Lovely Pink, Raine Miller [highly recommended books txt] 📗

“You’ll need to change out of your—um…wedding dress—and put this on before getting into the bed.” The nurse who’d been interviewing Gray handed him a hospital johnny and added on, “Your fiancé can help you. Just let me close you guys in behind the curtain for some privacy—”

As I desperately tried to choke out a protest, she yanked the curtain shut and stepped out, but not before loudly announcing, “All the way down to your panties please.”

“I’ll make sure she follows your directions to the letter, Barb,” Gray called back to her through the curtain, while I shot poison daggers at the back of his head with my mind.

“I bet you will, Mr. Lash,” Barb replied on a giggle as the sound of her steps faded away.

He swung his head around toward me, and of course, that smug grin of his was right in place like always, but I could see there was also worry behind his gorgeous brown eyes. Gray was faking with the nurse just now about wanting to undress me. I hardly believed it, but I could see he was really worried about me.

I removed the oxygen cannula and set it on the bedside table.

“You need to keep that on, Reese,” he said tightly.

“I’ll put it back as soon as I’m changed into the hospital gown. I am breathing fine now.”

After about a minute of staring at each other, it was clear I was going to have to start the strip show because he wasn’t moving. Strangely empowered, I sat down in the chair reserved for visitors and began to undo the straps on my heels. I took my time lifting my skirt up higher than it needed to be for removing shoes, but this was my show. Gray could watch or go home. I wanted to find out if he was affected by me, the woman, at all. I peeked up at him as my fingers worked the tiny buckle open and was surprised again by his rigidly held stance, as if struggling to hold himself back from pouncing on me. He was fighting something, I just wasn’t one hundred percent sure if that something was an attraction to me.

“Are you going to help me or not?” I asked softly.

He dropped down to his knees instantly, as if my giving permission had flipped a kind of go-switch inside him. He took over with the other shoe, removed it, and then set the pair of oyster satin Manolos neatly under the bed. There was no pause from him before he slid both hands up one leg to the top of my thigh where my stockings ended. I felt his fingers searching for any clasps that might be hiding before he tugged it down. How very considerate. “You can just pull them off,” I murmured.

He buried his fingers underneath the elastic edge and yanked the sheer stocking down in a furious rush. Then he moved over to the other leg, his touch a bit more confident. But this time, before he searched for the stocking, he pushed my skirt all the way up to the top of my thighs so he could see what he was taking off me. A little more wandering of the fingers along the top edge of the stocking than with the first one, but I could tell he was frustrated by the situation. He wouldn’t look me in the eye either.

Gray got to his feet and then pulled me up to standing with him. He put his hands on my shoulders and abruptly turned me so that my back was to him. All of this was done without a word. I could feel his hot stare burning my back as he studied how the dress worked so he could get it off me without damaging it. If he was as careful with the dress as he had been with the stockings, then he would do fine.

“There’s a hidden zip in the left side,” I offered.

He found the tag to the zipper and took it down slowly, the sound harsh against the soft swish of silk and lace. The bodice fell away from my breasts, and since there was no separate bra underneath, I was bare the second the dress started responding to gravity. I put an arm across myself to cover my nipples, which were tight and aching thanks to Gray’s busy fingers on my body. But my nipples were the extent of what I could conceal with only my arm. My breasts are just not that small.

And I really didn’t know how much more of this little tête-à-tête I could endure. I was on fire just from the body heat of Gray so near to me. Probably because I was naked—apart from panties thanks to Nurse Barb’s orders—and Gray had been the one to get me naked, had something to do with the sexual tension between us right now. Thank goodness my panties were nothing too racy. Just a simple lace Agent Provocateur bikini in blushing pink. Awww, how appropriate for the “bride.”

He held my dress open at the floor so I could step out of it. Once my feet were completely free from the skirt, he rose up and came around to my front with the hospital johnny in his hands. I was going to have to take my arm away in order to put the damn thing on, and Gray would see me floatin’ freestyle when I did.

“Don’t look at my boobs, okay?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, of course I’m gonna look,” he snapped at me. “Tellin’ a man not to look at naked tits all up in his face is on par with tellin’ him not to drop the match that’s burnin’ his fingers, so don’t expect me not to look! It cannot be helped, okay?”

Gray’s slight Southern drawl became much more pronounced in his speech when he was agitated or upset. Well, he was definitely agitated and upset, but also so funny, I had to bite down on