She spins around and holds up two pairs of panties, one in each hand. “Quick. Do you prefer it when your fiancée wears the black lace thong?” She waggles a scrap of silky-looking fabric that is so hot my face might be engulfed in flames right now because Charlotte owns that? “Or do you prefer her in the white side-string bikini?” She waves the white pair before my eyes, and all I can see is a tiny triangular patch of fabric that’s the slightest bit see-through.
Forget the flames. I am a fucking inferno right now knowing she owns this too. White panties that reveal pretty much everything.
Lord have mercy.
If a woman I was dating wore those panties, they wouldn’t be on her. They’d be in my teeth as I pulled them off. I can’t do anything but stare at her lingerie as my blood heats to surface-of-Mercury levels.
Charlotte tilts her head and shoots me an expectant look. “Which one do you prefer your fiancée in?”
I haven’t answered her yet. I’m just trying to get the blood flowing from other parts of my anatomy back to my brain.
“Nothing,” I say, intending it as a jokey retort, but my throat is dry and scratchy, so the words come out in a harsh growl.
She lifts an eyebrow, completely unperturbed. “Nothing? Really? Okay then,” she says, and swivels around, stuffing the underthings back in the bureau, grabbing a bra, then closing the drawer with a gentle ping. “That makes things easier. I’ll be right back.”
She touches my shoulder playfully with her index finger, yanks open her closet, grabs something from a hanger, and returns to the bathroom. As she shuts the door, I sink down on the bed and breathe out hard. I drop my forehead to my palm. What the hell kind of test was that? That was a feat of strength, if I ever experienced one.
But I don’t have time to figure it out because twenty seconds later, she opens the bathroom door and says, “What do you think?”
She’s wearing a cranberry red skirt that falls to her knees and kind of flares out as she twirls around, along with a black silky tank. “Does this work for you to take me ring shopping?”
I point at her midsection, then lower. “You’re really not wearing underwear?”
Her eyes sparkle with mischief. “My fiancé told me he prefers me in…” She steps closer, drops a hand to my shoulder, and brings her lips to my ear to whisper, “Nothing.”
And now, ladies and gentlemen, my cock is officially saluting my best friend, the Commando Temptress. She pops back into her closet, emerges with a pair of black heels, and slips them on.
Kill me now.
Her legs look insanely hot, and knowing that the treasure at the apex of her thighs is bare is going to drive me crazy. I drag both hands through my hair like bulldozers. “Okay, you win the first feat of strength.” I march over to her bureau where I open the top drawer, grab the bikini underwear and wave it like a white flag. “I’m surrendering.”
She furrows her brow. “That’s all it takes for you to bow out? I thought you wanted and needed me to be your fiancée?”
“I do. I absolutely do. But you cannot go out without underwear on. You cannot waltz around New York stark naked under that skirt. Put these on,” I say, thrusting them at her.
Her lips quirk up in a grin. The corners seem to twitch back and forth. I swear her eyes say I told you so.
I hold my hands out wide. “Okay, Cheshire Cat. What canary did you eat?”
She takes the panties in her hand, grabs my arm, and tugs me into the bathroom. She points at the mirror. There’s a note on it, written in red lipstick. Spencer will make me put on the white bikinis.
And I crack up—deep, big chuckles that come from the very heart of me. I point a finger at her. “And you said you weren’t a good liar.”
She drops her jaw, then places her hand on her chest. “I wasn’t lying. That’s the truth, written in red lipstick two minutes ago, and I was right. Admit it.”
“You were playing me.”
“No. I was proving to myself that I could pull off being your fiancée,” she says with a wicked grin, bumping me with her hip. The look in her eyes is a cocktail mix of pride and amusement. “I wanted to see if we knew each other well.” She pauses before she says the next thing, lowering her voice. “And intimately.”
Then she steps into the panties.
In front of me.
With her heels on.
Over one ankle, then the other, then she slides them seductively up her smooth, strong legs. My eyes track her the whole time. I couldn’t look away if I tried, and I’m beginning to accept that I’m just gonna be sporting wood even more than usual during this next week. I figure that’s normal, right? What red-blooded man could be in close proximity to a gorgeous woman who’s putting on a pair of see-through—
My brain stops processing words. I swallow dryly.
The panties are over her knees. They’re gliding up her thighs. Making their way to her bare—
“Close your eyes,” she whispers.
And because I’m a gentleman, I do. I see black and silvery stars behind my lids, but I’m picturing everything I’m missing right now. Yup. Round-the-clock pocket rocket. Just resign myself to perpetual wood. Can’t fight these things. No need to even try.
“You can open them,” she says, and I oblige. She points to the toilet seat. “Take a seat, partner. Let’s debrief as I do my hair and makeup.”
CHAPTER EIGHT