There are other things I’d like to debrief right now. But this works too.
* * *
I do my best work in the bedroom. This is completely my domain. So it should be no big deal that she asked me to wait here. But something about being in Charlotte’s bedroom is wigging me out.
Mostly because there’s nudity transpiring mere feet away.
She’s taking a shower, and no matter how you slice them, New York apartments are thimble size. Let me spell this out—There is a wet, naked, hot woman in a ten-foot radius.
Got it? Okay. Moving on.
I pick up a picture frame on her sky blue bureau, a photo of the dog her parents have. A fluffy brown summa dog—some of this, some of that. I’m going to focus on this mutt. Zero in on him. Look at his tail. Check out his ears. Yup, this picture is doing the trick. It is helping me not to linger on the naked woman and how well she kisses.
Or how much I liked it.
Why the fuck did I like it so much?
Of course you liked it, idiot. You’re a straight male and a pretty woman kisses you—you’d be stupid not to like it. End of story. Doesn’t mean anything. Stop analyzing.
Especially since she just turned off the shower.
Maybe she forgot a towel. Maybe she’ll open the door a crack, and ask me to grab one for her.
I smack my forehead. Get it together, Holiday.
I set down the picture, inhale deeply, and straighten my shoulders. The door creaks open. She steps out of the bathroom wearing only a white fluffy towel wrapped above her breasts.
“You might be wondering why I asked you to wait in my bedroom instead of the living room,” she says, in the most matter-of-fact of tones.
I have no clue how she can be talking like we’re having a business transaction while droplets of water slide down her bare legs. But I’m a strong man. I can handle this. I’m not tempted at all by my best friend. My dick, however, begs to differ, the traitorous prick.
“The thought crossed my mind,” I say, as I lean against the bureau, striking a casual pose.
“Because if you’re my fiancé, you need to be comfortable with me being naked,” she says with a crisp nod.
Shit, she’s going to do it. She’s going to drop the towel. She’s going to make us practice fucking. I am the luckiest man on the face of the earth.
Wait. No. I can’t fuck my best friend. I absolutely, positively, can’t screw Charlotte. Even if she tosses the towel on the floor and begs me to.
I lace my fingers together behind my back, linking my twitchy hands.
“Okay, so you’re getting naked,” I say, doing my best to imitate her cool-as-a-cucumber tone, which is throwing me off big time.
“No. It’s the idea of me naked,” she corrects.
I give her a pointed look. “Seems to me it’s both the idea and the reality.”
“Fine, fine. They’re one and the same, and it’s part of the debrief.”
“Is this the exam portion?”
She walks past me, her arm brushing against mine before she yanks open the top drawer of the bureau. “Yes. This is more like the practical lab instruction.”
“And this is because you somehow think we’re going to be required to be naked together in front of Mr. Offerman in order to pull this off? This isn’t like some reality show fake engagement where we have to pass certain skills in an obstacle course. You know that, right?”
She nods as she hunts around in the drawer. “I’m aware of that. I see this as more like the Newlywed Game.”
“And in this version we’re quizzed on how accustomed I am to the idea of you naked and vice versa?”
Her breath hitches when I say that—vice versa.
I don’t know what to make of that small gasp…like if it means something about the idea of me au naturel.
She spins around and holds up two pairs of panties, one in each hand. “Quick. Do you prefer it when your fiancée wears the black lace thong?” She waggles a scrap of silky-looking fabric that is so hot my face might be engulfed in flames right now because Charlotte owns that? “Or do you prefer her in the white side-string bikini?” She waves the white pair before my eyes, and all I can see is a tiny triangular patch of fabric that’s the slightest bit see-through.
Forget the flames. I am a fucking inferno right now knowing she owns this too. White panties that reveal pretty much everything.
Lord have mercy.
If a woman I was dating wore those panties, they wouldn’t be on her. They’d be in my teeth as I pulled them off. I can’t do anything but stare at her lingerie as my blood heats to surface-of-Mercury levels.
Charlotte tilts her head and shoots me an expectant look. “Which one do you prefer your fiancée in?”
I haven’t answered her yet. I’m just trying to get the blood flowing from other parts of my anatomy back to my brain.
“Nothing,” I say, intending it as a jokey retort, but my throat is dry and scratchy, so the words come out in a harsh growl.
She lifts an eyebrow, completely unperturbed. “Nothing? Really? Okay then,” she says, and swivels around, stuffing the underthings back in the bureau, grabbing a bra, then closing the drawer with a gentle ping. “That makes things easier. I’ll be right back.”
She touches my shoulder playfully with her index finger, yanks open her closet, grabs something from a hanger, and returns to the bathroom. As she shuts the door, I sink down on the bed and breathe out hard. I drop my forehead to my palm. What the hell kind of test was that? That was a feat of strength, if I ever experienced one.
But I don’t have time to figure it out because twenty seconds later, she opens the bathroom door and says, “What do you think?”