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The Heidi in front of Carine had acquired a sort of mystery and unapproachableness. She’d probably still bully a quarterback, but Carine had a hunch that the current version of Heidi wouldn’t need to repeat herself to get what she wanted.
Needing to do something with her hands beyond fidgeting with the cart handle, Carine got her phone out of her purse and checked her shopping list for the fifth time. Everything was already checked off. “Plans are for the weak-hearted, Heidi,” she responded finally. “I’ve got too much spunk for that.”
“Yes, I’m sure that’s perfectly reasonable,” Heidi purred. “Have you eaten?”
Carine looked up, not knowing if she’d find Heidi’s eyebrow tilted skyward again or if her patronizing smile had returned.
She didn’t see either.
“Have you had lunch?” Heidi rephrased, probably thinking Carine had lost the plot again.
Carine imagined she wasn’t the only person who became less intelligent the closer to Heidi they stood.
Apparently, vampires had that effect on people as well.
“I figured if you were giving Lipton the middle finger today over their undignified sock hop edict, you could stall and have a proper meal.”
“With you?”
“Only if you can stand my company,” Heidi intoned.
“Oh, Heidi, I didn’t mean to sound ungracious. I was just—”
“Stop.” That word whispered in that soft but forceful dungeon voice had Carine’s tongue frozen in a mid-sound state and her toes curling against her platform wedges.
Lord, is that how that’s supposed to work?
Carine generally didn’t have a problem following instructions, either in or out of the bedroom, but she had an innate rebellious streak. A few wanna-be dominants had tried to break her of the habit before, but she mostly just played along. She hadn’t known she was supposed to sweat a little at the thought she may have offended them.
“I was messing with you, Carine,” Heidi said in a careful volume. People were browsing the endcap on the other side of the path. “If I really wanted to, I’d make you eat with me whether you could stand to or not.”
Carine was pretty sure Heidi’s smile at that time was amusement, not pity.
“I’m low-carb right now, but I’m open to lunch suggestions.”
“How would you know how many carbs you have? Seems like such a thing would be variable, depending on your mood.” Heidi pushed her glasses back onto her nose and studied the inner size tags of the shirts.
It took Carine at least ten seconds to grasp the innuendo and another ten seconds after that to pick her jaw up off the floor.
Heidi did that all the time—just walked around saying sex things, and often, people didn’t catch on. She knew that about Heidi, and she also knew that Heidi had never made a cunnilingus joke directly toher.
“That’d be a big lunch to be having,” Carine said weakly as she tried to force her toes to straighten.
“You really think so? I can usually finish in an hour, but maybe I’d need more time.”
Carine’s throat suddenly went tight. She pressed her fingertips to it and tried to force down a swallow. Given the company she tended to keep, she wasn’t generally easy to fluster, but something about Heidi’s energy as of late had been coming off as instigating. “What do you think you could finish in an hour?”
Once again, Heidi removed her glasses. She pivoted toward the aisle, leaned close to Carine on her way out, and whispered, “Depends on how much I need to lick my fingers.”
A strangled sound came out of Carine, but fortunately, Heidi didn’t hear it. She was halfway to the register.
Carine tried to reassert control of her knocking knees and suppressed the nervous titter trying to bubble out of her.
She was a reasonable woman. Of course, her mind had gonetherea time or two when Heidi was around. She’d once watched a Down and Dirty guest practically keel over just from watching Heidi wave the tip of her tongue at them. Whatever had gone on between them behind closed doors earlier had obviously been the highlight of that visitor’s day.
And Carine was lonely enough, and often enough, that she’d given some thought to justseeingwhat it could be like. She’d never pursued a woman before and had never thought she’d want to. But also, no woman had technically ever pursued her. She couldn’t possibly know what she would do if given a range of options.
She didn’t think Heidi was actually giving her an option. Heidi was being Heidi in the same way Clay was always Clay, and Tim was always Tim. Sometimes they said provocative things to rattle brains and snatch control in a situation. Clay explained that they liked to leave people feeling unmoored and unfulfilled. Having the rugs yanked out from beneath them every now and then kept them from getting too stuck on themselves.
