5. Victor
FIVE
VICTOR
I opened the door at the same exact moment she opened hers, as if destiny had somehow wanted us to meet up at that very moment and not me watching and calculating for it.
“Hey.” She smiled with a little too much pep in her step. I tried to think back if she’d had one too many espresso drinks she liked to make for herself, but nothing had stood out this morning.
“Hey.” I nodded, trying to act nonchalant as the two of us locked our doors.
“Four days in a row after you living here, what? A month?” she asked, and I nodded. “Must be my lucky day,” she added softly as her eyes roamed up and down my body with an open and clear appreciation.
“Going to the gym?” I asked, clearing the scratchiness in my voice. I could clearly see by what she was wearing that was exactly what she was going to do.
“Yeah.” She nodded, slipping her key into an itty-bitty pocket at the back of her leggings.
The overprotective part of me wanted to pull her into my arms and put my hand on the small of her back to touch what I undeniably knew would be the softest skin I’d ever put my hands on, before leaning down to kiss her and pulling that key out of there only to add it to my keyring for safe keeping.
Was that how she carried her keys all the time? Didn’t she know that wasn’t safe? What if it slipped out and she didn’t feel its loss?
But I couldn’t do that. Not yet at least. There would be a time, in the very, very near future, when I’d be able to. I just had to be patient even though it sounded like a timer was counting down with every beat of my heart.
“You?” she asked, rolling her shoulders before pulling the oversized hoodie over her head and blocking my view of the sexy lines of her body.
We had ‘bumped’ into one another yesterday right outside the grocery store a couple of blocks away, and I had helped her carry her shopping home.
The day before that, we’d met by the front doors of our building after she’d returned from a jog and me from visiting my brothers.
I had visited them, but I’d timed it perfectly to watch her run through the park down the street so we could ride on the elevator together.
“Yeah, figured I should get a workout in, in case I didn’t get any trick-or-treaters tonight and get stuck having to eat bags of chocolate all on my own.” This earned me a laugh and a cute little brow raise.
“You bought candy?” Her words were soft, but I could see the curiosity in her eyes.
“I did. I even bought some stuff to enter that door decorating contest even though I saw some on the second floor I know there’s no way I could beat.”
“I thought you weren’t interested in having little people knock on your door?” she reminded me.
Fuck! If I didn’t have anything else big planned for us tonight, I would have suggested she come over for a scary movie, popcorn, and giving candy out. Like a sane, normal fucking man would. I could see it, too.
Clear as a goddamn picture.
Both of us nestled up together. Teasing touches and longing stares that would be interrupted by trick or treaters. But at the end of the night? When the candy bowl would be empty, I would gorge myself on her sweetness.
“Guess you changed my mind,” I remarked, meaning it.
“Me?” She pointed at herself before fixing her ponytail. I watched, full of envy as her fingers weaved in and out of her strawberry-blonde hair that made my hands itch to touch.
“You made Halloween sound… fun.”
“Fun?” She giggled and shook her head. “It’s more than fun. It’s amazing! Easily my favorite holiday of the year.” The excitement in her voice was contagious.
“Over Christmas?” I asked, unable to believe how a bubbly sprite of light like Lucy would be so enamored with the darker holiday.
“Definitely.”
“What about New Year’s?”
“Overfilled parties with drunk, depressed people looking back at what they wished they would have done over the year? Yeah, no thanks, I’d rather go in for a root canal.” I turned to her and, because I couldn’t help myself, I took her hand.
“How are you this fucking perfect and not snatched up?” The question slipped past my lips without a second thought, and she rewarded what she thought were sweet nothings with a playful eye roll.
“I don’t know? Luck of the draw, I guess.” She laughed, her eyes sparkling up at me.
“Marry me,” I asked in a teasing tone I didn’t mean.
I was dead serious.
If she batted her lashes at me and agreed, even if joking around, I’d say fuck the gym, toss her over my shoulder, and march us out to city hall right then and there.
“Maybe ask me tomorrow? I have a full day planned today.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yup. After the gym, I need to finish up some last-minute shopping for tonight, give out candy while watching a scary movie, and then work.”
“Work, huh?” I asked, purposely not asking what she did.
“You work from home, too, right?” She nodded, and we started to walk together side by side to the elevator.
“Mind a workout buddy today?” I found myself asking.
It was fucking stupid, but it seemed I was a glutton for punishment.
Watching her sweat, hearing her breathing change as her heartrate accelerated?
I would end up having to excuse myself to the bathroom to jerk my cock raw to stop from embarrassing myself walking around the gym with a tent fully pitched in my joggers.
“If you think you can keep up?” she sassed, and I fell harder for my beautiful ray of sunshine.
There was no denying I was in deep when it came to Lucy.
Without ever having met face to face, she’d stolen my heart. Now all I had to do was figure out how to get her to fall for me. Don’t ask, just take, the dark voice in the back of my head taunted. Take. Claim. Mark. Mine.
“You think you’re up for the challenge, old man?” she challenged, snapping me out of my thoughts.
“I might be older than you, Sunshine, but trust me, I can keep up.” I winked back and didn’t miss the way her eyes dilated before she looked away.
Conversation flowed easily as we walked to the gym. It wasn’t the conversation of two people who had just met, but to me, it made sense. How couldn’t it when we were made for one another?
I had pictured us at the gym on a date on many occasions.
But fantasies were not reality.
In daydreams, you don’t account for shit like your annoying brothers being around, casting judgmental looks in your direction as you stretch with the love of your life next to you.
Nor do you consider one of your future sisters-in-law coming over to say hi and then chatting up your girl to the point where she actually takes her away to one of the Pilates rooms because it turns out Lucy knows how to do something Maryanne doesn’t.
And the most frustrating part of it? I couldn’t even get annoyed about it!
Maryanne was so sweet and shy I had actually been proud of her for coming over and taking the initiative not just to say hi to me but chat up Lucy and ask another woman for help. And by the looks of Hollis as he lifted weights next to me, he was feeling the same damn way.
“I’m guessing that’s the new neighbor?” he asked quietly enough for only me to hear. I grunted my conformation before setting down the dumbbell and glancing at his reflection in the mirror. “You got it bad.” Hollis’ lips quirked up, but I didn’t bat an eye.
“I love her.” That made the weights he was mid-lift stall.
“It’s like that?” I liked that Hollis took my words at face value.
“Worse. It’s like you and Maryanne. Like Jade and Lucas. Like fucking Jonas and Kitty… but worse.”
“Worse?” He set the dumbbell down and wiped the sweat off his brows. “Worse how?” Hollis pushed, obviously needing to put his thumb on the pulse of the situation.
“Worse like if she found out what I’ve done, how far I’ve gone, who I am… she could easily call to the cops and put my ass behind bars,” I confessed, ready to see Hollis lose his shit.
Instead, my usually straightlaced, law-abiding, worried-about-what-people-will-say brother chuckled and patted me on the back.
“We might not be blood, but we have a lot more in common that any of us could have ever known.”
“Hollis,” I started to say, and he grinned. “I’m serious.” I needed him to know I wasn’t kidding.
“So am I,” he said with a smug shit-eating grin. “Come on, let’s go check on our girls.” We put the dumbbells away and headed to the Pilates area. “It’s Halloween,” Hollis said, but when I didn’t say shit, he kept talking, “Any plans for tonight?”
“Guess you could call it that,” I murmured, thinking about the mask I’d gone back to buy first thing in the morning after our impromptu book and coffee date.
Tonight could be the clear beginning of the two of us. Or it could all blow up in my face.
“Anything I should know about?” he asked, almost as if sensing the trouble I could get myself into tonight.
I shrugged but didn’t meet his eyes. “If something goes wrong and you need someone to bail you out, call me,” he offered, just as he pushed the door open, and there were our girls.
We stopped and watched the two of them laugh and animatedly talk like they’d known one another for a lifetime.
If she got on with Maryanne, who was one of the shiest people I’d ever met, I knew Lucy would easily fit in with the other two women in our family.
Lucy turned, and the moment her eyes found mine, she smiled. So damn bright it almost knocked me down onto my knees.
“She won’t call the cops on you.”
“You don’t know half the shit I’ve done.”
“Trust me, little brother, that woman likes you.”
“That woman doesn’t really know who I am.” He turned to look at me. Questions filled his eyes, but he didn’t say a word. Not when the girls walked over. Then suddenly, Lucy was waving bye and we were walking out of the gym.
“Your brother and his girlfriend are nice,” she noted as we headed back to our building.
“They’re good people.”
“You guys are close.”
“We are.”
“That’s nice,” she said but stopped. “I have some errands I need to run,” she announced, and I wondered if hanging out, forcing this gym date on her, was too much.
“Want me to go with you?” I offered, but she was already breaking my heart by shaking her head. It felt like a lead pipe weighed me down in the pit of my gut.
“No, I’m good. But thank you.”
“Are you sure? I don’t mind.”
“I’m sure. It’s just some tedious stuff, like a pedicure and picking up some odds and ends for my door. But maybe I’ll see you later?” she asked, the hope crystal clear in her gorgeous eyes.
I couldn’t help myself. I was only so strong. I closed the small amount of distance between us, and my hand rose and rested on her hip before pulling her in flush up against me.
“You wanna see me later, Lucy?” Her swallow was audible, and I could have sworn I felt her heart racing against my chest. Her eyes dipped to my mouth, and her hand rested open palmed over my own heart.
“I’d like that.”
“Good,” I rasped, my eyes on her mouth.
Full and perfect. Sweat slicked the back of my neck as I leaned forward, dipping my head down slowly to give her the opportunity to back away at any moment if she wanted to.
But she didn’t.
Everything in the world froze for me when I felt the soft, sweet exhale of her breath skate over my lips. My hand moved up from her hip to the small of her back. Just as I was going to seal my lips to hers, someone crashed into me, jolting me forward.
“Shit,” I cursed, turning around to see some kid dressed in a Frankenstein costume and a pumpkin basket in his hands bounce off me.
“Oh no! Hey, you okay?” Lucy asked, immediately dropping to her haunches to help the little boy.
Watching her with the kid made something in my heart crack wide open.
I’d never thought about falling in love, much less marriage and a family.
But as I watched Lucy help the kid back up and I mumbled my apology, all I could think about was how much I wanted that very thing.
With her. Kids. A mortgage. A fucking lawn to mow.
Messes and chaos with little people who looked like a combination of the two of us.
“Is he a giant?” the little boy asked her in a loud whisper. She coughed away a laugh.
“No. He just ate all his veggies growing up.” She winked and waved at him when he saw his mom and ran back to her. “Happy Halloween!” she called out, a sweet smile gracing her lips.
“You want that?”
“What?”
“Kids one day?” I asked brusquely. I was getting way too goddamn ahead of myself. She stared at me for a moment before she smirked.
“First you ask me to marry you, and now you’re asking me if I want kids?”
“Maybe I’m just the kind of guy who knows what he wants when he sees it,” I responded.
Something flashed in her eyes, something I couldn’t read. But as quickly as it appeared, it vanished. Lucy opened and shut her mouth before reaching for my hand. Her attention moved to watch as our fingers tangled, my skin darker than her creamy peach.
But mine?
Mine were laser-focused on her.
She looked up, and it was her bright blue eyes, wide and earnest, that got to me.
“How about we take things one day at a time?” The words felt like they wrapped my plans up in a pretty bow, giving me the green light for what I had arranged.
I ran my tongue over my teeth before I nodded. Lucy stepped back, dropping my hand. I shoved it into the pocket of my gray joggers. It felt the loss like a goddamn limb; like my arm had been shredded from my body.
That thing inside me, the dark, obsessive-compulsive animal that had come to life after catching a glimpse of her on that cam site, stirred.
He wanted to claw his way to her. He felt primal and so damn greedy for her I wasn’t sure how I had enough self-control to keep standing where I was and not toss her over my shoulder.
“I’ll see you later,” she called and started to walk away straight to a nail salon in town.
I had a ton of shit to do, too.
But it didn’t stop me from waiting around to see what color polish she chose because I knew that waiting to find out could have actually killed me with anticipation.
I was positive it would have been a deep red with the way she’d eyed out the sexy vampire costume, or orange to go with the fall season.
But I should have known better.
My sunshine went with bright pink.