The little panties lay innocuously to the side as if an afterthought. Probably because there wasn’t enough lace making up the bottom half of the outfit to rightfully call them panties. He could picture them perfectly on his wife’s body and he could envision slowly stripping them off even more vividly.
Wait. What was Viv doing with such smoking-hot lingerie?
Was she planning to wear it for him? His brain had no ability to make sense of this revelation. She’d brought lingerie. To wear. Of course the only man in the vicinity was Jonas. Who else would she be wearing it for?
That was totally against the rules.
And totally against what he was capable of giving her in this marriage. She might as well drape herself in hearts and flowers. Viv clearly thought love was a recipe for marriage. Stir well and live happily ever after. He wasn’t the right ingredient for that mix.
The sound of running water being shut off rattled through the walls. Viv had just emerged from the shower. He should get the hell out of that bedroom right now. But before he could stand, she walked out of the bathroom holding a towel loosely around her body. Her naked body. She was still wet. His gaze traced the line of one drop as it slid down her shoulder and disappeared behind the towel.
“Oh. I didn’t know you’d come back,” she announced unnecessarily as he was reasonably certain she wouldn’t have waltzed into the room mostly naked if she’d known he was sitting on the bed.
“Sorry,” he muttered, and meant to avert his eyes but the towel had slipped a little, which she’d done nothing to correct.
Maybe she wanted him to catch a glimpse of her perfect breasts. Not that he knew for sure that they were perfect. But the little half-moon slices peeking above the towel flashed at him more brightly than a neon sign, and his whole body went up in flames.
Anything that powerful at only a quarter strength had to be perfect in its entirety.
“Did you want to take a turn in the bathroom?” she asked casually. Still standing there. Wet. In a towel. Naked.
“Uh, sure.” He didn’t stand. He should cross the room and barricade himself in the bathroom, where it wouldn’t matter if she’d used all the hot water because the shower needed to be glacial.
“Okay. Can you give me two minutes? I need to dry my hair.” And then she laughed with a little peal that punched him the gut. “Normally I would wrap it up in the towel but there are only two and I didn’t want to hog them all.”
Then she pulled on the edge of the towel, loosening it from the column it formed around her body and lifted the tail end to the ends of her dripping hair. A long slice of skin peeked through the opening she’d unwittingly created and the answering flash of heat that exploded in his groin would have put him on his knees if he’d been standing. Good thing he hadn’t moved.
“You should get dressed,” he suggested, but she didn’t hear him because his voice wasn’t working. Besides, dressed could have a lot of different meanings, and the frothy yellow concoction in her suitcase appeared to be the next outfit of choice. If she hadn’t been planning to slip it on, it wouldn’t be on top, laid out so carefully.
Oh, man. Would she have been wearing it when he got into bed later? No warning, just bam!
He should pretend he hadn’t seen the yellow concoction. How else could he find out if that had been her plan? That had to be her plan. Please, God, let it be her plan.
He was so hard, it was a wonder his erection hadn’t busted out of his zipper.
Clearing his throat, he tested out speaking again. “I can come back.”
That, she heard. “Oh, you don’t have to. Really, I’ve taken way too long already. We’re sharing and I’m not used to that. The shower was lovely and I couldn’t help standing there under the spray, just letting my mind drift.”
Great. Now his mind was drifting—into the shower with her as she stood there. Naked. Letting the water sluice down her body, eyes closed with a small, rapturous smile gracing her face.
He groaned. What was he doing to himself?
“Are you okay?” Her attention honed in on him and she apparently forgot she wasn’t wearing anything but a damp towel because she immediately crossed the room to loom over him, her expression laced with concern.
It would take less than a second to reach out and snag her by the waist, pulling her down into his lap. That towel would fall, revealing her perfect breasts, and they’d be right there, ripe and available to taste. No yellow concoction needed. But that would be criminal. She should get to wear her newlywed lingerie if she wanted.
“Oh.” Viv blushed all at once, the pink stain spreading across her cheeks, and Jonas could not tear his eyes off her face. But she was staring at the open suitcase. “You didn’t see that ridiculous thing Grace gave me, did you?”
She picked up the yellow lacy top and held it up to her body, draping it over the towel one-handed, which had the immediate consequence of smooshing her breasts higher. “Can you imagine me wearing this?”
With absolute, brilliant clarity.
“I don’t know what she was thinking,” Viv continued as if his entire body wasn’t poised to explode. “‘Open this with Jonas,’ she says with a sly wink. I thought it was going to be a joke, like a gravy boat, and besides, this isn’t a real marriage, so I didn’t think you’d actually want to help open gifts. Sorry I didn’t wait for you.”
She rolled her eyes with another laugh that did not help things down below.
“That’s okay. Next time.” What was he saying? Sure, I’ll help open future gifts full of shockingly transparent clothing that would make a porn star blush? “Your sister meant well. She doesn’t know we’re not sleeping together.”
Or rather they weren’t yet. In a scant few minutes, they’d be in the bed. Together. Maybe some sleeping would occur but it wasn’t looking too likely unless he got his body cooled down to something well below its current thermonuclear state.
“Well, true. But obviously she expects us to be hot and heavy, right? I mean, this is the kind of stuff a woman wears for a man who can’t keep his hands off her.” Suddenly, she swept him with a glance that held a glittery sort of challenge. “We should probably practice that, don’t you think?”
“What?” he squawked. “You want me to practice not being able to keep my hands off you?”
Actually, he needed to practice self-control, not the other way around. Restraint was the name of the game. Perfect. He could focus on that instead of the fact that the lingerie had been a gift, not a carefully crafted plan to drive him over the brink.
It was a testament to how messed up he was that he couldn’t squelch his disappointment.
She nodded. “My sister just got married not too long ago and she’s pretty open with me about how hot the sex is. I think she envisions all newlyweds being like that.”
“That doesn’t mean she expects us to strip down in your parents’ foyer,” he countered a little too forcefully. Mostly because he was envisioning how hot this newlywed couple could be. They could give Grace and her husband a run for her money, all right.
No. No, they could not.
Viv was not wearing the yellow lacy gateway to heaven for him tonight or any night. She wasn’t challenging him to out-sex her sister’s marriage. There was no sex at all in their future because Viv had a career she cared about and really didn’t have time for a man’s inconvenient attraction. Even if the man was her husband. Especially if the man was her husband who had promised to keep things platonic.
Of