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Maggie stood under the scalding water and tried not to think about how badly she’d messed up a simple date. She was supposed to spill coffee on him, bring him back to her place, get him shirtless, and then run her hands up his bare chest to cup the back of his neck. How hard was that? She might not have had a lot of experience seducing guys—her few partners had always done the lion’s share of the work—but she loved Dean. She was attracted to Dean. She wanted to touch Dean and have him touch her. There was no logical reason she’d run off to hide in the bathroom. That wasn’t her normal anxiety. She’d never run and hid from sex before.
Maybe it was the pressure of loving Dean? She wanted to get this right. She wanted him to see her as an actual romantic partner. After twenty years of friendship, that was a lot of pressure. No wonder she’d felt overwhelmed. Next time it would be easier. Next time the sight of his muscles wouldn’t cause her to flee. She was attracted to him, and next time it wouldn’t be a surprise. Now that she’d seen him shirtless and the pressure was off, next time she could enjoy him.
Maggie soaped up her hands and let them run across her belly and up the front of her body to her breasts. Her nipples tingled from the heat of the shower, and she let the tips of her fingers brush against them. A small shiver slid down her spine, but it wasn’t unpleasant. Maggie cupped her breasts more fully and tipped her head back, letting the water flow over her neck and down her body. She slid one hand up over her neck to clutch the hair at the back of her head, not pulling, just sitting there with an obvious weight. The other hand squeezed around her breast, waiting for the heat to spread.
Dean,she thought, twisting her nipple again.
Dean, Dean, Dean.
Maggie had touched herself before. It was the only way she had sex anymore. Alone with herself. Usually it was after reading a steamy scene in a novel. Book boyfriends always did it for her. There was something safe and comfortable about loving them, as if they’d gotten to know each other better than anyone over several hundred pages. If fictional men could rev her engines, then Dean could, too. Maggie brought the hand from her breast down to her hipbone.
She could do this.
Dean’s muscles had rippled as he pulled his shirt over his head.
Maggie slid her hand lower, teasing the soft skin between her thighs. It felt good. She couldn’t tell if she was wet, not with the shower pounding over her, but there was a small spring coiling in her stomach as she circled her index finger around her clit. She was already hot from the shower, but an extra flush of heat climbed up her body, seeping into her limbs. She closed her eyes and thought of Dean.
His smile, even after she dumped a drink on him.
She slipped two fingers inside her heat and stroked.
The strength in his arms when he hugged her or held her.
She circled her clit again, as the tension coiled tighter
Dean’s smooth voice as he said that he loved her.
She shuddered.
Dean asking if she’d hurt herself as she swung her hips.
The tension dissolved.
Dean chatting as they ran, while she sucked air in through a straw.
The heat vanished.
Dean stripping down to his skin while she grabbed a bra that she should have tossed years ago..
Maggie dropped her hands and turned off the water.
This wasn’t the first time she’d lost focus while trying to get off. It was okay to not be in the mood. Her mortification over how the day had gone was enough to suffocate almost anyone’s arousal. It wasn’t Dean. The next date would be better. Maggie smiled at her Jane Austen duck, rubbing a hand over the smooth vinyl plastic. She grabbed a towel and stepped onto her bath mat, deciding that she was going to read a book and put the whole day out of her mind. Tomorrow would be a new start.
CHAPTER NINE
“Ineedamakeover.”Maggie sandwiched her phone between her ear and her shoulder. She was standing in front of her closet, perusing her options for her next date with Dean. The humiliation of her decades old sports bra was sitting on her shoulders like her trusty weighted blanket. In true, main character fashion, Dean hadn’t mentioned the bra. He’d given her a single grin as he looked her up and down and then politely kept his gaze off of her body.
“You don’t need a makeover.” Audrey’s distant voice was just muffled enough that Maggie was pretty sure she was driving. “You’re gorgeous, and your style is all your own.”
A little fissure of warmth bloomed in Maggie’s chest at Audrey’s words. She would forever be grateful her photo-ready best friend saw nothing wrong with what she liked to wear, but her wardrobe needed a long-overdue update. Some version of a makeover was a standard occurrence in romance novels, films, and television. Female heroine buys new clothes, gets a new haircut, wears some makeup, and the male hero falls all over himself, picking his jaw up off the ground and seeing her as the hot and desirable woman he was overlooking before. She could get some new clothes, the first in close to a decade, and set the groundwork for another chance at slapping Dean upside the head with classic romantic tropes.
“If Cal is with you and I’m on speaker, best friend code says you have to tell me.”
“You’re on speaker and Cal is with me, but he’s not paying attention to anything, right, baby?”
Some unintelligible conversation hit Maggie’s ear and then Cal said, “Hi Maggie.”
“Hi Cal,”
