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  I stop in my tracks. Not because the text is dirty, but because I’m picturing her eating ice cream and imagining how her mouth tastes.

  * * *

  Nick: Cone or spoon? I need the full licking visual.

  * * *

  Her reply comes quickly.

  * * *

  Princess: I’m licking a spoon right now.

  * * *

  Nick: Mint chocolate chip tastes good licked off other things, too.

  * * *

  Princess: Is this a lesson now in how to eat ice cream?

  * * *

  Nick: Actually, this is your first lesson in dating. Starting tonight. How to send a flirty text . . . Mint chocolate chip ice cream tastes so good licked off someone you like . . .

  * * *

  She doesn’t respond right away, so I leave the phone on the kitchen counter, but I can’t stop thinking about her and ice cream and how the cool of the mint and the sweetness of the chocolate would mingle on her tongue. How she’d taste different than she did after Speakeasy, but still just as alluring. How I could drive her wild with a kiss that didn’t stop, that made her knees weak and her panties damp. One that turned her on so much that she’d break the kiss to lick her way down my chest, to the waistband of my shorts, yanking them off. She’d raise that sexy eyebrow, lick her lips, then get them intimately acquainted with my dick.

  In case there was any question, yes, I’m hard as fuck right now.

  Actually, if we’re going to get technical, I’m pretty sure this is the textbook definition of pitching a tent. My dick aches for attention. I’m so wound up from wanting this girl I can’t have, and this boner isn’t going to fade gently into the night.

  I strip out of my gym clothes and head straight for my shower, turning the water as hot as I can handle. Considering I think even her eyebrows are sexy, I clearly need to get this girl out of my system. An unapologetic, no-holds-barred shower jerk will do the job.

  The power spray setting works best for that. I adjust the mode selector, and water pours down, wetting my hair, sliding down my chest, running over the ink on my arms.

  Since I’m not going to have Harper for real, maybe I won't be so fucking aroused around her all the time if I give her a thorough workout in my mind. She’s been in the shower with me many times, and she gives great head in here. With her banging little body and smart, sexy mouth, she’s played a starring role in a handful of shower jerks during the last few months. Maybe more than a handful. Like ten helping handfuls. Or ten times that.

  But who’s counting when your hand is full?

  Not me, that’s for damn sure.

  As steam fills the bathroom, I wrap my hand around my hard-on in a nice, long, lingering tug.

  I let out a breath.

  A reel of images flashes in front of me, and this is so easy, since I see the world in pictures. The hottest ones snap before my eyes as my fist curls tighter.

  Her crawling across my bed on her hands and knees, wearing nothing but those fuck-me glasses.

  Her unbuttoning her shirt, spreading it open, revealing her luscious tits to me. Tits I’d love to fuck.

  My blood runs hot, and a shudder races through me as that particular picture fights its way to the front of the line. I stroke up and down my shaft as I thrust between those delicious breasts. She’d push the soft flesh together with her hands, creating a warm valley for my dick. Her tongue would dart out, licking the head on each stroke.

  I draw a shaky breath as my hand slides along my length, imagining Harper’s mouth on me instead. Tonight I’d like her on her knees, the red lips that say those dirty things wrapped around my dick while she sucks, licks, and takes me deep.

  I groan, and the sound is swallowed by the relentless pounding of the hot water on the tiles. I stroke harder and faster, desire flaring in my muscles, skating over my skin as I see her in all her naked beauty, pleasuring me. Then, out of nowhere, the images flip.

  I no longer picture her servicing me.

  What gets me off more than anything is the prospect of her coming. The sounds she’d make. The way her lips would part in an O. How her back would arch. Fuck, I’d love nothing more than to get out of the shower, walk into the living room, and find her naked on my couch, legs spread, one hand between them, the other playing with her tits.

  My spine tingles as the image intensifies, grows sharper, and feels more real. The muscles in my legs tighten, and I let the fantasy play out. Hell, do I ever want to discover her masturbating, to walk in on her pleasuring herself when she’s so damn close to the edge.

  She moans and writhes as her fingers fly across her wet pussy, over the delicious rise of her clit. She’s worked up and desperate, clawing for release.

  Her eyes snap open. She doesn’t even have to beg me to finish her off. Those blue eyes, hazy with lust, tell me how much she needs my mouth.

  I slide my hands up her thighs and spread her legs wide. I bury my face in her sweet wetness, and holy fuck. The start of an orgasm barrels into me as I taste her. It races through me as I devour her. It wracks my body as I make her cry out and come so fucking hard on my face.

  I’m right there with her, my fist flying, a wild groan ripped from my throat as I finish.

  Panting, I stand there for a few minutes, the hot water raining over my back as my shoulders rise and fall from the intensity of that Harper-fueled orgasm.

  A little while later, I’m freshly showered, clean as a whistle, and naked in bed.

  I park my hands behind my head, a satisfied man. Yup, I came, I saw, I conquered my lust. Mission accomplished. Harper Holiday has disappeared from the 99.99 percent of my brain devoted to sex, and now I can focus on helping her tomorrow without even a single stray dirty thought getting in the way.

  Clearly, I don’t want to fuck her anymore.

  Nope. Not a bit. Not even when my phone buzzes. Not even when I open the text from her. Not even when I see the picture she sent—a super close-up selfie of her licking ice cream off a spoon.

  I close the screen, and I swear I don’t dream about licking a mint chocolate chip ice cream cone all night long.

  10

  The next afternoon, I sit in a coffee shop, earbuds in, listening to music and working on the next storyline of The Adventures of Mister Orgasm after yesterday’s massive brainstorm fest with the writing staff. In this episode, our hero has to break into a three-hundred-year-old spooky house to rescue a woman who’s being haunted by the Ghost of Orgasms Past.

  Something about the animations the head writer sent me feels off, but I can’t put my finger on it. I shut my laptop, slide it into my messenger bag, and grab a notebook. I need to figure out what’s wrong, and sometimes I do that best by just drawing what I see playing out in my mind.

  I loop my arm around the sheet of paper, and soon enough I like the way this concept is taking shape. It’s still got the dirty humor the show needs, and I know this sounds weird, but it has heart, too. That’s key. At the end of every episode, Mister Orgasm is ultimately a good guy who helps the world.

  Look, I know who I am. I don’t harbor any illusions. I’m not curing cancer or saving the whales, but I take some pride in the fact that when people watch my show, they laugh. Sometimes they even laugh so hard they pee. Yes, I’ve received fan letters to that effect. Some viewers get frisky with each other after watching. Maybe they’re laughing and maybe they’re fucking and maybe they’re peeing, but I hope the thing people aren’t doing is fighting. The Adventures of Mister Orgasm is not violent, and ultimately the hero uses both his skills and his brain to save the day, but never his fists.

  That’s why I draw a bubble near the hero’s mouth and write the words, “I’m a lover not a fighter.”

  I keep drawing, moving on to other images swirling around in the corners of my mind. Random things—a ninja banana, a dog walking on its front legs, a trio of puppets presenting a naughty puppet show. Maybe I can work that into an episode. Everyone likes dirty puppets. With the pencil fl
ying over the paper, I sketch out the story in their puppet show, about a hot mechanic who’s washing her car under the sun, her wife beater clinging to her sweaty chest. She sweeps her red hair off her face, and pulls it back in a bow—

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse the door opening. Harper crosses the distance, and I scramble, folding the paper into quarters, or eighths, or sixty-fourths so she won’t recognize that I drew her.

  And drew her like this. Because she’s crazy sexy even in a sketch.

  As I jam the page into my pocket, I silently curse myself. My mind is like a fucking loose canon with this chick, firing without warning, even though I distinctly recall giving her the heave-ho from my mental real estate last night. Why the fuck is she invading my drawings again?

  She arches an eyebrow when she reaches me, and I yank the earbuds out in time to hear her ask, “State secrets?”

  I shake my head. “Nope. Just a storyline for the show,” I say, in my practiced cool and casual tone.

  “Ah, well it’s best to keep that away from me, since I have a reputation for revealing all of Mister Orgasm’s secrets if I can get my greedy little hands on them.” She darts out her fingers, pretending to grab my shoulder, then my forearm.

  Holy shit, she has fast hands.

  Well, duh. She earns a living with them.

  My eyes widen as she makes a move for the jeans pocket. But it was a fake play. She laughs and holds up her palms in surrender. “I was just teasing. I would never try to sneak a peek at your show ideas,” she says, grabbing the seat across for me at the spot we picked for her date download. “But I do want to watch when it’s on. I’ve seen every episode.”

  I tilt my head. “You have?”

  She nods and smacks her lips. “Seen every episode, loved every episode.”

  Warmth spreads in my chest, and it has nothing to do with desire for her this time but everything to do with pride for a job well done. “That’s awesome. I love hearing that.”

  She moves her chair closer, and I steel myself to hear all the details of how Jason is wooing her. Instead, she points to the sketchpad. “What was the first comic you loved?”

  I answer immediately. “Get Fuzzy. I love that strip. That cat killed me.”

  “I love that one, too.” She flashes a smile. “What else?” she asks, parking her elbow on the table, resting her chin in her palm, and just looking relaxed and happy as we chat. “In all the years I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you read a comic book like Superman or Spiderman. You’re all about the cartoons and comic strips instead, right?”

  I nod. “Superheroes weren’t my thing. But I was always into the drawing and the comedy. These days it’s Family Guy and American Dad for humor. And when I was younger, I devoured every Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes.”

  “Is that why you have a tiger on your chest? For Hobbes?”

  I cock my head, curious. “How did you know about the tiger?”

  “I might have noticed it,” she says, with a cute little shrug of her shoulder. She grabs her phone, clicks open her gallery, and scrolls through some photos. She holds up the screen and shows me one from the summer in Central Park. I remember her snapping pics of me that day when we pranked her brother.

  “I zoomed in on it that night,” she says, then stops, shakes her head, and tries to laugh it off. “That sounds really pervy doesn’t it?”

  I’m so damn tempted to say, you don’t know what pervy is ’til you hear about the things you do in my shower. You have no idea how flexible you are some nights. You have no clue how dirty you get in my head when you bend over the edge of my bed and beckon me to your perfect naked body.

  Still, I can’t resist the volley. “It only sounds pervy in the best possible way.”

  A splash of red races across her cheeks, but she doesn’t hide her face or look away. Instead, she says, “I was curious, so I looked closer. That’s when I noticed the ink on your chest.”

  Fighting back a grin has never been harder in my life—because she saved my picture. Her admission flips a switch in me, and the light blinks now with possibility. “Hobbes is kind of my inspiration,” I say, but now I’m the curious one. She has no visible ink, but what if she had a tattoo someplace hidden? Someplace intimate? “Do you have any ink?”

  She shakes her head, and her eyes widen with worry. “I’d love one, but no way.”

  “Why do you say it like that?”

  “You’re going to laugh, but I’m a complete pansy when it comes to needles.” She shudders. “I’m terrified of them. I hated shots when I was a kid, and I really have to grin and bear it when I donate blood every eight weeks.”

  “You hate needles, and you still give blood?”

  “Until they can find another way to get it out of me, I just sit back and think about the Oreos I’ll get at the end,” she says. I’m impressed she does that regularly, especially when she’s afraid of it. “But you know what I’m not afraid of?”

  I take the bait. “What?”

  “Pens. Want to draw Bucky the cat on me?”

  I wiggle an eyebrow. “On your chest? Right now? Yeah, just take off your shirt.”

  She flashes me a saucy grin. “How about my arm instead?”

  “That works, too.”

  I pull her chair closer as she pushes up the sleeve on a soft red-and-blue plaid shirt and extends her arm. Our knees nearly touch when I hold her forearm as a canvas in the coffee shop. An espresso machine hisses from the counter, and “No One’s Gonna Love You” by Band of Horses plays overhead.

  “I love this song,” she says softly.

  “Me, too.”

  I lower my gaze to her arm, starting with the cat’s body. She speaks first, asking a question. “What would you do if you couldn’t draw?”

  I stop, shudder, and meet her eyes. I press my finger to her lips. “Shh. Never say something that awful again.”

  “No, I mean it,” she says, insistent, as I return to her arm.

  “I don’t know, Harper. That sounds like the definition of hell. I’d rather die.” I begin to sketch the tail. “What about you? What would you do if you didn’t know magic?”

  I look up briefly. She screws up her lips. “The same,” she says with a nod, and I love that we don’t have to explain more about why we feel this way. We’re in sync when it comes to the fire in the belly that drives us both.

  “How did you know you wanted to be a magician?” I ask while I add in messy bursts of hair on the cat’s belly as she answers.

  “I just knew, from the time I got a Christmas gift with a magic set in it when I was five. I learned every trick in every book I could get my hands on from the library and bookstore,” she says, and I move to the cat’s face. “I made my mom and dad take me to every magic show I learned about. I studied acting and public speaking in college so I could be comfortable on stage. I honestly can’t imagine not doing magic tricks. Which sounds silly, because it’s one of the weirdest professions to have. I can’t tell you how many people say, ‘You’re really a magician?’”

  “No one believes you do magic for a living?” I ask as I draw whiskers.

  “Anyone I meet for the first time doubts it. I constantly have to prove it, and like I told you before, people are always asking me to show them tricks. Like Jason,” she says, almost as an afterthought.

  I stop for a second. I’d nearly forgot she’d gone on a date, and that I’m supposed to help her analyze it or something. This is the first it’s come up. “Did you show him a card trick?”

  “Yes. And he wanted to know how it was done, but of course I couldn’t tell him.”

  “Because of the code? Code 563 in the Magician’s Handbook of Secrecy, I believe,” I tease, remembering what she said at the bookstore.

  She laughs and shifts the slightest bit in her chair, her knees now touching mine. “Yes. That code. I mean, there’s not an official code, but it’s an unspoken rule.” She adopts a serious voice, like that of a tea
cher. “The secret of a trick or illusion should never be revealed, unless to a student of magic who also takes this same oath.” Her voice becomes normal again, though still earnest. “You just can’t do it. It’s completely frowned upon in the magic community. It goes against the whole point of what we do, which is to make people suspend disbelief.”

  I add up all the times she’s ever told me how she’d pulled off a trick. The number is officially zero. I let this roll around a bit longer—keeping secrets is who she is. But she keeps them because she has to, not because she’s a sneaky person.

  “That’s part of it, too,” I say absently as I work on a very surly cat’s mouth.

  “Part of what?”

  “The trade-off. When you said your job was a trade-off. It limits your ability to meet people, but on top of that, you also have to constantly keep up a mask.”

  “Some days it’s all an illusion,” she says in a quiet voice, with a soft sigh. She snaps out of it in a nanosecond. “What are you afraid of?”

  I look up. “Not needles.”

  “What then? Spiders? Open spaces? That the Blackwing pencil company will go out of business?”

  I point my finger at her, and wink. “That one.”

  “For real, Nick,” she presses, using that voice of hers that is vulnerable, free of snark, and just works its way into me. That voice says she wants to know me more.

  I stop drawing, and focus on her, laying bare my deepest fear. “That it will all fall to pieces—the job, the show, the success. I’ve been really lucky. Most cartoonists barely make a living, and I’ve landed an awesome gig. The stars all aligned. But success can be so fleeting. It could all go away tomorrow in the blink of an eye.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “I have to believe that. It keeps me on my toes. Keeps me focused on doing the best show I can. That’s why I just roll with Gino’s bullshit. Because I want all this to continue,” I say, tapping the drawing on her arm. “I want to keep doing this for as long as I possibly can.”