Her Perfect Lips: HarperImpulse Contemporary Romance

Ten glanced at her, a million silent questions in his raised eyebrow. Are you with him? Should I step back? Do you want me to get rid of him? She answered them all with a slight shake of her head.

Satisfied, he turned back to Peter with his charming, professional smile, the one that had got him a lot of tips—and even more phone numbers—when they’d worked together. He dropped her arm and took Peter’s hand. “Tennyson Landry.”

Melanie joined them then, sliding up close to Peter. She was followed by the group, and they created a little cluster in the middle of the street. People flowed around them, to-go cups in hand, beads around their necks.

“It’s so good to see you,” Stacy said, touching Ten’s arm. She couldn’t quite believe he was there, but his bicep was hard and firm and very real under her fingertips. “Do you still live here?” She wouldn’t be surprised if he had moved. New Orleans was a transient city. People came, hung out for a while, and then left for better jobs, better homes, ‘real’ lives. Just like she had.

“Yeah,” he said, his eyes never leaving hers. “I’ve got a little place up on Magazine now.”

She smiled, ridiculously pleased to see him again. The huge crush she had fostered and fed five years ago had obviously not dwindled over time. He still made her weak in the knees, gave her skin that deliciously tight, tingly feeling. She probably could have spent the entire night grinning up at him like a fool, but Melanie stepped in, standing very close to Ten.

“We wanna go someplace fun,” Melanie said, giving him one of her brilliant smiles. “Do you know anywhere good?”

Stacy was about to give Melanie a few key suggestions on where she should go, but Ten put his hand on her shoulder, capturing her attention.

“Let’s have a drink,” he said, his eyes never leaving Stacy’s. “It’ll be nice to catch up.”

Plastic beads whizzed past her head, crackling on the pavement. A group of men on the balcony above chanted “Show your tits!” to a bunch of women below, and every time one of them obliged, they were showered with beads and adoration. Bourbon Street would never change, and she was sick of it already. She nodded to Ten. “Let’s go somewhere else.”

He took her hand, gave it a gentle tug. “Come on.”

She caught Melanie’s frown out of the corner of her eye and a little malicious grin curved Stacy’s lips. It was probably a character flaw that made her dislike the other woman so much, but she wasn’t about to fight that feeling. She laced her fingers through Ten’s and let him lead her away from the garish lights and drunken vulgarity.

“What were you doing on Bourbon?” she asked, as they turned onto St. Peter and headed toward the river. No self-respecting local went to Bourbon Street unless they absolutely had to.

He looked over at her, a huge grin on his handsome face. “I could ask you the same thing.”

She shook her head, smiling even as he pulled her close to get around a woman puking next to an overflowing garbage can. “I’m just a tourist now, in town for a convention.”

He raised an eyebrow, amusement flashing in his eyes. “Is that right? So, what? Are you trying to get sloppy drunk and sleep with the locals?”

She glanced over at him. Well, maybe one local. “That is a solid plan.”

He laughed with her as they turned onto Decatur, and then headed back toward Canal. A frenzied Cajun tune blasted out of a souvenir shop on the corner, bright Florissant lights illuminated the sidewalk. “I was just stopping in to see a friend at work. I don’t spend much time in the Quarter anymore.”

There were so many things she wanted to ask him. What he was doing now, where he was working, what he had been up to for the last five years, but their conversation was cut short when they approached a dark alley, a long corridor tucked between two buildings. Stacy looked around, trying to orientate herself. The fire station was still there like she remembered, and the House of Blues a little farther down, but she had no memory of this place.

“Is this new?” she asked, as he led her down the narrow alleyway.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s only been here about a year.”

The passage curved and then emptied into a wide courtyard surrounded by brick walls and banana trees. People sat around wrought-iron tables, drinking and laughing. A brass band performed in the corner, playing a low, bluesy tune filled with promise and longing.

Ten headed straight for extensive bar built into the rickety, old building that had probably once been the slave quarters for a house on Decatur. He signaled one of the bartenders, then glanced back at her. “You gotta get an Electroshock.”

“A what?” she asked.

He gave her a wicked grin. “Trust me.”

She knew that grin too well. This was going to be something dangerous. And probably really fun. She nodded, and he ordered one for her. He handed her a clear plastic glass filled with chartreuse-colored liquid that tasted suspiciously like Kool-Aid.

They meandered over to an empty table in the far back corner of the courtyard. Stacy brushed her damp hair off her forehead as she settled into her chair. She’d forgotten how humid it was here, how her skin was prone to “glisten.”

Much to her chagrin, Peter and Melanie found them and sat down without any invitation in the empty seats opposite them. Melanie brushed a lock of hair off her forehead and Stacy noticed with some annoyance that the other woman even made sweating look beautiful.

“Tennyson,” Melanie said, favoring him with her beautiful blue-eyed gaze. “What an interesting name. Is it a stage name of some sort?”

He leaned back and extended his arm across the back of Stacy’s chair. She was hyperconscious of his arm draped behind her, and the hair on the back of her neck stood up at electric attention. “Oh, no,” he said, flashing Melanie that charming smile of his. “My mother’s a poet. She teaches at Bennington. I’m just thankful every day that she didn’t name me Cummings or Yeats.”

Stacy smiled to herself, recalling the night she’d asked him a very similar question. They’d decided to conquer the ‘Drink Around the World’ challenge at The Alibi to celebrate the completion of her training at the Cabin and they’d just begun a beer from Honduras when the alcohol really started to settle in. He’d told her about his mother and how much she loved the British poet laureate. He claimed to dislike the poet’s work himself, yet that didn’t stop him from reciting one of his namesake’s more famous works, The Lady of Shallot, right there among the servers, strippers, and Quarter rats congregating in the bar. He did it with so much gusto, he even earned himself a resounding round of applause.

Melanie nodded like Ten had just told her something profound, and Peter touched her shoulder, trying to regain her attention. Melanie turned back to Peter and Ten caught Stacy’s eye, gave her a little wink. She wondered if he remembered that night too, if it left the same kind of impression. They used to have a lot of fun together. No one in her life was quite like him and she missed that. She missed him. New Orleans was an adventure, a fairy tale, and though she loved New York, it was all work and ambition.

Ten picked up his drink and reached over the table to tap his glass against hers. “Welcome back, Prom Dress.”

She snorted a laugh and picked up her glass to drink with him. Of all the things for him to remember, it would be that ridiculous nickname.

“Prom Dress?” Melanie asked, fluttering her long lashes at Ten. “Did I hear that right?”

Everything about Melanie rankled. Stacy had no desire to share anything with her. “It’s not a very interesting story.”

Ten shrugged. “It’s probably one of those ‘you had to be there’ things.”

“Oh, come on,” Peter said, trying to be a part of the conversation. “Tell it.”

Ten looked to her, and after only a second’s hesitation, he waved for him to tell it if he wanted to. It was a good memory, embarrassing, but wonderful too. She wanted to share it with him again.

He nodded once, then turned to the group. “Well,” he began, “once upon a time, Stacy and I worked at the Creole Cabin Bar and Restaurant on Bourbon Street. This was long before she left for New York City and fame and fortune. Back then, she was humble waitress, a poor college grad just trying to get ahead.”

She rolled her eyes, but smiled. Ten loved to tell a good story. He’d often kept the staff entertained even on the slowest shifts.

“She was always running off for interviews, meetings, networking events,” he went on. “That day, I think it was an interview with a Google recruiter.” He turned to her. “Wasn’t it?”

She blinked, shocked that he remembered such an insignificant detail. Shocked and more than a little touched. “Yes, it was.”

“Anyway, the Cabin is an extremely loud place. It’s right on Bourbon, and all the doors are always open, and they’ve got this zydeco band playing, people are talking…” He took a moment to meet all of their gazes. “You get the picture.”

He took a sip of his drink, then leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “It was a hot summer afternoon, the restaurant was dead, the a/c was blasting, but we were all sweating, standing around in the side station talking about nothing ‘cause we were so damn bored. Stacy’s gathering her things, she was the first one cut, and the other servers and I were a little jealous, so we were kinda ignoring her.”

She was there with him again, reliving that day in full color. She could feel the sweat on the back of her neck, the smell of deep-fried shrimp on her skin. She was desperate to get home and take a shower before she went to that interview. That had to happen, but it was going to be close. She needed to leave immediately.

“We were used to talking loudly, always screaming at each other to be heard.” He met her eyes, sharing the memory with her. “When it was time for her to go, it only made sense that she would scream good-bye.”

He started to laugh, but quickly suppressed it. She wanted to hit him now just as much as she had wanted to back then. It wasn’t that funny. “So, she hollers, ‘Well, I’m off like a prom dress!’ But at that exact moment, the band decided to take a break.” The laugher bubbled out of him, and Stacy winced, just as she had done in that instant, endless moment of silence. “It was just one of those gaps in noise that happens sometimes and everything was quiet at that precise moment. The whole restaurant heard her, the band, the customers, even the guys the kitchen. We all froze, too dumbfounded to move.”

He winked at her, but she just shook her head. She had been mortified, every eye in the place on her, her booming announcement seeming to echo in the sudden stillness.

“But Stacy,” he said, putting his hand on her knee, “she never blinked. She held her head high and marched right out that restaurant, like it was all perfectly natural. But, boy she did move fast.” He met her gaze and lowered his voice an octave. “It must have been quite a prom night.” He looked back to the others and grinned. “The name just stuck. It was perfect.”

She had to laugh. That restaurant could be such a miserable place sometimes, filled with drunks and non-tipping tourists, but when Ten worked alongside her, she always had a good shift. Some of her best memories were of cackling like a lunatic in the side station with him, making up wild, intricate fantasies about strangling the customers and how they would go about walking out in the middle of a shift in the wake of a boldly delivered righteous tirade.

The music changed, morphing into an upbeat jazzy instrumental tune. Melanie popped up from the table, grabbed Peter, and dragged him toward the forming dance floor. Stacy watched them go, her heart full of old memories, good times and bad.

Ten sat back in his chair and crossed his long legs beneath the table. He rubbed some of the condensation off his glass with his thumb, then licked the liquid off his finger. “So, what’s this convention you’re in town for?”

He was so damn sexy it hurt. Her crush was back in full force, stronger than ever and full of longing. Every time he met her eyes, her heart beat a little faster, her blood ran a little hotter. She could easily get lost in his gaze, and she had to look away before she could answer. “It’s a marketing convention. The ‘Advanced Marketing and New Business Innovation Conference’ to be precise. It was part of the package I received when they promoted me to senior marketing manager.”

He smiled and reached out to stroke her hair. “That’s great, Stacy. It’s what you always wanted.”

His touch sent tingles down her spine and only added to her pride. “Yeah, I’m happy.” For some reason, her voice caught on the last word, and she hoped he didn’t notice. She was happy. She was accomplishing things way ahead of her most ambitious expectations, living the exact life she wanted—for the most part.

He nodded, his eyes never leaving her face. “Are you seeing anyone?”

The question made her skin feel pleasantly tight. “No. Are you?”

Their gazes locked, and he shook his head. The air seemed very warm suddenly, almost too thick to breath. Her eyes dropped to his full lower lip and tension hung between them, heavy with electric promise. “Hey, Ten,” a perky young waitress said as she stopped by the table. She pointed to their empty glasses. “Want another?”

He looked to Stacy. “Would you like another?”

She had to take a deep, trembling breath before she could answer him. Wow, that was intense. She was almost glad for the distraction. Another drink sounded nice, but it might be dangerous. She had to stay in control and that was always a difficult thing for her to do around him. Still, one more drink probably wouldn’t hurt. “Okay, one more. But that’s it.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, flashing the waitress the peace sign. Two. “I’ve heard that before.”

Stacy laughed. He had heard it before. Many times, on many nights. And all too often, she was by his side when the sun rose over the Quarter, stumbling home in the glaring light.

It didn’t take long for the waitress to return with their cocktails. She collected Ten’s money and left with a large smile on her face. He always was a good tipper.

Stacy took a sip of her drink, the sweetness exploding on her tongue. The familiar lightheadedness of intoxication warmed her skull, and she frowned. She might not have the tolerance to take on Mardi Gras anymore, but she was no lightweight either. She held up the plastic cup, the low light reflecting in the funky yellow-green liquid. “What’s in these things?”

He gave her that wicked grin again. “Good old-fashioned New Orleans grain alcohol.”

Even as her eyes widened, she had to chuckle. No wonder she was feeling it. The drink in her hand was a one hundred and ninety proof bomb of pure alcohol. “Are you trying to get me drunk?”

“Maybe.” His gaze moved over her, so slowly and thoroughly it almost felt like a physical caress. “Wasn’t that part of your plan?”

Her gaze flicked to his lips and then quickly away. God, she still had it so bad for him. She took a quick sip of her cocktail to try to cool herself down.

He reached over took her hand. “I’ve thought about you.”

Every molecule in the air between them instantly ignited. “Have you?” Heat rushed to her cheeks, her pulse raced in her veins. “What’d you think about?”

He ran his thumb over her knuckles. “Do you remember that night?”

“Of course I remember.” She would never forget the night before she left for New York. The night she spent with him. The memory often came to her in the darkest hours, when she was home, alone in her bed. No one had ever held her the way he did, no one’s skin had ever felt quite so good against hers. “I almost missed my plane.”

He traced patterns over the back her hand with his thumb, a delicate caress that made her blood run hot. When he met her eyes again, tension exploded between them, turning her insides liquid. Her gaze fell back to his lips, and she couldn’t help but remember the taste of his kiss. The way he’d touched her. The texture of his skin. Given the chance to have it all again, she’d start right there at his mouth and then work her way down to his—

“Hey,” Peter said as he and Melanie returned to the table. “Do you want another drink?”

“No,” Stacy said, rising to her feet. This was too much. “I have to get back to the hotel.” And take an ice cold shower.

Ten stood up as well. “I’ll walk with you.”

She waved him off. The last thing she needed was Ten anywhere near her hotel room. That was just too much temptation. She wasn’t a kid anymore, and she wasn’t in New Orleans to get laid. She needed to remember that. “Thanks, but it’s just around the corner.”

“Stacy,” he said, his voice stern, a tone she knew all too well. It was the one he used whenever he thought she was being unreasonable. She’d heard it a lot. “This city is dangerous.”

She couldn’t really argue with that. He was right. The city was dangerous. And it wasn’t smart to walk alone. She knew that all too well. The very first night she moved out of the Loyola dorms and into the Marigny was a night that should have been like any other. But that night, seven murders occurred in a sixteen-hour span. Seven different people were killed for seven different reasons in seven different places all within the city limits. She had missed one of those murders by a single block. If she had turned left instead of right… A graveyard chill raced down her back. It wasn’t something she liked to think about. “Okay,” she said, and turned to the others. “Do you guys want to walk back with us?”

They wanted to stay, so Stacy and Ten said their goodbyes and exited the bar. They turned onto Canal, and Ten grabbed her around the waist to keep her from colliding with a Lucky Dog vendor heading into the Quarter for his shift. She wrapped her arm around him, enjoying the heat of his body.

“How long are you in town for?” he asked, the weight of his hand on her waist wonderfully distracting.

“Four nights,” she said, and ducked as a group of college girls tossed glitter into the air like it was fairy dust. “I leave Monday morning.” She brushed the glitter out of her hair, the sparkles raining down on her clothes. “I have the chance to make a really good impression, Ten. This conference is a big deal and there are a lot of people I need to meet. I think, if I can work it right, I might be able to land a speaking role for next year. That would be amazing.”

He smiled and hugged her closer. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

She shrugged. “I know what I want.” She glanced up at him. “What’s up with you? What are you doing now?”

A man jumped in their path, offering them a pamphlet on how to find Jesus, and Ten waved him away. “I have my own gallery now. I paint. Sell some art. The guy I went to see on Bourbon is an artist I want to work with.”

“That’s excellent,” she said, genuinely pleased, but also a bit surprised. She hadn’t thought he’d taken his painting all that seriously. Her impression had been that it was something he did, not anything he’d had plans to do professionally. But then, he hadn’t taken very much too seriously back then, he just slid by on a wish and a sexy grin. They were both older now. Maybe he had changed. “I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks. It’s small, but it does well.”

They entered the lobby and headed toward the elevators. Ten pressed the button, and when it arrived, they rode up in silence, sharing the car with a few other conference attendees. She snuck a quick glance at him, the heat of him warming her side. Would he go for the goodnight kiss? Part of her hoped he would, while the other part of her cringed at her lack of self-control.

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