twenty-one days ago. Right now she only trembled with excitement and blessed Uncle Thad for sharing his low-cost solution to exercising in the field—running. An exercise that kept her toned.
“Yow. Do that again.” Ramón circled his hand in the air, motioning her around once more. “Look at that hair move, sweetheart. God, I’m good.”
“Yes, Ramón, you are. Thank you so much for renovating me with such brilliance and enthusiasm today.” Meeting his gaze reflected in the mirror, she smiled.
“The enthusiasm’s on the house, but I’m charging you for every drop of brilliance,” he said dryly, but when he stepped onto the raised platform to kiss her cheek, Julienne knew he’d been pleased by her praise.
“No problem. I still can’t believe this is me.” She pirouetted again, hair flying around her and earning his smile. “Look at all this skin. I’ll freeze tonight.”
“Leona, shawl, jacket, duster, something. Goose bumps aren’t sexy.”
Katriona reappeared. “All that hair should keep you warm.”
She was right. Julienne’s hair looked almost hedonistic in sheer volume, in the heavy, untamed way it fringed around her face then tumbled over her bare shoulders. And the dress. The leather hugged her from bodice to thigh—accentuating curves she hadn’t realized she’d had—before the leather fanned out to the floor, leaving her knee and calf bared through a sexy slit.
Katriona surveyed her critically. “Needs more cleavage.”
“Cleavage?” Julienne glanced into the mirror again, very pleased with the effect of the leather molding and shaping her breasts into noticeable fullness.
The Naughty Handbook had certainly been right about one thing—sexy clothes definitely affected attitude. This body-hugging red leather transformed her into a stranger.
“Leona,” Katriona said to the owner, who had just stepped through the dressing room door. “Jules needs a Miracle Bra to turn her 34-B into something memorable.”
“I’ve got just the thing.” Handing Ramón a short bolero jacket designed from matching red leather, Leona disappeared from the dressing room only to reappear again a few minutes later with an armful of undergarments Julienne had only seen before on the pages of a Victoria’s Secret catalogue. “That’s more than a Miracle Bra.”
The older woman smiled. “Corset bra with garters, a thong and silk stockings to match that exquisite dress.”
“Oh.” Seemed a bit extravagant when she had no intention of letting anyone see beneath her new sexy leather dress—not tonight at any rate. Tonight was for flirting and catching the attention of a very hot-blooded man.
Then again, The Naughty Handbook said that naughty girls dressed the part, both in public and private, and she couldn’t wear those sexy undies without feeling sexy. To prove the point, she held the erotic corset in front of her.
“That’ll do the trick. Trust me, sister.” Katriona spun sideways and struck a pose that emphasized the amazing shape of her own silicone bustline, molded in gold spandex. “It’ll lift and separate those puppies. You’ll kill tonight.”
“Go try them on.” Ramón motioned her toward the booth. “Let’s get the whole effect.”
Julienne lifted her hair to allow Leona to unzip the red leather creation, then hurried inside the small, plush interior of the dressing booth. Peeling the dress away, she stepped into the lace corset, shimmied it up her body. The lace hugged her snugly, made her aware of the way the under-wires forced her breasts high, the way the wispy lace caressed her skin.
The matching thong was no more than a scrap of bright fabric around her hips, decadent beneath the garter straps dangling toward her thighs, awaiting the stockings she’d tossed carelessly onto the upholstered bench.
Catching a glimpse of her bare bottom and the strip of red silk disappearing between her cheeks, Julienne trembled in an unfamiliar wave of feminine satisfaction.
Well, well, look at you, girl. You’re downright sexy in your new finery.
Twirling in a slow circle, she absorbed the sight of lace molding her curves, familiar, yet provocatively unfamiliar.
Naughty girls feel sexy.
Julienne looked the part. She felt the part.
Taking a deep excited breath, she smiled into the mirror. “Nicholas Fairfax, here I come.”
2
That night
NICK FAIRFAX tugged up the knees of his tuxedo slacks and knelt to inspect the cornerstone of the Risqué Theatre. The sidewalk below him was cracked and uneven, the result of too many years of eroding soil and landscaping that had overgrown the boundaries of its original design.
This property needed work, both inside and out, and as the project architect for the theater’s renovation, he would see it restored to its former glory during his stay in Savannah.
Splaying his palm over the Roman numerals indicating the first stone had been laid in 1865, he closed his eyes and quietly pledged the promise he made before beginning every new project. “I’ll do my best.”
By nature Nick wasn’t a superstitious man, yet he felt obliged to declare his intentions before contributing his vision to that of architects from other generations, a passing-the-torch ritual he’d begun when his newly founded company, the Architectural Design Firm or ADF as it had become known, had accepted its first project.
Now, ten years later, ADF had grown into one of the largest historic preservation architectural firms on the West Coast. He enjoyed a success that was as much a result of hard work as good fortune and Nick preferred not to overlook the basics of that success. Or lose sight of the responsibility he undertook when starting work on any historical building.
“I haven’t seen you go wrong yet,” Dale Emerson, ADF’s senior project manager, said. “And we’ve been rebuilding these babies together for a long time.”
Nick appreciated the sentiment, knew Dale took their work just as seriously, which had earned him his place as Nick’s right-hand man. Getting to his feet, he raised an eyebrow. “The Risqué Theatre is a bit richer than our usual fare.”
“Don’t tell me all those naked bodies in the pargeting are giving you cold feet, buddy?”
Nick laughed. Renovating the ornamental plasterwork on the Risqué Theatre’s ceiling hadn’t bothered him while reading Dale’s property analysis—though he’d suspected the original designer had worked with a relentless hard-on all through construction. After seeing the Risqué Theatre in all its glory, Nick realized he’d probably be empathizing with the guy before long.
“Come on, let’s go inside.” He wouldn’t dwell on the unique obstacles this project presented, not with the monumental task that lay ahead. “The Arts Council is paying big bucks for ADF’s services. Schmoozing will go a long way to keep them smiling while they cut the checks.”
They walked past the box office. Though well after Labor Day, the Georgia night enveloped them with a sultry breeze, temperate though still cool enough not to break a
