Izzy didn’t know what to say to that, but apparently Key did. He raised his snout skyward and let loose a wailing, plaintiff, “Aaayyyy!”
Despite the hundred-degree water, she shivered. “What was that?”
The dog returned his head to Lilah’s lap, but sort of burrowed against the front of her sweater. Lilah jolted like a child caught in the midst of breaking a rule. She jumped up and clipped her fingers through Key’s collar. “I’ll take him inside.”
Bridget sent her friend a curious look before settling back against the stone surround. “He does that sometimes.”
“He howls…yay?”
Bridget sighed. “Shay. He howls Shay.”
“Oh.” She contemplated that with her very wine-soaked brain cells. “Like shea butter or shea oil? Why does he want shea?”
Now Bridget aimed a long, assessing look at her, along with a pregnant silence. Finally, she said, “Dogs are funny creatures, with limited powers of expression. People, too, sometimes. This is a question you should put to Trace. He’ll know.” She lifted the nearly empty bottle. “More wine?”
Feeling like she’d somehow stuck her foot in her mouth, Izzy grasped at the olive branch even though her buzz now tipped toward drunk. “Sure.” She held out her cup. “Thanks.”
Bridget poured a splash in Izzy’s cup, then topped off her own, and held it out. “Let’s finish these and then I’ll show you to Trace’s room. I don’t think you’re driving tonight. Cheers.”
“Cheers,” she murmured, and tapped her cup to Bridget’s, but her mind raced ahead, to Trace’s room. Trace’s bed.
Bedtime stories.
Chapter Fifteen
“Hey, beautiful. How’s girls’ night?”
“How’d you know it was me?”
Well, Trace had one answer already, based on her soft, slightly slurry voice. Girls’ night involved drinks. Or… A new suspicion set in, and he sat up in his hotel room bed. “Did Bridget smoke something in the hot tub, by any chance?”
“Nooo. We had wine. Much, much wine.”
“Yep.” He leaned back against his pillow and got comfortable. “I’m picking up on that fact.”
“Are you psychic?”
“Not even a little. I knew it was you when I answered because I recognized your number, and I can tell you’ve had wine because you sound a teensy bit wasted.”
Her sigh jostled, as if she’d just flopped down on a bed. “I plead guilty to teensy bit wasted. It’s Bridget’s fault. Maybe Lilah’s. I really don’t know who kept refilling my wine.”
Which meant she could be in store for some real misery tomorrow morning. “There’s some Advil in the cabinet in my bathroom. You might want to take a couple and get yourself a big glass of water before you go to sleep.”
“Done and done. Bridget took care of it. Your bedroom is really”—hic—“nice.”
He closed his eyes and pictured her there, lying across his bed like a sexy centerfold against the rather ordinary background of his dark blue comforter.
Blood raced to his cock and the sheet covering his waist tented. Realizing he pictured her in the pink panties and matching bra she’d had on the morning of the infamous goose attack, he felt compelled to ask the clichéd question. “What are you wearing?”
“Hmm?” The word went long and drawn out, and he imagined her stretching like a kitten. “Um…nothing. Just your sheets. I’m fresh out of your shower. I hope you don’t mind.”
Shower-damp and naked in his bed? He adjusted the picture in his mind as his body tightened and his throat went dry. Through it, he managed to say, “Not at all.”
“Mmm. It smells like you.” Hic. “The bed.”
“Hey, Izzy?”
“Yes?”
“By the time we’re done here, it’s going to smell like you. Like your perfume. And your body lotion. And your orgasm.” He wrapped his fist around his cock.
“Is it time for my bedtime story?”
He laughed. “Oh, yeah. If you’re game, I’m game.”
“I’m”—hic—“game.”
“You’re game?”
“Uh-huh. Yes. Very game.”
The slightly shameful excitement in her hushed voice really worked his shit. “Did you research this?”
“Yes. It’s probably wrong, but not specifically restricted because there’s no actual sexual touching. It’s a gray area.”
“But it feels a little wrong to you? A little naughty?”
“It does.” She giggled. An honest-to-God, spine tingling, cock-torturing giggle. “I should be punished.”
“Would you like me to punish you?” Had any words ever flown from his mouth faster?
“C-Could you? How?” The intrigue in her reply sealed it for him. He could. He would.
“How’s your imagination, Isabelle?”
“I guess we’ll find out.”
He closed his eyes to block out his lonely, beige box of a hotel room and pictured her stretched across his sheets. Golden skin, parted lips, sultry eyes. Although he’d seen her in skimpy underwear, the circumstances hadn’t been relaxed and sexy. There was so much of her he hadn’t actually seen. He didn’t want to superimpose anything on Izzy. He wanted her.
Her heart-shaped ass in the pink thong—that memory would stay with him until his dying day and now it was bare in his bed. “Should I spank you? Would that be appropriate?”
“Oh, gosh. I think it might.”
“Roll over, Isabelle. Roll onto your stomach and put that pretty ass where I can see it.”
He heard the groan of his mattress, the puff of her breath as she complied. “I’m over.”
“No covers.”
“None. It’s a bit cold.”
He heard the complaint in her tone. He envisioned her there, little goose bumps rising on smooth, tan skin more accustomed to sunshine than cool air. Contemplating the imaginary view, he decided he wanted an elevated target. “You see my pillows?”
“Uh-huh. They’re big.”
“Take one of those big pillows and put it under you. Prop your hips up for me.”
“Oh, um…” She bounced, she breathed. She moaned just a little. “Oh-kay.”