Indecent Suggestion. Elizabeth Bevarly
thinking about redecorating her condo.
Normally, Turner loved home improvement stores. Normally, he could pass an entire day in one without ever marking the passage of time. Normally, he experienced an almost erotic gratification at handling power tools and light fixtures and PVC tubing. But normally, he wasn’t with Becca when he was visiting one. Throw her into the mix, and suddenly one of his favorite activities felt totally abnormal. Well, except for the part about experiencing erotic gratification. Because having her hovering over his shoulder while he handled power tools and light fixtures and PVC tubing just made all of those items seem overtly sexual somehow. So by the end of the day, his nerves were frazzled to bits.
Even so, he managed to make it through the day without lighting up. Without lighting up a cigarette, anyway. His libido was another matter. It raged completely out of control. Especially when Becca had been bent over to inspect the color on a can of paint, and her round, firm ass brushed against his hip, and he’d wanted nothing more than to bury himself in her from behind. Still, he had survived. Even more difficult, he had kept his hands to himself.
The clincher came after they arrived back at his apartment and were settling in for another movie marathon—this time with his choice of cinema. Because just as he was popping a copy of Mothra into his DVD player, Becca exited his bedroom dressed for spending the night again, because she didn’t want to leave until morning, to witness him falling asleep, thereby proving he hadn’t lit up from the moment he awoke until the moment he fell asleep.
The problem for Turner, however, wasn’t that he had to watch Becca exiting his bedroom alone when he’d rather see her entering it with him. Still, seeing her anywhere in the vicinity of his bedroom certainly wreaked havoc with his carnal appetite. Of course, seeing her breathe today had wreaked havoc with his carnal appetite. No, the problem was, and the thing that really sent his carnal appetite into overdrive, demanding some kind of, ah, nutrition—and if it couldn’t be sex, then it had damn well better be nicotine—was the fact that when she emerged from his bedroom, she was wearing nothing but his old college football jersey and a pair of knee socks.
Turner had to do a double take to be sure he wasn’t seeing things. And when he realized he had actually seen what he thought he saw, he could only sit on the sofa staring openmouthed at the vision. Never mind that the jersey fell to midthigh on Becca and covered everything that needed to be covered. That was beside the point. The point was that the outfit she had on was the one she always wore in his second favorite sexual fantasy about her, the one where she got stranded at his apartment in a snowstorm, and all she had to wear was the very thing she had on now. And the realization that sexual fantasy number two was about to be played out in his very nonsexual reality was just a little more than Turner could stand.
Sexual fantasy number one was the one where she came on to him at the office when they were working alone together late one night. In that fantasy, Becca suddenly realized she had a powerful sexual attraction to him and had for years, one that was so ferocious and demanding that, although she managed to get all of her own clothes off, most of his stayed on, and he ended up bending her forward over the big table in the Englund Advertising boardroom to take her from behind. Then, it went without saying, he took her again in her cubicle, spilling pencils off her desk and knocking over that stupid coffee mug Doug in accounting had given her as her secret Santa last Christmas, the one that said “Let’s get naughty for Christmas…it’ll be SO nice” in big red letters, and breaking it into a million pieces. Doug in accounting was such an asshole.
There were other sexual fantasies starring Becca on Turner’s list, too, of course. The one with the roller coaster at King’s Island was a favorite, as was the one where Becca bought him at a bachelor auction and then handcuffed him to her bed for days. And then there was the one where they got jiggy in the back seat of a Rolls Royce, but fat chance that was ever going to happen since the only person Turner knew with a Rolls Royce was his employer’s father. But the football jersey/knee-socks fantasy held firm at number two, and there was Becca in his reality now, all decked out to play.
Next thing you know, he thought, she’ll be doing just like in the fantasy and telling me how sorry she is that she has to wear my clothes, but she spilled something all over herself, and this was the only thing she could find to wear.
“I’m sorry to have to borrow your stuff,” she said as she took a few steps into the room, tugging on the hem of the jersey and looking way more nervous than she should, seeing as how they were just friends and shouldn’t have any reason to feel nervous around each other. “But when I went to pour milk on my cereal this morning,” she continued, “I dropped the carton, and it spilled all over my nightshirt. This was all I could find to sleep in.”
Uh-oh…
“I hope you don’t mind,” she added, sounding nervous, too. “This is the only thing you have that’s big enough to cover my, um…my assets,” she added with a sheepish grin.
The minute she said it, Turner was helpless to do anything but look at her…assets. And as his gaze roved over her from the top of the silky hair he longed to run his fingers through to the tips of the knee-sock-clad toes he wanted to suck, he was damn near overcome with a sexual urge unlike any he had ever experienced before.
And then all he could do was reach for the pack of cigarettes she’d tossed onto the end table earlier, shake one free and say, “So. What time is this appointment with the Amazing Mesmiro? And do you want to drive, or shall I?”
4
THE NAME ON THE OUTER office door, Becca noted when she and Turner arrived for their Tuesday morning appointment, said not the Amazing Mesmiro, but rather Dorcas Upton, RN, BSN, LHT. And then, below that, to make matters clearer, Licensed Hypnotherapist.
“Registered Nurse,” Becca said brightly to Turner, pointing to the first two letters that followed Dorcas Upton’s name. “That’s good. That shows she’s not a flake.”
“Doesn’t prove she never played Vegas,” he replied grudgingly. “What’s BSN stand for?” he asked. “And LHT?”
“Licensed hypnotherapist,” Becca guessed for the latter. Especially since it was spelled out right there. Duh. For the former, however, she hadn’t a clue. “I’m not sure about the other letters, though,” she said.
Turner considered the sign for a moment himself before declaring, “I’m guessing BSN stands for Blatant Staggering Nutcase.”
“I doubt it,” Becca replied through gritted teeth.
“Big Simpering Neurotic?” he suggested further.
“Um, no,” she replied as patiently as she could. “Just a shot in the dark, but…I’m thinking not.”
“Blithering Schizoid Nitwit?”
“Turner…”
“Brilliant Scholar Not?”
“Turner.”
“I know. Bunch of Stupid Nonsense.”
“Turner, stop it,” she finally hissed under her breath. And then it hit her. The RN designation ultimately gave it away. “Bachelor of Sciences, Nursing!” she said triumphantly. “That really shows she’s not a flake if she has a bachelor’s degree.”
Turner said nothing in response to that. And just to show what a good sport Becca was about such things, she didn’t even grin smugly and lean in close and tell him—
Oh, who was she kidding?
“Told you so,” she said with a smug grin, leaning in close.
He growled something under his breath and made a big show of checking his wristwatch. “We’re more than half an hour early,” he said.
Becca glanced at her own wristwatch. He was being generous. They were closer to forty-five minutes early. She’d made the appointment for ten o’clock, and it was just past nine-fifteen now. “I thought traffic would be a lot worse,” she said lamely. “I wanted to get an early start.”
The