Don't Tempt Me...

“Makes sense, I guess.” He turned to the novelty items stacked behind him, picking up a plastic-lined box holding what looked like a hair curler. “What the hell is this?”

Samantha went redder than the nylon lingerie she was clipping to a rack. “It’s a vibrator, of course,” she said.

“It looks like it could clear out a clog.”

“Or grind coffee?” she added with a nervous laugh.

He studied the thing. Clear latex, with a gold plastic base and gold ball-bearings set for rotation. A segment shaped like a bunny’s head with two ears probably worked the hot spot. “Modern engineering.” He tilted the box, examining it.

He could tell Samantha wished he’d stop staring at it like he wanted to try it out, but she said, “Some men feel threatened by vibrators,” challenging him.

“Why would they?”

“Because they make a man superfluous.”

“Superfluous, huh?” He examined it again. “Hell, if it works, go for it.” He handed her the box.

“I don’t want it.” Her eyes went wide. “I mean I have one…but not like this. Mine is…simpler.”

“What the hell. You can always use it to whip up dessert.”

He watched his words register in her face.

“Couples use vibrators, too,” she said softly. “To enhance the pleasure.”

“Seems to me a man should find out what his lady likes and give it to her. Batteries not required.” What the hell was coming out of his mouth? Of course, sitting in a sea of lingerie holding a sex toy had to take its toll on his sense.

“I like how you think,” Samantha breathed. Heat spiked between them and Rick’s belt felt way too tight.

“You want that, keep it,” Val said, breezing by, nodding at the mix-master he held. “I owe you two dinner for the help. Anything else you’d like, just grab.” She waved her arm to indicate the room full of girlie clothes.

Samantha smiled. “Anything here interest you?” she asked. “Maybe those?” She pointed at the men’s rack, where some black bikini jobs had a hole for the cock to stick out.

“I don’t think so,” he said, aware it was his turn to go red.

“You probably need a custom fit,” she teased. “Something in an extra-large?” Her eyes gleamed in triumph that she’d managed to embarrass him. She was something else. A live wire. A handful. A prize. If only…

“Look at the time!” Valerie’s voice made him jump. “Lindsay will kill me. Can you two manage the windows without me, Sammi?”

Before either of them could reply, Valerie thrust a shoe box at Rick, then piled on some red filmy items followed by a black leather corset covered with zippers and grommets. “For the small window,” she said. “Think Donna Dominatrix.”

“Donna what?” he said.

But Val had turned to Samantha and had plopped a load of pale silk stuff and a long strip of feathers into her arms. “Velma Virgin and the Pastel Posse in the big display.” Val looked from one to the other. “I owe you two big. Make a list of what you want. I’m serious. Or charge me more for the catalog, Sammi. I’ll do the finishing touches in the morning. You’re angels. Kisses.”

And she was gone, leaving them blinking at each other in the empty underwear store. “I hope you know what goes where,” he said, looking down at his armload of lace, leather, zippers and boots.

“You mean you’ve never outfitted a dominatrix before?”

“This will be my first. Be gentle with me.” The joke came out so easily. Samantha made him feel the way he had before his brother had died, as if life were a blast and a good laugh was worth everything.

“We’ll just have to learn together,” she said. She tucked her items under an arm and picked up the dangerous-looking corset on top of his pile.

“That’s gotta hurt to wear,” he said.

“I know.” Samantha traced her finger along the curve of the thing, giving him a different kind of pain—sweet and hungry. “Women cut off their circulation, choke off their breathing, pinch their toes and make their arches ache just to please men.” She lifted her gaze to him. “Does it work? Do these clothes turn you on?”

He didn’t need a thing past her for that. “I think women are sexy enough just as they are,” he managed to say.

Her mouth stretched into a slow smile. “But don’t clothes add to the effect?” She dropped the torture vest back in his arms and shifted the pile of soft things from under her arms to the front. She fingered the feather strip. “I don’t like being cramped or pinched, but I like soft things. Silk and velvet and feathers.” She ran the feathers between her fingers until he wanted to rip the thing away with his teeth.

He could see her in just that, all right, feathers brushing her nipples, reaching down to her soft thatch—dark red like her hair?—leading him where he wanted to touch, kiss and stroke her…. Her gaze locked on his—she’d read him—and heat snapped so sharply between them he felt scorched.

“After this maybe we should have…dinner?” she asked, the last word as flirty as hell.

Screw dinner. Let’s go straight for dessert. But he knew better. He had to control this right now for the case, so he said the only thing he could. “Looks like we’ll be working through it, huh?” He lifted his armload of S and M gear as proof and started toward the windows, but not before he’d seen disappointment flood her features. He hated undercover work.

SAMANTHA BLINKED, startled and stung. Rick had said no. His hot emerald eyes had swirled to cool jade like mood rings dropped into a freezer.

Get over it, she told herself, following him to the front windows with her armload of lingerie. He wanted the job and wasn’t interested in overtime. Okay. Made sense.

She’d overreacted to the situation. And no wonder. She’d just spent two hours fondling lingerie, sex screaming from every hanger, rack and shelf, with an extremely hot man who gave mixed signals. Of course she’d end up pulsing with lust.

Bummer, though, that she’d finally decided to go for it with a guy and wound up hiring him out of the running.

Something in her felt relief at the turndown, she had to admit. She’d been going too fast, as if she’d hiked some dangerous hill, then looked down and realized how high she was, how precarious her footing, how easy it would be to fall.

She set her items in the larger window and let Rick help her up into the smaller one with two naked mannequins. Rick was so big, the window seemed as cramped as a jet’s lavatory when she stood beside him, still feeling the chemistry between them.

Her knees jiggled and her heart banged her ribs and where had all the oxygen gone? But she took the leather bustier from him and, cool as could be, held it against the naked mannequin, who stood with her legs spread, hips thrust forward, black wig pulled severely back. “For Donna?” she asked.

Rick’s eyes skimmed the clothing, the mannequin, then her face. “Looks right.”

“If you’re into that, huh?” She had her tie-up fantasy, after all. But it was all pretend, she realized. She’d never have the nerve to say to Rick, I want you. You want me. Let’s go for it.

In her soul, she knew she wasn’t equipped to just pick up a guy. Her mother’s words were a red-hot memory, as fresh as yesterday. Don’t be a slut, Samantha Kay.

She unzipped the bustier and loosened the laces so she could put it on the mannequin and made a joke. “This looks ridiculous. By the time the guy gets the thing pried open, you’ve given up and gone to asleep.”

Rick laughed, then bent to the shoe box at the mannequin’s feet, leaving Samantha to her painful memory. She’d been sixteen at the time. Tutoring the cool clique at Copper Corners High in trig had gotten her in their good graces and they’d helped her spend her hoarded allowance on a trendy black dress, then donated their cast-off cosmetics to her—dark shadow, goopy mascara, pale foundation and red gloss so wet it nearly dripped.

She was to meet them at the Bowl-A-Rama, so she’d dressed, put on the makeup, sprayed her hair wild and bounded into the living room to show her mother. Ta-daa.

The stunned gasp stopped her mid-spin. You look like a slut. The dress wasn’t short or tight. Maybe she’d gone a little overboard on the eye stuff, but everyone was wearing it heavy—pop stars had set the pace.

I thought we raised you right. Her mother’s eyes filled with tears and she sank into the chair. Thank God her father had been away on business—his reaction would have been worse.

Maybe if her mother had yelled at her, demanded Samantha wash her face, change out of that hooker outfit, Samantha might have slammed out of the house, made fun of her mother the way the cool girls did of theirs, smoked cigarettes and shoplifted lipstick from Dina’s Shop ’N Go just like they did. Instead, her mother had seemed devastated, heartbroken, bereft.