I pulled a dozen or so hangers off the rack. “Don’t laugh, I went full suburban mom chic.”
Nessa’s eyes lit up as I held up a pair of dark-wash maternity jeans with the stretchy belly panel. “Oh, those are hot. Look at you, already leaning into mom jeans. But like, slutty mom jeans.”
I snorted. “I’m pretty sure that’s not what the marketing department had in mind.”
She plucked a clingy knit top from the pile, holding it up against me with a thoughtful hum. I tried not to squirm under her appraising stare, but my cheeks still warmed.
“I’m pretty sure Brooks won’t care,” she said, wagging her brows.
That’s what I’m afraid of.
It was getting harder and harder to take things slowly with him. Every time his hands slid over my stomach—casual, reverent, like he couldn’t help himself—I felt more wanted, not less. Like the extra softness, the new fullness, the growing curves only made me more magnetic to him.Irresistible.And when I caught the hunger in his eyes when I changed into pajamas, it was enough to undo any insecurity I had been clinging to.
She tossed a chunky sweater onto my bed. “Girl, it doesn’t matter. You could show up in a potato sack and that man would still look at you like you hung the moon.”
My cheeks warmed. “You really think so?”
“Take it from me,” Nessa said, her voice softening before she leveled me with a look. “When a man like that sets his mind on treating you like a queen, don’t fight it.”
I scoffed lightly, more out of habit than conviction. “I don’t need a man to validate me.”
“Exactly,” she shot back without missing a beat, jabbing the sweater at me like a weapon. “You don’t. You’re still the same badass bitch who takes no shit and runs circles around half the people I know. You can be strong and independentandlet someone spoil you at the same time. One doesn’t cancel out the others.”
Her words landed sharp but steady, and I felt something in me loosen—the part of me that had always been afraid of losing myself if I leaned too hard on someone else.
I stared at the collage of colors draped across my bed. They were all too safe, sweet, something you might wear to brunchwith your parents.We can do better than that.Tonight, I wanted to own every curve, every softened edge of me. I wanted to make Brooks sweat, to remind him who he had been chasing all these months.
And I knew exactly what outfit would do it.
I slipped past Nessa, digging deep through the hangers until my fingers found the fabric I had shoved out of sight weeks ago. When I pulled it free, the hanger clinking softly against the rod, Nessa let out a low whistle.
“Well, shit,” she said, eyes going wide, a grin curling slow and dangerous across her face. “Now we’re talking.”
I laughed nervously, pressing the fabric against me in the mirror. “You don’t think it’s too much?”
She scoffed. “Dani, that dress is tooeverything, and I mean that in the best way possible.”
“Too everything,” I echoed, smiling wide. “Just the way I like it.”
I smoothed the material against my skin, imagining Brooks’s reaction when he saw me in it. Tonight, he was going to get a lot more than his kitten. He was going to get the whole damn lioness.
A knock rattled my front door, sharp and certain, and for a heartbeat I just stood there, palms clammy against the smooth pleather of my jacket, trying to remember how to breathe.
When I finally opened the door, Brooks was standing there in dark jeans and a steel colored button-down that did sinful things to his shoulders, his hair still damp from a shower. But the wayhis gaze swept over me—slow, deliberate, hungry—left no doubt as to who had been knocked off his axis.
His mouth opened, then closed again. He blinked hard, like maybe I’d gut-punched him.
Just the reaction I’d been going for.
“Holy shit.” The words left him roughly, reverently. “Kitten.”
Heat climbed up my throat, but I lifted my chin anyway. “Do you like it?”
“Likeit?” He dragged a hand down his face, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe I had had the nerve to ask him something so offensive. “You’re killing me. That dress—” His voice cracked low, like gravel sliding across stone. “It should come with a warning label.”
I glanced down at myself. The electric blue, ribbed body con dress had just enough stretch to hug every curve, from the slope of my tits down to where my belly rounded out. The hem hit mid-thigh, giving way to my tattooed legs, sparkly black socks, and platform sneakers.
Not exactly my warmest outfit, but what was a little frostbite in the name of foreplay?
