Page 6 of Sexy as Sin
Bloodyhell.Wasit just being alive when you’d thought you were dead? Or was it really him? She couldn’t tell, but she did know that her insides were fluttering.
Steady on, girl. You don’t know him.It’s breakfast. He could be married.She wasn’t taking another woman’s man, no matter how strong his arms felt when he held her. She brushed on a little mascara, then pulled on her new sundress, a violet mini with a double-ruffled skirt, a wrap waistband that emphasized what curves she did have, and a deep neckline, low back, and crossover spaghetti straps that meant you absolutely had to go braless, and everyone would know it.
Azra had made her buy it two weeks ago. “You’re lucky to have such cute little breasts, so you can wear it,” her friend had insisted, fortunately in Arabic, so everyone around them hadn’t turned to stare at the Amazing Boobless Woman. Azra had held the dress up higher on its hanger and shaken it at Willow. “Look at it. It’s saying ‘Try me on. I was made to be yours.’ If I wore it, I’d look like a currant bun. When you wear it, you’ll look like a sex goddess.”
Yeah, right. Willow hadneverlooked like a sex goddess, and so far, shehadn’tworn it, except once, riding home from the beach, over her bikini. You didn’t wear that kind of thing to cook, much less at an event, and the past month had been all work anyway, with summer wedding season in full swing. The “maybe you’d like to come along” event Gordy had almost-invited her to, in fact, would be their only going-out-with-clothes-on date in weeks. She’d been with him, though, on that ride home from the beach after a surfing outing, had pointed out that the dress was new, and he’d said, “Yeah? Huh. Nice.”
“No good?” she’d asked, keeping it light.Your opinion, mate,she’d tried to think, but that was never easy.
“Nah,” he said. “It’s pretty. Makes it obvious you’ve got no tits, though. Maybe something sort of... filled out would be better. Sexier.”
She’d almost broken up with him then, but had decided he was just honest. Men liked big breasts. That wasn’t news. If she broke up with Gordy, the next bloke would like big breasts, too. Besides, Gordy was a brilliant surfer, and he liked the things she liked. Wasn’t compatibility meant to be the most important thing?
Now, she put the dress on.Sheliked it, anyway. She liked everything she saw in the mirror, or at least she accepted it. It was her. Wild, curly ginger hair, freckles, and untannable skin. An athletic body that could run and bicycle and surf and swim with equal ease and no heavy-duty support garments. Giraffe-long legs, height, and all the rest of it.
People were different, and she was fine. Surely, she was fine.
She wanted more than that, though. She wanted a man who didn’t want her to wear anything padded, because he thought she was beautiful as she was. She wanted him to take off her clothes, and she wanted his breath to catch when he finally saw her naked. She wanted her heart to melt at the way he kissed her, soft and tender and thorough, like he couldn’t get enough, and like only she would do. She wanted his hands and mouth all over her, and she wanted him to love her for hours. Or at least for more than ten minutes.
Why were all those “Love you all night long” songs so popular? Because it was a fantasy, that was why. Well, she wanted the fantasy at least once. She was thirty, and this day could have been her last.Surely it was time to stop settling for less.
Right now? She wanted to wear this dress like she meant it, and to find out whether her new friend actuallywaswearing a shirt with “Fuck” on it. After that, she wanted to cook breakfast, tease him out of his seriousness a little more, see if his heart was doing the same dance hers was, andnotthink about sharks. So she headed out there to start doing it.
She hadn’t died, and life was for living.
Brett dropped the package of bacon, made a grab for it, and watched helplessly as the meat slithered out of its plastic wrapping and fell greasily onto the tiled floor.
He’d meant to set it on the counter. But Willow had walked into the kitchen, and somehow, his hand hadn’t made it to the counter.
It was the hair, maybe. It was wet, and it was wild. Copper ringlets, falling below her shoulders like fire. It was also the dress, all feminine flirtation, the top cut down to her breastbone in the middle, the hem ending halfway to her knees. And the way she walked in it, like she knew exactly how sexy she was right now, and exactly how much she made him want her. She had that part right.
He recovered and bent down to pick up the meat, she did the same thing, and their heads bumped. She said, “Ow!” and staggered, her bare foot slipped on the pseudo-bacon, she fell straight back onto her pretty ass with that flippy skirt all the way up her thighs, and she started to laugh.
This never happened to James Bond.
“Sorry,” he said. He had to laugh himself, and then he was giving her his hand, pulling her up, andnotlooking down her dress. “I’m getting it,” he told her, somehow unable to stop smiling. “Don’t join me this time, all right? I’m trying desperately to maintain my cool here.”
She was hopping towards the sink on one foot, grabbing for a paper towel, dampening it, and wiping off her greasy foot. One of her shoulder straps fell down, and no, he wasn’t actually going for the bacon package at this moment, because he didn’t even have to look down her dress. Her nipple was pink, it was pretty, and... There James Bond went again, his suaveness flying straight out the window. Also, these stupid shorts were much too tight. Another minute of this, and he’d be embarrassing himself.
“Whoops,” she said, looking down, pulling up her strap, and laughing some more. “I didn’t mean to actually flash you. Righty-ho, then. This is one big ‘fail.’ I wanted to wear something pretty, but I wasn’t planning to strip naked over the bacon. Are you turning that?”
He jumped, swore, and grabbed for the pan. The bacon wasn’t exactly burned, but it wasn’t exactly not, either. He turned it over, and she smiled some more and said, “This is my first time wearing this dress. Obviously, or I’d have discovered its failings. Not to mention mine.” She reached over the stove for another frying pan hanging from a pot rack, stood next to him at the stove, turned the gas fire on under the pan and tossed in a generous knob of butter, then focused on a bunch of bananas in a wire basket on the counter, which she peeled, sliced, and shook sugar onto with an efficiency of motion that told him that, yes, she was indeed a professional.
“What do you mean, yours?” he asked. “Also, if you show me the coffee, I’ll fix it. I’m better at that than bacon.”
“No coffee.” She gave her butter a swirl with a spatula. “I don’t have any. Just tea.” She gestured with her chin. “Switch the kettle on, would you?”
He did it, then asked again, “What do you mean, your failings? Because there is absolutely nothing wrong with youorthat dress. I’m loving it.” The top of her head was only a few inches below his, and he was six-one. Kissing her would be so easy, even if you were inside her. He got an image of those fiery ringlets spread around her on a white sheet, her arms flung up over her head, and his hands running slowly from her shoulders to her wrists, then holding her there while he kissed her, deep and slow, and ground himself into her in that way that provided maximum friction for her, too...
He forgot his bacon again.
She reached over with her spatula, flipped his bacon for him, and turned a laughing face to his. “You’re hopeless, boy. Go make the tea. I’ve got this.”
He stepped back, pulled two mugs from hooks—an orange one and a blue one, because matching wasn’t high on her priority list—and said, “Failings.”
“You’re also relentless,” she complained.
“So often,” he agreed. “If the failing’s that you weren’t embarrassed by any of that, that you laughed instead—I love that, too.”
