10. lucas
TEN
lucas
I was nothing if not inconsistent this week.
I’d learned discipline from my years in the military. From basic training to sniper school and NCO training, I learned and then executed. All the while shedding the version of me that I’d left behind in Kitchi Falls.
Yet here I was, after just days ago telling myself to stay away from this very woman in my arms.
Thanks to Mazzie.
“You’re not even going to at least hear her out?”
As I’d readied the shop for opening, Mazzie had continued to grill me about last Friday. For some reason, the woman had the ability to get under my skin like a little sister might. I’d fessed up, and that was the beginning of the end.
“No,” I’d said to her, without explanation.
And like Charlee might have done, Mazzie had called me right out. “Well, that’s crap. You can’t live in the same town as the woman and not at least have one conversation with her about what happened. You can face down terrorists, but you’re afraid of talking to an ex-girlfriend. Come on, Lucas.”
Ouch.
So I’d said, fuck it. Let’s have that conversation.
And by conversation, clearly I must have meant dance. But Charlee did that to me. Always had. Inflamed me in a way that no one before or since her could do. It was as if the woman was made to drive me fucking wild, and ten years, unfortunately, hadn’t changed that.
But maybe I should not have chosen to have that conversation with Charlee in my arms swaying to a song overtly about sex.
“You confuse the hell out of me,” she said, her tits pressed up against my chest. They were as large and round as I remembered, but I would not think of titty fucking her right now. No, sir. I would not.
“Join the club, cupcake.”
I tried not to groan as all of it—the feel of her, her scent, the hours upon hours I’d spent, especially in those earlier years, longing for just one more taste of those sweet lips—began to make dancing with her slightly uncomfortable.
“What’s confusing about me wanting to talk to you?” she asked, her hands shifting slightly around my neck.
“Maybe you forgot. You broke up with me, remember?” I tried to keep my voice neutral.
“Of course, I do.” She pulled back to look at me.
Those damn brown eyes of hers. Big and framed by incredibly long lashes, they were both pleading and sultry at the same time. A siren’s eyes. You couldn’t look for too long without losing a bit of yourself. Or at least your resolve.
“I regret that, Lucas. I wish I’d been stronger back then. More sure of myself.”
Fuck.
To hear the words aloud. Ones I’d suspected she might say, which, if we were being honest, was the reason I hadn’t wanted to talk to her about it in the first place.
“It’s not good to have regrets, Charlee,” I said, holding her gaze.
“No,” she agreed. “It’s not. Eats you up inside. I won’t do it anymore. It’s actually one of the major tenets of my life.”
I couldn’t help smiling at that. In some ways, this was the same Charlee I’d dated. Even in high school, she’d had motivational stickers on her notebook. The fact that she would have “life tenets” didn’t surprise me at all.
“To not have regrets?”
“Exactly. To minimize them as much as possible. Think about how I might look back years from now and regard a decision. It helps quite a bit.”
“Does it?” I asked, skeptical. Seemed like a good theory that might be more difficult in practice.
She looked at me strangely as we moved to the rhythm.
“I don’t remember you being so cynical.”
“I don’t remember you being so goddamn sexy, but here we are. Different people than before.”
Her eyes widened, as they should. But if Charlee thought I was one to pussyfoot around a topic, she’d learn otherwise pretty quickly.
“The military changed you.”
“Inevitable,” I said.
“I want to talk to you about it.”
The song came to an end. “Talk to me about what?”
“The military. What you’ve been doing these last ten years. Us.”
I wasn’t the only one not dicking around. I could appreciate Charlee not playing games or being coy about what she wanted.
But I also wasn’t ready to jump back into something with a woman who’d essentially agreed I wasn’t good enough for her.
“My life circumstances haven’t changed all that much,” I warned her. “Just the other night I had to fish my dad out of a bar he refused to leave. I’m just an Army grunt who’s about to raise hell in a town with little interest in being home to my tattoo parlor. If anything, I’m stepping in more shit now than before.”
We moved to the side of the dance floor.
“I don’t care about any of that,” she said.
“No? Then maybe enlighten me. Why exactly did we break up?” Then, to drive home my point, I leaned forward to whisper into her ear. “If memory serves, the night before you ditched me, you had, and I quote, ‘the best come of your life’ as I fingered you during the Movie Under the Stars. No one else knew what was happening under that blanket, but I did. And you certainly felt it.” I stood back up. “The next day? ‘Sorry Lucas, this isn’t going to work.’”
If I’d thought it was clever to bring that night up, it was less so now that I had major wood thinking about my fingers in her pussy. How wet she’d been. How much I’d wanted to be inside her, having fully thought someday I would be.
Really clever, genius. Who exactly are we punishing?
“One night,” she said. “One explanation. If you never want to see me again after that, I will avoid you at all costs. You walk into a bar, I leave. Just give me one night to explain.”
No fucking way I was going on a date with Charlee. I had discipline, yes. That kind of willpower? I didn’t want to find out. Something less intimate? Minus drinks?
I expelled a breath. “Come to the shop tomorrow any time. I’ll be getting ready for the opening.”
“Maybe you can give me my first tattoo. I could be your first customer.”
My eyes narrowed. Was she screwing with me?
“You aren’t a tattoo kind of girl.”
She shrugged. “Maybe I am and don’t know it.”
“Mommy and Daddy will not be pleased.”
That didn’t endear me to her. Which was fine. We needed some space.
“I am a thirty-year-old woman. Not an eighteen-year-old recent high school graduate who didn’t know her ass from a hole in the ground.”
Laughing, I had to give her some credit here. “Look who’s not holding back now?”
“I can promise you one thing, Lucas. Whatever happens here, I definitely am not planning to hold back. I’ve waited too long for this moment to do that.”
Despite myself, I asked, “What moment is that?”
She didn’t hesitate. “The opportunity to talk to you. To explain. To see you again.”
Fuck.
I’d only come over here for a drink, to say hello to Mazzie, and planned to head back next door. Now seemed like the perfect time to exit.
“I’ll be at the shop all day,” I said.
Then, before I grabbed the woman and full-on kissed her in the middle of the bar, I pivoted and left. It was only when I was back in the shop, attempting to concentrate on a new design idea, that I realized I never did say hello to Mazzie.
Back to work, Lucas.
But getting Charlee out of my mind proved impossible. Questions were, did she really want a tattoo? And to be my first customer? If so, what would Charlee think of my design? Would she really go through with it?
I had my doubts. But if nothing else, tomorrow would prove to be an interesting day.