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Heat climbs up my neck and I press a hand to my cheek to stop it. His eyes follow, grazing over my skin in a way I swear I can feel. “It’s not...my friend was—” I frantically glance around me, but Molly is nowhere to be found.
Goddammit, Molly.
“What are you doing in here?” he asks.
I raise a brow. “I’m a female in a store’s lingerie section. I’m not the outlier. What areyoudoing here? And if you don’t have a plausible explanation, I’ll just assume it’s your sex doll’s birthday.”
His mouth twitches. “Kimberly’s birthday isn’t until January. I’m getting something for my mom.”
“What an interesting relationship you two must have.” I turn to the rack of lingerie. “What’s her size?”
He slaps a hand over his face. “She wants arobe, but thanks for putting that seriously uncomfortable image in my head.” His eyes revert back to the black thing I’m still holding. “Shopping for the big date? If you’re wearing that, he’s not going to settle for second base.”
I sigh. “If I’m wearing this,I’mthe one who won’t be settling for second base.”
He runs a thumb over his lower lip, his nostrils flaring as if he’s scented prey, his eyes liquid under the store’s fluorescent lights. “So what exactlyareyou after when that’s on?”
There’s a trickle of delight in my chest. I don’t wear lingerielike this, and I don’t have the money for it even if I did, but suddenly I’m seeing myself through Caleb’s eyes: as a woman who might wear a merry widow on a date. As a woman who might go in with some demands of her own. I grin. “Use your imagination.”
He winces. “I am. That’s the problem.” There’s a rasp in the words, something low and dark and tinged with yearning.
He walks away, broad-shouldered and glorious in that perfectly tailored suit, his words on replay in my head.
I am. That’s the problem.
Those words—the rasp as he uttered them—pulse brightly inside me, deep in my core, so sharp it’s almost painful.
Molly reappears, looking at his retreating form in the distance and then me with pure glee. “Oh my God. I take back everything I ever said about him being a creepy weirdo who’s obsessed with his ex. Seduce him immediately. I want you to walk straight into his office, bend over his desk, and beg.”
I roll my eyes. “It’s interesting, the way you can suggest the boldest possible plan while failing to pursue your own boss in any manner whatsoever.”
She glances off to where Caleb disappeared. “The difference is thathewas two seconds from kissing you in the middle of the store. I’m serious, Lucie. Be bold. Give him the smallest encouragement and he’ll fold like a deck of cards. The two of you were so hot.”
I laugh. “That wasn’theat. That was the intense awkwardness of having your boss discover you with kinky, role-play shit during your lunch break.”
“Believe me,” says Molly with a small smile, “if I’m reading him correctly, he’s going to be imagining you in that thing for a good, long time. With his dick in his hand.”
THE NEXT DAY, I ask Caleb to meet me in the future break room so he can better visualize the plans as I show them to him. Molly found nothing objectionable, though she did offer several suggestions about surfaces upon which Caleb and I could have sex, leading me to conclude that once she wins over Michael, I’m never eating in her home again.
I’m in the room, waiting for Caleb, when she texts.
MOLLY
Go for it.
Go for what?
YOU KNOW WHAT I’M REFERRING TO. My God, he must be DYING after a year of celibacy too.
I swear I’m going to ignore what she’s said, but when he walks up behind me just as I’m leaning over the table, trying to get the plans to lie flat…I’m thinking about it.
He’s so tall. He’s not even touching me, but I can feel him along my spine, my tailbone, the back of my thighs. I picture him wrapping one large hand around my hip, the brush of his breath against my ear as he tells me to stay bent over, just like I am.
“I’ve got it,” he says gruffly, pinning the left corner of the plans down with my laptop.
I slide away, my face too hot, my breathing uneven.
“I’ll try not to take up too much of your time,” I begin. “I’d planned to just show you these at the lake, but we haven’t seen you around.”
