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“...And this guy ran like there’d been some zombie apocalypse overnight and I’d been infected...”
The next sweater also hit the couch as she paced back and forth. Luke’s mouth went dry and he took a quick swig of the beer. The peeling away of her layers down to some kind of dark gray turtleneck was slowly revealing the petite body that went with her cute pixie nose and her funky blond hairstyle. Granted, she was suffering badly from hat hair but somehow that just made her even more appealing.
There was an intriguing bounce to her breasts as she paced and, being an expert in this department, he was pretty damn sure she wasn’t wearing a bra.
It was probably wrong to be this turned on.
“Well, no more,” she said, stopping and turning to face him, her hands on her hips. “I want a serious relationship. Something more permanent, damn it. And a guy who wants the same thing. Is that so wrong?”
Luke shook his head and tried to focus on what she was saying. She wanted to settle down. After two overseas tours he understood the urge for roots. “Absolutely not.”
She narrowed her eyes for a moment like she didn’t believe him but quickly resumed her pacing. Her track pants were next in line for the treatment as she pulled at the waist cord.
“Right. So I decided. No sex until I meet a guy who has the potential to be Mr. Right.”
She stepped out of them and kicked them aside without breaking stride. A pair of black skinny jeans clung to thighs that would have done any ballerina proud. Luke dragged his gaze from them as she turned and glared at him again.
“Ten dates. That’s the rule. No putting out until date eleven. You’d think that wouldn’t be too much to ask, right?”
Luke nodded, forcing himself to look at her face. Her cheeks were flushed and it conjured up thoughts of other ways to get her all hot and bothered.
“Wrong,” she said, and her voice dripped with disgust.
She unzipped her jeans and peeled them off to reveal a pair of very tight, nothing-left-to-the-imagination long johns. Luke had never thought long johns were sexy. Which just went to show, you could get to twenty-five and still know jack shit.
“I mean, at a date a week, that’s only ten weeks, right? And two dates a week is only five weeks. Is that so freaking hard? Can men not go five weeks without sex?”
The angry pixie was demanding an answer from him but it took a moment to drag his thoughts back from wondering if female long johns had the opening at the front like their male counterparts.
“They’re jerks, Tamara,” he said, feeling like a complete hypocrite as he wondered if she was going commando. “Any man worth his salt would wait five lousy weeks for you.”
Tamara nodded her head vigorously. “Damn straight I’m worth waiting five weeks for,” she muttered, and he smiled as she returned to her pacing. “I mean, I think I still look pretty good—for someone who’s thirty. I look after myself, I did ballet for years, and I still do Pilates five times a week.”
She stopped and grabbed at her shirt. Luke was caught between trying not to think about how flexible Tamara might be and the awful feeling that maybe she was already down to her last layer and the alcohol was playing havoc with her memory.
He was about to stop her but it was up and over her head in seconds, dragging another layer—the last layer, if the flash of bare belly and the underside of one naked breast was any indication—half up with it. She yanked what appeared to be the matching top to her long johns down, oblivious to the eyeful he’d just copped or how he could see the dark outline of her nipples through the fabric.
Luke shifted uncomfortably as her unintentional striptease had a predictable effect on a man who hadn’t been with a woman since he’d deployed nine months ago. He was feeling pretty damn hot himself about now. Most definitely overdressed compared to the long-johned pixie with thunder in her eyes prancing around in front of him.
“These...” She grabbed her breasts in her open palms, flattening them against her chest and glaring at him some more. “...have defied gravity pretty damn well.” She jiggled her hands a little. “They may not be huge but they’ve kept their place. There’s no bra on under here, you know.”
Luke nodded. “Yes.” He knew. God help him, he knew. “They’re very nice,” he added, because she seemed to want something more from him and he didn’t think “Why don’t you take all your clothes off and come a little closer?” would go down all that well.
“Damn straight they are. But, oh no, no guy is apparently willing to wait a little while to get his hands on them.”
She dropped her hands from their position, looking resigned and spent as she flopped back onto the couch behind her. “I’ve been dumped four times in the last few months for not putting out.” She rubbed her forehead with her fingers. “I don’t get men.”
Luke chose his words carefully, taking a pull of his beer before he said anything. She might have been intoxicated but this angst was obviously coming from somewhere. “So...this ban on casual sex includes kissing?”
She nodded vigorously and Luke was left in no doubt that kissing was off the table. Damn. “Most definitely,” she added for extra emphasis. “It’s like a gateway drug.”
“A gateway drug?”
She looked directly at him and somehow, sitting in her long johns with no bra, possibly no underwear, and high on eggnog, she still managed to look just like a kindergarten teacher.
“I don’t have good impulse control. Not when it comes to kissing anyway. I like kissing. Hell,” she bugged her eyes at him, “I love kissing. It’s addictive.”
She held his gaze and Luke was captured by the earnestness he saw in hers. “You know those deep, wet, hungry kisses with plenty of tongue and a lot of groaning that taste like cotton candy laced with cocaine and reek of anticipation that can go on for hours until you can barely breathe and every cell feels alive? Just kissing and kissing and kissing like it’s never going to end?”
