“You can either meet me outside the truck and I’ll join you once I’m through, or you can stay and watch until I’m down to civvies.”
Her tongue poked out again.
“Down to civvies?” she repeated with a rasp. “That means you, uh, have something on under your polka dots?”
Vince winked. “Were you thinking this was a Scottish kilt kind of thing?” he teased.
Color suffused her cheeks, and Vince loved that.
“Umm, maybe?” she offered self-consciously.
He threw back his head and laughed. “Nope. Sorry to derail your fantasy.” He would have loved to see inside Lace’s head forthatone. “But I’ve got biker shorts and a t-shirt on to preserve what little dignity I have.”
“Oh.” That tongue was working again before she added, “Then I’ll stay and observe.”
Damn. How Vince wished he could do a provocative strip-tease. But considering the unwieldy clown suit, and the small confines of his truck, he was going to have to go with a more pragmatic approach to his clothing removal.
That didn’t mean he’d do things fast, though.
He slid one button out of its hole, then played with the next as if he couldn’t make up his mind.
Lace snorted. “Oh, god. You’re such a tease.”
Vince let number two unfasten, then straightened up and feigned innocence. “What? I just don’t want you thinking thatI’m easy. I’ll have you know, not every woman gets me out of my clown clothes on the first date.”
Lace giggled. “Is this a date?”
Vince gave a huge, exaggerated sigh. “If you can’t tell, I must be doing it wrong.”
He slipped button number three from its berth and spread the plackets to reveal his t-shirt, stretched tightly across his muscled chest.
“Oh, no,” she told him as she swallowed hard. “You’re doing things exactly right. Believe me.”
Her eyes glazed over, and Vince could tell she was back in dream-land.
He couldn’t wait to be given a key to that magical place.
Since she was engaged inside her head, Vince finished quickly, slipping his legs out of his baggy pants, uncovering his bike shorts. He finished up just as Lace was blinking herself awake from her flight-of-fancy.
She glanced at his legs and gave a huge sigh.
Hell, yes.
He hoped that meant she liked what she saw.
CHAPTER TEN
What a reveal.
Lace had somehow known Vincent was handsome underneath all the makeup, and she’d figured hemightbe hiding a well-built body beneath his robes, but now that all was uncovered, she realized the man wassomuch more than her imagination had suggested.
More ofeverything.
And way out of her league, despite telling her he was interested.
There might have been a time, back in college, where she would have dared make a move on someone like him. She would have swept her long blonde hair back from her face and given him a come-hither look with her large brown eyes, hoping she might catch his attention before any of the overtly pretty girls snagged him. It would have been a crap-shoot even then, but now? What did she have to offer?
Her hair was gone. Her eyes looked like two bruised smudges, and she’d lost enough weight so that the black-diamond curves which had once defined her body, were now more like kiddy-slopes.