he said, not readily recalling having seen underwear that huge since he and his middle school friends had raided a slumber party and gotten into Big Bertha’s drawers.
He’d worn the mammoth underwear on his head.
He was thirteen and hadn’t known better.
But now…
“Oh…my…God.” Reilly seemed to catch on to what he was looking at as she grabbed for her blindfold and peeled it away from one eye to stare at him. “I can’t believe…”
She tore the blindfold off then jumped from the stool and began doing up her cords. When she faced him again, she had her apron bunched up in front of her pants and her T-shirt had been pulled down so far he suspected it was permanently damaged.
He grinned at her. “I assume we’ve finished dessert?”
Reilly ran her hand through her hair several times, her gaze flying everywhere but to his face. “You assume correctly.” She briefly squeezed her eyes shut. “I should have listened to my mother.”
“Pardon me?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
Ben knew an acute moment of regret that they hadn’t been able to finish what they’d started. Then again, there was always tomorrow….
A HALF AN HOUR LATER Reilly paced the entire length of her apartment above the shop, alternately smacking the heel of her hand against her forehead and cursing herself in imaginative ways.
“You silly, stupid, unthinking…moron,” she muttered, wearing down the matting of her inherited area rugs even further.
What had she been thinking, giving in to her desire to kiss the oh-so-kissable Ben Kane? She knew she wasn’t the type of girl that type of guy went in for. She didn’t even know what a pore minimizer was, much less own a bottle of the stuff. And her underwear…
She pulled to a halt and stared at the front of her cords. She could almost hear her mother’s voice. “And always remember to wear a decent pair of underwear in case you get in an accident.”
Reilly made a beeline for her bedroom at the back of the upstairs apartment, undoing her cords as she went so that by the time she reached the room they nearly tripped her where they were bunched down around her ankles.
Knowing Ben had seen this underwear was worse than thirty doctors staring down at her lifeless body and taking in the butt-ugly underpants.
She kicked her cords to the corner of the room then shimmied out of the offensive clothing. She held them up, disgusted. Who, besides her, wore such dreadful underwear? She groaned then stalked to the connecting bathroom and threw them into the old claw-foot tub.
“Oh, but there are plenty of others where those came from,” she muttered to herself.
She strode back into the bedroom and rifled through her underwear drawer, coming out with a single pair of acceptable bikinis and putting them on before yanking out every last pair of undesirable, repulsive cotton panties. Her eye caught on a brand-new blue-and-white striped pair, then another two pairs of plain white. Okay, so she could still use them as period panties. But the rest of them? They had to go.
Hands full, she stalked back to the bathroom and dumped the offending underwear into the bathtub with the other pair, not stopping until she stood above the pile with lighter fluid and matches. Only she was unprepared for the huge flame that shot out from the mess, licking at her fabric shower curtain, determined to take that with them, as well.
Oh boy…
The smoke alarm in the hall began buzzing as she reached to turn on the faucet then used the handheld showerhead to attack the threatening flames.
Great, just great. Only she could nearly burn the house down trying to destroy any evidence of the ugliest underwear known to man. So what if they were comfortable? So what if they were affordable? Ben Kane had seen her in them.
She put the last of the flames out, gave the smoldering black pile another squirt of water, then went out into the hall to fan at the earsplitting alarm. Over the racket, she made out pounding on her door. She looked in that direction. The building stood apart from the others and hers was the only one that boasted an apartment overhead. She groaned. If it was Ben, she’d die. Just absolutely die.
Coughing, she rushed to open the door that overlooked the back alley and that was accessible by an iron-wrought staircase, to find herself staring at one of her regular customers.
“Johnnie!” she said. Computer geek Johnnie Thunder was the last one she expected to see on her doorstep at this time of night.
“Is everything all right?” he asked, trying to look beyond her.
Reilly fanned at the smoke filling the apartment. “Fine. Everything’s fine. Just a little…accident in the kitchen, that’s all.”
Oh, that was grand. Her, a baker, setting fires in the kitchen. If her insurance company ever found out she’d said that, her premiums would go through the roof.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” she asked.
Johnnie’s gaze lowered. Seemed she had forgotten to put her pants on over her skimpy bikinis.
Oh, why couldn’t it have been Ben at the door?
She reached for a magazine and held it over herself.
Johnnie said, “I heard the smoke alarm across the street. You know, from my apartment.”
She hadn’t known he lived across the street. “Oh.” She smiled. “Sorry to have disturbed you. I’m sure the stupid thing will stop just as soon as I get some of this smoke out of here.”
“Do you need some help?”
“No!” Reilly bit her bottom lip then sighed. “I mean, thank you, but it’s nothing I can’t handle, really.”
“Are you sure?”
Oh, yes. The last thing she wanted was for him to discover what she’d really been doing. “Positive. See you in the morning.”
He nodded. “In the morning, then.”
Reilly closed the door after his retreating back then collapsed against the hardwood. The smoke alarm finally shut off, leaving the apartment almost eerily silent and smelling like acrid smoke. It would probably take a month for her to get rid of the smell.
Which was no less than she deserved, she supposed. I mean, who forgot they were wearing granny panties when there was a remote chance that one of the hottest guys in L.A. might be stopping by at midnight?
Her, that’s who. And she wasn’t very happy with herself about it.
“Fate,” she whispered.
Yes, that’s what it was. She hadn’t been fated to sleep with someone of Ben Kane’s impressive caliber so fate had stepped in to interrupt. To remind her of who she was, who she used to be, and who she would never be with.
She clamped her eyes shut. Just once. Just once she would liked to have gone out with the captain of the football team.
And just once she would have liked to have had sex with Ben Kane.
“Not in this lifetime.” Reilly tossed the magazine back onto the hall table then stepped back toward the bathroom and the mess there. Better a little mess now then a big mess later, a quiet voice in her head said.
“Tell that to my raging hormones,” she responded.
Even as she scooped the charred cotton out of the tub and into the wastebasket, she wondered where that gift was that Mallory had given her a year or so ago. The one that took fifty dollars worth of batteries and could give a jackhammer a run for its money. She figured that nothing less would be able to take Ben’s place in her bed that night. Though she suspected even the deluxe vibrator wouldn’t come close.
Something