She shrugged. “Just funny. Like how you used to look at Jenny Doherty.”
I felt my lips twitch at the mention of Jenny. She’d been the only girl I’d dated for well over a year. I wasn’t a player. Maybe back in high school I had been, but I’d had long-term girlfriends. It was just that my definition of long-term and my sister’s definition of long-term differed. Jenny had been a catch, though. She’d been top of our class and once we graduated and I went to law school, she’d done the same in Connecticut. And then she’d met another guy and married him and started a family. We’d been broken up for years by then, but I still had fond memories of her.
I always thought if I settled down it would have to be with somebody like that. Not somebody who was as smart or as pretty, but somebody who cared about something other than her appearance or the amount of money in my bank account. Somebody who had a balance. That seemed like a simple request, but it wasn’t. Not these days anyway, when everything was about Instagram follows and Facebook likes, and who thought you were pretty and who didn’t. I would say that only extended to LA, but Jensen was in New York and had the same experience when he was dating, and I had clients who had more money than God and were in the same predicament.
“Vic?” my sister asked, frowning. I shook my head.
“Yeah. No. I’m her lawyer, and I care about her and want what’s best for her, but she’s not a Jenny.” She was better than Jenny. I knew it because while I had loved Jenny, she hadn’t made me feel like I was burning up inside. Nicole was a flame. And she wasn’t going out anytime soon. I knew that. I knew that, but I felt so lost in this, in the way she made me feel and the way I couldn’t control my feelings for her, and that scared me. She was my client first and foremost. I felt the need to reiterate that to myself when she wasn’t around, because when we were in the same room, I could feel myself getting too comfortable for my own good.
Estelle patted me on the back and snapped me to again. “Whatever you say, Vic.” She paused. “Thanks again for doing this.”
“Sure. I just need to drill this right here just for extra support and then I’ll need your help putting up the TV.”
“Okay. I’m going to finish putting this shit away so you can stop glaring at every surface of my messy house,” she said as she walked away.
Thank God for that. I went back to the drill.
“You look really good when you’re doing housework,” Nicole said. I smiled.
“I believe you.”
She laughed. I could picture her rolling her eyes behind me, but then I felt the warmth of her breath on the back of my right shoulder and I stilled, gripping the drill a little tighter.
“Maybe I’ll make an honest man out of you and you can quit your job and stay home while I go to work,” she said in a low voice. I could tell she was having a hard time not laughing as she said the words.
I scoffed. “Fat chance.”
“What? You wouldn’t be a stay-at-home husband?”
My shoulders shook with laugher as I lowered my arms from the wall and turned around to face her. We were standing so close that if my sister walked in this very moment, she’d have a lot of I told you so’s. Nicole had a huge smile on her face, her cheeks a deep pink from the wine, or her laughter, or a mix of both. Either way, she looked gorgeous.
“Are you proposing? Because in the state of California one needs to finalize one’s divorce before jumping into another marriage,” I said, raising an eyebrow. Her smile dropped a little, just momentarily before she rolled her eyes and smirked at me.
“If only you’d be so lucky,” she said, backing away a little, her gaze lingering on my face, my eyes, and making their way down my body. She licked her lips as she appraised me, and my heart jumped. Thank God I could control my dick in situations like these, even though it was getting semi-hard from that look alone. I gripped the drill tighter in my right hand, but the only thing I could do was think about pushing her against the wall and drilling my dick into her.
“Yeah,” I said, but I didn’t even know what I was responding to anymore. I didn’t care. Her eyes widened slightly. We looked at each other for a long moment. Too long for comfort. Too long for my lips not to be on hers and her legs not to be wrapped around my waist.
“When is the mediation thing again?” she whispered thickly.
“Not soon enough,” I said, my heart hammering.
“God. I can’t wait for this to be over. I just . . .” She sighed. “I really wish you had no morals.”
I chuckled. If she only knew. “When it comes to you, my morals are very questionable, Nicole.”
She looked wicked when she smiled and turned back to sit on the couch. She stopped walking suddenly, frowning when she turned around again.
“Don’t you need help mounting?”
“I can assure you I do not need any help mounting,” I said, my eyes raking down her body. She crossed her arms and laughed.
“The TV.”