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An Excerpt From: LIBERATING LACEY
Copyright © ANNE CALHOUN, 2009
All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing,
Inc.
“I’m Hunter,” he said, surprising her.
“Lacey,” she replied and held out her hand.
He shook it with a firm, calloused grip, then said, “What brings you to Buff, Lacey?”
There was no point in wasting his time if he laughed at
the thought of doing more than talking to a woman closer to forty than
thirty. She tucked her hair behind her ear and said, “I’m looking for
someone to take home.”
“What’s a class
act like you doing here, looking to hook up?” He asked his questions like
he expected to be answered, with a hint of suggestiveness under the
matter-of-fact tone.
This was not good. Surely barely-there jeans and half a
top masked twelve years of private school and a classics degree from a
women’s college. “Class act?”
“Honey, you can’t hide class under those fuck-me
clothes,” he said.
She finished her wine in an effort to hide her chagrin. “I’m
new to this kind of place, this scene,” she admitted. “I didn’t
think anyone would look beyond the clothes.”
“It’s the way you hold yourself,” he said.
That was intriguing. “How do I hold myself?”
“Straight back, direct gaze to cover the nerves. You’re
checking things out, seeing how they work, getting a feel for the scene,
but you’re not desperate. Some women come in here and make fools out of
themselves trying to score a guy. Any guy. You know exactly what you want
and you’ll go home alone if you don’t find it.”
Sixteen years of private education kept her jaw from
dropping, but only just. “You give me more credit than I deserve.”
He gave her a knowing look. “I’m not that far off.
Lawyer?” he asked as he signaled the bartender for a second glass of wine
for her.
“Commercial mortgage broker,” she said absently. “What
do you do that makes you so observant?”
“I’m a cop.”
Her eyes swept over his body again, taking in the way he
held his ground at the bar without effort. Heat spread through her as she flashed
back to his firm grip, how he easily controlled her body.
“Thank you,” she said when the bartender set the glass
of wine in front of her. “That must be an interesting job.”
“Ninety-five percent routine, five percent pure
adrenaline rush,” he replied.
“You don’t shoot people regularly like television cops?”
“Too much paperwork,” he said.
His off-hand delivery startled a laugh out of her. “Of
course, the paperwork,” she agreed with an arch smile and earned herself a
slight lift at the corners of his mouth.
“So, Lacey, what are you looking for in a hook-up?”
This was familiar, the negotiations dance. The trick was
to know when to reveal your hand and when to hold back. Against all odds
this extremely fine man was hanging around when the bar was full of younger,
more flirtatious women. If he’d checked out every woman who walked by she’d
know he was just marking time until a better prospect came along, but his
gaze was all over her, striking sparks with each quick glance.
Time to lay her cards on the table. She copied his
attentive stance, leaning in to speak into his ear rather than shouting
over the driving beat of dance music. “Someone who can show me what I’ve
been missing for the last decade. I’m recently divorced and spent my
marriage having sex in the missionary position once a week. I want to
broaden my horizons.”
He pulled back and looked at her, his green eyes
slumberous. “What do you have against the missionary position? It’s one of
my favorites.”
She frowned, refusing to get distracted by one of his
favorites. “Oh? Why is that?”
It was his turn to lean in. Each warm breath riffled the
hair at her temple and tantalizing heat radiated from his body. “Because
there’s nothing like the feel of a woman’s body under mine, all tight and
hot and wet as she slowly comes apart.”
In fifteen years of marriage, not once had she ever
“slowly come apart” under her husband. She stared at him as her heart
knocked hard against her ribs, stopped for a moment, then restarted at a
rabbit’s pace. His eyes, moss-dark and blatantly sensual now, held her gaze
with a bold challenge and she couldn’t look away.
“But you don’t want missionary, so we’ll think of
something else. What do you want?”
Words failed her. Hunter’s assessment of her standards
was dead-on. She knew exactly what she wanted, him, but she simply
couldn’t articulate the unfamiliar ache throbbing just below the button of
her jeans.
Hunter’s eyebrows lifted almost imperceptibly. “Come
on,” he said. “Let’s dance.”
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