The Lucky in Love Collection - Lauren Blakely Page 0,27
all things considered, it’ll probably save me from hitting inappropriate levels of steel on the erection-o-meter. “Fuck me hard” is pretty much an iron-clad guarantee I’ll go off the arousal charts. I return to her list. “What sort of role-playing interests you?”
“I have this scene in mind . . .”
Scene. My ears like the sound of that. “Set the scene.”
“I was seeing myself as a naughty housewife wearing an apron. Can you picture that? When her man comes home and she opens the door wearing only an apron?”
I don’t stifle a groan this time. Instead, I let a rumble work its way up my chest and escape my mouth. “Aprons are hot as fuck, especially when there’s nothing under them.”
“So you want me to open the door wearing heels and an apron with nothing underneath?”
Now.
Right now.
Tomorrow.
Every second.
Because that image will be enough to feed an entire album of fantasies, and it can’t happen soon enough. “If that’s your fantasy, Arden, I would be happy to knock on the door. You think you’d like that?”
A flicker of desire crosses her eyes. “I think so. That’s what I want to find out.”
“Are you trying to figure out what men want, or are you trying to learn what drives you wild?”
She licks her lips, stares down at the river. “Both,” she whispers, her voice a little bare, a little nervous.
She lowers her head and adds Aprons to her list. She glances up at me almost shyly, and all I can think about is her opening the door in an apron that barely covers her breasts, one that exposes the curves of her ass.
I peek at her list, so I don’t linger too long on the album of sexy apron images my brain has assembled for me like a playlist.
And the next item isn’t any easier to handle.
Striptease.
I shovel a hand through my hair, gritting my teeth.
This is going to be the toughest game of charades I’ve ever played. “How are you going to do that without removing any clothes?” I rasp out, and my voice practically catches on the grit in my throat.
“Oh, don’t worry. This one is easy, actually, because we don’t have to touch. I thought maybe I could practice stripping down to a bra and panties.” She lowers her voice to a confessional whisper as my internal temperature rivals the surface of Mercury. “I’ve always wanted to do that. I’ve never had the chance.”
I groan. “What kind of asshats have you been dating? Wait. Don’t answer that. I don’t want to hear about them. I want to hear about you.”
“You do?”
I cup her chin. “Listen to me. You need to be with someone who embraces all that you are. If you want to strip, you need to be with a man you can say that to. If you have no interest in doing a striptease, you need to feel free to say that as well. You need to be you in and out of the bedroom.”
“I just want to figure out who that me is in the bedroom.”
I want to thank her for letting me help. Because, nudity or not, this is a fucking gift.
She twirls a strand of her blonde hair and inhales. “Would it make you uncomfortable if I stripped to my bra and panties?”
No, that would make me rock fucking hard.
I tap my chin as if seriously considering it. “No. I don’t believe that would make me uncomfortable at all,” I somehow say with a straight face—and a straight dick too. Pointing straight up at the fucking sky.
“Good.” She checks that item on her list then chuckles.
“What’s so funny?”
“I was just remembering this time a customer asked me for a recommendation for a wine to go with the new Reese Witherspoon book club pick. Then she asked me what drink went with JoJo Moyes. Finally, she said, all offhand and casual, ‘And what do you think goes with a striptease?’”
I laugh. “Very clever. She was trying to hide her true request. And what did you tell her?”
She raises a brow, her eyes twinkling. “A sparkling white, of course.”
The way she says it, a little flirty, a little playful, tells me Arden is definitely game for stripping and, it seems, game for this whole damn experience.
“What else is on that little treasure map?” I peer at the list and spot the next item. “Whoa. Sex in an elevator?”
I definitely don’t want to mime that.
“Sorry, that’s misleading. I wrote that down as something to do in the future. It