came up behind her and, pressing his body against hers, leaned over and reached around her to scrape some leftover filling off the tray. Never one to disappoint, he stepped back and ran a cream-coated finger down the back of her thigh before whistling, “Come here, boy.”
Not caring if she kicked Marc, Lexi started pumping her limbs like a teeter-totter. She might not be the most athletic girl on the planet, but she could still inflict some damage.
“Hold up, you’re going to hurt yourself.” Warm, strong, and incredibly unsettling hands rested on her upper thigh, stopping her movements and sending her heart into overdrive. Not to mention making everything below her belly button tingle.
Oh, so not good. Over the years she’d seen many a girl rendered downright stupid by just a single flick of his panty-melting smile. Lexi was not, and never would be, one of those girls.
His hands drifted higher so that his fingertips brushed the bottom edge of her shorts. “Now push back against me, and I will slide you out of there.”
“Nope. I’ve got it.”
“You sure, cream puff?”
Oh yeah. The last thing she needed was his help.
Marc pressed forward, close enough that she could smell his soap. “It’ll only take a minute. Then we never have to talk about it again.”
“I’ll manage.”
“Yeah, while I’d love to sit back and watch you try, it’s nearly ten, which means the Wine Train is about to disembark and its passengers will soon make their way down this alley, and your grandmother’s expecting you any minute. So stop swinging those legs at me, and I’ll help your stubborn ass out.”
When she didn’t budge, except to swing harder while aiming lower for more satisfying results, he said, “Or I can just shove you through to the other side. Either way, cream puff, I’m getting you out.”
Running into Marc with her hair in a messy knot, last night’s makeup on her face, and the unsettling feeling that he knew the truth behind her recent divorce was bad enough. Having him rescue her so he could call Jeffery later to laugh about her humiliating homecoming made her want to throw up.
But just like she’d known six months ago that she couldn’t hold together her marriage, Lexi now knew Marc was right. She couldn’t get out of the window by herself, and the Wine Train whistle was sounding closer by the minute, so she lowered her legs and reached back for his hands.
Alexis Moreau was a never-ending pain in Marc’s ass—always had been. She was smart, stubborn, and sexy as hell, exactly how Marc liked ’em. She was also his best friend’s girl, or ex-girl, which in man speak translated into hands off, something his brain had always known, but his dick had a hard time accepting.
If she hadn’t seemed close to tears a moment ago—or seemed as though she would rather ram him in the nuts than accept his help—he would have kept walking. And that was exactly what he was going to do, right after he got her out of the window, made sure she wasn’t hurt, and found the spare key to Pricilla’s apartment, which he was certain was hidden under the garden gnome.
That was his plan, anyway, until he placed his hands on her waist, gently slid her from the window, and registered what she was wearing. The usually coiffed and primped prom queen was in a pair of butt-hugging cutoffs—which he assumed at one time had been jeans—a thin white shirt, and not much else. She was a big, rumpled, blonde mess, and by the hollowness he heard in her mumbled “thanks” when he set her on her feet, he’d bet it wasn’t just a physical thing. Odd, since she’d been the one to walk away from her marriage and Pairing, the upscale New York restaurant that she and Jeff had opened a few years back.
Then Lexi bent over and reached sideways through the window to grab an éclair off another table inside, angling her body just right so that he got a near-perfect view of her pairing, pink bra and all, and her failed marriage was the last thing on his mind.
He stood back and smiled, not even bothering to pretend he wasn’t staring when she twisted farther to reach the treat, the movement tugging her shirt up and her shorts down low enough to prove she liked her lace matching. God, she was killing him.