Jolie was too skinny, and being a redhead, she burned easily, but she had Ken and his surfer friends behind her.
Nikki was a perky petite and liable to earn votes and dollars from the contingent of Asian university students who followed her around.
Terri was out. She’d delivered twins, of all things. The ultrasound technician should be fired, but no one was upset at the results—a tie between blue and pink in the form of boy-girl twins. Both Nikki and Jolie had been overjoyed when Terri finally delivered her babies twelve hours after her baby shower. Now, they were busy 3d-printing pink and blue decorations for Scott and Sabrina’s nursery, using plastic filament and not confectionery sugar, of course.
Leanna cleaned her razor blade under the stream of water and applied shaving cream to her other leg.
Sherelle would be a formidable competitor. She was tall, leggy, with a model’s build, and her dark, even skin tone would shine well with the kente cloth design she’d commissioned from Jenna Hart Davison, San Francisco’s world-famous fashion designer.
Carol, of course, got her wheelchair line of clothes specially made by Jenna, but she was going for spandex and glitter—maybe a little too tacky for the judges.
Then again, the Bad Boys for Hire were judges, and Rex Carter was the emcee. They were friends with Nick Wolff, and who was to say they wouldn’t put a thumb on the scale for Carol?
Leanna had nothing to worry about with Marisa, Carol’s half-sister. She was stout and utterly unstylish—bordering on dowdy. Bold green-and-white stripes on a one-piece bodysuit?
Next.
Leanna finished up in the shower and moisturized her evenly tanned walnut-colored skin. Her hair was long and lustrous, and she turned circles in front of the mirror, watching her pendulous boobs shake and jiggle.
Instead of the dorky red, white, and blue tartan sundress she’d made her friends think she was going to wear, she had a surprise for everyone. She was going to be a sun goddess, oh yes, and so brilliant and golden, everyone would need shades.
Leanna patted herself on the butt cheeks and sashayed naked to the women’s changing area of the country club swimming pool where the event was being held.
“Ewww! Will you put on some clothes?” Nikki squealed. The woman favored shimmering, skin-tight outfits, and today was no exception—if she thought the sardine look would put her over the top.
“When you’ve got it, you flaunt it.” Leanna wiggled her assets.
So, she was feeling her oats, but there was a certain man who needed to be brought to his knees.
Oh, they were polite to each other, and they were friendly, even flirtatious, but the rascal was too well-controlled to let slip any inkling of his real feelings.
He came around, ostensibly for Soledad, and postured himself like a male model off a fashion rag, wearing leather in the summer heat and expensive sunglasses.
She’d let him have his space. After all, he needed to bond with Soledad first, before she risked blowing their comfortable arrangement into a blast furnace. Although how Leanna could contain the heat simmering through her veins whenever Axe was within a fifty-mile radius of her was the stuff that made control freaks climax—oh, right, they were so controlled they never blew. Huh!
“Hey, Ruffles,” Sherelle said, knocking Leanna out of her illusions of grandeur. “Your Miss Uncle Sam outfit is going down in flames. Boring!”
Sherelle pulled on her vibrant orange, green, red, yellow, and black geometric print sundress over her stretchy, colors-of-Africa thong bikini which showcased her sculpted and shapely legs and behind in their full glory.
Leanna gulped and walked behind a screen where she’d hidden her garment bag.
“Better hurry,” Jolie called, wearing a feathery sundress thick with puffs of pink tulle, looking more like a ballerina bird than a bathing beauty. “The contest is starting, and you’re still naked.”
“Eh, you guys go ahead,” Leanna said. “They’re saving the best for last.”
She unzipped her long golden garment bag.
