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I’d been on my best behavior, but something in me snapped and all that nonsense was forgotten. I went to her, splitting the remaining distance between us.
I just wanted to be close to her.
To feel her body pressed against mine.
I weaved my fingers through her hair, my lips murmuring my apologies as they glided over her lips. Tasting the sweetness of her. Wanting to hold onto her, onto this, as long as I could.
I expected her to push me away. To slap me. I would have deserved whatever prize laid behind either one of those doors. Instead, she lingered, breathing in the moment along with me.
I finally ended it, but whispered my lips across her jaw, relishing the way she hitched her breath and leaned into me. “Let me make it up to you. For real this time.”
She raised her brows skeptically. “What do you have planned? Buying me a house? A new car?”
I feigned devastation, slumping my shoulders. “Would that be too much?”
She smacked my chest, letting out a chuckle that felt like the sun was shining right down on us. “How about we start out small? We can do that dinner you hinted at the last time we were together?”
I stroked her jaw with my fingertips and leaned in for another kiss, groaning when she took my bottom lip between her teeth and tugged, gripping my ass.
I was trying hard to behave—and she was making it impossible.
As badly as I wanted to have her, right here, I wanted her to see that she was more than a quickie to me. That I wanted more from her than her body.
“It’s a date,” I answered, already planning on how I’d sweep Natalee Madison off her feet.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: NATALEE
“He’s gonna blow his load the minute he sees you!”
I knew she meant that as a compliment. It was Tamara’s brash version of ‘you look great!’, but I still blushed crimson and flicked a bobby pin at her. “Ew. That’s not exactly what I’m going for.”
She shrugged her shoulders, taking it in stride as she peered at her work like Michelangelo must have studied his masterpiece; analyzing and twisting locks that didn’t lay the way she wanted them to. Twisting my head to and fro and practically touching the tip of her nose to mine as she made sure my makeup was impeccable. “Not that he seems like the premature ejaculation type, I’m just saying. You’re a knockout, Nat!”
I’d been forbidden to look at a mirror until she was done, Tamara clucking her tongue whenever I stole a peek. The work in progress, hair still needing to be pinned, one eye dramatic and screaming ‘I dare you’ and the other bare and exhausted from work—I’d been a teeny bit skeptical. Going completely bare seemed like a bad idea, since my skin showed every bit of stress I’d endured over the past twenty four hours, including a venue change with less than an hour notice, several important packages went poof, and my mother dropped several hints that she’d be popping over to say hello in the near future. Some makeup to smooth my rough edges was definitely in order.
It still didn’t stop Tamara from threatening to cover up the mirror if I attempted to see the reveal before she was done.
Ultimately, I knew I was in capable hands since she worked the makeup counter at department stores part time in college, until she amassed several repeat customers that offered to pay her a pretty penny if she cut out the middle man and became their personal makeup artist. She was fearless with a makeup brush and hair straightener, but when I told her Jason and I were going on a date and I wanted a look that was casual yet still took his breath away, she’d clapped her hands together with glee, then went serious as the grave and asked if I trusted her.
After a wary yes, and an hour of prodding, primping, and pinning, she put on the final touches, swiping my cheeks with the makeup brush, a smile dashing across her face to the finish line.
“I’m done.”
I’d been so nervous, and a little unsure that a certified MUA who spent over an hour putting her face on could give me something low key. I’d played the seductress already. And as badly as I wanted him, I wanted more than just his body. Everyone wanted a piece of Jason Cox. Fantasized about the ripple of tight muscles beneath his shirt. Wondered if the bulge the paps snapped when he was leaving the gym was only a sneak peek of the delights that awaited the women he took to bed.
I wanted him...this dizzying excitement was proof of that, but I longed to see what no one else got to see. So I didn’t want to do what every other woman did if she got a night with him. Makeup that he’d smear, makeup that hid perceived blemishes. Hair that would go all over the place, the manufactured, tousled waves bone straight after he was done having his way.
I didn’t want him to look at me and calculate just how long he could do this whole date thing before he got to tear my clothes off.
I wanted him to see me, too.
So even though Tamara was doing some sort of jig that should have been impossible in my tiny bathroom and was waiting for me to see her handiwork with all the patience of children bounding into their parents room on Christmas morning with the sun barely out, I took my time. I stroked my knees, leaning forward on the toilet and going slow enough that I felt every muscle in me unfurling as I pulled myself up.
I gripped the edge of the sink, twisting my mouth to the side and cringing in preparation of her chastising me for disrupting my lipstick, but she didn’t say a thing.
Now I really had to look.
My eyes flew open.
