Page 102 of My Best Friend's Mardi Gras Wedding

She laughed.“Really?Just looking at a lot of girls with makeup on doesn’t really make you an expert, does it?”

He gave her a little smile.“Tori, I knowlotsof things about girls.”

“Yes, I’m aware.”

“But not all of those girls are girls I’ve gotten naked with.”

She narrowed her eyes.“What do you mean?”

“I’ll have you know,” he said.“That I did makeupandhair for not one buttwoMiss Louisiana Teens.”He shrugged.“One was apastwinner and was going back for an award ceremony, but I still did her hair and makeup.”

Tori realized that she hadn’t blinked for several seconds.“Excuse me?”she finally managed.

He grinned.“My sister was a beauty pageant contestant for years.Mom is a past beauty queen.So when Kennedy was little and Mom was working, she taught me and Sawyer to do it all so we could help out.And it took both of us,” he said, shaking his head.“She loved the competitions, but she hated getting her hair done.One of us would hold her and the other would do her hair.We got really good at being really fast.The girl was a biter.”

Tori choked out a laugh.She didn’t know which thing surprised, or delighted, her most.“Kennedywas into beauty pageants?”She thought about Kennedy’s dark eye makeup and lipstick, her tattoos and piercings, and most of all, her I’ve-got-my-own-rules-for-everything attitude.

“’Til she was thirteen,” Josh said with a nod.“When she decided she’d had enough of all the bullshit and decided to take her hair and makeup skills, and her love of making an impression, in a new feminist direction.”

Tori had to admit that Kennedy’s look was very polished and clearly deliberate.It probably did take mad makeup skills to get all of that right.“Did she win any pageants?”

“Oh yeah,” he said with a nod.“She’s competitive as fuck.”

“Wow.”Tori looked at him thoughtfully.“So you really know what to do with a makeup brush, huh?”

“Anda hairbrush.”

She shrugged.“Go for it.”

Having him working on her face and hair required him to standreallyclose to her.Which was great.She loved it in fact.His body heat, his scent, his confident but gentle touch, his hard chest and abs…it was allverygood.His absolute focus and attention to the job at hand and not even letting one finger drift anywhere it wasn’t supposed to wasn’t as good.

She was completely horny and frustrated by the time he finished lining her eyes with the stupid liquid liner.As if it was the easiest thing in the world.

“Stop wiggling,” he told her.

“Can’t.”

“And stop looking at me like that,” he said, his gaze on her eyebrows as he shaped them.

He wasshaping her eyebrows.She blew out a breath.“Like what?”

“Like you’re imagining me hiking up this robe and sliding deep right here on the counter.”

Her body flushed and her lungs stopped working for a second.“You don’t even have to kiss me and mess up my makeup.”

He huffed out a short laugh.“I’m not fucking you without kissing you.”

“Why not?”That seemed like an unnecessarily restrictive rule.

“Because I really like kissing you.”

“But the fucking—”

“Don’t say fucking.”Now he was frowning.

“Why not?”

“Because that makes me think about it.And how I couldn’t do it facing you.You’d put your cheek against mine or something at some point.Or I’d forget myself and grab your hair.But that if I put you on your feet and turned you to face the mirror, I could fuck you without touching your face or hairandI’d get to see your face when you come.”

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