Best Laid Plans

“What kind of vibrator do you have?”

I smile. “Why do you assume I have one at all?”

He sets his hand on his belly and laughs in an over-the-top fashion. “That’s a good one.”

“I mean it. How did you know?”

“Are you kidding me?”

“No. I really want to know how you assumed I had one.”

He arches a brow. “Arden East, I bet you have more than one.”

I smile in a silent admission. I’m liking Naughty Town a lot.

“Exactly.” He steps closer. “And to answer how I knew—I knew because you like pleasure. Because you’re not getting what you want from your relationships. Because you asked me to help you learn more about men and sex. Ergo, you know how to take care of yourself, but you want to know what to do with all that desire when you’re with someone.”

His eyes sweep up and down my body, making my stomach flip unexpectedly, quickening my pulse. Maybe it’s the way he says desire. Maybe it’s how he looks at me with darkened eyes, or the close quarters we’ve found ourselves in. Whatever it is, all I want to do is give him the honest truth. My skin is buzzing, and it feels good to talk about sex.

“I have three. A bullet, a lipstick vibrator, and a dolphin.”

He swallows, taking his time speaking again. “Lucky dolphin.”

I laugh at the obvious joke. “Or maybe I’m the lucky girl.”

“Do you carry the lipstick one with you?”

“So I can diddle myself in my car?”

“Or behind the counter at the bookstore?”

“I am most decidedly not taking solo flights at work.”

“When do you break them out?”

“At home.”

“And which one do you use the most?”

“I like the dolphin best of all. He has most favored nation status.” Holy smokes. I’m serving it all up. I’m telling him everything. And it feels fantastic. It’s freeing. He seems to be enjoying this conversation too, judging from the hint of a smile tugging at his lips.

“Like I said, lucky dolphin,” he murmurs as he guides me to the next aisle, and we’re in a wonderland of animals: butterflies, dolphins, rabbits. “All right, this isn’t your first turn at the menagerie, then. But you did say you wanted to try mutual masturbation.”

A rush of heat zips through me, shooting my temperature higher. What is he going to suggest? Does he want us to do that even though I’d instigated a clothes-on rule? Nerves mix with a strange new excitement. “We don’t have to,” I quickly say, because I can’t bear the thought of crossing a line, even as it entices me.

He cuts me off, looking me straight in the eyes. “I know. Believe me, I know. But this is what I’m thinking. You’re trying to move beyond your comfort zone. Learn new things, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then I want you to do something for me.”

I’ve no idea what he wants me to do, but a delicious heaviness throbs between my legs, and I think I’ll like whatever he says. “Okay.”

“Tell me what you like about the one you’re using.”

“Tell you?”

“Yes.”

“Right now?”

“Yes.”

I look around. A skinny woman in black with earplugs works the counter, and a redhead in a plaid skirt is hanging up a sexy nurse costume. Nearby, a couple covered in ink checks out strap-ons.

“And how does this help?” I whisper as we regard a shelf of dolphins and rabbits.

“You said you wanted to be able to voice what you like in bed. Do you want to practice by telling me what you like about the dolphin?”

Sparks ripple across my skin at his request, leaving a trail of gooseflesh in their wake. I do want to tell him. I do want to say what I like.

I point to a light-blue dolphin, take a deep breath, and draw on desire—the desire to speak my mind with a man. I can do this. I can say this. “I like the dolphin because . . .” I pause. I’ve never been this vocal before. I picture my solo rides, how I close my eyes, lie back on my bed, and imagine trying new positions, exploring new lands, as I pleasure myself. “Because it goes deep. Because it feels good inside me, and outside.”

The blue in his eyes turns fiery. “The dolphin makes you feel like you’re being touched by someone who knows how to take care of your needs?”

I shiver, my knees going a little weak. My mind is turned all the way on. “Yes, like my lover is attuned to me.”

His voice is raspy. “And knows how to touch you just right. Knows how to make your skin tingle, how to move his hands over you so the world slips away.”

A quick breath falls from my lips, as my body becomes electric. “That sounds amazing,” I whisper.

His eyes are intense, shining with something that looks dangerously like pure lust. “Because he doesn’t take the gift of your body for granted. Because he asks, and you tell him. Now, tell me—so you can practice saying it—what do you picture when you’re close?”

The flame in his eyes jumps to me, and I’m ignited as I cycle through my go-tos then whisper, “My mind . . . flips through different images. But sometimes it’s words. Things I say, things I picture a lover doing to me.”

He inches closer, and the air crackles and hums between us. “Like what you want to say when you’re about to come?”

I nod, my temperature soaring from that one word—come. I ache everywhere. I ache between my legs with the delicious, torturous need to come. Not now, not here, but soon. “Things I’ve never said out loud,” I whisper, my face hot.

“Dirty, sexy words?”

“Yes.”

“What words?”

I glance around. The silence in the store is deafening. The pounding of my blood is intense. When I’ve gone sex toy shopping with my friends, I felt like a naughty schoolgirl, giggling and making jokes. Now, with a sexy man as my companion, I feel naughty in a whole new way.

A sexier way.

A seductive way.

It’s like he’s seducing me—unintentionally, I’m sure—with his dirty talk, but when he’s this close, uttering those words and smelling so masculine, so damn strong, I nearly groan out loud.

Still, I don’t want to go too far in the store. Some things are too private.

“You don’t want to say it here?”