Do you have any problems with heights?” Alex asked her, as they toweled off.
“Not particularly,” Zoey replied, “But I do have a wardrobe problem.”
He smirked. “Noticed that, did you? I’m sorry, I did some damage last night in my…enthusiasm. Sophia called down to Saks, I’m sure that what I asked her to get for you is here by now.”
“Saks.” The towel hung in front of her. Her fingers felt vaguely numb.
“Yes.” He didn’t stop trying off his skin, didn’t turn and look at her.
“Saks, as in, Saks Fifth Avenue.”
“I wasn’t aware they’d opened another location.” His tone was just a little bit sharp, but she pressed on anyway.
“I can’t repay you for that.” Zoey could hear that her tone was snappish, but her heart was pounding in her ears.
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“Alex—”
“I ruined your jeans, and that sweater looked awful on you. You’re helping me sort out something incredibly complex, involving information that is likely to be very sensitive. It’s the least I can do to say thank you.” He still wasn’t looking at her.
She saw two choices. Throw a temper tantrum and stop out of the penthouse, then try to hail a cab in a goddamned plush bathrobe, or be gracious and accept the gift, even though it made her stomach twist. She wasn’t good at gifts. There were too many strings hidden in them. Zoey took a deep breath, and spread a debutante smile over her face. “Thank you,” she said. “That’s exceedingly kind.”
He did look at her then, an amused eyebrow arching up on his forehead. “Why thank you, Miz Gardener,” he said, in a passable Georgia twang. “I do appreciate your understanding.”
“I’m from Louisiana, sha,” she said. She let the towel fall down, and put her hands on her hips, and arching her back so that the tips of her small breasts pointed up at him. He kept his eyes on her face, but his hands were tight around his towel. “Not Georgia.”
He drew in close, his hands on her waist again. “You’re going to get me all sweaty again,” he murmured against her neck, and she sighed in happy delight as his lips brushed over her.
“It’s a fate you’ll survive, I think.”
“Too true.” He bit her, hard enough to leave a mark, and her body lit on fire. She cried out, arching against him, and he ran his hands over her back, tugging her hips tight against him.
Without warning, her stomach gave the loudest, rudest growl she’d ever heard from her own body. They both froze. He pulled back from her ever so slightly, and she looked up, horrified to see what his expression was.
Only he was choking back laughter. And suddenly, so was she. They collapsed into giggles, and he pressed another kiss to her forehead. “Come on,” he said. “We need to feed that before it crawls out and kills both of us.”
In his bedroom, he laughed again. When she gave him a surprised look, he pointed at the black and white shopping bag that was on his bed. “Sophia really does like you.”
“What do you mean?”
“She didn’t make you go back to your room for your new clothes.”
She wondered how long it would take for this man to stop making her blush. She wondered if she’d be around long enough to find out. Which just made her cheeks heat up more. She dug through the layers of paper and pulled out not just jeans in a brand so expensive it made her wallet ache, but a lightweight sweater in a shade of blue just a little bit more grayed out than the one she’d worn last night. She’d loved the other blue, but this one was a kind of perfect that she hadn’t anticipated. She ran her hands over it delicately. She didn’t want to be so crass as to check the material in front of him, but it was soft and light, but didn’t feel warm enough for any kind of wool blend. It was amazing.
Underneath the jeans and sweater were a bra and panties set in bright red. She glanced at them, then back at him. He was standing there, still naked, watching her carefully. He wore that small smile, the one that she liked so much, as she went through the bag. “This is all gorgeous.” Zoey said. “Thank you. How did you pull this off?”
He shrugged. “I know a guy.”
“A guy in Saks Fifth Avenue?”
“Not specifically. A guy who I can call and say “Hey, I need clothing for a gorgeous, light complected journalist who has no idea how to dress herself.” Honestly, you made it easy for me, I told him the sizes you were wearing last night, and how they fit you, and he went from there.” The smile spread into a grin. “The red was from me, though. I had a funny feeling you didn’t own any red.”
“Your funny feeling was right,” she said. “What do you mean you told him about how they fit me?”
For the first time, Alex shifted on his feet just a little bit. “Why don’t you get dressed, and we’ll go grab something to eat?”
It was Zoey’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “I think I’d like to hear your thoughts on how my clothes fit.”
He rubbed at his eyes for a moment, then sighed. “How about this. Try on what we picked out for you, and then we’ll talk.”
She rolled her eyes, but he had a stubborn look about his mouth, so she shrugged and set about taking the tags off everything. She pulled on the panties first—deliberately turning around so that he was staring at her ass as she bent over. She half expected him to reach forward and cup the flesh in his hands, but he stayed put. She tugged the jeans on next. She was a little bit surprised to find that they fit in the waist. They had a lower rise than what she usually bought, but they didn’t feel all that low, all things considered. They hugged her curves and emphasized them a little more than most jeans did, without feeling too tight in the waist.
She picked up the bra and wrapped the band around her ribs, then pulled the straps up her arms.
He made a disgusted noise behind her, and she turned. “What?”
He muttered a fair amount she didn’t catch, but some of it was clearly about women who hit their twenties without knowing how to put on a bra. “Like this,” he said, stepping close to her. “Bend over a bit.” His hand pushed lightly at her shoulder, and she followed his motion, bending at the waist. His hands moved forward then, lifting the cup of the bra away from her skin ever so slightly, then reaching in to scoop what there was of her boob sort of up and towards the center before letting go. He did the same on the other side, and then backed away. Zoey straighted up, and stared down at the tits that had suddenly formed on her chest.
“What the hell?”
Alex was grinning again, the jerk. “Put the sweater on.”
She did, without complaint, and he nodded with satisfaction. He turned to pull on clothes of his own—boxers, black slacks, a white button down shirt. He left it open at the throat, and didn’t reach for a tie yet. There was a mirror standing in the corner and she stepped in front of it.
The changes were subtle, but she would have needed to be blind to not see them. It wasn’t like she suddenly had watermelons on her chest, but instead of looking flat, almost concave chested, there was a subtle rise and fall to her breasts that made them seem fuller. The sweater was just fitted enough that it followed the curve of her waist, and highlighted the slimness of her hips. She felt trimmed and feminine instead of skinny and scrawny. It was utterly disorienting. “What did you do?”
“Dressed you in clothes that fit.”
“How did you know?”
Another ubiquitous shrug. “I’ve spent a lot of time listening to a lot of women go on and on about their clothing. I told Andre what you were wearing, and how you looked in it, and he took it from there.”
“So you didn’t like what I was wearing before?”
He sighed. “I didn’t say that. You looked beautiful. You still look beautiful. But this is…I don’t know, polished. Finished, maybe.”
She turned sideways, studying her reflection again. She’d never bothered much with her appearance. She’d aimed for clean and sharp rather than soft and interesting. After all, she’d needed to interact with a lot of people who did not want to be reminded that just by her presence, she, and women like her, were taking apart the old boy’s club. She let her hair down, let it tumble around her shoulders, and looked back at the prettiest version of herself that had ever existed. It was incredibly uncomfortable, like she was the awkward girl in a teen movie, being made over for the prom just by taking off her glasses and putting some halfway decent makeup on her face. “I don’t like this.”
“Okay,” he said. “Wear it home, and then I’ll send it all back. It was worth a try.”
“My stuff was perfectly fine.”
“It was,” he agreed, “until I killed the zipper and tore your sweater. I was trying to make that up to you. I’m sorry for overreaching.”
She studied him, waiting for the catch. She couldn’t find it yet, but she felt strangely certain that it was there.
“Breakfast?” he said, after a minute. “I really am starving.”
“Fine,” she said. Even though it made her feel just a little bit like a traitor. “Okay, let’s.” Because she really was hungry.