Real Women Don't Wear Size 2 (38 page)
“Okay,” he admitted. “That’s true. We might have only been friends then, but I knew enough to know that I didn’t want to ruin that friendship by sleeping with your sister. Your friendship meant a lot to me, Clarise. It still does, but your love means even more.” He winked. “You said you loved me.”
“You said you loved me first,” she said sassily.
“Exactly.” He cupped her face within his palms and slowly lowered his lips to hers.
Clarise closed her eyes and accepted the warmth, the excitement, the intoxication of Ethan’s kiss.
“Hey, Clarise, you’re going to be late,” a guy called from the doorway to the building behind them.
Ethan groaned reluctantly as he pulled away. “Late?” he asked.
“For my class,” she whispered, her knees still wobbly from his close proximity, and from the realization that her dream was coming true.
“What class?”
“Ever wondered why I never wanted to go for coffee on Thursdays?” she asked.
“You said you spent Thursdays with Granny Gert,” he reminded.
“I do, after my fashion-merchandising class.”
“Fashion merchandising?” he asked, grinning.
“I want to be a fashion buyer,” she said, then added, “Actually, I want to be the chief fashion buyer for the Women’s Department of a store that specializes in supreme quality garments, or that’s what I put as my career objective on my résumé.”
Ethan’s grin disintegrated. “You’re sending out résumés? To other department stores?”
She held her smile in check. “Is that a problem?”
“Hell yeah.”
“Why is that?” she asked, eager to hear his answer.
“Because there’s no way I’m going to let someone steal my best department head away, particularly if she plans to take on the role of my best fashion buyer.”
Clarise winced as Babette pumped up the volume on the sound system in her car. Toby Keith’s “I Ain’t As Good As I Once Was” blared through the parking lot.
“That should be her theme song,” Clarise said, but she couldn’t help but laugh when she saw Babette head-banging her way through the country tune.
“Did you hear what I said, Clarise?”
“Yeah, but I’ve worked too hard at getting this degree to have the job handed to me. I want to earn it.”
“And you will, at our store. Don’t you dare send that résumé out.”
“That sounds like a threat, Mr. Eubanks,” she teased.
“It’s a promise, Ms. Robinson, and while we’re talking about promises, I’ve still got to keep mine.” His blue eyes practically smoldered, and Clarise knew where this conversation was headed, directly to desire. She couldn’t wait.
“What promise is that?” she asked.
“To fulfill every item on your sex list. We’ve still got one more to go.”
Clarise’s heart thumped out a happy beat, and her feminine core yearned to feel him, deep inside, once again. “One more to go?” she asked, feigning ignorance.
“Sex on the grass,” Ethan said. “And I will keep my promise, as long as we can improvise the fantasy.”
“Improvise?”
“Definitely,” he said, looking extremely cocky and abundantly sexy.
“Improvise how?” she asked, while he slipped his hand inside her coat, then ran it up her side, to softly stroke the outer side of her breast. Clarise moaned softly, then whispered again, “Improvise how?”
Ethan brought his mouth to her forehead and kissed her briefly. “Sex,” he whispered, then placed another kiss on the bridge of her nose. “On the grass,” he continued, placing his lips to each eyelid, then one cheek, and then the other. While Clarise melted.
“Ummm-hmmm,” she mumbled.
His mouth moved to her neck, hands moved over her body within the shield of her coat. Clarise’s mind raced to the memory of the shower, and his talented mouth. Her nipples burned for that mouth, as did every other heated part of her body. “Sex—on the grass,” she whispered breathily.
His path of kisses ended at her left ear, and he sucked the tender lobe. “Sex. On the grass,” he repeated, the warmth of his words fanning her ear. “On our honeymoon.”
A
lthough each bridesmaid’s dress was unique in design, they were all the exact same shade. Red. Bright red. It wasn’t a traditional bridesmaid color, but then again, Ethan’s bride wasn’t known for traditional purchases. As the chief fashion buyer for Eubanks Elegant Apparel, the fastest-growing premier clothing retailer of the decade, she had to stay cutting-edge to remain ahead of the competition. And Clarise Robinson, soon to be Clarise Eubanks, was renowned for keeping their company ahead of the game. Though she’d merely started in the fashion-merchandising field after obtaining her degree last year, she had wasted no time at all accomplishing her goal, or rather
goals.
Clarise had an entire list of them that she enjoyed checking off periodically. She was known for lists, this bride of his, and even had one for the honeymoon night.
Ethan had been surprised this morning to awake and find her honeymoon “to-do list” taped to his mirror. He’d been even more surprised when he realized Clarise’s idea of “to do” equated to things “to do” with Ethan. Most of the items they had done before, minus sex on the grass, which they vowed to first try on their honeymoon. But the last item was the one that made him laugh out loud. His bride, she claimed that she wasn’t the feistiest of the Robinson sisters, but Ethan begged to differ.
He listened to the first notes of the wedding march, saw his bride exit the cabana and begin her walk, barefoot, through the sand. They’d decided to marry in Tampa. It had seemed the natural location, given their history, but the last item on Clarise’s list wouldn’t require hot sand or water or wind. It’d require a hell of a lot of what Clarise’s Granny Gert called “gumption.” On Ethan’s part.
A persistent clicking took his mind off her list and caused him to change his direction of focus to the maid of honor. “Babette,” he whispered, while trying to maintain his smile for the crowd. “Not now.”
His future sister-in-law snarled at him, then continued clicking rapidly. “I will never get this shot again,” she hissed back. “And I’m taking it.”
“Give up,” Jeff, Ethan’s best man, mumbled in his ear. “She won’t listen, and she damn sure doesn’t care about your opinion.”
Ethan could have asked if Jeff and Babette had a fight, but there was no need. The two were always fighting with gusto, then making up, with even more gusto. Evidently, the system worked for the two of them; they’d been together, on and off, for a year. It started when Babette developed the initial design of the company catalog. Jeff thought the black-and-white images lacked the sass of color; Preston had vetoed, saying they depicted class. The critics agreed with Preston, and Babette refused to let Jeff live it down.
Click. Click, click, click.
“I mean it, Babette,” Ethan repeated, still trying to hold his smile.
“That wasn’t me,” Babette chirped. Then she turned toward the front row and winked at Granny Gert, seated beside Janie Robinson. Gertrude’s camera smashed against her eyes, and her finger clicked the photograph button an amazing number of times, given her recent complaints of arthritis.
Ethan gave up on his mission to rid the place of monotonous-sounding cameras. Instead, he focused on the waves crashing on the shore behind him, the seagulls flying overhead and the woman currently taking his breath away. She kissed her father on the cheek, then accepted Ethan’s hand.
“Did you get my list?” she whispered.
“Oh yeah.”
“Going to give me what I want?” she asked, while the preacher welcomed the crowd.
Ethan visualized her curly script, and the one line of her list that had caught him off guard.
Strip for me, Ethan.
With her voice barely above a whisper, Clarise repeated, “I asked if you’re going to give me what I want.”
Ethan could have told her that he’d simply be returning the favor—that she’d given him everything he ever wanted and more. He could have gone on and on about how she completed his life and made him whole, but instead, he gave her what she wanted. The truth . . .
“Always.”
KELLEY ST. JOHN’S previous experience as a senior writer at NASA fueled her interest in writing action-packed suspense, although she also enjoys penning steamy romances and quirky women’s fiction. Since 2001, she has achieved over fifty writing awards and was elected to the Board of Directors for Romance Writers of America (RWA).
Writing has always been St. John’s first love. She thrives on creating new worlds and bringing readers along for the ride. St. John follows the philosophy that in order to write about life, you have to live. Therefore, she makes it her business to enjoy life to the fullest. Traveling is one of her favorite pastimes and one she doesn’t indulge in nearly enough for her tastes, especially since some of her best ideas have been sparked by weekend getaways. She loves extended car trips that involve marathon plotting sessions and swears that she can plot an entire novel in the time it takes to drive from Atlanta to Orlando.
Visit the author’s Web site, www.kelleystjohn.com, to read deleted scenes and enter her beach vacation contest.
See below for a preview of Kelley St. John’s sexy first novel,
Good Girls Don’t
available now in mass market.
C
HAPTER
1
Digging through her briefcase, Colette Campbell snagged her cellular phone in one hand and her contact’s information sheet in the other, while her sister rummaged through her green glitter-embellished duffel bag to grab a bright pink, misshaped vibrator. Both girls were notorious for bringing their work home; tonight was no exception.
“Amy, what the heck is that for?” Colette eyed the odd curve at the end of the oversized contraption. In her opinion, Amy’s current employer had taken its passion line to the extreme, with the most popular products designed by her imaginative sister. But they were shooting for the next must-have sex toy. And Colette had to admit several of Amy’s creations were already must-haves for her own bedroom.
Too bad they were the ones meant for singles.
“This baby will put Adventurous Accessories over the top,” Amy said, grinning with unabashed pride. She made the same claim with each of her toys, though Colette chose not to point that out.
At merely twenty-two, Amy Campbell already had a mind for business. Coupled with an affinity for the intricacies of sex, which she’d obviously acquired from their mother, Amy had a hot combination for today’s boudoir market. Consequently, she fully intended for one of her personally designed products to become the next Jack Rabbit.
Like practically every other female in America, Colette had watched Kim Cattrall’s Samantha lose her senses over the unique vibrator on
Sex and the City.
And, like practically every other female in America, she’d wasted no time purchasing a set of talented rabbit ears of her own.
Thank God. Lord knows that battery-operated bunny helped her numerous times when Jeff hadn’t got the job done. At least she had one “energize-her” in the apartment during her six months dating Mr. Perfect.
“So what does it do?” Colette asked, accustomed to Amy’s tendency of bringing her sex trinkets home to show off her latest idea.
While Amy played Vanna, running a finger down the smooth length of the toy, Colette scanned her client’s data sheet. My Alibi’s customers were extremely specific regarding when she should make calls. In this case, the woman wanted a message left while the contact was gone. A typical request. For some reason, the lie seemed more believable when heard on an answering machine.
Colette’s eyes ventured to the referral line on the bottom of the front page. “Amy?”
“Yeah?” Amy said, still grinning at the toy.
“What’s up with this?” She pointed to the name scribbled across the page. “Referred by Amy Campbell?” Colette read the annotation made by the My Alibi sales associate.
Client specifically requested Colette Campbell as her sales representative.
“Oh, I can’t believe I forgot to tell you,” Amy said, scooting closer to Colette on the couch. She pointed to the data sheet. “That’s a friend of mine. She needed a way to spend a week with her boyfriend, and I told her about My Alibi.”
“You’re helping your friend cheat on her husband?” Colette didn’t like lying for a living, and she didn’t plan to do it much longer, only until she had enough money to start her boutique. “I thought you agreed that what these people do isn’t right.”
“I know it isn’t, but Erika isn’t lying to a husband.”
Colette’s attention moved back to the information sheet, specifically the “Relationship to Client” line. “Her uncle?”
“She’s found the love of her life, but she doesn’t think her uncle will approve,” Amy explained, shrugging as though this were no big deal. “She needs an alibi for a week to spend some alone time with Butch and see if he really is the one.”
“Why does she have to lie to her uncle to spend a week with her boyfriend?” Colette didn’t like the sound of this. What was Amy getting her into?
“He’s her guardian, and he’s a bit overprotective,” Amy explained; then, at Colette’s raised brows, she continued, “Listen. I knew you wouldn’t help on your own, so I had her go through My Alibi. That way it’s merely another client, right? And besides, she’s my friend and needs help. You won’t let me down here, will you?”
Letting Amy down was something Colette was determined not to do. And Amy knew it. Occasionally, like right now, she used it to her advantage. However, there was no way Colette would help if Erika wasn’t an adult.
“You can’t hire My Alibi unless you’re eighteen. And if she isn’t eighteen, I can’t help her.”
“She is eighteen. Her birthday was last month.”
Sure enough, the client’s date of birth on the application matched Amy’s statement.
“Come on, she’s an adult looking for an alibi, and she isn’t lying to a husband. She simply wants to spend some time with her boyfriend. You’ll help her, right? Give her a chance at true love?” Amy asked. “For me?”
Colette sighed. “All right,” she conceded. “I’ll help her.”