Pulling in a breath, she drops her arms to her sides and breaks into a long, breathy fit of laughter. “Sorry,” she says after a bit, clearly fighting to pull herself back together. “I don’t know why this is funny all of a sudden.”
“Me, either,” I say, grinning as she continues to giggle. “This is very serious. This is your shot, Olsen. Your one chance to convince me you’ve got what it takes to make all your kinky dreams come true.”
“They’re not kinky dreams,” she says, still laughing. “I don’t want you to tie me up and put umbrellas in my butt. I just want to have some nice, normal, fun sex with a friend.”
“Umbrellas in your butt?” I ask, laughing now, too. “What the hell? Did someone try to do that to you? No wonder you’re scared of sex.”
“I’m not scared of it, I’m unfamiliar with it and intimidated by it. There’s a big difference,” she says, sniffing as she presses her fingers to her cheeks. “And no one tried to umbrella my bum. That was one of Harlow’s college boyfriends. He had a very active butt fantasy life. She let him put a finger in there once and apparently it was all umbrellas and shampoo bottles and chocolate bars with the wrapping still on after that.”
I wrinkle my nose. “And she let him do all that? No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. I’ll never be able to look at umbrellas, chocolate bars, or Harlow the same way again.”
“No, she didn’t,” Evie says, grinning. “But she did keep dating him for a few more weeks, just to see what he would come up with next. Cam printed up Butt Stuff Bingo cards and we had a group chat every Sunday night to see what Trip had suggested the night before. It was pretty fun actually. But then Harlow ended it because it was just getting too weird and she was a little traumatized by the time he suggested sticking a frozen cob of corn up there.”
“Valid,” I say. “But there was nothing wrong with him asking for what he wanted in the bedroom, either. How else was he going to learn they weren’t on the same page?”
She frowns. “You’re not into weird butt stuff, are you?”
“Define weird,” I say, biting back a laugh when her face pales, but she sees through me and swats my arm.
“Stop. This is hard enough without you teasing me. I don’t know how to do this. Just…launch into dirty talk out of the blue.”
“It’s not out of the blue. We were just talking about fantasies. So, why don’t you tell me one of yours.” I hold her gaze, part of me praying that she’ll chicken out and make backing away easier for both of us, but the other part…
Well, the other part is holding its breath and ready to hang on every word that comes out of her pretty little mouth.
She bites her bottom lip and shifts back onto her heels. For a moment, it looks like she’s about to make a run for the door, but then she leans forward again and says, “All right, but you have to close your eyes.” She waves a hand toward my face. “Go ahead, close them. And keep them closed until I say it’s okay to open them. Those are the rules.”
With a sigh, I close my eyes.
“Once upon a time there was a girl,” she starts, before amending quickly, “a woman. A woman who loved art so much she was pretty sure it could heal the world. Art was her favorite thing to do, her favorite thing to talk about, and she was also pretty sure that art could be pretty sexy.”
I arch my brows and Evie says, “Keep them closed!”
“They’re closed, they’re closed,” I mutter. “Might this girl have watched Titanic a few too many times as a kid?”
“And developed a ‘draw me like one of your French girls’ fetish?” she asks. “Not really. But she probably did watch that scene a few thousand times on repeat before she realized that she didn’t want to be Rose. She wanted to be Jack.”
I almost open my eyes, but she touches my shoulder and whispers, “Don’t open them. I’m not done yet.”
“Okay,” I murmur, very aware of her touch and how it makes my entire body feel warmer. “You want to draw me like one of your French boys. And then?”
“No, you’re rushing past the best part,” she murmurs, her fingers tracing slowly down the center of my chest. “First I’m going to pose you just so. I’m going to fuss with the lighting and your position and where to drape the sheet. And I’ll have my eyes on you the whole time.”
I bite my bottom lip. “Go on.”
“And when I finally have you where I want you, I’ll settle into my chair in front of my easel and start to sketch,” she says. “But I’ll only get a few lines drawn before I start to feel too warm to concentrate. So, I’ll have to unbutton my blouse.”