Thank you. Lucas strove to sound nonchalant instead of desperate. "Cool. I'll be up in a second."
"The door's open."
He hung up the phone, ran across his apartment in a fast sprint, and turned his shower on cold. He stripped off his boxers and took a thirty-second shower to remove the stickiness from his skin and to shrink his erection. He didn't want to lay all his cards on the table when he walked in, so to speak, and a big old boner would be doing just that.
Two minutes later he was locking his front door, his hair hanging wet over his forehead. He stuck his keys in his jeans pocket and looked at the bottle of beer in his hand. He'd picked it up for a swallow on his way past the coffee table and had forgotten to set it down. Oh, well. He wasn’t taking an extra three seconds to return it.
Nor was he wearing shoes or a shirt. It was a hot, muggy July night and he was horny. He didn't need additional clothes to sweat through.
Ashley's front door was unlocked like she'd said, probably from all her friends leaving. He shot the dead bolt behind him, even though they lived in a safe neighborhood. He didn't like the idea of her being unprotected even for five minutes. It was why he'd given her the upstairs apartment, since it was less likely someone would go in through the windows on the second floor.
Lucas kept an eye on Ashley, whether she realized it or not. And he would continue to do that, no matter what the outcome of this night was.
When he got to the top of the stairs, he saw her back, bent over a box, packing something into it. She had taken her shoes off and her blond hair tumbled wildly down her tank top. It was sexy hair, curly and riotous, going every which way with a mind of its own. He wanted to know what it would look like brushing over her naked flesh instead of white cotton.
"Hey, Ashley." He put his beer to his mouth and took a long pull.
Ashley had heard Lucas come up the stairs, but she waited for him to speak before acknowledging him, feeling weirdly nervous. But when she turned, she wished like hell that she had just caught his eye as he came up the stairs, and given him a friendly wave.
Because she wasn't prepared for what she saw.
Lucas was standing in the door frame, wearing nothing but soft, faded jeans slipping low on his hips. He was bare-foot. Bare-chested.
The last time she'd really stopped and taken a gander at Lucas, she was pretty darn sure he hadn't sported a chest like that. All firm and strong and grown-up sexy.
With his damp hair clinging to his forehead and his bicep flexing as he lifted a beer to his lips and drank, he no longer reminded her of a teen model. He looked like a beer commercial, a cigarette ad, an underwear billboard. The perfect masculine image that had first tripped into her consciousness when she was about thirteen and had realized there was something in between scrawny middle school boys and her father's soft paunch.
In between was this.
And it was gorgeous.
"Hi," she said, dropping the Ben-Wa balls she'd been holding.
"Do you need help cleaning up?" He set his beer down on her coffee table and walked toward her.
"No, I guess not. I just need to throw this stuff in boxes and stick it in the closet. I haven't really figured out how to organize it yet."
"Don't put it all away yet. I want to check some of it out."
That's what she was afraid of. "Maybe another time, Lucas, when I'm not so tired, okay?" After she had time to think about the fact that she could be attracted to Lucas. After she'd had time to convince herself that she wasn't.
"It's hard work selling sex toys, huh?" He sat on the couch and patted the seat next to him. "Take a load off, Ash. You've been walking around all night in those heels; your feet must be killing you. I'll pack all the boxes up for you."
She wasn't sure why, but she sat down next to him. Her shoulders screamed as she relaxed them. "The crowd control is the toughest part, I found out. You have to keep them focused on what you're selling, but people get silly because it's fun and sexy and sometimes a little embarrassing. I want the women to laugh and have fun, but I don't want the party to last five hours either, you know?"
"Were the sales good?" Lucas turned on the couch, his hand snaking up to her neck.
Ashley started a little at the feel of his fingers on her bare skin, but when he began rubbing her sore muscles, she sighed. "Yes, actually, I profited five hundred bucks tonight."
"Really? That's a lot of edible underwear." Lucas sounded fascinated.
"But I'm not sure I thought this whole thing through. I invested two grand up front on all these products, and I made fifty percent of the retail price as profit, but I have to reorder to replace what I've sold, so it will take four parties like tonight just to break even." She was getting a headache just thinking about it. "Sometimes I think I'm lacking in a financial commonsense gene. I touch money and it disappears. I'm an idiot when it comes to money management."
The balance on her credit card flashed in her head like a humiliating score card. Ashley The Idiot's Team Take-home pay is negative fifteen grand after taxes, rent, and all of her stupid mistakes. "I'm worse than that. I'm a financial fuck-up."
"Come on. Don't be so hard on yourself. In the grand scheme of mistakes, this one's not so bad. Not like joining a gang and embarking on a crime spree."
Ashley laughed. "No, that's not really me."
"This is fixable. Three more parties like tonight and you break even. Three more after that and you pocket fifteen hundred bucks. That's not bad for something like fifteen hours of work. And you're a damn good salesperson. You're knowledgeable about your products and enthusiastic." Lucas stopped rubbing her neck and dropped his arm. "I bet you could sell me anything on that table. Come on."
He stood up and grabbed her hand. "Sell me something, Ash."
"Lucas…" she protested, but she couldn't help but smile as he tugged on her arm. He was being awfully sweet.
So she let him pull her to her feet. Then she grinned when he picked up the box with the Ben-Wa balls.
"What does this do?"
"Those are multipurpose metal balls. They can help develop stronger muscles, like Kegel exercises do, but in a way that's much more fun. And they can also aid in sexual stimulation, either alone or with your partner."
She pressed her lips together to prevent laughter as Lucas frowned, his eyebrows drawing in. He wasn't getting it.
"But… what…"
"You insert them in the vagina."
"Really?" His expression made her laugh outright. He gingerly set the box back down.
"Okay, well, you can sell me anything but those."
Just to tease, she said, "But you said I could sell anything. I guess I'm not that great, after all."
"No, no, anything else. Come on." He picked up the black satin blindfold. "Okay, here, what's this?"
She snorted. "It's a blindfold, obviously. For titillating foreplay. Or if you're single, consider it a beauty mask, or a way to shield that bright morning sun on Saturdays."
"I could use that. There, sold." He set the blindfold aside. "See? You're great at this. What else?"
"How about some fur-lined handcuffs? Feel how soft they are." Ashley rubbed the fabric across his wrists. She was amused at Lucas, pleased that he cared enough to try so hard to make her feel better. She was actually starting to have fun with this.
"Very nice. Definitely got to have those." He took the cuffs from her and set them on the blindfold. "And I can tell you right now I want one of those tickle-whips."