Real Women Don't Wear Size 2 (19 page)

“You’re willing to get, you know, wild and crazy and do all those things with me? Even though, well, it’s me?”

“Because it’s you.”

Oh no. Don’t get the hopes up too high. “Because you’d rather I didn’t spend all of Gasparilla sleeping with strangers?”

“That isn’t why I offered.”

“You offered because I want a stranger, and you don’t think that’s safe,” she deciphered, needing to hear him actually say the words, in case her heart had any mistaken ideas about this situation.

“Listen, if it
has
to be a stranger in order for your fantasy to be fulfilled, I understand, I guess. But hell, Clarise, I wanted you to have fun. I didn’t expect you to do something this . . . reckless.” He moved from the bed to the chair. Then he leaned back and looked ill at ease with where this conversation had headed. But Clarise had to know what was going on and exactly what his offer entailed. Yeah, she wanted Ethan, any way she could get him, even if only for a few days. But she wanted to know where she stood up front. He had the power to take her heart and trample it, and she wanted to be prepared. Even though she suspected the minute he touched her, she’d be lost forever. Trapped in an eternal I-want-Ethan-and-no-one-else-will-do funk.

“Well, I wanted him to look like you, anyway,” she said.

He relaxed again in the chair. “Like I said, I’m flattered.”

“But you’re not looking for anything else, right?” she asked, still needing to hear it from his lips, so she could attempt to keep her heart in line. “Just fantasy sex in Tampa, then back to normal when we get to Birmingham, right?”

“I haven’t said anything about commitment,” he reminded. “Or is that part of your fantasy? Were you hoping for a commitment, Clarise?”

She inhaled, blew it out slowly. “Commitment isn’t on the list, is it?” She attempted to make it sound like a joke, rather than a half-lie, and thought she did a pretty decent job.

“Not on the list,” he repeated, but his smile wasn’t as broad this time.

Okay. She knew where they stood, and she could handle it. Fantasy sex with Ethan would be worth the fallout, even if she’d have to perform damage control on her heart when they got back to Birmingham. “All right,” she said, refusing to hide her eagerness. “So when and where do we start?”

Chapter 12

C
larise giggled shamelessly while hot water pelted her skin. In all her Ethan fantasies, none of them ever involved him as her sex slave, rather
sex stranger,
for a weekend. Longer than a weekend, she countered. Four glorious days. She, and the remainder of Ethan’s employees, weren’t scheduled to return home until Wednesday morning. Smiling, she wondered if any of the others from work were going to have nearly as much fun as she’d have during this trip, or nearly as much sex.

She squirted a surplus of peach body wash on her loofah and squished it into a foamy lather, then she rubbed it down her neck and across the swell of her right breast. He’d fondle this breast before the day ended. Heck, he’d fondle a lot more than that, wouldn’t he? Because that’s what wild, crazy sex involved. Lots and lots of fondling.

Clarise had felt certain they’d get the ball rolling straightaway, having a romp in the sheets with the lights on to cross the first fantasy off her list. However, Ethan had suggested she take a hot shower to sober up while he mapped out their itinerary for the day. Their itinerary. Maybe she should offer up a bit of advice. Let’s see . . . afternoon Gasparilla invasion parade, sex on the grass, evening parade, sex standing up, on the way back, sex in the elevator, in their room, sex with the lights on. Another giggle pulsed up her throat. Ethan was planning their day, and she couldn’t see any way for it to be anything but incredible.

She lathered every inch, then stepped under the stream and closed her eyes. The water covered her like a hot liquid blanket and reminded her of every sensitive part she wanted Ethan Eubanks to explore. She hummed an exhilarated sigh and hadn’t finished rinsing her body when the temperature in the room changed. A soft, cool breeze pierced the steamy heat and brought her already overly excited nipples to new peaks. Knowing the only reason the temperature would change so suddenly, Clarise froze and held her eyes shut. Was he ready for the games to begin? Wasn’t that what she wanted? And if it was, why did a swift surge of panic wash down her curves in perfect time with the water?

She stepped farther into the spray. The shower door was glass, completely transparent. Right now, Ethan could see everything. Her throat closed in, face began to sting. He’d seen her completely nude last night and hadn’t said or insinuated anything about being appalled, but still . . . this wasn’t nighttime. And she wasn’t filled with daiquiri. Suddenly, her fantasy didn’t seem very appealing. She turned her back to the bathroom door and cringed. Would the glass magnify the Robinson rump? What had she been thinking? Surely Ethan was getting more than he bargained for—literally.

In spite of the water pulsing against the shower walls, she heard the faint click of the bathroom door close, felt the temperature readjust to contain the heat. Had he looked at her and changed his mind? Rejection dripped from her pores, the same feeling she’d encountered so many times growing up, when party invitations were handed out at school and Chunky Clarise came up empty-handed. Her eyes burned as tears threatened to join the shower water. She kept them pinched tight to hold her emotions in check and inadvertently dropped the loofah sponge.

The shower door creaked as it opened. Her heart pumped so fast she could hear her pulse ringing in her ears. Clarise slid one eye open, while Ethan, boldly and blissfully naked, lowered into the pulsing stream and retrieved her sponge. He rose to stand against her, his jutting, thick erection nudging her side.“You need this.”

She touched the sponge, shivered as her hand met his.“You have no idea.” While the water rushed over her shoulders to pulse against his chest, she eyed him brazenly. His wet hair, the color of caramel, formed seductive waves in the shower’s steam. One lock slid forward on his forehead, and she timidly stretched out a finger to push it back from his face. Her inner thighs clenched at the interaction of the soft, springy texture against her skin. Following her lead, Ethan moved his fingers to her face, tenderly placed the backs of his fingertips against her temples, then slowly brushed them down her cheeks to her neck. Clarise sucked in a breath and prayed it wasn’t possible to faint from too much stimulation, because Ethan was stimulating the devil out of her ready-to-be-stimulated self right now.

Tiny water droplets clung to his lashes. Never in her life would she have believed she’d have sex with Ethan Eubanks, let alone shower with her gorgeous friend. No way would she miss the chance to survey every wonderful inch, and with that thought, her gaze headed beyond the sexy cords of his neck, past the delicious sprinkle of hair on his chest, down the impressive contours of ripped abs to the place where the line of hair, the trail to happiness, in her book, led. Inch by wonderful inch.

“Wow,” she whispered, and as she stared, it moved. “Oh, wow.”

He placed a fingertip beneath her chin, tilted her face toward his.“You’re doing wonderful things to my ego, Clarise. But I have to tell you, I was thinking the same thing.” His finger slid a slow, easy path down her neck to the protruding nipple of her left breast.“Wow.”

Her lip trembled at his appraisement. Yeah, the Robinson Treasures were “none too shabby” as Granny Gert said, but what about the rest of her? She momentarily pushed the doubt away and feasted on those baby blue eyes, transforming from pale crystal blue to smoldering clouds of desire.
For her?
While her brain worked feverishly to process that anomaly, he cupped both of her heavy mounds, leaned down and sucked the water from one burning tip. Then he moved to the other and clamped his mouth over the end, drawing the nipple inside while she gasped at the painful, yet blissful, torture.

Clarise’s back accepted the bulk of the shower stream and shielded Ethan while he laved her breasts. The remainder of her body tingled as well, not from the pulsing strokes of water against flesh, but from the sensual sensations produced by Ethan’s masterful mouth, teeth and tongue. She couldn’t imagine feeling anything better, until his hands got in on the action. His arms circled her hips, and his palms and fingers began a thorough kneading of her behind.

Clarise instantly tensed.“No.”

He stilled, withdrew his mouth from her breast and his hands from her cheeks. “This isn’t what you want?”

“I’m—” She didn’t know what to say. I’m too fluffy? That’d always been the word of choice around the Robinson household. “Fluffy,” like a rabbit or a stuffed animal, not like a sexy female, which is what she wanted to be more than anything else. Her hands drifted down in an attempt to hide—everything.

Ethan followed the path of her palms, trying valiantly to conceal her womanhood and as much of her ample hips as possible. “Don’t cover anything, Clarise.”

“But,” she stammered and hated that she sounded like a child.

He lowered farther, to his knees, so his eyes were directly in front of her hands. Then he slowly slid them out of the way. “I saw all of you last night,” he reminded, while a single stream of water found its way past her side to push against his temple and trickle down his jaw. He smiled, which shifted the water’s path to slide directly in front of his ear.

Clarise licked her lips. She wanted to lick the water, every drop, away. “And you still want me.” She barely breathed the words and wasn’t sure she could handle his response.

“Every luscious curve.” To emphasize the fact, he brought his face to her right hip and sucked her heated flesh until her knees went weak. Then he pulled away and peered at her through spiked, wet lashes. Brilliant blue eyes asking for permission to continue. His mouth curved. “Shower sex was on your list.”

“Thank God.”

His low rumbled laugh echoed against the tiled walls.

“But we don’t—we can’t—”

“Can’t what, Clarise?” He ran his hands around to cup her cheeks once more, but never took his eyes from hers, even though her female center was directly in front of his face.

“Protection,” she muttered, absolutely sick she hadn’t thought to put any in the bathroom. Nope, the whole dang box was still sealed in a bedroom drawer.

“I thought about it,” Ethan said, his hands sliding against her wet flesh to caress her hips and curve to the front of her thighs. “And I decided we wouldn’t need it. This time.”

“Won’t need it?” she hissed, unable to concentrate fully while his talented thumbs moved slowly toward her clitoris. Closer . . . closer . . .

“Your fantasies,” Ethan continued, “Did they only involve different locations, or did you have different methods for sex as well?”

“M-methods?” Her mouth was dry, in spite of the shower steam.

“Positions. Activities. Were there different ones in your fantasies?”

She shook her head. Her sex fantasies had basically been that—fantasies—with a guy who looked like Ethan, acted like Ethan, and could potentially turn out to be Mr. Right to boot. She hadn’t really gotten into formally identifying types of sex, other than lights on, standing up, on the grass, that kind of thing. What exactly was Ethan referring—

His tongue licked her clit.

“Oh!”

“This time is for you, Clarise.”

Her eyes flew open and jerked down to see his mouth by her wet, brown curls.“But I want you inside of me.”

“And I promise, you’ll have me there,” he said.“But not this time.”

“But I’ve never—no one’s ever—” Dang, her face was turning red; she could feel it. Sure, she’d thought about oral sex a time or two, but she’d never thought someone would be willing to go down on her, and she sure didn’t know if she could handle that much attention
there.
Her sexual experiences were so few and far between that when they happened, she screamed through her orgasm as though the world ended. What would she do if Ethan Eubanks were to get her off with his mouth? Heck, they’d probably hear her yelling in Alabama.“I don’t think—”

“That’s right. Don’t think,” Ethan instructed, his brows raised and his mouth curved in a very sexy, very confident smile.

Have mercy, he knew what to do. She could tell by the way he looked at her, as though he wanted to eat her up. And suddenly, though she’d never thought it possible, she wanted exactly that. Ethan Eubanks, her boss, her friend, her fantasy. Eating. Her. Up.

“And if I am going to be the first to do this to you—” he continued.

“You are.”

“Then I’m going to do it right.” He placed a hand behind her calf and raised her leg, settled it on the edge of the shower stall, so she completely opened before him. She swallowed, determined to do whatever it took to help Ethan “do it right.”

“You may want to hold on, Clarise.” He nodded toward a wall handle, undoubtedly for washcloths, but in this case, it’d be Clarise’s safeguard to melting into a lifeless heap when her body came undone at his touch.

“Okay.” She grasped the handle with both hands, which put her at an angled position, and oddly enough, increased the sexual awareness of Ethan Eubanks’s proximity to her core.

“Can you feel that?” he asked. Staring boldly at her intimate flesh.

“Feel what?” Was she supposed to be feeling something already? What if her body wasn’t the kind of body conducive to oral sex? She’d read plenty of books, tons of articles in
Cosmo,
even gotten a pretty good picture from movies. But what was she supposed to feel before his mouth ever hit the spot?

“The water, running down your hip, to the center of your thighs and dripping a path across your tender pink clit, past your full lips, to the very essence of you,” he said.“Can you feel it, Clarise?”

Until his description, she would’ve sworn she hadn’t felt a thing, but now, she did. Every single droplet’s path to that very destination, which was on fire now and begging for a sensation she’d never had before.“Yeah,” she whispered. “I do.”

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” He took a finger and placed it on her hip, then followed the trail he’d described, across the crease of hip and thigh, through her wet curls, past her clit—which produced a sharp involuntary gasp from her chest—then to her center, where he dipped the finger inside.