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Her eyes flew open. What was she going to do?
“Don’t start imagining some huge tragedy over this,” Ashley said. “Let’s just replace everything that’s red with black and call it Midnight Memories.”
“But the customer wanted red.”
“Then just change a few things. Instead of the pashmina, use a satin teddy. Replace the handcuffs with ropes. Instead of massage oil, go for body paints or edible panties.”
“That’s not part of the artistic vision.”
“Well, the artistic vision you came up with was a rerun. Either ditch the lofty standards or be happy with a duplicate.”
“You’re right. Let’s do it your way.”
They worked silently for a few minutes, exchanging and rearranging items and then Ashley ventured, “Are you sure you don’t want to talk?”
Ashley was a sweetheart, but Eden couldn’t see unburdening herself to the free-spirited nineteen-year-old even though the young woman probably knew way more about sex than Eden did and she was six years younger. Ashley’s advice was bound to be something wild and crazy. Like have a red-hot fling with a handsome stranger.
Well, she’d tried that, hadn’t she? Her one miserable attempt at reconnecting with her femininity had ended in terrible failure when Josh Cameron—a guy she’d known only a couple of weeks before going to bed with him—had been so repulsed by her burns he’d fled her apartment without having sex with her.
That kind of reaction didn’t do a hell of a lot for a girl’s self-esteem.
Eden clenched a red satin bow in her hand and sank her top front teeth into her bottom lip to eradicate the memory of her single pathetic attempt at having intercourse after she’d been burned. In the wake of Josh’s reaction she’d been too scared of rejection to try again.
“Do you wanna know why I think you’re so frazzled?” Ashley asked.
Please save me from the wisdom of teenagers.
“Not really.”
“You need to get some juicy booty.”
“Ashley!”
“Don’t go all prude on me. If I’m not mistaken that’s a man-shaped vibrator you’re holding. Seriously, I think that’s why your baskets have been a bit blah lately. You need a little divine inspiration.”
“Thanks for your opinion. I’ll take it under consideration.”
“I know this hot-looking spray-paint artist who specializes in nudes. I think you two would really hit it off.”
“I can find my own dates, thank you.”
“Hmm. I’ve been working here almost ten months and as far as I know you haven’t hooked up with a guy even once. You spend all your time building fantasies and no time living them. Under those conditions anyone would burn out.”
“I appreciate your concern, but my love life is my private business. Could we talk about something else, please?”
Ashley shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
At that moment the wind chimes over the door whispered a resonant woodsy sound and a shapely older woman dressed in the latest designer fall fashions stepped over the threshold.
The woman was Jayne Lockerbee. Her favorite customer. Eden smiled.
Jayne was one red-hot granny who believed sex should be discussed freely and enjoyed often. She loved shocking her conservative friends and relatives by gifting them with Eden’s baskets.
“Yo, J. Lo!” Ashley greeted Jayne in the hip, breezy style Eden so often envied.
“Hey, Ash, what’s happenin’?” Mrs. Lockerbee grinned.
“Not much. How’s Mr. Lo?”
“Sexy as ever.” The woman winked. “In fact, that’s why I’m here. I need a very special gift basket for our thirtieth wedding anniversary.”
“No kidding? That’s so awesome. Married thirty years and you’re still having wild sex,” Ashley blurted.
“Better than ever. There’s nothing sexier than experience.” Mrs. Lockerbee turned her attention to Eden. “Now about that basket. I was thinking maybe a little Tarzan and Jane action. What can you create for me along those lines?”
“I’ll help her, if you wanna finish that.” Ashley nodded.
Normally Eden handled all gift consultations, but Ashley knew Jayne well and she was trying to help out in the face of Eden’s creative crash and burn.
“Sure. That’ll be fine.”
“Really?” Ashley’s eyes lit up at the honor Eden had bestowed upon her.
“Really. You don’t mind if Ashley waits on you this time, do you, Jayne?”
“Of course not. Maybe Ashley will even share some of her sexual escapades with me.” Jayne winked. “I haven’t forgotten what it’s like to be young.”
Have I? Eden thought. The notion was an unsettling one. Old before her time. Washed-up before she’d ever really started living.
“We just got in these great new leopard-print loincloths,” Ashley said to Jayne.
“Hmm, sounds promising.”
“Here, let me show you.” Ashley escorted Jayne to the rear of the store.
Shaking the doubt from her head, Eden returned to the task at hand. What would it be like to have Jayne’s life? Married thirty years and still enjoying terrific sex. Would she ever have that?
With those scars? Not likely.
Eden sighed. Some people were lucky in love. Apparently, she was not. On that score, she was her mother’s daughter.
But it doesn’t mean you can’t be lucky in lust, nudged a naughty voice at the back of her mind. Come on, Eden, you know you want to have sex.
And expanding her sexual horizons would be good for both business and her creativity. It was the missing piece of the puzzle and in her heart she knew it.
Her cautious nature had held her back for too long. Lack of experience was what had her feeling like a fraud, and feeling like a fraud was responsible for her artistic block.
And just because Josh was a jerk didn’t mean all men would run away at the sight of her scars. She just had to take her time and find a kind, sensitive lover who intimately knew his way around a woman’s body. Simply entertaining thoughts of that mystery lover had her tingling with longing.
Okay, all right. She needed to get laid. But even if she was willing to take a huge risk, strip off her clothes in front of a stranger and reveal her secret vulnerability, she had absolutely no prospects in mind—Ashley’s hottie spray-paint artist aside.
She tied the big red bow around the basket and then stepped over to place it in the orders-waiting-to-be-picked-up glass display case. She set the basket down, and then slowly raised her head and peered out the front window that was open just a crack.
The air hung heavy with the rich scent of impending rain. Humidity-laden wind gusted, sending a swirl of fallen leaves gathering along the curb.
It was the sort of enigmatic, electrically charged afternoon that lingered between dwindling summer and impending autumn that stirred a woman’s blood and made her believe in the endless possibilities of titillating encounters with dark fantasy men.
That’s when she saw him. Standing rooted to the sidewalk, looking as if he owned the entire street while everyone else scurried around him.
Inexplicably, she sucked in her breath and a shiver of anticipation scampered down her spine.
God, he was gorgeous. Skyscraper tall and daredevil muscular, his lush dark hair curled to his collar giving him a wild, roguish appearance in spite of his tailored pinstriped business suit. His face was lean and chiseled, his mouth full and tempting. His eyes were the smoky-gray of a grass fire and fringed with black lashes dense as paintbrushes.
He was the sort of man who made even a reticent woman itch to get naked. Ambushed by this totally unexpected and intense attraction, Eden’s knees weakened as a dozen forbidden pImages** tumbled through her brain.
What was happening here? Just minutes ago she’d been unable to dredge up a single sexual fantasy and now she couldn’t stop them.
She pictured herself rolling around on a heart-shaped bed in a woodsy cabin in the Catskills with the guy. She imagined their sweaty bodies pressed together as they made love on the floor of a grass hut in Bora Bora. She envisioned them grinding against each other on a bearskin rug before a roaring fireplace in Iceland.
He was a plundering pirate and she was his captive. She was a streetwalker plying her trade and he was her randy john. He was a virile gunslinger and she was the timid schoolmarm come to teach in his untamed town.
She tasted the briny flavor of his skin as she bit his bare shoulder. She inhaled the smell of coconut, bananas and lusty man. She heard his deep-throated groan as he called out her name in the ecstasy of climax.
Omigod, omigod, omigod.
Stunned and excited, Eden raised a hand to her throat. The magic was back.
And then he leveled his gaze, stared straight through the window at her and started into the store.
2
ALEC RAMSEY DOUBLE-CHECKED the Soho address on the slip of paper in his pocket. Yep, Wickedly Wonderful, this was the place his oldest sister Sarah had recommended.
He raised his head and started to move toward the door, but then his eyes landed on the woman in the storefront window and he froze.
Spellbound, he simply stared. She was leaning over, placing something in the window and oh, so slightly exposing just a hint of cleavage. The sight was enough to cause instant sweat to bead on the back of his neck despite the recent drop in temperature.
A burst of wind snatched a red banner from the awning of a nearby building. It sailed down, fluttering in the breeze, until it caught on an updraft just above the storefront window at exactly the same time the woman glanced up.
For a whisper of a second it was a pure Kodak moment. The foxy, heart-faced woman framed by a crimson banner. The effect was mesmerizingly magical. And even after the banner twisted and spiraled away into the wind, Alec couldn’t take his eyes off her.
His heart literally skipped a beat and the unexpected arrhythmia startled him. Usually, the only time his pulse skittered was when he bungee-jumped or hang-glided or skydived.
The sun slipped out from behind a cloud where it had been hiding and glinted off her mass of chestnut curls swept back so fetchingly in a loose ponytail. She wore a long-sleeved turquoise peasant blouse. Not exactly high fashion, but it was definitely romantic. His fingers itched to stroke both the tactile material and what lay intriguingly beyond.
He knew the correct terminology for her garment because he had four sisters who had spent their lives telling him about clothes. He owed them a debt of gratitude. The knowledge came in handy with his active dating life. Women were impressed when a heterosexual male could converse intelligently about fashion.
Their gazes met. And locked.
She possessed the most arrestingly blue eyes he’d ever seen.
Alec swallowed. Hard.
She glanced away quickly but then a moment later she was back, eyeing him with slow, deliberate intent until he felt as if he were a job applicant on an interview.
He couldn’t get into the shop quickly enough.
Wind chimes murmured a musical note as he pushed through the door. The rousing scent of cinnamon candles filled the small room and everywhere he looked he saw something seductive.
Peacock feathers and skimpy panties and black leather masks. Whips and chains and swatches of sensual fabrics. Erotic videos and vibrators and chocolate body paint.
“May I help you?”
He jerked his head around and came face-to-face with his dream woman. Her name tag read Eden. Ah, a woman who crafted erotic gifts named Eden. How apropos.
She smiled, her small but full mouth lifting dazzlingly at the corners. He was aware of a high, humming sexual energy flowing between them.
Her impact was not the strike of a classic beauty but rather like the welcoming influence of a warm, rich hug. An invisible hug that wrapped around him like an aura—distinct and unmistakably her.
She possessed a certain luster that whispered to something deep inside him. Something primal and patently masculine. Something sweetly taboo.
His heart skipped another beat. Amazed at his aberrant reaction, Alec had to clear his throat before he could speak.
“I need…” Damn, how could he think with her studying him like that?
“Yes?” she gently urged, and raised a quizzical eyebrow.
I need. I need. I need.
What did he need? Frowning, Alec ripped his gaze from her lips and met those long-lashed, sky-blue eyes again.
“Um…”
Brilliant, Ramsey, absolutely brilliant. When was the last time a woman had left him tongue-tied? He searched his memory and couldn’t think of a single occurrence.
“Did you want to order a gift?” She lifted a hand to push a tendril of hair from her face, the bracelets at her elegant wrist jangled quietly.
“Yes. Yes. That’s it.”
“And what is the occasion?”
“My business partner, who also happens to be my best friend, is getting married the first Saturday in November.”
“You’ll be wanting a honeymoon basket.”
“Yeah.” He nodded.
That’s right, dazzle her with your sparkling conversational skills, you suave devil you.
