totally and completely obvious that he wanted to know each curve and swell of her body, that simply thinking about it sent blood thumping to his cock. Instead he tipped back the bottle of beer and finished it. Without saying a word she twisted the top off a second bottle and handed it to him.
âAre you going to tell me a story?â she said.
From the tone of her voice he couldnât tell if she wanted him to say yes or no. What popped out of his mouth was a question he wasnât even aware he was thinking. âDo you want to hear one?â
âNo, but I think you want to tell me one.â
She was too perceptive by half. He waited. Sheâd said she didnât want to hear it. He would respect that.
âPerhaps the lingerie didnât facilitate your mood. She chose the full coverage panties, not bikinis or a thong. You probably prefer thongs,â she said knowingly.
He actually didnât have a preference one way or the other. The thought cheered him, as if there was still a little bit of ground left between him and rock bottom. At least he wasnât the kind of man who felt insulted when a woman let him touch her and he discovered plain cotton briefs rather than cheeky lace panties, a garter belt, or a barely there thong. âItâs actually about the body inside the underwear. No, thatâs wrong. Itâs actually about the woman inside the body inside the underwear inside the clothes.â
She tilted her head and gave him a little grin. âReally? Iâve had gentlemen in my dressing rooms who complain at length of the horror of getting a hand up a girlâs skirt and discovering a pair of saggy cotton panties.â
âThey werenât gentlemen.â It was only after the words came out of his mouth that he realized the hypocrisy.
âPoint taken.â
He tipped his bottle of beer back and thought about it for a moment. âI actually like the feel of skin through cotton,â he mused. âItâs very real. I guess at some level it reminds me of being young, when girls wore cotton blouses from discount stores, when you could feel the heat of their skin through the shirt they were wearing. Now itâs all really refined fabrics, the kind of thing that you know cost more than I used to make in a month in tips when I was waiting tables to put myself through college. I guess I miss that. I miss being the kid who was happy to feel cotton against the sweet curve of the hip or breast.â
She grinned and looked at him through her eyelashes. âIâm having trouble deciding if I should mock you for your first-world problems, or validate your feelings as particular to your circumstances and very real.â
âYou should mock me,â he said. âNostalgia is always for an imaginary past, and Iâve made my bed.â
âSo youâre imagining the sensation of cotton against skin?â
âYes,â he said quietly, then glanced at her button-down. âMay I?â
She was sitting on the landing with her back to the railing, while he occupied the first step down to the street. She thought about it, and while she thought, his heart began to pound in his chest, his fingertips and palm tingled with that sense memory of warm, slightly rough cotton against his palm, the weights of the breast, the realization that a nipple was hardening because of his touch. It yanked him back in time to his teenage years, before he even had sex, when girls were mysteries and summer was a sheer delight and he had no understanding of greed or depravity or the heights he would attain and how far from himself he would drift.
Simone set the bottle of beer on the landing beside her and hitched herself forward until she was in line with his bent knees, sitting crisscross applesauce, as his mother the teacher would say, leaning forward a little bit, bracing her forearms on her knees. She gave no direction and set no boundaries, just looked at him with a
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