by Tara Leigh
I’m back, safe and sound.
Setting Lance’s keys on the kitchen counter, I stack the takeout boxes Tim sent me home with in the refrigerator. It’s one of the perks of the job. I usually don’t have to buy any of my meals until at least Wednesday, sometimes even Thursday.
I’m debating whether to have a midnight snack when I hear low voices coming from the living room.
Did Lance invite people over?
Not that it would be any of my business if he did. It’s his house—for the next two months, anyway.
I slip my shoes off and tiptoe out of the kitchen. If he has friends over, I’ll just head back to my room and leave him to it. I rarely mix with the shares, except for Savannah, of course.
But curiosity draws me toward the living room rather than away from it, an uncomfortable churning in my stomach growing stronger with each step. I really don’t want to walk in on Lance making out with some girl.
My breath stills in my throat as I peek slowly around a wall.
It’s the TV.
An embarrassingly strong surge of relief turns the cartilage in my knees to jelly.
Lance is alone.
And . . . naked. Again.
He’s lying on the couch, flat on his back, an open pizza box on the floor containing half the pie. The white towel that was wrapped around his hips earlier is now undone, one corner hanging off the cushion.
Without intending to, I find myself moving closer. And closer. All the while telling myself I’m just going to check his foot. That’s all.
And I do, peering first at the bandage I affixed to his heel earlier. There is a dark splotch in the center of it, blood, but not enough that I feel compelled to change it immediately.
Okay, Vivienne. That’s enough. Go.
But my eyes are two kids in a candy store. And my legs are glued to the floor.
Fine. Just a quick look.
Exhaling a sigh, I follow the curve of Lance’s ankles to his defined calves and wide, muscular thighs. His legs are covered in short, wiry hairs that blend in with the color of his skin. My hands itch with the need to feel their texture against my palm.
But it’s what’s between his thighs that makes the saliva in my mouth turn to dust. I’ve never been on the receiving end of a dick pic, and I’ve never really taken the time to look too closely at a guy’s junk. But the thick organ resting quietly on Lance’s inner thigh, curved around his balls, is definitely not junk. I swallow heavily, wondering what it would feel like inside me. Very, very good, I imagine.
Giving a silent shake of my head, I continue my perusal. It’s obvious the Viking works out, but I wouldn’t be surprised if, rather than hitting the gym, he engaged in sword fighting and hunting with his bare hands. His lower abdomen is a topographical anatomy map. Transverse muscles lead to the sharp slices of his obliques. Abs stacked neatly in two rows, four deep. An eight-pack. Impressive pectoral muscles interrupted only by the tight discs of his nipples.
The column of Lance’s neck leads to a chiseled jaw dusted with golden scruff. The kind that would give me a major case of goose bumps if he, say, dragged his chin along my inner thigh.
Stop it, Vivienne.
I don’t realize I’ve whispered the rebuke aloud until the full lips above said chin twitch, one corner pulling outward to reveal a dimple that only accents the sharp slash of his cheekbones.
Dread pools deep in my stomach, an embarrassed brew that sends a shiver down my spine. Because when I drag my gaze an inch north, where I should have seen the thick fringe of Lance’s lashes fanning out over the crest of his cheekbones, they are instead curling toward his brows.
Because the Viking is awake.
“There’s no need for you to stop, Vivienne. Not when you’re clearly enjoying your tour.”
I want the floor to open up and pull me into the fiery pits of hell. My cheeks are so enflamed, the rest of me might as well burn up, too.
“I-I thought you were—”
“—Asleep?”
I take another step back, managing a nod.
“I was. But I’m awake now.”
His husky growl sends a bolt of warmth between my thighs, prompting me to look between his. Lance’s cock is awake now, too.
Very, very good is probably a very, very vast understatement.
Chapter 8
Lance
61 DAYS UNTIL LABOR DAY
“For the love of God, can you please find some sort of clothing?”
I jerk awake to find Vivienne glaring at me, her red hair sleep-mussed and cascading down her back in heavy waves, wearing a tank top and short shorts. And no bra. Fuck. Me.
I’m about to explain that I left my suitcase in the car I’d loaned her and didn’t feel much like retrieving it in the middle of the night after she returned.
Instead, I hear trumpets blare. Trumpets?
She heads off to the front door, and I realize it’s the doorbell.
Securing the towel around my waist, I stand up and pad toward the foyer. A college kid wearing a white T-shirt and jeans, holding a clipboard, leers at Vivienne like she’s what’s on the menu for breakfast.
I clear my throat with a distinctive rumble. Translation: Eyes on me, motherfucker.
He immediately straightens, his gaze meeting mine over her shoulder. “Uh, I’m here from Ricky’s Rentals. We’re picking up the furniture.”
She spins around, looking quizzically at me. “You messaged Seth already?”
“Last night.” I told him to get his cheap shit out of my house before I had it delivered directly to his office.
I motion the guy inside. “Take everything.”
While every mattress and piece of furniture is carted through the front door and into the waiting truck, I retrieve my suitcase and change into appropriate Hamptons attire: a polo shirt and golf shorts. Afterward, Vivienne insists on taking a look at my heel. I don’t argue. I can’t remember the last time anyone fussed over me, but it’s . . . nice.
Within an hour, the house is empty except for Vivienne and me.
And the damn bean bag chairs. Apparently, they were purchased from a Wal-Mart.
Vivienne notices me looking at them with disdain. “Garbage comes tomorrow, I’ll toss them out with the trash.”
I grin. “I can take care of it.”
She crosses her arms over her chest. “If you want me to stay, you’ll let me do my job.”
“You have a job.” I turn in a slow circle, my arms outstretched. “This place is a blank slate.”
“So . . .” Her voice is hesitant. “You really meant it? You want me to furnish the entire house?”
“Of course. I told you that last night.” I notice Vivienne’s sheepish expression, her hunched shoulders. “What—you thought I was just blowing smoke?”
“Maybe. Or you could have changed your mind. I wouldn’t have held you to it.”
“Well, I have no intention of sleeping on the floor for the rest of summer.” I frown at a few scuff marks on the walls. “This place needs a fresh coat of paint, too.”
“Give me ten minutes. We’ll stop at a hardware store first. Then we’ll focus on furniture—”
“We? I figured I’d just give you my credit card.”
Vivienne’s face falls. “Oh. Sure, I guess we could do that. But, Lance—I don’t know the first thing about what you like. Normally, I create inspiration boards and spend time with my clients, getting to know their style before actually making a single purchase. We haven’t even discussed your budget.”
I knew my capitulation was imminent from the second she said my name. Lance. It was like a sigh. “Okay, okay. Fine, I’ll come with you.”
I hate shopping. Not to say I don’t like buying things. I do. Companies, cars, televisions. This house.
But buying is different than shopping. It’s pleasure that comes from ownership. Shopping, especially in stores or, God forbid, a mall, is like the third ring of hell.
I watch the bounce of Vivienne’s breas
ts as she pads toward her room.
Maybe it won’t be so bad. I’ve always liked the heat.
Chapter 9
Vivienne
“I appreciate that this is only going to be your home for the next two months, but I’d really like a little input from you.” After spending the past twenty minutes asking Lance whether he prefers this sofa or that one, this tone of wood or another, and receiving only the most basic feedback, I’ve finally led him toward an alcove out of the way of other shoppers.
“I gave you input. I told you I didn’t like anything at that last place.” Lance gestures at the showroom of my favorite furniture store on Long Island. “This place will do.”
That last place was a warehouse with the highest end rental furniture available. And to be honest, I share his opinion. We’re nearly six weeks into the summer season, and all the good stuff has been taken. What’s left is either garish and dated or, on the other side of the spectrum, the rejects from impersonal corporate housing developments.
“Okay, but now we have the opposite problem. The options here are practically limitless. A little feedback from you will go a long way.”
I’m not exaggerating. Located on the tony North Shore of Long Island, Classic Galleries is about an hour from the Hamptons. With over one hundred room settings spread across four floors, I’m confident we’ll find enough floor samples to adequately furnish the beach house.
Plus, it’s family-owned, and I prefer shopping at places where I don’t have to arrange deliveries and track down missing or damaged items with an international call center, where I’ll be disconnected at least twice before my issue is resolved.
Lance blinks at me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, technically, you’re my client. It would help to have a sense of what you like. We don’t really have time to order anything, and you can get the best deals on floor samples anyway. But if nothing here floats your boat, you might as well just rent furniture for the rest of the summer. The house is absolutely gorgeous, it won’t look like a—”
He levels me with a wolfish stare. “If money was no object, could we get everything here?”
I look around, feeling a pang of longing at all the incredible pieces displayed under this one roof. “Absolutely.”
“Good. Then money’s no object. Just pick stuff out and let’s get it done.”
A part of me bristles at his cavalier attitude. “What are you going to do with this stuff after the summer?”
“Let me worry about that.”
“I’m not picking out furniture that’s going to wind up in a dumpster in two months.”
He sighs. “Look, the owner of the house is a friend of mine. If you make it look good, he’ll be able to increase the rent. Think of it like an investment.”
A friend. It feels almost too convenient. But the truth is, I don’t know Lance. I certainly don’t know his friends. And he does make sense. The Hamptons is the kind of place where people buy houses they might never live in, renting them out for exorbitant amounts.
I push my doubts and questions to the back of my mind. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Vivienne. You’ve been hired to decorate a Southampton beach house. Stop whining and start working. “Tell your friend that his place is too nice to be a share house.”
Lance meanders over to a large leather chair, slightly favoring his injured foot, and sinks into it. “I will. In the meantime, you have carte blanche. Turn the house into something that can be rented to a Wall Street guy with more money than he knows what to do with.”
A bachelor pad? In my opinion, the house would be perfect for a family. Or at least a couple intending to have a family. “Does this guy have a girlfriend, a fiancée?”
But Lance only takes out his phone, repeating, “Carte blanche,” before taking a call and tuning me out entirely.
The interior designer in me is rubbing her hands together in glee. Carte blanche! They’re magic words. And yet, intimidating too. At Abbott, I was part of a team. I didn’t make decisions in a vacuum. And so I don’t have the confidence that comes with experience.
I don’t move right away. Instead, I observe Lance quietly for a moment. There is a solid steadiness to him that calms at least some of my nerves. Like he has a tattoo somewhere that says, Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff. It wasn’t among the three I noticed earlier but maybe I’ll have to look again . . .
Realizing that I’m staring, I spin around and hunt down a salesperson I’ve worked with before. Together, we spend the next two hours filling the house. Once we’re through, she writes up the order and takes it to Lance for his approval. I fight back a wave of nausea when I catch sight of the total, but he barely glances at it before handing over his credit card. A black AmEx, of course.
I steel myself to defend my purchases in the car on the way back, but Lance spends the entire drive fielding work calls. It’s easy to tune out the alphabet soup of acronyms. CTI, BAS, DAST, IP, APT. It’s like he’s speaking another language.
When we get back to the house, there’s another truck parked in the driveway. No, not a truck. A white van. I read the logo stenciled on the side.
Lance ends his call, and I ask, “How did you get painters here so quickly?”
“Easy. I told the guys at the hardware store what I’d be willing to pay if they found a competent team to do the work today.”
Lance’s entitled arrogance reminds me unpleasantly of Richard. “Of course. Throw money at the problem and—I snap my fingers—“problem solved.”
He turns off the ignition. “If you believe that money solves every problem, either you’re incredibly naive or you’ve lived one hell of a charmed life.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, the brief flare of resentment I felt completely extinguished. Lance is right, on both counts. Maybe I’m the one with the chip on my shoulder.
Inside, the painters have already started taping and priming. There are drop cloths everywhere, and I walk around the house, making sure the paint colors we selected correspond to the cans in each room. It doesn’t take long. All of the main rooms are painted the same color, white with just a hint of gray. The bathrooms are various shades of sand or pale blue. The only exception to the neutral palette is the office, which will be painted an inky, not-quite-navy.
It’s going to be stunning.
An unexpected feeling of sadness washes over me. Once summer ends, I might never set foot in this house again. I’ll probably never get to meet the owner, see their reaction to my work.
So much time, money, and effort to put into a place that doesn’t belong to me. A few months from now, or even a few years from now, some stranger might wake up in the bed I picked out, eat their breakfast at the table I stripped and restained, curl up with their family on the sofa I chose . . . and never even know I exist.
“You’re leaving?” Lance asks sternly, his shadow falling over me as I stuff clothes in my suitcase.
“No.” I’m still not sure how long I’ll stay. I can’t imagine spending the next two months living here with Lance. But I can’t afford to live anywhere else in the Hamptons, and my parents live forty-five minutes away—longer with traffic. Commuting back and forth to my nighttime waitressing shifts will be almost impossible without a car of my own. And so will accepting any last minute jobs that could come up. “I’m just putting my stuff away before the painters need to get in here.”
Lance frowns as he looks around the room. Somehow it feels even smaller now without a bed and dresser. “This is where you’ve been staying?”
“Yes.”
“Did you order a bed for it?”
Nerves flutter inside my stomach. Giving this place a more luxurious feel means not having to shove a bed into every available room. “N-no. There’s no basement and very little storage on this floor. I think the house will show better if we treat this space as an extension of the mud room. I could have a closet company come out and install built-ins. That is, if you think your friend would go for it.”
The impact of converting my cozy downstairs nook into storage space hits me harder now than when I was at the furniture store. Tonight, Lance and I will be sleeping just a few feet away from each other. “As long as you don’t mind.”
The electric current running between us shifts to a higher voltage. There’s an odd expression on Lance’s face as he looks down at me. I’m on my knees, he’s standing, and if anyone were to walk by, at first glance, they might assume his dick was in my mouth. Or would be, any minute.
I run my tongue over my lips, my body heating. Just thinking about the taste of him in my mouth, the blunt head of his cock sliding down my throat . . .
“Of course not.” Lance’s voice emerges as a strangled-sounding husk of itself, and I can’t help the brief flare of victory that overtakes me, knowing the sexual tension sparking and heaving between us isn’t one-sided.
Beautiful women in the Hamptons are a common commodity. I’ve been hit on plenty of times this summer. But there’s something about the way Lance is looking at me. There’s attraction there, lots of it. But his look is not a predatory leer. It’s not the kind of interest that lights up at every pair of breasts in his vicinity.
I didn’t see Lance look twice at any of the women at the furniture store today. Even the attractive blonde who made a show of checking the price tag of the chair he was sitting in, leaning down at just the right angle that her cleavage was practically in his face.
Lance is interested in me, I’m sure of it. Not as a roommate or an employee, but as a woman.
Lance takes a step back, and for a moment, I think he’s going to close the door. I’m anticipating rug burn on my knees as I kneel at his feet, the feel of his supple leather belt in my hands as I unbuckle it, the low whine of his zipper as I tug it down.
Maybe even the scrape of his scruff on my skin.
