The Charmer (Harbor City 2)

“You can’t order me around,” she huffed but took the dress.

“I just did.” He spun her around and gave her a light shove toward her bedroom door. “Now go do what the professor says.”

It took all of thirty-six seconds after she shut her bedroom door before he decided waiting and drawing out the pleasure was a stupid idea invented by sadists. To pass the time, he flipped through a scientific journal about ants and made it fourteen pages before giving up. Next, he checked the contents of her fridge, which was as barren as his own. After that, Honeypot hissed him away from coming any closer, her tail twitching in annoyance. Finally, he heard the click of the bedroom door opening.

He turned and then the world stopped spinning. Felicia was wearing an electric blue dress that stopped just shy of her knees that was made out of some kind of fabric that hugged her curves with a V-neck deep enough to highlight everything underneath. And just to make everything better and worse, the whole thing looked to be held together by a length of fabric tied into a bow at her waist.

“It’s all wrong, I know, but Jacqui was so convincing in the store,” she said, brushing her hands over her hips and already backing up toward her bedroom. “It’ll take me just a second to get out of it.”

“Don’t you dare.” The only person untying that bow was going to be him.

She gulped. “What?”

“You look amazing,” he said, searching for a better word to describe the effect she was having and coming up empty. “Even Captain Clueless won’t be able to miss that after he sees you in this.”

And it was going to take Hudson everything he had not to punch the idiot out for never doing so before. Because whether she was in this dress or one of her ridiculous ant shirts or the world’s ugliest little black dress, Felicia Hartigan was impossible not to notice.

She tugged at the hem. “It’s too short.”

He started toward her, and she gulped, her hands flying like nervous birds around her as she fiddled with the dress.

“It’s too tight.” Again, she smoothed her hands over the material, skimming her palms over her hips.

Stopping within arm’s reach, he gave her a slow up and down perusal, taking in all that she’d been hiding under the baggy T-shirts and boy-cut jeans. Her whole look before practically screamed don’t look at me. Now? There was no looking away.

An aroused flush had started in the valley between her tits and stretched north. “It’s not me.”

“Matches, it may not be your go-to style, but this is all you,” he said. “Every gorgeous bit.”

“Stop saying that,” she said, the pulse point in her neck jackhammering. “I’m well aware of my limitations. I’m too short. Too flat chested. Too—”

Before she could finish with whatever bullshit she was continuing to offer up, he silenced her with a kiss—if that’s what it could be called. It was more like a dam breaking. Their hands and mouths were everywhere, tasting and nipping and kissing from one patch of exposed skin to another. His balls ached with the need not just to touch her but to see her.

He tugged at the bow designed to look like it was holding the entire dress together. “Take it off.”

“You first,” she said, straightening her glasses that had gone cockeyed, determination taking her chin a couple of degrees higher. “This is a lesson after all. I should see how the master does it.”

“A lesson,” he repeated, wishing not all of his blood had gone straight south from his brain, because it took longer than it should have to translate that. Once he did, there was no missing the laughing gleam in her blue eyes. So, someone thought they could take the upper hand? That wasn’t going to happen. “I’m happy to demonstrate. Take a seat.”

The closest one was the ottoman she’d stood on when she’d come all over his fingers the other night. She must have made the same connection because her lips parted on a quick inhale before she sat down, her legs crossed at the ankles and her knees held tight together. To top off the prim look, she rested her clasped hands in her lap and straightened her spine until even an old timey finishing school principal would have been impressed by her posture.

He shrugged out of his jacket and reached for the top button of his shirt. “Ready?”

“Yes, sir,” she said with a shy smile he didn’t believe for an instant.

She may not crave to be the center of attention but, once she was there, she flourished with a sassy attitude that made him even harder. He couldn’t wait to discover whatever other surprises she was hiding under that veneer of nerdy girl next door.

“So, you want to start slow.” He slipped the top button free. “One thing at a time while maintaining eye contact.”

Not that he could look away from her and miss seeing how into this little strip tease she was. While her face remained impassive, by the time he’d finished unbuttoning his shirt and dropped it to the floor, she’d inched forward on the ottoman until her ass was probably barely on it. His hand went to the top button of his jeans, the pad of his thumb flicking it but not enough to pop it open. Her hands separated, and she clutched the edge of the ottoman. Her thighs clenched and flexed before relaxing again. Oh yeah, she was definitely enjoying this.

“There’s a fine line between teasing and taunting, you have to learn to walk it even as your body is screaming at you to move faster,” he said, dropping his hands from his jeans, the top button still in place.

She groaned and bit down on her bottom lip, watching with big eyes as he reached behind his head and grabbed his white undershirt, pulling it off over his head.

“And is your body telling you to speed it up?” she asked as the undershirt slid from his grasp and floated to the floor.

Telling? More like demanding and threatening total and complete revolt. That part was bad, but the look in her eyes is what really did him in. He strode forward until he stood directly in front of her, his iron-hard cock pushing against his jeans only inches from her face. When her pink tongue slipped out and wet her lips as she stared at that bulge, he almost nutted right there and then.