10
Lucas
Iwatched as Grace Banner blanched, gagged, and rushed out of the restaurant like her pants were on fire. Concerned, I excused myself from the voluptuous but utterly vapid Russian date one of my idiot brothers had set me up with. She nodded, her big blue eyes totally confused. I sighed, set my napkin down and rushed outside after Grace.
She was almost running to her car. I stayed close, but stalled when she got in and rested her head on the steering wheel. Whatever had happened took it out of her. I growled when I thought about the man she'd been with. If he'd done anything to insult her, I'd kill him.
I stepped over to the car and tapped on her window. She jerked and let out a squeak of alarm. When she saw who it was, I could see the very real war in her expression.
I seemed to be the last person she wanted to talk with.
Interesting.
I made the motion to roll her window down. I wasn't sure why. Old age. No one had manual window controls anymore.
But she did. After a moment of contemplation. I watched as she schooled her expression into neutrality.
"Lucas!" she said, pretending to be surprised and doing a terrible job.
I leaned one arm on the roof of her car and leaned in. "Hey there, Grace. Everything okay?"
She gave me a brilliant smile. "Of course it is! Why do you ask?"
Liar, liar, pants on fire. "You looked like someone pulled the fire alarm."
Grace held up her cell phone. "A call," she blurted. "I got a call I had to take."
She hadn't been on her phone at all when she had gone outside.
"Uh huh."
"I'm serious!"
"Uh huh. Why don't you tell me what really happened?"
Grace's face went thunderous. She started to power up the window. "Bugger off!" she yelled at me, but just before the window shut all the way she screamed something else.
It sounded suspiciously like "And wear protection, you man whore!"
I almost fell when she accelerated out of the parking lot like her pants were on fire.
Curious. Why in the world would she tell me to wear protection? Unless... A wide grin split my face and I chuckled all the way back inside.
The Russian whosename I'd forgotten several times already stared. I noticed she'd helped herself to another glass of wine.
"I'm so sorry. I'm going to have to take you home after this. Something came up."
Her face fell. "No make love?"
Making love was the absolute last thing on my mind when it came to a woman like her. I cleared my throat. "No. No making love," I said an emphasized that by making a crossed hands gesture.
"Hmph," she said in her thick accent. "You do not know what you're missing."
I knew exactly was I was missing and who was to blame for it. Freaking Grace Branner. When we finished our meals, I escorted the Russian back to my car and noticed she was wobbling in her four inch heels. Why women wore those things outside of the bedroom I would never know. I poured her into the car, listened with patience to her giggling and broken English about all the dirty things I could do to her, and drove her home as quickly as I could.
I went to bed annoyed and thinking of all the creative ways I could strangle that pain in the ass clairvoyant.
I wokeup the next morning with a plan. I hadn't thought much more into what Grace could have seen other than the obvious - me getting sweaty with that Russian. I still couldn't remember her name, but I figured it was probably Svetlana. Weren't they all named something like that? Anyhow, as I lay in bed thinking of creative ways to murder Grace, my thoughts took a dark path and I began to wonder what else she saw when she'd taken a forbidden peek at my future.
