Page 98 of Sweet Temptation

“Who’s the secret agent?” I heard him ask, the exaggerated whisper obviously meant to reach my ears.

“Oh, that’s Ronan. Isn’t he lovely?”

I looked over to find them both checking me out.

“This is Devon,” Summer told me, though I already knew that. “You can call him Devoid.”

“Nice to meet you.” I shook his hand as his gaze dragged up and down my body. I was tempted to ask him, point-blank, what exactly he was “devoid” of. Though maybe the answer was self-evident.

Subtlety? Half his shirt?

“Summer, you didn’t tell me you were bringing a friend. Are we dressing him up, too?”

“Oh!” Summer’s eyes went wide.

“No, thanks,” I said, before she got any ideas.

Too late.

“Can we??” she pleaded with me.

“Really, I’m good.”

She pouted, which I’d never seen her do before. Her lips made a plump kiss shape and I looked away. “He’s my new bodyguard,” she informed Devon/Devoid. “Wouldn’t it be everything if he escorted me to tonight’s gig in a Devoid original?”

“Everything,” he concurred.

“We could match,” she said, and they both gazed at me hopefully.

“Thanks, really,” I said. “I’m good. I’ve got clothes.”

Devoid inspected my leather motorcycle jacket, T-shirt and jeans, all black. “It would be everything,” he reiterated.

“Ugh, forget it. He’s really not as fun as he looks.” Summer hooked her arm through Devoid’s. “Take us up. Show us what you’ve been working on.”

Devoid took us upstairs. He led us down a long hallway, past other studios and into his enormous corner studio. It was a single room crammed with rolls of fabric in every imaginable hue, huge sewing tables, several desks and racks of hanging clothes.

Music was playing. There were a few women working, two at the sewing machines and another at a desk. She smiled at us and said hello to Summer, who gave her a hug.

While Devoid led Summer to the back of the studio, I took a look around—noting the two exits, the washroom, the absence of security cameras.

“You can settle your ass down, right there,” Devoid informed me, once I’d caught up with them. The back of the studio had been cleared out, painted white and furnished with sleek furniture the same neon-orange color as his hair. There was a huge three-paneled mirror facing an elevated pedestal in the middle, for trying clothes on. He’d indicated a couch facing the pedestal, so I sat down.

Devoid started pulling outfits from a rolling rack and presenting them to Summer, one-by-one. She ohhed and ahhed.

And as I watched, she started untying the knot on the side of her wrap dress. The dress swathed her curves perfectly, and I got lost in staring, maybe… because the next thing I knew, she’d spread the whole thing open and dropped it on the floor.

She was standing right in front of me—and Devoid—in her underwear, her black dress in a puddle at her feet.

Her bra and panties were see-through.

I looked away.

What the shit.

I’d fully expected her to walk into the curtained-off change area in the corner before stripping down.

I tried to look anywhere else, but it was like my eyes had been magnetized to her bare skin. The pull was too strong.

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