Nightfall (Devil's Night #4) - Penelope Douglas Page 0,261

a choice, and then drops to a squat, pulling a pin off the cushion secured to her wrist.

But before she grabs the dress, I pull it away from her. “Wash…your hands first.”

I shake my head as she shoots me a look.

I mean, really. If she’s learned anything, crossing the tracks into St. Carmen every day to attend one of the most prestigious schools in the state the past three-and-a-half years, it should be some common sense. They certainly teach that at Marymount.

Rising, she walks over to the round table and pulls a wipe out of the package, cleaning her fingers. The Jaegers were born with grease under their nails, so better to be safe than sorry.

Approaching me again, she drops down, blowing the lock of hair that came loose from her ponytail out of her face, and folds the hem, pinning it up.

I tip my head back and smooth my hair into a fist high on the top of my head, twirling it into a bun and holding it there. I check myself in the mirror.

Her fingers tug gently at the fabric as she moves to the next spot, and my heart beats harder, every pore in my body cooling with a sudden sweat.

I let my eyes fall, watching her at my feet.

Her jean shorts. The dusky olive skin of her toned legs glowing in the light of the chandelier. I trail my gaze over her messy jet black ponytail and the red tint of her lips as she bites the bottom one, concentrating on her task. Her black-and-white-checkered flannel lies open, and I pause at the low V of her gray T-shirt underneath as it dips between the smooth, pore-less skin of her…

I tip my chin up, looking in the mirror again. Is she even wearing a bra, for crying out loud?

She lifts up my skirt to just past my ankles and steals a peek. “You should lose the stockings,” she tells me, going back to pinning. “And the shoes, too, for that matter.”

I turn a little, jutting out my shoulder and trying to decide if the dress looks better with my hair up or down.

“Imagine what the world would have to come to for me to take fashion advice from a white trash, rugsucking, swamp rat like you,” I reply.

The black leather, calf-high boots are kind of cute and all, but I’m pretty sure everything she’s wearing is whatever she could scrounge up from someone’s hand-me-downs.

I feel her eyes on me, and I look down, seeing a little gleam in her eye. Kind of amused, but mostly a warning that she’s making a mental note of all the shit I say to her for a rainy day.

I’m shakin’, Liv. Really, I am.

“If I take off the stockings,” I explain. “I won’t be properly dressed. The women in my world are ladies, Olivia.”

“You’ll feel it on your legs, though.” She looks back down to her task. “It’ll change how you carry yourself.”

“What will? The sticky, noxious sweat of a Florida in May on my naked thighs?”

The debutante ball is in May. The humidity will be a nightmare, despite the air-conditioned banquet hall hosting it. Like she knows anything.

What was Lavinia thinking anyway? The first thing any business owner sells is themselves. What impression does it give for Olivia Jaeger to be working here?

“Afraid I might be right?” she taunts.

I roll my eyes. Please. The only thing I’m afraid of is wasting time.

But I stand there, letting my hair fall down my back again, and watch her. I’m not sure why, but I kick off my heel and set the ball of my foot on her knee.

Prove it, then.

She stops. Tipping her head back, she looks up at me, her honey-brown eyes unblinking.

“I can’t bend over in this dress,” I tell her.

Fisting the skirt in my hands, I start to pull it up, past my knees and up my thighs to where the garter secures the stockings.

She holds my gaze for another moment, and then she reaches up, unfastening the clips.

Her fingertips brush the skin on the inside of my leg, and my flesh pebbles, chills breaking out everywhere. I suck in a breath, and she darts her eyes up to mine, as still as me.

Don’t stop.

I lock my jaw, and she stares at me, the heat spreading across my cheeks.

“I don’t have all day,” I chide, trying to hide my reaction.

Her chest rises and falls slowly, and then she peels the stocking down my leg and off my foot,