Page 76 of Lethal
“Well, I’m gonna,” he retorted, putting his finger in her face and knowing he looked like a jerk… but his feelings were hurt, dang it, and he would be darned if he would admit it. “And it was spectacular, do you hear me? We put X-rated movies to shame last night. I have never felt so good in my life, so don’t you dare cheapen it or say that it was ‘nice’,” he snapped. “And if I’m not your type – that’s on you – not me, because I’m amazing,” he finished lamely, sticking his thumb at his chest, pointing at himself.
“Ahhhh-mazing,” he repeated in the silence as she stood there looking at him, before crossing her arms over her chest and lifting an eyebrow at him, smirking. “What?”
“Oh, you are amazing, all right,” she chuckled, obviously laughing at him. This slip of a woman, his little librarian, was laughing at him and calling sex with him ‘nice’? That was like claiming it was mediocre, and it was far from that. He saw stars behind his eyelids and would never forget how she touched him or held him close.
“I’m not going to stand here and listen to this,” he began again, trying to cling to his dignity that was being smashed into the ground by his wife. She couldn’t have done anything worse to him right now except maybe point at his trousers and laugh.
Walking past her, he hopped for a second, yanking on his shoe, before doing the other one, and grabbed the hotel pen laying atop a small notepad of paper.
“Your friend wasn’t really a pastor, was he?”
“Are you calling me a liar now too?” Lance snapped, looking at her in disbelief. “I’m good in the sack, a freakin’ catch for some woman, honest as the day is long… and you obviously don’t know me,” he muttered, scribbling down his name, address, phone number, and email address.
“Well, you don’t have to get your knickers in a twist.”
“They are your knickers,” he retorted immediately, ripping off the piece of paper. “They aren’t, but they could have been. You are just as much of a freak in the sheets as I am, but if you have problems accepting it – don’t put that on me. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying making love with your husband, and if you have regrets, that’s on you – not me.”
Her mouth dropped open in shock, and for a moment, he was afraid she was going to say something to hurt his feelings again or laugh at him. Instead, he kissed her swiftly, taking the piece of paper with his information and tucking it in the front of her bra, directly between that delicious cleavage that would haunt him for months to come.
“I’ve got to go report for duty,” he muttered, immediately racing out of the room before she could say anything else. He was halfway down the hall before the door shut loudly behind him, and thankfully, the elevator was waiting.
Lance darted into the elevator just as he saw Stephanie walking into the hallway of the hotel, looking at him in disbelief. He raised a hand and wiggled his fingers at her before the door closed, and he put down three of the fingers, holding up one of them in a foul gesture.
His feelings were hurt - badly.
“You cannot tell a dude that he was ‘nice,’ ‘pleasant,’ or anything of the sort when it was the best freakin’ night of my life,” Lance uttered thickly at the closed doorway before him. “I may not want to be married or end up being someone’s papa, but that doesn’t mean I’ll forget any of this – and screw you, Stephanie, for being a female version of me.”
He let out a shaky breath, horrified that he might actually cry.
Lance was on the ship, lying in his bunk hours later, when a few of the guys made their way back into berthing loudly. He had a headache from being utterly miserable, stewing angrily in frustration, and cursing at himself silently for a while now because the whole interaction this morning shouldn’t have bothered him.
But it did.
It hurt his feelings that she didn’t trust him – even if he had planned on running out on her this morning. It was one thing to know you were a slimeball, but another to have someone point it out and show you to your face, and she pulled the same tactics.
His hot little bank teller!
She might have been a virgin, but she was uncannily street-smart when it came to people. She had Shellac’s story pegged as a lie; she knew what her friend was going to blab about at the bar before the woman opened her mouth, and she had him under a microscope, feeling very uncomfortable.
“Hey! Hey!” Ohio grinned, walking into the room, slapping Shellac and Pasteur on the shoulders. “Look, the groom is back in his bunk, already pouting and missing his lady love.”
“Shut up,” Lance muttered. That was hitting a little too close to home from his friends, because he was pouting. If he was a kitten, he was licking his paw someplace where he felt safe.
“Ooooh, did things not go so well with the Missus?”
“Pasteur, I need that paperwork – now,” Lance snapped, sitting up and bending forward so he didn’t hit the other bunk above his own. All three men looked at each other in confusion. “The marriage license? I know you, and I know you filled it out right away. I’m going to need that thing because I’m not staying married to that— that woman.”
Ohio and Shellac burst out laughing wildly again – and Pasteur did not. The man stood there looking at him with a very uncomfortable grimace and then pointed at the two giggling hyenas nearby.
“Why don’t we get some coffee – and talk?”
“I just need the papers.”
“I’ve already mailed them to the address that your wife gave me.”
“What?!” Lance jumped up and grunted at the explosion of pain in his upper back as he nailed the bunk railing above him painfully. Standing up finally, he glared at the other man. “You mailed it already?”
“Yes. We were walking past a post office, so I popped in and mailed it to her, so she could turn it in at the county clerk’s office.”