by Marina Adair
He knew the minute she’d made her decision. Her lips curled up into a sinful smile that was all temptation and trouble, and unexpected didn’t even begin to explain the situation.
Her arms slid around his neck, her soft curves lining up just perfectly, and her mouth, yeah, that mouth of hers rested right on his. Not kissing, not teasing, but applying enough pressure to blow his fucking mind.
“I choose you,” she said. Then, as if that wasn’t the biggest green light in the history of the fucking planet, her eyes fluttered closed and she kissed him. Right there on the front porch next to the gnome colony and beneath the flickering night-light, like they were teenagers and this was their first date. Which had Adam thinking about their second date, and the one after that—and, finally, the one where he screwed it up.
Then he stopped thinking because the only thing thinking was giving him was a headache, and kissing Harper was the biggest rush he’d ever felt. And he felt a lot—her hands in his hair, her tongue in his mouth taking the kiss deeper, their connection stronger. So strong he found himself wanting more, so he walked her backward into her apartment, kicking the door closed behind them, and wondered how he’d become such a lucky SOB.
Her hands were on the move, roaming down his chest, her fingers stopping to fiddle with that bow. Not the one on the bottoms—if he didn’t open his mouth they’d get to that—but the one holding that top together, because—
Ho-ly.
Shit.
This was happening.
And why the hell not? They both wanted this, had for a while now. And she had made her choice.
Only she chose him, which surely meant something. But with her tugging on that bow he couldn’t wrap his mind around what. Okay, his mind knew—it was his dick that was in denial. He didn’t really think she fully understood what that choice meant, because if she had, she would have said, “I choose sex,” or maybe, “I choose to get my cookies naked, up against the wall, while you make me scream out your name.”
All adequate responses for a woman who knew the deal. But she’d chosen him, a guy who no sane woman would choose. And sure, Harper was a crazy cutie, but this was disaster in the making. She pretended like she knew the deal, was cool with the deal, but it was clear she didn’t and she wasn’t, otherwise she wouldn’t have given that bow another little tug, this time with enough pressure to loosen the ribbon.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked. About me?
She looked up at him, so sincerely as though weighing his question with the utmost importance, as though searching past his words to the heart—his heart—and seeing him for everything he was. More importantly, everything he wasn’t.
“More than sure.”
“I don’t do relationships,” he reminded her.
“And yet you’re already in one,” she said. “It would be a shame not to at least explore the benefits.”
“I do love exploring,” he said. “Where do you think we should start?”
“How about we start with this and see where it leads?”
Without warning, Harper reached up and gave a final tug of the bow. He could hear the slide of the fabric as the bow became toe ribbons. And the ribbons became insignificant as inch by incredible inch the fabric fell to the sides, exposing more and more of that silky strip of skin beneath. Until finally, finally, she let go and the top fell to the floor in one swoop, leaving her in nothing but those fuzzy slippers and silk bottoms, and confirming that (a) this was going to happen, right here, right now, and (b) she wasn’t wearing a bra under that silk, which led him to (c) that if he thought Harper in a lacy bra was smoking, he was about to go up in some serious flames, because Harper in nothing was about the hottest thing he’d ever seen, which finally brought him to (d) that unless she was sporting the tiniest of G-strings under those shorts, then—
Holding her gaze, he traced a fingertip down the curve of her neck, across her flat stomach, and all the way to her waist, loving how her muscles quivered in his wake. Then with purpose he slid both hands around until they were cupping her amazing ass and, man, two perfect handfuls.
“Are we talking a matching set, or do you have Honeysuckle under there?” he asked.
“Seeing my panties is strictly a third-date event,” she said with a sinful smile. “Being that this is our first, I didn’t wear any.”
“Thank Christ for first dates,” he said, his body tightening at the information. With a growl he lifted her up. “Wrap your legs around me, sunshine. This exploration is about to get real.”
She did as she was told and he had every intention of walking them into the room, but she started kissing him and playing with his belt, and before he knew it, his pants were around his hips and she was pressed against the wall.
“Here?” he asked against her lips.
He thought she mumbled something about a cat but it was hard to hear what she was saying with her tongue down his throat. Then her legs tightened around him and so did her hand and—sweet baby Jesus—his eyes rolled to the back of his head and his knees started to buckle.
She was an artist all right. Fucking Picasso, with the way she used sure, smooth strokes and deliberate brushes to drive him right up to the edge, again and again, until he was certain he’d go all the way over if he didn’t do something quick.
Using the wall for leverage, he slid one hand down her ass and beneath, pulling the perfectly-too-short shorts to the side and doing some creative reaching to give a stroke of his own. It wasn’t Picasso, because, hell, he was limited holding her with one hand, but it was enough to have her gasping. The second stroke had her moaning his name, and the third? He added a little brush combo at the end that had her whole body tensing. So he did it again, loving how she grabbed his wrist and held him there, as if afraid he’d stop before she got her cookies.
Not his style.
“Tell me what you want, Harper. More of this?” Stroke. Brush.
Her head fell back against the wall, thrusting her breasts up and her hips forward, increasing the friction—and the heat. Always good with orders, he started pumping and stroking and the way she closed around his fingers when he sank even deeper was enough to drive a man insane.
“Yes, more of that,” she moaned.
“There you go again, making this too easy. You haven’t heard the other options. Like this,” he said, giving her a kiss that was meant to rock her world, and by the way she clung to him, he figured he’d rocked it hard.
“Or maybe some of this?” Tilting his head down, he captured her nipple in his mouth, which was right there begging for attention. He gave a sharp bite, then soothed it with his tongue. “What will it be, sunshine?”
“All,” she said on a scream.
Adam did just that. He had her groaning in one kiss, shuddering with a well-placed nibble to her swollen breasts, and exploding when he applied the right kind of stroke in the right kind of spot. Her body clamped around his hand as her orgasm took her higher and higher.
She sighed and one leg slid to the floor and that was when she looked up at him through desire-hazed eyes and said, “I want it all.”
And with her hair messy from his fingers, her lips bruised from his kisses, and her voice hoarse from crying out his name, Adam decided he wanted it all too.
Things got a little frantic, him working the bow, her searching for the condom that was—bingo—in his back pocket. A few seconds and one hell of a rubdown later, he was wrapped, she was ready, and they met in the middle with a single thrust.
She gasped. He nearly cried. Then neither of them moved, neither one of them breathed. They stood there, her right leg on the floor, her left locked around his back, and he was finally where he wanted to be.
After he could breathe without the fear of his lungs collapsing from pleasure, he shifted his hips ever so slowly, and she landed a move that was so unexpected it was like a wrecking ball right through his chest.
She tightened her arms around his neck, then kissed his nose, his chin, and f
inally his lips as she moved in sync with him.
Sweet, God so fucking sweet it hurt, then she pulled him in for what had to be the most erotic and all-encompassing embrace he’d ever been given and he knew he was in trouble. There they were, half naked, fucking up against the wall, his pants around his ankles, his shirt bunched up around his waist, and Harper somehow made this moment special. Made him feel special.
And he liked it. More than he should.
“You feel so good,” he said, but what he really meant was that around her he felt good. Terrified, confused, scared shitless, but good.
As if this were right.
She tightened her arms around him in a way that was all Harper, and Adam finally let go.
The free fall started, pumping through his veins and rocking his body. Harper felt it too because she started to tighten around him, and breathing turned nonexistent, as if his chest were too big for his skin, and he wanted to deploy the chute and free-fall forever all at the same time.
Then she lifted her head to meet his gaze straight on, looking at him as though he was her choice, the right choice, and—bam—he was a goner.
The pressure built, hotter and higher, and Harper must have let go too, because he felt her start to shake and then she was crying out his name. Chanting it really.
Not that he was one to talk, since he was doing some chanting of his own, and he finally gave in to the heat. Everything went black and he dropped his head to her shoulder, pressed his face to her throat, and took her in, while she melted into him, both breathing hard.
“Those were some pretty amazing cookies,” she said into his neck.
Adam laughed, and when he was no longer afraid of his legs buckling, he looked up and what he saw looking back had him smiling. Man, she was gorgeous and sweet and funny—a total turn-on.
“I was thinking that the next batch could be enjoyed in bed,” he said.
“That depends.”
He lifted a brow. “On what?”
“How do you feel about Grumpy Cat?”
“Never met a kitty I couldn’t get purring.” To prove it, he threw her over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold and headed down the hallway.
It had been several days since the impromptu dinner at the station—and dessert at her place—and Harper could still feel her body tingling. No matter how many times she told herself it was just chemistry, or applied soothing body lotion, the tingling wouldn’t go away.
It had started in her lips the minute she realized it wasn’t a for show kind of smooch, spread south when she found him on her front porch, and finally reached her toes when they staged an impromptu photo shoot in her apartment Friday morning, and continued tingling straight through the weekend. It stuck with her through Monday’s papier-mâché class where Tommy mistook a bowl of paste for pudding, Tuesday’s nine hours of burning the midnight oil with the campaign mockup, and this morning’s argument over why Spanx for men was not upping the store’s swagger.
“Tell me again why we’re putting the girdles at the back of the store,” Clovis said, resting her cane between two display shelves, creating a makeshift rolling rack.
Jabba lifted his head from the garbage can under the counter and locked eyes on the cane.
“Maybe you need to get a hearing aid to go with that cane,” Ida Beamon, one of Clovis’s oldest friends, said. She was hanging a collection of nude-colored body-slimmers from the cane. “The girl already told you that girdles don’t really say youthful allure.”
“Tell me how alluring it is when all that vintage-grade cottage cheese is flapping in the wind,” Clovis argued, but she picked up one end of the cane, while Ida grabbed the other. Together, they navigated their way toward the back of the store, Jabba hot on their trail. “Plus they’re our biggest sellers. There’s no sense in making people walk all the way to the back to get the biggest sellers.”
“Actually, back-loading the store with everyday necessities that are not necessarily sexy is a perfect merchandising strategy,” Harper said as she slipped a summery-style negligée over the mannequin in the front window. “It forces people to walk past the beautifully displayed babydolls and French décolletés with the matching garter-panties you just got in.”
“I agree with Harper. Babydolls up front is smart merchandising,” Peggy said from beside Harper, and everyone groaned.
Not that Harper didn’t appreciate the support, but Peggy had been agreeing with Harper all morning. She’d walked into the shop with a bag of cookies and a smile, sporting Harper’s cardigan and a necklace that looked vaguely familiar, then planted herself directly at Harper’s side.
“I don’t look good in babydolls,” Clovis mumbled, moving the girdles to the hooks on the back wall. “They make me look top-heavy.”
“You don’t look it. You are,” Ida said to Clovis, who repositioned her top half with pride.
Peggy grabbed a babydoll off the rack and held it up to her frame, then looked in the mirror—more specifically at her top half. She twisted side to side a few times, watching the material flirt in the mirror on the far wall.
“Plus, National Underwear Day is Tuesday,” Harper pointed out, fully aware that Peggy had turned to stare at her mouth. “We want to highlight the seductive side of the shop. Show the customers that lingerie can be fun, flirty, sensual.”
“Seductive side,” Peggy repeated, her voice pitched eerily close to Harper’s. “Fun, flirty, sensual.” She drew out each word, careful to bite her lips on each hard consonant.
Ignoring the mockingbird to her right, Harper went back to her mannequin. Which meant Peggy smoothed the mesh over her cleavage, then released a big sigh before going back to her own mannequin.
When Peggy couldn’t keep her eyes off the babydoll, Harper asked, “So how did it go with the teeth too white to be real guy at the senior center?”
“It was going well until that floozy from the over-fifty-five community started flaunting her menopause glow around the dance floor,” Peggy said, her voice much softer than her words. “The man leaves his glasses at home for the night and suddenly every AARP card–carrying woman in town notices him.”
“I’m so sorry, Peggy.” Harper’s heart went out to the older woman. “But if he gets dazzled by something as ordinary as menopause glow, then he’s”—Harper lowered her voice and repeated the best advice she’d been given as of late—“a dumbass.”
“You think so?”
“I don’t think, I know. Just like I know there is someone even better out there for you,” Harper said confidently. If someone hadn’t been brave enough to tell Harper the same thing, she’d still be waiting on a man who was dazzled by designer boobs. Instead she’d had cookies—a baker’s dozen to be exact—with one of the sweetest, sexiest, and most sensitive guys in town. “And if you want that babydoll, then get it for you. Not some guy with too-white teeth.”
Peggy patted Harper’s hand in gratitude, then blinked back a little moisture. When the blinking didn’t work and the tears became real, Peggy diverted the attention off her by asking, “Is that magenta trim on the blue netting?”
“It’s actually bougainvillea-colored silk trim on aqua mesh. I think it will capture a lot of foot traffic.” It was vibrant, breezy, flirty—and exactly what they needed to appeal to a new variety of clientele. The same clientele Lulu Allure was targeting. “And it would go lovely with your eyes.”
Even though Harper knew she’d have to rehang and reshelve everything the ladies touched, and make sure Clovis didn’t put the girdles in the window display the second Harper left for work, she loved spending time with her grandma and the girls. They’d been a steady fixture in her life since she was a little girl. Her mom would shuttle Harper from theater to theater, but when a big role came along she’d drop Harper off at Clovis’s.
All three of these ladies had taken her in as if she were theirs. Embraced her and all of her eccentricities. Treated her as if who she was at her core was too special to be overlooked.
Har
per’s phone buzzed from the pocket of her dress. She fished it out and sucked in a breath. “Oh my God. It’s Chantel.” She showed the caller name on the screen to Peggy. “She must have received the few photos I sent over.”
Harper had wanted to make sure that what she was doing matched Chantel’s expectations. But she’d only sent them that morning—it was too early to hear back. Unless she loved them.
Or didn’t.
“If you mean the ones of Mr. July pulling a Magic Mike in my back room, then put it on speaker so the girls and I can hear,” Clovis said, dropping the girdles and hobbling across the store.
Harper didn’t bother to ask how the girls knew about those photos. They’d been taken in this very shop and touched up in her apartment, which her grandmother had a key to—and used at will.
“We don’t have all day. Answer it before she gets impatient and we miss out on talking about those photos,” Ida said.
“You think this will be one of those video chats?” Clovis asked, her voice all atwitter. “If so, she might hold up those photos so we can get a better look at them. See if he was stuffing the shorts or if it was real.”
It was real all right. Everything about Adam felt real when they were together. So real that the tingling had lasted for days.
Harper took in a few calming breaths so she wouldn’t sound as if she were hyperventilating, or daydreaming about her faux-mance that was turning out to be the most real romance she’d ever had, and swiped the screen. “Hey, Chantel.”
“Sorry I’m calling so early. It’s going to get crazy busy here later, and I didn’t want to miss the chance to call.”
“It’s perfect timing, I’m at the shop,” Harper said, and walked out the front door to gain some semblance of privacy. Not that it worked, as three frosted heads and one drooling dog pressed their faces to the window. Harper turned to face the street. “Actually, I’m working on a new window display for National Underwear Day.”
“If it’s anything like the images you sent over, I want to see it,” Chantel said, and Harper swallowed.