“Oh, thatis a good one, Lucky,” Pearl says, hands plunged into the water while she and Piper scrub the fruit.
“It’s one of my favorites,” he agrees. His voice comes from right behind me, and then his upturned palm appears in my line of sight. I glance over my shoulder at him. “Dance with me.”
Between that,and him rubbing his scarf-covered lips against mine a few minutes ago, andthe kissing from a week ago, I’m flooded with an entirely different type of paranoia. Paranoia that is reminiscent of the first day, when I accused him of coming onto me for shady reasons. Paranoia, which was justified the very next day, when he confirmed that the only reason I was here was so he could try to sleep with me as a conquest of sorts.
I look back at the various milk cartons and continue wiping. “I can’t touch anyone until I’ve washed my hands.”
Lucky retracts his hand and grasps my waist, pushing me to the sink. Turning on the water, he pumps a little soap into his palm and then goes through the motions of washing our hands simultaneously. All the while he does, he stands with his torso pressed to my back and hovers his mouth next to my ear. In a low, husky timbre, he counts to twenty.
I have to squeeze my thighs together.
When Lucky finishes washing our hands, he whips a dish towel off the bar affixed to the dishwasher and then dries them. Pearl cuts her eyes over to us and snickers quietly. Over the speakers, Louis Armstrong chimes in with Ella, and Lucky slips one arm around my waist and holds my hand against his chest. I compliantly rest my other hand on his shoulder, but nervously dart my gaze around the room.
“Just relax, Ava doll,” he says easily, leading me to sway with him, my body pressed flush to his. His 1920s-style suit does little to pad the hard, chiseled planes of his long, lean physique, and that scent of his…
Hidden inside my denim shorts, my lady parts go all achy and wet. Chills scatter up and down my exposed arms.
I exhale silently, but wantonly. “Why are you dancing with me?”
“Why not?” he says in a tone that’s far more casual than the intimately close dance he’s leading me through. “This quarantine is boring as fuck. Why shouldn’twe be dancing for no reason?”
“I mean…” He draws me that much closer and leads us both through a turn. It’s quick enough that I lock my eyes on his to avoid getting dizzy. “I guess…but, why are you dancing withme?”
He smirks. “You asked me that the last time I danced with you. I’m getting the feeling you don’t like dancing with me, which begs the question.”
He lifts my arm above my head and pushes me through a spin. “What question is that?”
He draws me back to him, then drapes both my wrists over his neck and wraps his hands around my waist. “Why don’t you wanna dance with me?”
“Well.” I can’t stifle my laugh. “To be honest, dancing with you feels a lot like snuggling up to a ticking time bomb.”
Lucky goes still. He scowls down the bridge of his straight-edged, Roman nose at me, and then clasps my wrists again to remove them from his neck. “Is that so?”
“I mean…” I draw my hands back to me while he marches across the kitchen to grab the whiskey bottle by its neck. “Yeah. See?” I gesture at him with an upturned palm. “You’re already mad at me again.”
He pivots on the balls of his feet and waves the bottle in an arc at me. “Well, I was just trying to have a little fun with you, and you’re on the defensive again.”
I scoff. “Do you blame me for being defensive after the way you turned on me the very first day I was here?” I turn from him and go back to cartons of milk, picking up where I left off. “This is why I don’t want you and Meyer paying me. I need to make a clean break from you when I’m finally allowed to—”
Lucky’s loud, jarring footsteps cut me off. I glance up in time to see him storming out of the kitchen, and then look at Pearl and Piper.
Looking directly at Piper, I ask, “Is he alwayssuch a dick?”
She offers a tight-lipped smile. “No.”
I raise my brows. “So, it really is just me.”
She slides her eyes sideways and then back to my face, but her smile persists. “Yeah, I think it’s just you.”
Thirteen
Lucky
Quarantine Day 30
There’s a reason why,way back in the Garden of Eden, when God said, “You can have any of this stuff, just don’t touch the stuff on that tree,” that Eve went straight for the stuff on that friggin’ tree.
It’s the same reason why, when you decide you’re going on a diet, all you can think of is going over to Eileen’s to get some of her world-famous New York style cheesecake.
