Page 28 of A Real Goode Time

A beat.

“Um. Hi.” Her voice, soft, hesitant, shook me out of my tit-hypnotized stupor.

“Wow. I…sorry.” I held up her thong and let it dangle from my finger. “This…um, didn’t make it into the basket.”

Less than six feet separated us. I took a step forward, extending the thong to her.

She stepped forward to meet me, took it from me. Our eyes locked, momentarily. She held my gaze.

I couldn’t help the way my eyes involuntarily dropped from hers to her chest, taking another long, hungry look. And then, with an effort of will, I shut my eyes, gritted my teeth, and turned away. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I should have waited for you to tell me to come in.”

A soft rustle of cloth. “I’m wearing a shirt, now,” she murmured.

I turned back around. “I’m sorry, Torie.”

She shook her head, shrugged, but her pink cheeks told a different story. “Well, now we’ve both walked in on each other. Call it even?”

“Yeah…even,” I said, my voice faint.

She held the thong up. “I was actually looking for this. Thought I’d packed it and wanted to wear it. Explains why I couldn’t find it and had to settle for the yellow one.”

She’d buttoned her jeans, too, but I had a pretty solid mental image of the not-quite-sheer lace of the yellow underwear.

“The yellow looked plenty good to me,” I heard my own idiot voice say, and then I apparently doubled down on stupidity. “But I’ve always been partial to that shade of red. It bet it would look super hot on you.”

“Yeah, it’s my favorite thong. Looks good, feels good.”

“Glad it wasn’t lost, then.”

“Me too.”

Okay, time to go. This was getting weird.

“I’m…” I somehow had my coffee mug in hand. Not sure when or where I’d grabbed it, and I didn’t remember taking it downstairs. Was I losing my mind? “I’m gonna get more coffee.”

I turned away, blinking to clear my mind of the vision of Torie, topless, as glorious and gorgeous as I’d fantasized her to be. More—she was breathtaking. Porcelain skin, long, elegant arms, delicate ribcage supporting those mouthwatering breasts, a waist curving in to strong hips. Flat, taut stomach, a hint of abdominal definition. Jesus, she was perfect. Those tits, god, those tits. Plump at the base, peaked and pointed at the tips. I loved how they curved slightly upward. Her nipples made my brain explode and my cock throb—so plump, so fat, so long. Begging to be kissed and licked and teased.

I poured coffee, trying to banish the memory so I could look her in the eye without popping a boner—too late, I already had one.

But I was so distracted, I overfilled the mug—scorching hot coffee scalded my hand, and I shook it, snarling a stream of curses as I fished ice from the freezer and ran it along the web of my thumb where the skin was burned.

“God, I’m an idiot,” I said.

“You okay?”

I nodded. “Yeah, fine. I’m not normally a klutz like this, I swear.”

She sounded like she was holding back laughter. “No? Something’s got you off your game, huh?”

“Something…or someone.” I tossed the ice into the sink and grabbed my coffee. Headed for the stairs. “Sorry one more time for walking in on you, Torie.”

She shrugged. “It happens.”

Something in her eyes was not as nonchalant as her voice and words. I didn’t push it, though.

She followed me down to the garage, her own coffee mug in hand. I pointed at the wiring harness I’d begun reinstalling. “That’s our first job.”

And so the morning went—she was a lot more knowledgeable than I think even she realized. Any tool I needed, she was ready with it. She knew what I needed almost before I did. And there were many times that morning that her slender, long-fingered hand could reach places to thread a bolt that I couldn’t get to. She was nimble, and had this adorable, sexy way of reaching down into the engine bay, bent over and turned sideways, and she’d turn her head up, and her eyes would go glassy as she focused on working by feel, and her tongue would lick at the corner of her mouth as she threaded the bolt by touch.