“Good choices.” He lifted a brow. “What did you say to that guy? If his dignity would have allowed it, he would have sprinted out of here.”
Savannah adjusted on his knee. “I told him I knew his wife from garden club meetings, and she wouldn’t appreciate him hitting on another married woman.”
“You’re not in a garden club.”
“Of course not,” she said serenely. “But a man like that has no idea what his wife is doing with her day, except when it gives him a safety net to stray.”
He chuckled, squeezing her trim waist. “You were fairly light handed.”
“No need to use a bat when a smack with a ruler will do.” She frowned. “Men like that repulse me. And there are far too many of them out there.”
“Oh really?” He arched a brow. “You have that kind of trouble often?”
“Don’t even think about telling Matt I need a bodyguard on my job. I’ll kill you with my bare hands and get a new manicure afterward. Seriously, no different from what I handled before I was married. Which is actually quite sad.” She shook her head. “Some men think an attractive woman is always looking for company, no matter her marital status. I’ve changed my mind. Go beat him to a pulp.”
He started to get up and she laughed, clasping his shoulder to hold them both in place. “I’m kidding. No violence today.”
“Your backside has gotten softer since you had your baby,” he noted. “It was a great ass before then, but I like it even more now.”
“Only you would have the courage to frame that as a compliment.” She crossed her legs, the toe of her heeled shoe brushing his jeans leg. “That was nice of you, getting the painting for Cass. I think that will bring her comfort.”
“She doing okay these days? We all keep tabs on it through Lucas, but I know you’re her closest female friend.”
“It’s also kind of you to ask that.” Savannah’s blue eyes softened. “Yes, she’s all right. She has her bad days over Jeremy, but if he’d died in an alley with a needle stuck in his arm, it would have preyed on her far more harshly. With Jon finding him the place at the monastery, Cass and Jeremy had time to reconcile. She saw some of the brother she remembered, before he became addicted. She also saw him come closer to being the man he should have always been.”
“Good. I know she’s had a tough time realizing she did all she could. That a lot of that was beyond her control.”
“Yes.” Savannah met his gaze. “She cares a lot about you, too, Ben. It will be all right.”
“Yeah. In another decade or two. And we were talking about her and Jeremy, not her and me.”
“Yes and no.” Savannah laid a hand on his face, bemusing him when she tapped her well-manicured fingers on his temple. “Try not to get lost in here,” she said.
He took her hand, and gave it a kiss. “I’m good,” he promised. “Only good stuff happening in there today.”
She nodded. “I’m glad.”
Fortunately, his phone beeped, changing the direction of the conversation. Keeping his arm around Savannah, he used his other hand to withdraw the phone from his shirt pocket. He scowled as he saw the text and attached picture. Savannah saw it too, and covered a short but fascinatingly girlish giggle with her hand.
Cass and Marcie were coming back down the stairs, Rachel with them. As they approached him and Savannah, he tossed out the information with mock annoyance. “Our team’s ahead. Barely. But apparently they just made one of the best plays of the season.”
He turned the phone to show them Lucas holding a steak speared on his grilling fork, a beer in the other hand, while Peter and Matt were obviously hyped up about what was happening on the giant but blurred flat screen behind them. He assumed Jon was taking the picture. The ass.
Marcie plucked the phone from his hand. Giving him a wink, she typed in a quick text and sent it. When she handed it back and he looked at it, his lips twisted. “You’re a delightfully evil woman.”
Sorry, can’t talk. Currently in a threesome with Savannah and Cass while Dana does a girl-girl lap dance with Rachel. All in Jackson Square. Marcie filming it for my private library.
The other women read it over his shoulder as Dana and Max came into the gallery, bearing a bagful of chocolate-covered pretzel sticks and a box of pralines.
Dana stuck a pretzel in his mouth, which he clamped cigar-style as she plopped down on his other knee. The other women were still leaned intimately over him, cocooning him in pleasant fragrances. With two female bottoms pressed to his lap, Savannah and Dana’s hands clasped on his shoulders, and another hand teasing the hair on his neck—that one was Marcie—he had to admit, it really didn’t suck to be him today.
When he caught the dropped jaw, saucer-eyed looks of the two guys behind the desk, it only made it better. The one who’d been working on the frame had come to a full stop. Ben hoped he knew he’d just put a piece backward into the frame he was constructing.
Regretfully, he lifted Savannah and Dana to their feet, so he could go and complete the purchase of Savannah’s pictures. While he was at the desk, though, he couldn’t resist. As he returned his wallet to the back pocket of his jeans, he grinned at the two men.
“Start with one,” he advised. “Build up to five. It takes stamina to keep them coming back for more.”
He left them chuckling uncertainly, as if they weren’t sure if he was kidding. He wasn’t, though the comment wasn’t about these five women. Before Marcie, he had been known to take three or more women in one night in a club environment, his needs almost limitless. But he hadn’t realized then it wasn’t a physical need he couldn’t sate.
As he joined the women out on the sidewalk in front of the store, he looked for the answer he’d found to that need. She was leaning against the side of the limo, chatting animatedly with Dana. Sunlight gleamed off her hair, but in his mind, it was no match for the wattage of her smile. When he’d stepped out, her gaze had immediately cut to him and that expression brightened. He was her touchstone, too.
Another even more important reason why being him today didn’t suck.
The other women were looking at Savannah’s pictures. When they turned them over to Max to tuck the purchases carefully into the limo, Ben took a white chocolate covered pretzel with sprinkles and a praline wrapped in tissue from Dana. The New Orleans warmer fall air was a welcome change after the cool temperatures in the gallery. “Okay, whose turn is it now?” he asked the milling women. “Marcie’s had her shoes, Savannah her pictures.”
“Ingredients. The cooking store.” Rachel beamed at Ben. “You’ve been so nice, I figure the next one could be something you enjoy as much as I do.”