Real Women Don't Wear Size 2 (17 page)

“Oh,” she exclaimed, shifting her body to rub against the hardness.

“Yeah, well, what’d you expect?” He threw in a casual chuckle, much like the ones he often tossed her at work, or during their Friday chat sessions, but in his opinion, it sounded anything but casual.

Eventually, he freed her hair of the strap and removed the purse. Clarise promptly tugged her tube top over her head, revealing the entire mouthwatering ensemble she wore underneath. She stood slowly, stepped back from the bed. “What do you think?”

“I think you’re incredible,” he said honestly.

Her cheeks immediately went rosy. “But there’s a lot of me to be incredible, isn’t there?” Her lips quivered, big brown doe eyes questioned.

“You’re perfect,” he clarified. Did she honestly think she was too heavy? Had she not felt his cock announcing full approval of the body on display?

She flashed him an enormous smile, then twirled to show the rear view, as provocative as the front. However, he didn’t get a chance to comment before she grabbed her head and stumbled backward toward the bed.

Ethan caught her midfall and eased her down. “Careful,” he warned. “You had too much to drink.”

“Yeah,” she whispered. “But I’m afraid when it wears off you won’t look so much like him.” She snorted then placed her fingertips on the bridge of her nose as though the action hurt. “No offense.”

It was the second, or was it third, reference she’d made to Ethan looking like someone else. But who? Only one way to find out. “Who do I look like?”

“My best friend. Guy best friend, I mean. Granny Gert would have to be my best friend, don’t you think?”

“Your grandmother?”

“Yeah. Odd, huh, a grandmother for a best friend?”

“I think it’s sweet,” he said. She often mentioned Granny Gert during their Friday chats, in casual reference, typically discussing her fabulous cooking or laughing about one of her humorous antics. From meeting the woman last year, he’d determined that, like Clarise, she had an infectious laugh and a hell of a spunky sparkle in her eyes. Until now, Ethan hadn’t equated her to Clarise’s best friend, but it fit. Clarise didn’t have the typical handful of female comrades who cried on each other’s shoulders, talked about men and went out for an occasional drink. While she got along fine with Rachel and Jesilyn, her female coworkers, she didn’t get into those types of surface relationships; she’d told Ethan that much. Still, she needed that female companionship every woman craves, someone to tell her secrets to. He’d wanted the male counterpart of that person to be him. Unfortunately, she’d identified someone else as her “guy best friend.” And, thanks to the alcohol she’d consumed, he was about to find out whom.

“So who do I remind you of?” he asked again. “The guy best friend you mentioned?”

“My boss,” she said, without batting a lash. “When I dreamed about the guy who’d help me do everything on my list, he always looked like Ethan.”

Damn, his chest shouldn’t swell at that, but what normal guy wouldn’t want to be Clarise Robinson’s fantasy man? However, reality would be so much better. He took a deep breath. Time to fess up, but he wasn’t sure she’d remember his confession, or any of this, in the morning. So, instead of announcing his identity, and her confusion with it, he decided to cover what seemed the safer topic. “Everything on your list?”

She nodded, then promptly grabbed her head again. “Hurts.”

“It will until you’ve slept it off,” Ethan informed her. “What list?” he repeated.

“In my purse. Go on, get it. That way we won’t miss anything.” She crawled onto the bed and curled up, her head on the pillow and her garter-clad behind in the air. It was a good thing he was her friend, and a decent man. Because even a friend, even her best guy friend, as she’d called him, would have a hard time resisting
that.
But resist he would, for Clarise, and their friendship. God help him. He took the purse and opened it. The thing was so little there wasn’t room for much, but it held a single sheet of folded paper, along with a few other small items. He withdrew the sheet and opened it.

“Read it out loud,” she said.

“Gasparilla bras?”

“Oh, that’s what Babette told me I should try to get at the parades. I didn’t catch one tonight, but I’m going to try again tomorrow. Not sure whether they have any my size, though,” she added, rolling over on the bed, filling her hands with her breasts and grinning.

Ethan swallowed and mentally reminded his dick he was a decent man. He bet they didn’t have her size either. “That’s the only thing on your list,” he said, frowning. What had he expected, anyway?

“Wrong side,” she said, still smiling.

“Wrong side?”

“That’s a note, not a list, and you don’t care about that. You want
my
list. It’s on the other side.”

He turned the page, scanned the real list and swallowed again. Hard.

“Read it,” she instructed. “I wish we could get started tonight, but my heads, er, head, hurts so bad I’m afraid I wouldn’t remember it.” She reached toward his arm, ran a fingertip down its length. “And I want to remember everything.”

Ethan thought she had it right the first time, as far as he was concerned.
Heads.
Both of his were hurting, badly, especially after viewing this list. Have mercy.

“Read it,” she coaxed. “I want to know what you think.”

Well, since all the blood had left his brain and relocated, he wasn’t thinking much, but he cleared his throat and recited, “Sex with the lights on.”

“Yep, I’d planned on taking care of that one tonight, but—my head really hurts.”

“Mine too.”

She pushed up from the bed, balancing on her elbows and doing another impressive breast bulge. “Are you okay?” Leaning toward him, she placed the back of her hand against his cheek. “No fever.”

He laughed out loud. He couldn’t help it. She was smashed, completely, and still attempting to be the sweetheart he’d known for the past three years. Taking care of her friend while dressed like a centerfold.

“What’s so funny?” she asked, running out her lower lip in a pout while moving the outstretched hand back to her own forehead. Then she slowly lowered to the bed.

“Not funny,” Ethan corrected. “Cute. And it’s you. You’re very cute.” He touched her cheek. “Extremely cute.”

When she’d felt him up in the elevator, Ethan had decided he wasn’t going to take advantage of an inebriated Clarise Robinson, no matter how much he wanted her, but a kiss wasn’t exactly taking advantage, was it? He leaned over. She sucked in her breath, which pushed her breasts up to meet him. Stopping at a kiss wouldn’t be easy, he realized, as he continued his quest for her mouth. But he’d started now, and she wanted it. Now. Her eyes focused on his mouth and a low, tender, feminine moan persuaded him to keep going.

She tasted sweet, like the drink that’d left her in this state, no doubt. But the flavor of Clarise Robinson ran deeper than the alcohol on her lips, much deeper than that. She was sweet and shy, wild and wicked, friend and temptress, all rolled up in one feisty package, and her kiss was indicative of it all. Her lips moved slowly against his, as though wanting to make the interaction last as long as possible. Then she timidly opened her mouth. She didn’t bring her tongue to mate with his. Instead, she waited, as if testing the sensual waters to see what Ethan would do. Unable to hold back, he swept his tongue inside, licked at the sweetness of Clarise . . . and brought her desire to life.

As if striking a match, his tongue ignited a passion within her depths. He felt it, the stirring of her body beneath him, the dancing thrusts of her tongue with his, and the seductive moans of enjoyment purring from her throat. His hands roamed her sides, following her luscious curves, absorbing her flaming heat. Clarise turned her head, breaking the contact, and began a path of languid kisses across his jaw toward his ear. She nipped the lobe, then sucked it hard. “You look like him,” she said, running her tongue around the shell and squirming her body against his. “Exactly like Ethan. God, he’s wonderful. The kindest man I’ve ever known, and you’re just like him. Like in my dreams.”

Ethan blinked, her words pulling him from the passion. No way could he continue without telling her the truth. She deserved to know whom she was making love to. “No, Clarise,” he said, his body on fire. “I
am
Ethan.”

Chapter 11

C
larise rolled over and buried her head in the pillow. She did
not
want to feel the light of day, and she certainly didn’t want to see it. Had her head been run over by a truck, or was she experiencing her first hangover? Then again, if it were her first hangover, that would mean last night’s bizarre dream was true.

“God, please don’t let it be true,” she mumbled into the soft sheets. “I did not get drunk at Gasparilla and fondle my boss. Say I didn’t grab Ethan’s jewels in the elevator.” Another cautious twist put her on her back, and she edged her way upward, slowly easing the sheet down her face as she prepared for the worst. The cotton scooted down her nose. She squinted, hoping she wouldn’t see Ethan Eubanks in her condo, because if she did, it meant the fuzzy images currently blurring together in an odd swirling haze were probably reality chomping up to take a bite out of her brain. “God, say I didn’t,” she prayed, while her eyes adjusted to the light then zeroed in on the chair beside the bed. And the gorgeous man in it.

“You did.”

In record time, considering the dizzy state of her brain, Clarise covered her face. “I am so fired.” Then, keeping her head within the sheet, she lifted the white fabric and peered down her body—her naked as a jaybird body. “Ohmigod.” A hint of a memory flashed, a vision of her asking Ethan to catch her while she danced around the room removing every stitch of her clothing. “Ohmigod.” And then, unless she was mistaken, she’d pranced around in all her nude glory until . . .

She lowered the sheet, peeked over the top. “Tell me I didn’t.”

“I’d love to,” he said, “but my bet’s on you did.”

Her eyes darted to the bathroom, then back to Ethan. “No way.”

“Oh yes,” he said. “Way.” Then he flashed her one of those smiles that made her belly flutter, which, at the moment, wasn’t such a great thing.

Clarise moved a hand to her stomach. “I’m going to die. I want to die.”

“I’d say that’s probably not going to happen anytime soon, no matter how much you begged me to put you out of your misery last night.” With his eyes never leaving hers, and his smile remaining firmly in place, Ethan settled back in his chair, stretched his legs out and crossed them at the ankles. He had on a white pullover and black dress pants; in other words, he was fully clothed. And she, as she’d determined already, wasn’t.

“It’s okay,” he continued. “Sometimes it’s tough to hold your liquor. Happens to the best of us.” His sandy brows twitched. “Man, I can’t help but think about how much excitement I missed by not spiking the punch at the Christmas party.”

She groaned. “Ethan, don’t. Please, don’t tease me now. This has to be the most humiliating thing I’ve ever done.”

“Funny. I recall asking you once about your most embarrassing moment. If I remember right, you declined to answer, even though I’d already fessed up to the time I was locked out of the gym in nothing but a jockstrap.”

As if she could’ve produced any coherent words while thinking about
that
image. That particular Friday chat confession had even caused a new fantasy to surface in her regular course of Ethan dreamfests. This one had him as a high school senior, locked outside in nothing but a jockstrap. Then she walked up and asked if she could help him cover his cheeks . . . and everything else. Her face burned. Now was so not the time to get turned on by an Ethan fantasy involving bare cheeks. And speaking of bare body parts . . .

She lifted the sheet again, peered down and wished her clothes would magically reappear. They didn’t. “Dang. Look at me,” she whispered.

“I have,” he said, prompting her to poke her head above the sheet and glare.

“Ethan, I swear, you’re making it worse.”

One corner of his mouth quirked up. “Yeah?”

“Can’t you see I’m dying here?”

“Again? Cause I could swear you declared yourself dead five times throughout the night. Oh, and by the way, I loved the wild outfit. What I saw of it before your striptease, that is.”

Her eyes swept the floor and located the black leather miniskirt, and a few feet away, the brown top—then one fishnet stocking draped over the foot of the bed. Where the other had landed, heaven only knew. While her stomach rolled, she continued searching and finally spotted it near the closet door. Okay. With all of her outer clothing accounted for, Clarise looked for her intimates. There wasn’t a stitch of them to be seen. Dare she ask?

“Behind you,” Ethan said, before she muttered one word.

Turning, she squinted, as though it wouldn’t look so bad if the image weren’t in focus. Nope, still looked pretty bad, or good, if she were going for porn flick appeal. The red merry widow hung from the bedpost like a blazing flag, pronouncing the wild woman who reigned on the mattress below.

“And to think, I’d always figured you for the white cotton and practical, cross-your-heart type. Who’d have known?”

A wave of mortification washed over her as she melted into her pillow and pulled the sheet back over her throbbing head. “Oh, God, this can’t get any worse.”

That sexy chuckle penetrated the sheet barrier and teased her nipples into perfect points. Terrific. How was she supposed to hide a case of high beams under a mere sheet, especially a case of Clarise Robinson high beams? Like the rest of her, they were quite significant . . . and at the moment, apparently proud of it. Just super.

“Come on, Clarise. I realize our conversations have never ventured toward our preferences in undergarments, but go ahead, admit it. You’ve played the boxers or briefs game on me, haven’t you? All women do it. So, tell me. What’d you guess, boxers or briefs?”

“Briefs,” she answered, before thinking through the ramifications of the single word. Now Ethan knew she’d had beyond-friendship thoughts and that they included picturing him in his underwear. Thank God she hadn’t been more specific and informed him she’d also embellished the vision to include Velcro sides. She listened for his response, waited, then curiosity got the best of her, and she slid the sheet to her neck.