toward the door stuttered. “Um, assuming you want to see me again?”
Why did his particular combination of lasciviousness, sweetness, and vulnerability knock her already-problematic knees out from under her?
“I want to see you again,” she told him, and the tense lines across his forehead vanished.
His kiss, gentle and warm and devastatingly affectionate, made her even later than she already was, and she simply couldn’t bring herself to care. Not even a little.
When they finally exited his apartment, they walked to her room holding hands, making their way along a sidewalk already crowded with early-bird beachcombers and through a lobby teeming with loudly chattering families headed to and from the breakfast buffets. His secure grip didn’t falter. Not when several of his coworkers glanced at her with raised eyebrows after greeting him. Not even when one of the twenty-something female guests, a woman who’d apparently taken tennis lessons during her vacation, did the same.
Tess didn’t fret about those sidelong stares either. Maybe people were simply surprised to see Lucas claiming a girlfriend so publicly. Even if she was wrong about that, even if their reaction was specific to her, a forty-year-old male tennis instructor sleeping with a twenty-something ingénue wouldn’t raise a single brow. And she wasn’t ashamed of her size. Not one bit. Not at this point in her life.
No, her Lucas-centered worries had nothing to do with the opinions of outsiders. Just a hard-eyed assessment of two disparate lives that had, however improbably, intersected for two weeks. Which didn’t mean those lives would or should intersect again, outside of these specific circumstances.
Those were concerns for later, though. For now, she would ignore her looming departure in favor of thinking about the light brush of his thumb over her knuckles. The casual way he immediately pushed the call button for the elevator instead of suggesting she take the stairs. The sly satisfaction in his grin as he crowded her into the corner of that empty elevator and claimed her mouth once more, his tongue demanding and hot.
By the time they reached her room, she was lightheaded with the rush of his proximity and single-minded attention but trying not to show it. The man already looked entirely too self-satisfied for her liking.
Unsure whether Belle would be in any state to greet guests, Tess knocked on the door with an unsteady hand instead