She tightened her arms around him in a way that was all Harper, and Adam finally let go.
The free fall started, pumping through his veins and rocking his body. Harper felt it too because she started to tighten around him, and breathing turned nonexistent, as if his chest were too big for his skin, and he wanted to deploy the chute and free-fall forever all at the same time.
Then she lifted her head to meet his gaze straight on, looking at him as though he was her choice, the right choice, and—bam—he was a goner.
The pressure built, hotter and higher, and Harper must have let go too, because he felt her start to shake and then she was crying out his name. Chanting it really.
Not that he was one to talk, since he was doing some chanting of his own, and he finally gave in to the heat. Everything went black and he dropped his head to her shoulder, pressed his face to her throat, and took her in, while she melted into him, both breathing hard.
“Those were some pretty amazing cookies,” she said into his neck.
Adam laughed, and when he was no longer afraid of his legs buckling, he looked up and what he saw looking back had him smiling. Man, she was gorgeous and sweet and funny—a total turn-on.
“I was thinking that the next batch could be enjoyed in bed,” he said.
“That depends.”
He lifted a brow. “On what?”
“How do you feel about Grumpy Cat?”
“Never met a kitty I couldn’t get purring.” To prove it, he threw her over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold and headed down the hallway.
It had been several days since the impromptu dinner at the station—and dessert at her place—and Harper could still feel her body tingling. No matter how many times she told herself it was just chemistry, or applied soothing body lotion, the tingling wouldn’t go away.
It had started in her lips the minute she realized it wasn’t a for show kind of smooch, spread south when she found him on her front porch, and finally reached her toes when they staged an impromptu photo shoot in her apartment Friday morning, and continued tingling straight through the weekend. It stuck with her through Monday’s papier-maché class where Tommy mistook a bowl of paste for pudding, Tuesday’s nine hours of burning the midnight oil with the campaign mockup, and this morning’s argument over why Spanx for men was not upping the store’s swagger.
“Tell me again why we’re putting the girdles at the back of the store,” Clovis said, resting her cane between two display shelves, creating a makeshift rolling rack.
Jabba lifted his head from the garbage can under the counter and locked eyes on the cane.
“Maybe you need to get a hearing aid to go with that cane,” Ida Beamon, one of Clovis’s oldest friends, said. She was hanging a collection of nude-colored body-slimmers from the cane. “The girl already told you that girdles don’t really say youthful allure.”
“Tell me how alluring it is when all that vintage-grade cottage cheese is flapping in the wind,” Clovis argued, but she picked up one end of the cane, while Ida grabbed the other. Together, they navigated their way toward the back of the store, Jabba hot on their trail. “Plus they’re our biggest sellers. There’s no sense in making people walk all the way to the back to get the biggest sellers.”
“Actually, back-loading the store with everyday necessities that are not necessarily sexy is a perfect merchandising strategy,” Harper said as she slipped a summery-style negligée over the mannequin in the front window. “It forces people to walk past the beautifully displayed babydolls and French décolletés with the matching garter-panties you just got in.”
“I agree with Harper. Babydolls up front is smart merchandising,” Peggy said from beside Harper, and everyone groaned.
Not that Harper didn’t appreciate the support, but Peggy had been agreeing with Harper all morning. She’d walked into the shop with a bag of cookies and a smile, sporting Harper’s cardigan and a necklace that looked vaguely familiar, then planted herself directly at Harper’s side.
“I don’t look good in babydolls,” Clovis mumbled, moving the girdles to the hooks on the back wall. “They make me look top-heavy.”
“You don’t look it. You are,” Ida said to Clovis, who repositioned her top half with pride.
Peggy grabbed a babydoll off the rack and held it up to her frame, then looked in the mirror—more specifically at her top half. She twisted side to side a few times, watching the material flirt in the mirror on the far wall.
“Plus, National Underwear Day is Tuesday,” Harper pointed out, fully aware that Peggy had turned to stare at her mouth. “We want to highlight the seductive side of the shop. Show the customers that lingerie can be fun, flirty, sensual.”