Page 44 of Tempting as Sin
He lifted his plastic cup to her in a toast and then obliged, and she asked, “So what’s the answer to my question? Hooks and eyes,” she elaborated at his raised eyebrows. “Why sexier.Ifsexier.”
“Show me again,” he said, and when she did, he said, “Yeah. Definitely. That does it. What would it look like if it were a snap?” She showed him the motion, and he shook his head. “Too fast. Too easy. You don’t get that sliding feeling, like her clothes are falling open. Besides, every bloke remembers the first time he unhooked that bra strap. That’s a red-letter day.”
“You’re being Australian again,” she said.
“You’re distracting me. I’m sure American bl— guys remember it, too. If he’s seventy, he remembers it. That’s muscle memory.”
“Pavlov’s dog,” she said. “Stimulus and response.”
He couldn’t swear it, and then he could. He was seeing something under the stretchy fabric of her dress. A stimulus, and a response. Her bra must be lace, or just thin. And he was definitely seeing a response.
“I wanted to ask you,” she said, hanging the bra up again, and if there was more color in her cheeks? Well, yeah. You bet there was. “About white. Another question I had about it.”
“About…white,” he said.
She cleared her throat again. “Summer display, for the window. I had an idea. Pale blue panties and bra. Soft. Cotton. And then I thought…if I put a short white silk robe over them on the mannequin, would adding a pair of stockings with white lace tops still look sweet and accidentally sexy? Or over the top to full sex? The porno store?”
“Maybe you could show me,” he managed to say. He was a sophisticated man. He was fourteen long years out of Queensland. And still, his tongue felt two sizes too large for his mouth. Why had he said that? If she showed him, he’d have to walk somewhere, and unless he got his body calmed down, Hailey, at least, was going to be able to measure him for condom fit. Not Lily, because she was looking anywhere but. They both had their gazes so firmly locked on each others’ faces, in fact, that they could probably draw them by now.
“I’ll bring it over,” she said. “How’s that?”
There was a couch here, he realized when she was gone. Loveseat sized, pink, and velvet. He’d been standing practically in front of it and hadn’t even seen it. He sat down, crossed his left ankle over his right knee, and managed to be able to endure it. Not so bruised here.
A much better position, all in all.
Lily hurried past Hailey as a customer left the shop with a tinkle of brass bells. There were three women browsing, though, and she needed to get involved. She should… She told Hailey, “I’m coming. Just a second.”
“Hon,” Hailey said, “I’ve got it. This is my best day at work in a long, long time. You go on.”
Lily heard her. Sort of. But she was gathering garments, too, and walking to the back with them, to the husband-seat where Rafe had sat down. He started to get up, winced, and she said, “Never mind. Stay there.” And realized what she was seeing.
Her dad teaching her and Paige, when they’d been fourteen, what to expect from a man. “When you come into the room,” he’d said, demonstrating, “he should stand up. Not at home. But when you’re out, at a restaurant? You bet he does. If he can’t be bothered to stand up, he can’t be bothered at all, and he’s the wrong man.”
She and Paige had laughed, afterwards. “Like I can see Augusto Sanchez standing up when I come into Algebra,” Paige had gasped. “Oh, Augusto. My hero. Out of touch much, Dad?”
And yet, right now? Rafe had tried to stand. Even though it hurt.
Actor,she told herself, but the voice was getting fainter all the time. “Stay there,” she said again, going for her Chuck-command tone and failing miserably. She didn’t want to order him around. She wanted something so entirely different.
He was still wearing the sunglasses, she thought at the very moment when he took them off. His eyes were the wrong color, brown again, but she didn’t care.
“I like that better,” she said. “So I can see you.”
“Show me,” he said, and if his voice was the werewolf’s? She was good with that.
“So here you go.” She hung them on the rack and got herself under control again. “Robe. Short. Silk, just because it’s prettier, and for the contrast of fabrics. Cotton panties, because they’re soft.” She hung them from the bottom of the robe hanger. A light cotton knit, soft as a cloud. Ice blue with a thin ribbon of white lace overlay along the waistband. “Actually a thong,” she said, showing him the backside, “because they’re the narrowest at the hip and the highest cut, but you won’t see the back.”
“Working so far,” he said. “Front, back, and everything. In fact, you could stop there. Want the male traffic? Oh, yeah. Hang that thong down at the right spot, with that robe over it?” He sighed. “You just did it.”
“Not the porno store,” she reminded him.
“Right. Show me the rest, then. You’re killing me, but I’m happy to go.”
She hadn’t looked at his body while they’d talked, and she wasn’t doing it now. His voice still sounded lazy. Casual. But there was that tension again, the bunching in his muscles that she’d feel if she touched him. The same as in the café, and completely different. That laser focus, too. On her.
She held up the hanger with the bra.You could focus yourself, miss,she tried to tell herself. To Rafe, she said, “Soft cup. Cotton knit. Summer comfortable, matching the thong.”
“Male point of view?” he asked. “I already told you. Just the thong and the robe. But, sure, it’s all good. Truth be told, looking at pretty lingerie in a shop window is never going to reach “horrible” on most men’s scale.”
