The Mane Event. Shelly Laurenston
Dez pushed the empty plate away. “I’m always surprised when I realize you were actually listening to me.”
“I listen. I just don’t say anything unless necessary.” He shrugged. “It felt necessary.”
Jimmy leaned back, and Dez winced as the chair creaked loudly. All that muscle on one man often seemed kind of inhuman. Not a lot of chairs held him easily. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with you going out with a Llewellyn.”
Startled, Dez looked at her friend. He’s not comfortable?
“I agree with you, Jim. I’m not sure you should go through with this.” Now Dez turned her eyes on Vinny.
“Have you both lost your minds?”
“I mean, who is this guy?”
“And when exactly was the last time you saw him?”
“You know, I’d expect this crap from Bukowski, but not from you guys.”
“Bukowski’s uncomfortable with this too, huh?”
“This conversation”—Dez rapped her knuckles against the Formica table—“is over.”
“Be careful, Dez,” Jimmy stated earnestly.
“And don’t sleep with him the first night,” Vinny warned. “We know what a slut you can be.”
Dez turned to Sal. “Do you have anything to add to this bullshit?”
“Yeah.” Sal looked down from the ceiling he’d been staring at. “Based on the structure of this building, if we removed that pillar back there, we could take out this whole block.”
Dez sighed.
Mace sat down next to Smitty and glared at the man. “Could you explain to me again why we’re here?”
“Because my sister wanted to come to Macy’s. See all the pretty Christmas displays. Some people actually like this holiday, Mace.”
“I understand why we’re at Macy’s. I don’t understand why we’re in the lingerie department of Macy’s.” It sure as hell wasn’t helping his present situation. He kept imagining Dez in all the different panties and bras on the sales floor. It simply wouldn’t make dinner an easy event if he walked in sporting a hard-on.
“You think I’m comfortable?” Smitty shook his head. “I’d rather be driving bamboo shoots through my fingernails than thinkin’ about my sister in any of this…stuff,” he growled. “And she better be gettin’ somethin’ flannel.”
“Yeah, right.” Smitty always wanted to believe his baby sister remained some kind of untouched virgin. At twenty-nine and seriously cute, Mace doubted that.
“I’ll have you know wolf women are very into flannel.”
“Not the wolf women I’ve known.”
Surprised, Smitty turned to Mace, who smiled and shrugged. Smitty really thought he knew everything about him, didn’t he? Foolish puppy.
“What can I say? I’m a male. They were three healthy females. It was the Philippines. Do the math.”
“And after all that you think you can settle down with one woman? A human, no less?”
“Of course I can.” Mace grinned. “Cause she’s Dez.”
“I met her, Mace. She’s a nice girl and all, but I don’t get it.”
“Good. Keep it that way.”
Smitty chuckled. “Man, hoss, you got it bad.”
“I know.” He stood up. “You better tell your sister to get a move on. I’ve got to head downtown soon. I am not going to be late for this.”
Mace wandered away to check out all the lingerie. He wondered how long before he and Dez would be at the “It’s okay to buy me lingerie” stage of their relationship. He hoped it would be tomorrow. Although even he had to admit that might be pushing it a little.
Or maybe dinner would prove she had changed after all. So much he’d rather stick his hand in an open flame instead of spending one more second with her. It would definitely make things easier since she insisted on being damn difficult about all this. Yet he wasn’t holding out hope for that scenario either.
Mace had just passed a line of demi-cup bras that actually made his mouth water when he saw her. Looking beautiful and sexy—and desperate. She was talking to some short guy with no neck. Actually, no-neck was doing all the talking. Dez seemed trapped. She nodded as if she were really listening, but her eyes seemed to search for anyone who could rescue her. Eventually their eyes locked, and Mace could practically hear her screaming for help. He realized how much of their time together she did remember, when she made a move he hadn’t seen in more than twenty years.
Dez ran her hands through her beautiful auburn hair, brought her fingertips over her ears, lingering on the right one as she gave it a gentle and subtle tug.
It had been their sign. The move they made when Amber Kollerici backed you into a corner to discuss the fun world of knitting or when Dominic Bannon had you backed into a corner threatening to pound your face in. Their secret sign for “Get me the fuck outta here!”
With a smile he didn’t try to hide, he held up the bra and panty set he’d been eyeing and pointed at it. He raised an eyebrow. Immediately she caught on. If I help you, you wear this…
She scratched her forehead with one finger. The middle one. He laughed and went off to save his damsel in distress.
Wasn’t holiday shopping for your family bad enough without having to add running into the ex-husband? Especially when he stopped to buy lingerie for his fiancée. Then she did that thing again. That thing her post-breakup therapist told her never to do when she met up with her ex to go over property splits or paperwork.
Ask him how he was doing.
Because Matt would tell her. He’d tell her in detail. And it was always bad. The man made über-money, lived in the poshest part of Manhattan with his hot, slut fiancée. Yet he always found a reason to complain about something—if not everything.
Already he’d been talking for a good twenty minutes about how everyone at his firm hated him. Of course they hated him. Matt made being an asshole into an art form. But, of course, that couldn’t possibly be the reason. They didn’t understand him. His brilliance had them all jealous, or they envied the fact he could buy a new car every other year. It definitely wasn’t because he was an asshole.
For the billionth time since she realized her marriage had been a huge mistake, Dez kicked herself. What the hell had she been thinking anyway? That he might actually like her? That he wanted to be with her to raise a family? That he’d be okay with her being on The Job? She shuddered, thinking about those many arguments over her late nights and overtime schedule.
Well, that’s what she got for trying to prove her sisters wrong. She wanted to show them she could get a man. That she could be happy.
Idiot.
Well, she had no one to blame but herself. All that aside, she still needed to get away. She just never knew how to politely get herself out of these conversations. At her very core, she still felt a little guilty over their breakup. So telling him to fuck off and storming away never seemed like an option.
Dez glanced around. She’d been shopping for her sisters and their brats when she found herself wandering around the lingerie department and thinking about Mace. She never worried about underwear too much, but she did have on her special, dark red lace panties with matching bra. Although she had no intention of letting Mace see her in them, she still couldn’t bring herself to whip out the Hanes Her Way for this particular occasion.
Now, pricing all the great stuff they had available, she found herself thinking all sorts of dirty and morally