“What?” She laughed. “I would offer to help, but I don’t trust myself.”
He ground his teeth together. “Baby, do not put images like that in my head, or I’ll never calm down.”
“Don’t get too excited. I’ve never…” She made a circle with her hand and moved it like she was jerking him off.
“Great. Another image I’ll never be able to forget.”
Someone banged on the door.
“Saved by the knock. Expecting someone?” He untucked his shirt to cover his arousal as he headed for the door.
“No.”
He answered the door and found a young guy holding a pizza box.
“Finally, dude. I was here fifteen minutes ago, but no one answered.”
“Shoot.” Crystal grabbed her purse from the table by the door and began digging around in it. “I forgot I ordered pizza for us before you got here.”
“No worries, babe.” He whipped out his wallet and paid the guy. “Sorry for the wait. Thanks for bringing it by again.”
He closed the door and wrapped an arm around Crystal. “That was thoughtful, but I would have taken you out for dinner.”
“I live off of pizza and Chinese. Oh, and I can burn toast, but that’s about it.”
He cocked a brow. “Seriously?”
“Don’t judge.” She went into the kitchen and grabbed two plates from a cabinet.
He made a mental note to cook her an amazing dinner sometime soon and headed for the dining room.
“Besides, this pizza rocks,” she said as she came to his side. “You won’t find room to eat in there.”
“I see that.” He set the pizza on a chair and stepped into the room.
Three long tables were lined up beneath the windows, covered by layers of colorful fabric with sketches strewn across them. Several more dolls that her father had made were on the windowsill. His chest constricted. Tins of buttons, spools of thread, and other sewing supplies littered every surface. In the corner of the room a mannequin wore a black-and-white polka-dot skirt; a piece of bright pink fabric was draped over its shoulder. Hand-drawn fashion designs and swatches of fabric, along with pictures of costumes and clothing torn out of magazines and newspapers, were tacked to a large corkboard. Across the room, a shirt with one sleeve, a skirt with several pins securing lace to the hemline, and other pieces of clothing in various stages of design hung from a metal rack beside a sewing machine. He loved her colorful, creative chaos.
“It looks like something exploded in here.”
“An explosion of my mind, maybe.” She opened the pizza box. “Everyone needs a place to disappear. This is mine.” She put a slice of pizza on each plate and handed him one.
“My girl has more secrets, and I want to know them all.” He leaned in for a kiss and forced himself to focus on the glimpse into her world she was offering.
“I knew you were making costumes, but I had no idea you were into designing clothes. Are these all yours?” He studied the sketches pinned to the corkboard while he ate.
“Mm-hm. I studied design in school. I tinker. I design, redesign, try to make a few things each year.” She took a bite of her pizza.
“You’re incredibly talented.” He looked at the sketches spread across the tables, amazed at the complexity of the designs. “You and Gemma are going to do this all on your own? That’s awesome.”
“We’re going to make a few and see if they sell. If they do, then we’ll try to recruit a few design students to help.”
“Is that what you’d like to do eventually? Fashion design?”
She shrugged. “I love working with Gemma, and if we can pull off selling our own costumes, that’ll be enough for now. I’m not ready to go back to school, and I’d need to in order to really make a name in fashion design, not to mention interning in New York City and all of that. None of which I have any real interest in. Maybe someday that’ll change, but right now I’m happy.”
He pointed to a sketch on the sewing table, recognizing the diamond print. “Is that the skirt you have on?”
“Yes.” She took another bite of her pizza. “I finished it a few weeks ago. Check this out.” She finished her slice of pizza and lifted a big roll of fabric, pointing to the end of the cardboard that it was wound around. “This is called a bolt of fabric. You should know that in case you decide to frequent fabric stores to feed your satin and lace addiction.”
“I think you mean my Crystal addiction.” He leaned closer to read the tag on the bolt—Black Bear—and laughed.
“I couldn’t resist,” she said with a sexy smile. “I found it three months ago, and I had to buy all of it.”
“Three months ago? You really were into me all this time.”
She rolled her eyes. “You have no idea…”
He slipped an arm around her waist, holding her close. “See? Even the fabric gods want us to be together.” He pressed his lips to hers. The taste of pizza and lust twined together with the unique taste of Crystal. “Damn, sugar. I’m never going to get enough of you.”
“Good.” She went up on her toes, pressing a kiss to the center of his lips. “Then we have a lot in common.”
“That’s a far cry from, ‘I’m not your sugar.’ You sure you want to claim me so blatantly? Because I might just enact a ‘no-take backs’ rule.”
“As if I ever had a choice about claiming you?” A grin lifted her lips. “You made it impossible for me to think about anything but you.”
“Babe, you are all I’ve thought about for so long, I can’t remember what I thought about before you.”
“That’s a pretty awesome line.”
“I’m a pretty awesome guy. See? I have even more in common with my kick-ass girl.”
She laughed.
“We actually do have a lot in common,” he said more seriously. “You design clothes. I design bikes.”
“Get outta town.” Surprise lifted her brows.
“Sorry, babe, but I’m in this town to stay. In fact, you might have trouble getting me to leave this apartment.”
“You wish.” The heated look in her eyes disputed her words. “How have I known you this long and not known that you design bikes?” She served them each another slice of pizza and carried the box into the living room.
“I could say the same about you designing clothes.”
“I’m serious. That’s huge. I mean, I design clothes in the privacy of my dining room. No one knows about it but Gemma and Dixie. But motorcycles? That’s huge.”
“It’s just a hobby. I do it in my garage at home.”
“What’s stopping you from doing it as more than a hobby?”
“I need time to invest into the process to do it right, and I can’t walk away from my family’s businesses.”
“But designing and building motorcycles? That’s not something just anyone can do. I’m sure they’d understand if you wanted to break out on your own. Bones is a doctor, and Bullet went into the military.”