He mentally ticked the checklist: critique shoe choice (done), show up late (already nailed it), call her by the wrong name. “You like that…Wendy?” The second it left his mouth, he wanted to crawl into the floorboards and live there forever.
He waited for an explosion, but none came. Damn it. Did she not hear him?
He paused and contemplated his next move.
She waited. Tapped her fingers on the blanket. Then finally, “What in the hell are you doing down there, Bob? Having a seizure? Should I call 911, or just fetch you a juice box?”
He sat back on his heels, defeated, shoulders slumped.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “I just…can’t concentrate.”
And because humiliation demanded a finale, he leaned back farther, just enough for her to see the undeniable tragedy in his lower half.
No movement. No bulge. Just spectacular, calamitous flaccidity. The sexual equivalent of a car refusing to start in front of an entire wedding party.
Of course he wasn’t hard. No one got turned on while auditioning for Worst Lay in America.
She gave him a long, assessing stare. Then, without a word, she opened the nightstand drawer and pulled out a vibrator.
Not the discreet lipstick one. No. This was the jackhammer edition. Obnoxiously pink. Unapologetically powerful. The kind of thing that came with a warning label and possibly a warranty.
Marcus blinked. “You keep that next to the bed?”
She tilted her head. “Where else would I keep it? On the coffee table as a centerpiece?”
Then, like it was no big deal, she sat up, patted his chest twice, and said, “Maybe tomorrow night. If you earn it.”
He blinked. “Wait, you’re benching me?”
“I’m not benching you. I’m setting you free.” She flopped back onto the pillows, turned on the vibrator, and cycled through the settings. Click. Buzz. Whir. Turbo. Earthquake mode. The thing practically rattled the earth.
She finally settled on a setting with a content hum and gave a satisfied nod. “Some men can’t perform with an audience. And Sir Hissalot was definitely giving ‘nun with a ruler’ vibes ready to whack your knuckles for inadequate form.”
The cat yawned. Loudly.
Marcus stood, dazed and humiliated. He yanked his boxers up with a snap.
Sir Hissalot hissed.
For half a second, Marcus teetered. Screw the plan. Screw the sabotage. She was stretched across the bed, bare skin glowing in the lamplight, and he could still kiss her until she forgot her own name. Hell, until sheforgot vibrators existed. He wanted to. God, he wanted to.
But then she flicked her fingers at him, all casual dismissal. “Shoo. Sleep it off. Maybe tomorrow night you’ll remember how to act like a man who’s actually passed Sex Ed.”
Before he could do something monumentally satisfying and stupid simultaneously…like abort the mission, he turned, spine stiff, walked out, and shut the door. The click sealed his sentence.
The hallway stretched in front of him, quiet and merciless. He’d just failed at failing sex. Not bad enough to chase her off. Not good enough to salvage his ego. Which meant tomorrow night, he’d have to come back and try again…to suck, and suck better.
Had to convince her once and for all that the first night had been a fucking fluke.
“Fuck me.”
Chapter 31
Frankie adjusted the hem of her wide-legged linen pants and caught her reflection in the darkened window. Tonight’s wig, a bouncy, soft-curl brunette bob with just enough side swoop to say approachable yet mysterious, had been christened Harmony. Harmony suited her friendship mission.
Marcus hadn’t surfaced when she came downstairs that morning. She took it as confirmation that her vibrator had delivered the kind of ego death no amount of coffee could revive.
She’d meant last night’s vibrator retrieval as a don’t-worry-about-it shrug, a casual no-big-deal. But in retrospect, maybe it had landed more like a flashing neon sign that screamed:You’ve been replaced by rechargeable silicone and a woman with standards.
