Dare to Love (The Dare 4)
“My mom owns the place and now I work here, too. With my background in fashion and design I get to help my mom keep up with the latest fashions and styles.”
“Well you have beautiful things,” Mercedes said as she admired some panties and matching bras.
“Are you shopping for yourself, or looking to please your boyfriend?”
Mercedes felt her cheeks warm.
“No boyfriend, and my friends are doing the shopping. They’re all involved in relationships.”
“Nice. And they drag you in here to look at sexy lingerie,” Jessica said, teasing her.
“Great friends, right?”
“We are great friends,” Marlena said and then pressed a set of matching panties and bra to Mercedes’s chest.
“These would look fabulous on you, and even if no one but you gets to see them, they’ll make you feel sexy and beautiful just like you are,” Marlena told her and smiled.
“That is true. There’s something about a sexy pair of panties and bra that just make a woman feel incredible and alive,” Jessica added.
Mercedes introduced Jessica to the girls and they all said hello as they carried their items to the register.
Mercedes looked at the prices on the bra and panties then felt the hand on her shoulder.
“They’re on me. But you have to promise to tell me when you find out who your secret admirer is,” Marlena said, taking the set from Mercedes’s hands and passing them to Jessica. Mercedes tried to talk her out of buying the set for her but her friends and Jessica countered her arguments and a few minutes later the four of them all walked out with pretty purple bags containing items from J.J.’s Lingerie.
As they got to the restaurant, the hostess told them that they needed to wait about fifteen minutes. They headed toward the bar to get a drink and wait. As Mercedes sipped at her glass of white wine, she looked around at the establishment. It was decorated like a fisherman’s ship with old-fashioned fishing tools, some netting, and artificial crabs and lobsters on the walls. It was a fun and lively atmosphere as the sound of live music playing at the connected club next door filtered into the main bar area and restaurant. Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville” was playing, and Mercedes and Adel were laughing because they’d ordered margaritas to drink.
As she glanced around the place, her eyes caught sight of two men sitting at a high bar table in the corner. One of the guys’ eyes locked on her as the guy next to him continued to speak. He looked her over. She saw the way his eyes slowly roamed her body from across the way and then he smiled.
She felt embarrassed and shy as she looked away and then focused on her friends talking. She couldn’t help but to glance back toward the man and now both men looked at her. The other one smiled softly and she looked away. Two guys? Two strange men both looking at her at the same time? She felt uneasy, unfamiliar with what she should do.
“Hey, are you okay?” Adele asked her. Mercedes looked past Adele’s shoulder and saw the guys still watching and talking to one another. Adele looked that way and then back at Mercedes.
“Oh my God, they’re hot.”
“Are they?” Mercedes asked and took a sip from her drink.
/> “Don’t even try to deny that you’re checking them out.”
“Checking who out?” Marlena asked, and Adele told her, and she looked, and then Alicia looked.
“Oh God don’t look at them or they’ll come over here.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” Adele asked.
“They might try to flirt or ask me out or something.”
Adele looked back over that way.
“I think or something, by the looks of those two.”
Mercedes gasped and felt her cheeks turned red.
“Stop that, Adele, you’re scaring her,” Alicia scolded Adele and Adele got serious.
“Sorry. But hey, if they do flirt with you, go for it. You have turned down so many offers in Chance, not wanting to get together with someone from town that you know, in fear that if it goes wrong you’ll be embarrassed.”
“Yeah, so this could be a good opportunity,” Alicia added.