40-Love - Olivia Dade Page 0,84

period had ended—hers were blessedly short, only three days—he’d kissed every soft, dimpled inch of those thighs, then licked his way between them and lingered there as long as she’d let him, first with his tongue and then with his cock. Each time got better and better.

Even when they fucked, they made love. He hoped she understood that as well as he did.

Her spectacular chest rose and fell on a sigh. “Remember how she hooked up with some guy named Brian while she was here?”

Shit. Another dude letting down the home team. “What did he do?”

“They slept together a few times.” Her shoulder hitched upward. “Apparently that went fine.”

Lucas couldn’t help a brief wince.

When she saw it, she laughed weakly. “Yeah, fine isn’t how I’d want my performance in bed described either. It’s the adjective she chose, though. She rated him a seven for technical merit, but only a three for artistry. Apparently, he also tended to skip several required elements.”

Required elements? He didn’t want to know what those were.

Well, he kind of did, but he wouldn’t ask. “She’s a fan of old-school figure skating?”

“Newer-school too. If it were up to her, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir would have nixed all the jumps and just frenched each other during their entire performances.” Her eyes grew distant for a moment. “To be fair, that one lift where it looked like he was going down on her? Hot as fuck.”

Apparently he’d missed key advances in professional figure skating. “How is that even poss—”

“And I can’t count how many times we’ve watched The Cutting Edge together. Almost as many times as she’s made me watch that Gods of the Gates Aeneas-Lavinia fan supercut on YouTube. I think she considers the guy who plays Aeneas a literal demigod.” Her nose wrinkled. “I keep forgetting his name. It’s Marcus…something-something.”

He snorted. “Very specific.”

“Remind me to look it up later.” She patted his leg. “Belle would kill me if she knew I’d forgotten again.”

Her eyes weren’t quite meeting his, and if the sheer force of her grip could turn that fistful of sand into glass, she’d already have cut herself on it.

Enough.

Leaning over, he pressed a kiss to her temple. “Älskling, it’s fine if you don’t want to tell me what happened with Belle. Really.”

“I do.” At his skeptical glance, she raised that supercilious brow. “Don’t contradict me, Karlsson. It’s the truth.”

“Then why are you talking about everything but that?”

She let out a slow breath and watched him trace a clover right above her knee. “After their last fine night together, Brian got a call.” Her lips thinned. “From his girlfriend.”

Oh, shit. No wonder Belle hadn’t wanted to talk about it.

“Tess, I mean it. You don’t have to tell—”

“Once Belle understood what was happening, she told him she never wanted to hear from him again.” Tess’s eyes had narrowed into slits, her rage visible in the stony set of her jaw. “He said girls like her couldn’t be picky, and she was lucky he’d been willing to fuck her in the first place.”

Girls like her. Lucas could only assume that was a reference to Belle’s size.

His chin dropped to his chest, and he stopped drawing on Tess’s leg. Instead, he spread his fingers and squeezed gently, a mute acknowledgment of Belle’s pain. Tess’s too.

“She got dressed, told him to go fuck himself with his Shake Weight, and left.” A flicker of a bitter smile tipped her lips. “He’s lucky he escaped with his testicles intact. Belle doesn’t put up with shit like that anymore.”

Even that hint of amusement faded. “She cried so hard, she threw up once she got back to our room.” The trident between her brows carved deeper than he’d ever seen it. “So she was hurt, and she was angry, and she wanted a few solitary days to get over what happened. She said she wanted to think about her future too. She moved to Boston for her boyfriend two years ago, but they broke up last month. Now she doesn’t know if she wants to stay there.”

Tess fell silent.

“That’s why she changed her plane reservations,” Lucas finally said. “That’s why she left.”

Tess nodded. “That’s why.”

With his free hand, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Shit. Shit, Tess. I’m so sorry that happened to her. What a dick.”

“I know. I feel terrible for her.” Tess’s voice was raw. “I feel lucky, too. No one’s ever said anything like that to me. And however our relationship plays out, I know you would never hurt