Work In Progress (Red Lipstick Coalition #3) - Staci Hart Page 0,56

to brace himself. I wanted to grab him around the neck, but his neck was out of reach. Instead, my arms snaked around his waist, my face nestled in the hollow between and just under his pectorals. His chest was so expansive, that niche nestled my head as if one had been carved from the other. I felt his heart brushing my cheek with every beat.

“Thank you,” I whispered, my voice trembling against the emotion I’d thought was tamped down and under control.

His arms wrapped around me, caging me, separating me from the rest of the world. His hand was so big, it splayed from my spine to hook around my hip. “You’re welcome,” he said softly, like he’d heard the truth. Like he knew it had little to do with sweatpants.

Nothing really.

It was just that the sweatpants were what had finally broken me.

The reality of the last twenty-four hours swept over me like a tidal wave. As deeply as I believed in my reasons, the depth of the situation hadn’t really hit me, not until just then, all because of a drawer of sweatpants.

I was married to a stranger. A stranger who cared enough to fill up a closet with things he thought would make me happy. A stranger who held me like he wasn’t a stranger at all.

I couldn’t stop my tears, and I didn’t try. And Tommy didn’t ask any questions, didn’t offer me any platitudes. He just held me there in the doorway of a ridiculous closet, swaying with ridiculous gentleness, kissing my crown with ridiculous tenderness.

Which was exactly what I needed, and he had known it before even I did.

Erotic Elbow

Amelia

“What do you think?” Bea asked, stepping out from between me and the mirror at my vanity.

The vanity was gorgeous, a gilded mirror over a quartz countertop set in my huge bathroom. The surface had been set up with shelves and drawers and slots stuffed to the gills with makeup, makeup that touted brand names I’d never even considered buying.

Really, I was too intimidated to purchase Chanel anything. It wasn’t the cost. It was walking up to the counter in Bloomingdale’s and not knowing what I was doing, what I needed, what I wanted. It was facing the counter girls in sleek black dresses, hair and makeup impeccable, and me without a clue what to say or do.

When Val had dragged us all into Sephora months ago and forced us to find and purchase our perfect shade of red, I’d been petrified—scared silent and so out of my element, I could have been standing on the Wall Street trading floor among screaming traders with a million dollars on the line. I never wore makeup aside from a touch of mascara or the occasional costume makeup my friends would put on me to go to the swing club where Sam played. And because of my gross lack of practice and skill, buying makeup was beyond the scope of my capabilities.

Hell, buying clothes was even beyond me. It was the exact reason I did all my shopping online.

But thanks to Bea, I didn’t have to pick out a single thing or apply a stitch of makeup myself.

My reflection blinked back at me. The makeup artist, who also happened to be an aesthetician, had put a set of eyelash extensions on me, and the effect was breathtaking. They looked real, except thicker and longer, lush and dark and lovely. My makeup was natural—the darkening of my brows, a creamy foundation, a splash of blush combined to take me to Amelia-plus level. It was me—I could see that plainly—but me with a little oomph.

The only thing not natural were my lips, painted the same shade of red I’d been bestowed with by a makeup artist on that fated day at Sephora. Val and Rin had used that lipstick as a leapfrog into the women they wanted to be, the biggest and hardest part of that being having the stones to put it on.

Until my wedding, I hadn’t either. But that was easier. It was just like wearing it to the swing club—there, it was a costume. Fake. A mask.

It was a mask I’d wear for a whole year.

The makeup artist said it was perfect for me, asking me for the color’s name—Loud and Clear.

“These eyelashes are the best thing to ever happen to me,” I said with all the reverence of a nun on Christmas Eve.

She laughed. “Kiss your mascara goodbye and say hello to I woke up like