An hour later, Viv gave her a plateful of sugar cookies and she returned to her apartment.
She got out one of her sketchbooks and sat in the corner chair in her bedroom. With the plate of cookies in reach, she got to work on some ideas she had for Alice’s wedding dress, which was to be totally Alice: dramatic and daring, with a very low back framed in lace, snugly fitted past the hips, flaring out to an ocean of lace and tulle.
An hour flew by. She sketched and munched cookies and the dress took shape. And then the buzzer downstairs rang. It was Tabby, running over on her break to pick up her dress. Lucy gave it to her, along with a couple of cookies. They chatted for a few minutes. Tabby grabbed her in a hug and was gone.
Lucy went back to work. About a half an hour later she glanced up and saw the moving haze of white out the window.
Snow.
Real snow this time, the flakes so thick and white, like a moving veil softly obscuring the buildings across the street. Perfect. Beautiful. Her first snowy Christmastime in all of her life.
If only Dami...
She cut off the thought. He wasn’t there. He wouldn’t be there. And she was going to be absolutely fine with that. She had a good life, damn it. A life that she’d fought for, a life in an exciting city where she was already making friends. A life that was just right for her. She didn’t need the Player Prince at her side to make it all complete.
Someone knocked at the door.
Lucy tossed her sketchbook on the bed. It had to be someone in the building—Ed, the super, or maybe Ed’s wife, Marie, or Viv. Anyone else would have to ring the buzzer downstairs first. To be on the safe side, she checked the peephole before pulling the door wide.
And her heart stopped dead in her chest at what she saw.
Dami.
Dami in New York. At her door.
Dami, looking like every woman’s dream man, tall and dark and so very sexy in that smooth and smoldering way he had—and not only that. So much more than that.
Dami, her friend, who always stepped up when she needed him. The person she most wanted to talk to, to laugh with, to share the snow out the window with, to hold hands with....
Dami.
Oh, God. Dami. For real.
Lucy whipped off the chain, yanked back the security bolt and flung the door wide.
The door swung back and Lucy flew at him, calling his name. “Dami!”
He opened his arms and she threw herself at him, jumping up, landing against him with a happy laugh, wrapping her arms and legs around him. She smelled of vanilla and apples and something else, something he’d missed way too much, something that was simply her. “Luce.” Her name escaped him in a strange rumble, surprising him with its rawness, sounding like hunger. Like not-so-carefully controlled desire.
Lucy was Lucy, all gushing, gleeful chatter. “Dami, Dami, Dami. I can’t believe you’re here. I wished and wished you might come. And poof, like a dream. Here you are. It’s snowing and it’s Christmas. And you came.”
“Luce.” Heat coiled in his belly, flared across his skin. He was all too aware of the press of her soft breasts to his chest, of those slim legs gripping around him....
And not only that. So much more. He drank in the sight of her, that glowing smile, the sparkle in her soft brown eyes.
Alive, that was it. Lucy was fully engaged, completely alive. Full of light, like her name. She pushed back every shadow, wiped out all cynicism. She made it impossible to be disinterested or disillusioned. She made everything fresh and new.
He should be ashamed, and he knew it, to have agreed to relieve her of her innocence in the first place. And then to have gone ahead and done just that.
And now to be showing up on her doorstep in the burning hope that maybe she would allow him to do it again.
And again.
She tipped her mouth up to him. “Dami...” Breathless. Hopeful. So damned sweet.
He couldn’t resist—and who was he fooling? No one. He had no intention of resisting.
He cradled the back of her head, his fingers sliding into her shining silky hair. “Luce.” He took her mouth.
She made a soft, yearning little sound as his tongue invaded the warmth and wetness beyond her lips. And then she tightened her arms and legs around him and kissed him back, with no coyness and no hesitation, with complete abandon.
He kissed her harder, deeper, needing the taste of her, needing to fill himself up with the sweetness of her.
And they couldn’t go on like this here on the landing. Anyone might wander by.
The door was open behind her. He continued to plunder her mouth as he crossed the threshold with her all wrapped around him, her hands sifting in his hair, her thighs pressing him tight, her kiss as open and eager as her sweet face, her willing heart.
He swung the door shut with his heel. Laughing a little against his mouth, she instructed, “Wait. Back up.” He did, and she reached out behind him and engaged the lock. “That way.” She kissed the words onto his mouth and pointed over her shoulder down a windowless hallway.
He took her to the bedroom at the front of the apartment. Outside the arched windows that faced the street, snow was falling, thick and steady, reflecting light, filling the room with a silvery glow. The space was crowded with furniture—sewing machines, a wide table, adjustable dressmaker forms. Weaving his way to the bed took some doing, and she didn’t help a lot—she was kissing him so hard and deep, moving against him, arousing him, making soft hungry sounds that thoroughly distracted him.
A good thing he was determined. He skirted the second dressmaker form and he was at the bed at last. Easing his fingers under her thighs, he peeled her away from him and gently laid her down.
She stared up at him, softly smiling, eyes wide and so bright, as he undressed her with the ease and swiftness born of years of undressing women. She wore black leggings, a big green sweater that went halfway down her slim thighs and thick socks. He had all that off of her in no time. Underneath, her bra was red lace and her little satin panties were pink. He rolled her over and unhooked the bra and whipped it away.
“Dami...” She rolled onto her back again, laughing a little. Incomparable. Everything about her—the complete lack of pretense or artifice, the small slanted white scars on her rib cage and the longer one, pale as milk, that ran straight down between her breasts. She had no shyness about those scars, no embarrassment. She made them beautiful by her complete acceptance of them.
He bent close, kissed the long one that bisected her above her heart. “You are like no one else I’ve ever known.”
She wrapped her arms around his head, pulled him closer. The scent of her claimed him. “I hope that’s good,” she whispered.
“It is very good,” he replied against her skin.
“Dami.” She held him closer. “I have missed you so....”
He clasped her arms and gently peeled them away so that he could straighten and get out of his own clothes. That took even less time than getting rid of hers.
She reached for him again. “Please. Come down to me. Let me hold you.”
He grabbed the condoms he’d stuck in a pocket and set them on the nightstand. Then he joined her on the bed.
She wrapped herself around