Page 128 of Just One Look

He had to laugh. “That’s not all,” he told her. “I’ve got a hot girlfriend, too, and she’s a rockstar. And I’m buying her shoes.”

They ate dinner out that night. She paid almost defiantly, as if she thought he expected her to slip him her credit card and spare his tender feelings. He decided his best bet was to stand back and not say anything. When they got home, they took a shower together, and let’s just say that the sight of Elizabeth’s spread hands against the glass wall of the shower enclosure, seen through the clouds of steam, the warm water beating down on her bare back, her dark hair soaked around her face, her cheek being slowly pressed against that glass and her mouth opening, was something he’d remember for a while.

Foreplay was fun. And he’d just say—he might have waited nearly a week to do her again, but that just made it better. There was no sauce like hunger, and he was starving.

On Saturday, her first day off and his first one out of the brace, they had breakfast in bed. He ate eggs and bacon and toast and fried mushrooms and tomatoes, and then he ate Elizabeth. It was all delicious. After that, she got the car out and drove them to the gym, and then he took her dress shopping.

* * *

She was signingthe card reader at David Jones and not, definitely not, blinking at the total. He’d paid for the shoes the other night. She hadn’t been able to talk him out of it. She’d bought the clothes today, though, and she’d also bought perfume.

That hadn’t been intentional. They’d been walking through the ground floor on the way to the dress department, and she’d been letting the ladies spray her. It was fun, like running shrieking through the sprinkler. Why had she never done this? Why had it seemed impossible? She was laughing, and Luka was inhaling her scent every time and giving his opinion, and they were slowly getting to the escalator.

And then she got sprayed by something out of a flat little bottle and was enveloped in flowers. She asked, “What’s this one?” and the clerk said, “Lancome Idole L’Intense. It’s a new scent. Good for evening, but there’s an original version that’s lovely and light for daytime, too.”

Luka said, “Spray it on her neck.”

The clerk did it, and Luka held her head with his hand and inhaled her. Shorts. T-shirt. Six foot four and two hundred forty-eight pounds of hard-muscled man, with his face buried in her neck and her hands on his arms.

Her knees shook.

He lifted his head and said, “Oh, yeh. That works. Let’s try the other one, too.”

She’d bought both versions. It was crazy. It was reckless. It was so ridiculously expensive. She alreadyhadperfume. She did it anyway.

“You’re sure these dresses are right?” she asked him now, her finger hovering over the green button. “Three seems a little excessive, don’t you think?”

“No,” he said. “Three seems perfect to start. What, you’re going to wear the same dress every time we go out? Besides, it’s more efficient, buying them all at once. We’ve barely been here forty minutes, and we’re done. Easy-peasy.”

“I tried to get Nyree to come do this with me,” she said, taking the bag from the sales clerk and having Luka immediately grab it, even though he was the one with the injured neck. “She said she buys all her clothes at something called op shops, and if I didn’t want her to shriek at the top of her lungs about the overpricing and shameful waste of resources in women’s fashion, I’d better not bring her along. Also that she was bound to put me into something much too slutty for my conservative taste, because that was what suited me. That was her word. Slutty. Nice. She invited us out to dinner with her and Marko on Tuesday instead, though. Going out twice in one week.”

He said, “Op shops are charity shops. She dresses from there, eh. Makes sense. She never seems to be wearing what other people are. And some people do go out twice in a week. Especially the night before their day off.”

“But not in a slutty dress.”Just in some slutty underwear,she thought. As it happened, she’d bought a few more things herself in a pheromone-induced haze after the first time he’d kissed her. Hey, she’d had to replace the things Webster had ruined, right? And look how well the ones she’d worn last week had worked!

“Definitely in a slutty dress,” he said. “We’ll buy you some black shoes. Last stop. You can be ladylike tonight. On Tuesday, I want the slutty version. You’ll have time to get ready, because you’ll have had the day off. I want the full treatment.”

“I have black shoes,” she said.

“Not slutty ones, though. You need them, with that red dress.”

“You realize this is shaming,” she said as he took her hand and propelled her inexorably over to the shoe department. “I’ve never been slut-shamed before. Pretty much the opposite, really. How exciting.”

“Yeh,” he said, “but remember, I’ll always be sluttier than you. Years of practice.”

She smiled, and then she grabbed her phone from her purse and glanced at the number. She didn’t recognize it, but she answered, in case it was medical.

“It’s Lauren,” her stepmother said. “I took a chance you weren’t rostered today. I got your number from Piper. I hope that’s all right.”

“Oh. Of course. And no. No, I’m not working. Day off.”

“Oh, good,” Lauren said. “I’m in the city and I have a wee window of time, and I wondered if I could take you out for a coffee and a chat.”

What could she say to that? “Why would you want to?” ranked pretty high up the list, but she couldn’t say that, could she? “Uh … yes,” she said. “Of course.”

“Wonderful. In thirty minutes? I could come to your place and collect you, if you like.”

“Oh. I’m, uh …”

“Buying shoes,” Luka said from beside her.

“Right,” she said. “I’m buying shoes right now.”

“Forty-five minutes? An hour?”

She wasn’t getting out of this. “Forty-five minutes is fine.”

She drove them to her house, since Luka said he could walk home, but when they got there, Lauren hadn’t arrived.

Her father had, though.