A Stranger's Touch

“And their tight buns,” Marie finished.

Marie started giggling, then slapped her hand over her mouth, appalled, which sent Dulcy over the edge. Dropping her head into her hands, she laughed until the bar was blurry. But that could also be a result of the cigarette smoke in the air, and the liquor, too, so she didn’t pay much attention.

“God, you two are pathetic.” Jena’s smile softened her exotic features as she pushed her glass away. “Anyway, Dulc, you haven’t told us yet how it feels to be eight days away from becoming a married woman.”

“Probably great.” Marie turned toward her. “Brad’s an absolute top-of-the-line hottie.”

Dulcy and Jena stared at her.

“What? He is.” Conviction vanished from her face. “Isn’t he?”

“Yes, he is,” Dulcy agreed, dragging the back of her hand across her mouth. She stared at it in horror. Had she actually just done that? God, her mother would die if she knew. She picked up a napkin, hoping she wouldn’t next be running the heel of her hand against her nose.

Then it dawned on her what Jena might be after. “Oh, no. You can just forget about it. I am not sharing any…intimate details about any part of Brad’s anatomy.”

Not that she could share details. At least, not specifically.

She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from blurting out what she had essentially kept from her friends for the past few months. Namely, that straight off the bat, at the end of their first date five months ago, Brad had suggested they not have sex. First he’d told her he didn’t want to move too fast, then after they became engaged two months ago, he’d said they might as well wait until their wedding night.

She’d thought it quaint—for a whole two minutes. Then her overactive imagination began wondering what he was hiding. Could the breathtakingly handsome playboy be a minute man? Done the instant he began? She shifted awkwardly. Then there was the size issue. Something she’d immediately set out to disprove by launching a surprise attack on him after dinner at his mother’s house one night. She smiled to herself. Oh, no. Size was definitely not a problem. But at the time, Brad’s scandalized reaction was.

So the guy was traditional when it came to the woman he wanted to marry. She told herself she should be flattered. Still, a little part of her thought the whole thing was a bit…weird. Not to mention immensely frustrating.

There. That was it. The reason why her hormones were running amok. It was only natural that she’d want to make love with her fiancé, the man she planned to spend the rest of her life with, right?

She swallowed. The only problem was that lately everything but Brad seemed to set her off. Her recent highly charged state had even made her consider acquainting herself with the gag gift Jena had given her for her last birthday. She probably would have if the damn vibrator wasn’t so large it took enough batteries to run a small car.

Jena rolled her eyes. “Good, because I, for one, am not interested in hearing about them…it.” She snickered. “Whatever. No, I want to know how it feels, generally speaking. You know, your being on the verge of becoming Mrs. Bradley Wheeler III.”

Dulcy straightened. “As a bride, in general, I feel pretty good.” Damn good, actually. At some point over the past year she’d stopped ignoring her mother’s incessant speeches about her needing to find a prosperous prospect before there were none left, and started listening to them. And rather than tossing the bridal magazines Catherine Ferris had subscribed to and had delivered to her condo, Dulcy had started absently leafing through them. Then she’d met Brad at a cocktail party and everything had fallen neatly into place. Too neatly, she sometimes found herself thinking.

She smiled at Jena’s frown and waved her finger. “But I know that’s not what you’re asking. As for that, all I have to say is that his being Bradley Wheeler III has absolutely nothing to do with my feeling good. I’d be just as happy if he were a…bartender.”

“That’s sweet,” Marie said.

“That’s dumb,” Jena disagreed. “Honey, bartenders don’t make Bachelor of the Year three years running.”

“Neither do hockey players,” she pointed out.

“Depends on which publications you’re reading.”

Dulcy laughed. “Sorry. My subscription to Jocks-R-Us must have run out.”

Jena playfully slapped her palm against the table. “Then, you must renew, pronto. These guys take home some whopping salaries.”

Dulcy tugged the bowl of chips closer to her. “I’ve already got a groom. Remember? And money has nothing to do with it. I’m marrying for love.”

She caught Jena’s cringe and silently chalked up another one.

“That’s nice,” Marie said, sighing.

Dulcy and Jena stared at her again.

Okay, so Marie got romantic when she drank. Jena grew even bawdier. And Dulcy was a sloppy drunk. Dulcy didn’t know how they’d gone so long without discovering this before, but she tucked the information into the back of her mind for future reference. Some night when they were vegging in front of the television with a stack of old videos, frapuccino and popcorn, she’d pull it out and they’d have a good laugh.

She propped her chin on her hand and gazed at her two friends. “Thanks, guys—you know, for doing this for me. I’m…I’m having a great time.”

“You’re drunk,” Jena said.

“That, too. But I meant what I said just the same.”

“But we’re just getting started, Dulcy Ferris.” Then Jena fixed the kind of determined gaze on her that made Dulcy and Marie say “uh, oh” whenever they saw it. That gaze was what made her such a great criminal defense attorney. It’s also what made her a downright nosey friend. “So tell me, Dulc. Since in eight days, when you go in front of that altar and profess your undying commitment for Brad Wheeler in front of God and everyone, you’ll forfeit all possibility of seeing it come true…tell us, what’s the sexual fantasy you’ll miss most?”

“Yes,” Marie chimed in, the dreamy expression vanishing and an almost voyeuristic interest taking its place.

“And if Brad satisfies all my sexual fantasies?” Dulcy asked. Oh, please let that be the case. Let them get married, hit the honeymoon suite and have Brad shed his conservative behavior and turn into a virtual Tarzan in bed. pImages** of hard abs, ropes and a leather loincloth leapt to mind, and she sighed.

“Ha ha,” Jena said. “I’m serious.”

Dulcy dropped her gaze and cleared her throat, then told a bald-faced lie. “What if I told you I don’t have one?”

Jena scoffed. “Everyone has a sexual fantasy, even Marie here. Don’t you, Marie?”

“Oh, yes. But we’re not talking about me. I still have plenty of time to fulfill mine. Dulcy’s the one getting married.”

Dulcy stared at them pointedly. She’d never been very comfortable discussing items of a personal nature. Being amused and sometimes appalled by Jena’s behavior was one thing. Telling her friends when she had her period or how frustrated she was that she and Brad hadn’t slept together yet…well, that was quite another. She knew her discomfort was due in large part to her upbringing. You could live in a conservative, emotionally repressed household for only so long before some of it rubbed off on you. In her case, it was talking about intimate matters.

She slumped back against the booth. “God. You’re not going to let me off the hook on this one, are you.”

“Uh-uh.”

“No.”

“Okay, then…” Resigning herself to the fact that putting them off would only make things worse, Dulcy searched her mind, trying to come up with something that would please them. “Okay. My secret sexual fantasy is a night of white-hot passion with an anonymous bad-boy.”

Jena grimaced. “Been there.”

“Done that,” Marie agreed.

Dulcy lifted her brows. “You have?”

Jena waved her away. “Never mind us. We’re talking about you. And certainly even you can do better than that. Half the female population has that fantasy.”

Okay, so she was a cliché. Wouldn’t be the first time. She twisted her lips and looked around the hockey-player-choked bar, then through the glass doors to the lobby of the hotel. The silhouette of a man seemed to appear out of nowhere. She swallowed hard. Boy, could her imagination work overtime with a little help from tequila. The silhouette moved closer to the club, then halted in the doorway, his face concealed, his body the stuff of which dreams were made. Tall. Broad shouldered. Long legged. Rock hard.

Every single last urge she had hoped she’d drowned with the liquor came rushing back tenfold. Especially when she realized the guy wasn’t an apparition at all, but a flesh-and-blood male who seemed to prowl rather than walk. His dusky skin hinted at a mixed heritage. The length of his longish black hair teased the back collar of his shirt.

All sorts of naughty thoughts popped to mind, suddenly making her task much easier. “Okay,” she said slowly, her throat mysteriously tight as she tugged her gaze away from the real thing and focused instead on imagination. “My secret fantasy is a night of white-hot passionate sex with an anonymous bad-boy…in an elevator.”