Elizabeth Bevarly - Indecent Suggestion

He opened his mouth to object again, then closed it. “Feel free,” he said. “This is by no means a smoke-free environment.”

“Thanks,” she replied, her tone just as clipped as his. “Don’t mind if I do.”

But the reason Becca lit the cigarette wasn’t so much to tempt Turner by smoking in his presence as it was an effort to calm her own nerves. Because their little exchange just now had left her feeling edgy and irritable and very close to blowing her top. Or something.

It made no sense. There was no reason for her to feel edgy or irritable around Turner. Just because he wasn’t folding as quickly as she’d thought he would, and just because he obviously had more willpower than she did, and just because it looked as if she might lose this bet instead of him, that was no reason for her to get edgy and irritable.

Funny thing was, she suspected her bet with Turner had nothing to do with her current state of unrest.

Deciding not to think about any of that, she palmed her lighter and thumbed the flame to life, moving it to the tip of her cigarette. Inhaling deeply, she savored the warmth of the smoke filling her mouth and lungs, and relished the false heat that wound through her body. Nothing felt as good as smoking, she thought. She couldn’t imagine a greater physical pleasure than that soothing, pleasant sensation curling through her body.

Until she glanced up to find Turner gazing at her—or, rather, the cigarette—with unmistakable desire and unmitigated hunger. And then she began to imagine, too well, a physical pleasure that might rival, or even surpass, the one she was enjoying now.

“You’re playing dirty, Becca,” he said as he watched her enjoy herself. And without awaiting a reply—not that his comment really needed one—he spun on his heel and went back into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

It was all Becca could do not to follow him. And not because she feared he might light up in secret, either. But because she felt hungry and wanton herself. So she inhaled deeply on the cigarette again, waiting for the familiar sensation to calm her down.

But for the first time she could ever remember, smoking did nothing to soothe her nerves.

IT WAS AFTER ELEVEN that night when Turner finally gave up all pretense of being unaffected by the day’s events, and surrendered to the urge to smoke. Because even at that late hour, he knew sleep was a long way off, and he’d spent most of the day feeling half-crazy as it was. The craziness had resulted less from going smoke-free, however, than it had from watching Becca move about his life as if she belonged there.

It wasn’t that they did anything unusual together, but that was just the point. They spent the day doing the most mundane things two people—two friends—could do. They ate lunch together at a nearby fast-food restaurant, and they had dinner at a favorite pub near Englund Advertising where they had had dinner together a million times before. In between, they went to a home improvement store so Becca could look at paint chips and other items because she was thinking about redecorating her condo.

Normally, Turner loved home improvement stores. Normally, he could pass an entire day in one without ever marking the passage of time. Normally, he experienced an almost erotic gratification at handling power tools and light fixtures and PVC tubing. But normally, he wasn’t with Becca when he was visiting one. Throw her into the mix, and suddenly one of his favorite activities felt totally abnormal. Well, except for the part about experiencing erotic gratification. Because having her hovering over his shoulder while he handled power tools and light fixtures and PVC tubing just made all of those items seem overtly sexual somehow. So by the end of the day, his nerves were frazzled to bits.

Even so, he managed to make it through the day without lighting up. Without lighting up a cigarette, anyway. His libido was another matter. It raged completely out of control. Especially when Becca had been bent over to inspect the color on a can of paint, and her round, firm ass brushed against his hip, and he’d wanted nothing more than to bury himself in her from behind. Still, he had survived. Even more difficult, he had kept his hands to himself.

The clincher came after they arrived back at his apartment and were settling in for another movie marathon—this time with his choice of cinema. Because just as he was popping a copy of Mothra into his DVD player, Becca exited his bedroom dressed for spending the night again, because she didn’t want to leave until morning, to witness him falling asleep, thereby proving he hadn’t lit up from the moment he awoke until the moment he fell asleep.

The problem for Turner, however, wasn’t that he had to watch Becca exiting his bedroom alone when he’d rather see her entering it with him. Still, seeing her anywhere in the vicinity of his bedroom certainly wreaked havoc with his carnal appetite. Of course, seeing her breathe today had wreaked havoc with his carnal appetite. No, the problem was, and the thing that really sent his carnal appetite into overdrive, demanding some kind of, ah, nutrition—and if it couldn’t be sex, then it had damn well better be nicotine—was the fact that when she emerged from his bedroom, she was wearing nothing but his old college football jersey and a pair of knee socks.

Turner had to do a double take to be sure he wasn’t seeing things. And when he realized he had actually seen what he thought he saw, he could only sit on the sofa staring openmouthed at the vision. Never mind that the jersey fell to midthigh on Becca and covered everything that needed to be covered. That was beside the point. The point was that the outfit she had on was the one she always wore in his second favorite sexual fantasy about her, the one where she got stranded at his apartment in a snowstorm, and all she had to wear was the very thing she had on now. And the realization that sexual fantasy number two was about to be played out in his very nonsexual reality was just a little more than Turner could stand.

Sexual fantasy number one was the one where she came on to him at the office when they were working alone together late one night. In that fantasy, Becca suddenly realized she had a powerful sexual attraction to him and had for years, one that was so ferocious and demanding that, although she managed to get all of her own clothes off, most of his stayed on, and he ended up bending her forward over the big table in the Englund Advertising boardroom to take her from behind. Then, it went without saying, he took her again in her cubicle, spilling pencils off her desk and knocking over that stupid coffee mug Doug in accounting had given her as her secret Santa last Christmas, the one that said “Let’s get naughty for Christmas…it’ll be SO nice” in big red letters, and breaking it into a million pieces. Doug in accounting was such an asshole.

There were other sexual fantasies starring Becca on Turner’s list, too, of course. The one with the roller coaster at King’s Island was a favorite, as was the one where Becca bought him at a bachelor auction and then handcuffed him to her bed for days. And then there was the one where they got jiggy in the back seat of a Rolls Royce, but fat chance that was ever going to happen since the only person Turner knew with a Rolls Royce was his employer’s father. But the football jersey/knee-socks fantasy held firm at number two, and there was Becca in his reality now, all decked out to play.

Next thing you know, he thought, she’ll be doing just like in the fantasy and telling me how sorry she is that she has to wear my clothes, but she spilled something all over herself, and this was the only thing she could find to wear.

“I’m sorry to have to borrow your stuff,” she said as she took a few steps into the room, tugging on the hem of the jersey and looking way more nervous than she should, seeing as how they were just friends and shouldn’t have any reason to feel nervous around each other. “But when I went to pour milk on my cereal this morning,” she continued, “I dropped the carton, and it spilled all over my nightshirt. This was all I could find to sleep in.”