“I THINK WE’RE going to have sex tonight,” Phoenix told Kenzie.
Kenzie whipped her head up from her computer at work. “What time are you supposed to meet him tonight?”
“I usually go around sundown, but tonight, he actually asked me to come around five.”
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Kenzie asked in a panic.
It had been several days since Phoenix and Kenzie started becoming friends and several days since Phoenix had taken Kenzie’s advice. Every night since then, she and Dante had been intimate. Intimate as in, she had given him a hand job, and he had gone down on her. She figured they’d been doing that long enough, and it was time to move on to the final step. Her mating heat was about a week away, but that was just a guess. They didn’t come exactly six months apart. It was only a general time difference in between. She could technically get it tomorrow. Some women were more regular but not Phoenix.
“What’s wrong?” Phoenix asked.
“What’s wrong? You can’t be serious.”
“Yes, I am.”
Kenzie pointed to the clock on the wall. “You’ve known about this all day, yet you didn’t tell me until almost noon. We barely have time left,” she said as she started stacking papers and putting her stuff away in a rush.
“Time for what?”
Kenzie stood up and pushed her chair in, all the while looking at Phoenix like she was nuts. “To go shopping.”
Phoenix was confused. “Shopping for what?”
Kenzie stared at her with a deadpan look.
“What?”
“You aren’t serious, right? You’re just joking with me.”
Humans. Women. Both. Phoenix would never understand them.
“I seriously don’t know what you are referring to.”
Kenzie came around her desk and pointed to Phoenix. “Girlfriend, your clothes.”
Phoenix looked down at her outfit. “What’s wrong with my clothes?”
“Nothing. As long as you’re not a bag lady standing on the corner, begging for money.”
She gasped from the insult.
“Phoenix, babe, you have a banging body. Banging.” Kenzie held up her hands, making okay signs with her index fingers and thumbs. “But you hide it under your hideous clothes.”
Phoenix felt herself getting warm from Kenzie’s compliment but instantly tried not to think about it. Her body was what had caused her problems when she was younger. Phoenix had started dressing like this to hide her body. Back when she had been vulnerable and couldn’t take care of herself.
Although she wasn’t that naive young girl anymore. Dante had made her see that already. And maybe even Kenzie had helped her realize that, too.
So, maybe Kenzie was right. Now, Phoenix was so used to her clothes and dressing the way she did that she hadn’t realized there was anything wrong with them.
“Look,” Kenzie said, “I get that you have some…things that make you dress the way you do. But, if you would let me, I would love to help you shop for some clothes that would look nice on you yet were still modest.”
Phoenix hesitated.
Kenzie folded her hands together. “Please, please. It would be so fun.”
Phoenix raised her brow.
“Okay, it would be fun for me.”
She still wasn’t sure. “I don’t know.”
“Well, how about we go and get lunch, and you think about it? Then, I will take you to all my favorite stores.”
Phoenix stood and looked at the human’s clothes. “Uh…”
Kenzie showed way more skin than Phoenix was comfortable with.
Kenzie waved her off. “You don’t have to dress like me. I promise, I’ll make you look very nice. I mean, you are going to bone Dante, right? At the very least, you need some sexy lingerie.”
“Holy crap, Kenzie. Does Sawyer know you talk like this?”
“Why do you think he mated with me?” Kenzie went to her office door and opened it. “Come on. Let’s get you stylin’.”
Phoenix flopped back on the chair in the dressing room area. “Kill me now.”
“Oh, stop it, you big baby,” Kenzie said. “I only had you try on a few things.”
Phoenix looked at the piles of clothes. Piles. The yeses, the noes, and the maybes. “You’re nuts, you know that?”
“Nah, I just like shopping.”
“Can we please be done now?” Phoenix begged.
Kenzie smirked and held up two articles of clothing on her fingers. “Only if you promise to wear the bra and panties I picked out for you.”
“Uh-uh.” Phoenix purposefully shook her head. “No way.”
What Kenzie had picked out could scarcely be classified as a bra and panties. The bra barely covered her nipples, and her ass hung out of the underwear.
“Bra and panties, my ass. Literally.”
Kenzie smiled. “I would never make you wear something that didn’t look good on you.”
“The answer’s still no. Nope. Nada. Not going to happen.”
Kenzie sighed and gave Phoenix her innocent big eyes again. “Well, I guess we’re going to have to do more shopping.”
Phoenix grunted, snatched the lingerie out of Kenzie’s hand, and stomped out of the dressing room. “Fine, but I’m not getting the maybe pile!” she yelled over her shoulder.
She heard Kenzie laugh all the way to the purchase counter.
The lady looked up as Phoenix approached.
“Hello. Are you ready to check out?”
“Yes, but I left all the clothes I’m going to purchase back in the dressing room.” She held up the bra and underwear, leaned forward, and lowered her voice. “I’m supposed to buy these with my clothes, but if you could accidentally set them aside, so I don’t bring them home, that would be great.”
“Don’t even think about it,” Kenzie said as she dropped all the yes clothes onto the counter. “She’s buying them,” she told the lady. “And, if she doesn’t stop fighting me, I’m going to make her wear them out of the store.”
“Bitch.”
“Brat.”
“I don’t like you right now.”
“The feeling’s mutual,” Kenzie replied, unfazed.
The saleslady laughed at them as she rung up Phoenix’s clothes. After Phoenix handed over her credit card and paid, she and Kenzie grabbed the bags and headed out to the parking lot.
“I can’t believe I agreed to this,” Phoenix said as they put her purchases in the trunk.
Kenzie shut the trunk. “Have I steered you wrong so far?”
Phoenix reluctantly said, “No.”
“Wow, that was easier than I’d thought. I’d thought I’d have to pull that no out of you.”
“I’m not that bad.”
Kenzie snorted. “Anyway, I know what I’m doing here. I might not be the brightest bulb on the tree, but I do know what I’m talking about when it comes to relationship stuff.”
Phoenix’s shoulders slumped. “I know. I’m just nervous.”
“Come on. Let’s go, and you can tell me all about it.”
They got in Kenzie’s car.
“So, tell me why you’re nervous,” Kenzie said. “Besides the obvious.”
“What if I don’t like it?”
“You’ve liked everything else so far, right?”
Liked it was an understatement.
“Yes. But what if I don’t like sex as much as I like oral sex? What if I can’t have an orgasm? Or worse, what if I don’t like it at all? Dante’s big. What if it hurts?”
Kenzie put her hand on Phoenix’s arm. “How big?”
Phoenix rolled her eyes. “Does it really matter?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. The first time I saw it naked, I thought of a Coke can but longer.”
“Holy shit, girl, you hit the jackpot.”
“Yeah, maybe, if I were you. You like sex. I’m terrified as hell. What if he rips me in half?”
Kenzie laughed, but when she looked over at Phoenix’s serious face, she stopped. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t laugh. I know you’re freaked out.”
“I am.”
“Okay, remember what I told you the other day about just feeling? You have to do that tonight, too. If you start to panic, you’ll add pressure to yourself, then you’ll add pressure to Dante, and then back to you. It’ll be a vicious cycle. And, if you’re all tense, you’re going to be tense down there, too.”
Phoenix threw her head back against the seat’s headrest. “I know.”
“Look, you need to get out of your head. You need to stop worrying about your ex-boyfriends. They were losers. Dante is just going to be happy that you’re naked and willing. Trust me. You are going to make him happy just by showing up.”
“You really think so?”
“I know so. By the way, does Dante know it’s the big night?”
“No.”
“Damn. You are totally going to make his night.”
“God, I hope so.”