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  * * *

  Princess: I want to look into someone’s eyes and feel like he knows me, gets me, understands me. I want him to see my quirks and accept them, not try to change them. I want to know what that’s like.

  * * *

  Damn, her words are intense and so . . . naked. Something about this small screen makes her open up and reveal parts of herself to me. The sides she doesn’t show anyone. Except, she showed them to me at Speakeasy, and then at the coffee shop, and now it’s like an unveiling. The pieces of Harper she hides inside her top hat, or behind the red scarf, or just beyond a witty joke or quip. Most of the time she’s all now you see it, now you don’t. But this is a whole new part of her. Take away voice, face, and body language. Lean only on words and she . . . blooms.

  I step away from the desk, pace across my apartment to the kitchen, then restlessly head to the bay window, staring out on the night sky of New York with the skyscrapers and neon gazing at me. I don’t want to say the wrong thing, and I don’t want to send her racing back to Veiled Harper land, so as I pick up my phone I choose a safe response, but one that acknowledges all her quirks.

  * * *

  Nick: You deserve all of that. I want you to have that.

  * * *

  Princess: I want it, too.

  * * *

  Nick: And quirks should never be changed. Keep all your quirks, Harper. I like them.

  * * *

  Nick: Princess: Same for you, Nick. I like yours, too.

  I’m addicted to my phone. That’s something I’ve always tried to avoid, but I never know if she’s going to send me something that turns me on.

  Except pretty much all her messages do, so I’m living in a state of suspended desire.

  It’s fantastic and terrible at the same time. It feels amazing and also completely foolish. But this dizzy, heady sensation of wanting? It’s in charge right now, and it leads me on. I’d like to think this newfound infatuation with her texts is good for my show. Because this next episode is coming together like a dream, and after I leave a meeting with the head animator the next day, I make my way to the elevator so I can take off uptown to meet Tyler at Nichols & Nichols.

  “Mister Hammer.”

  The voice curdles my stomach.

  “Hey, Gino.”

  The network head strides up to me and straightens the jacket on his pin-striped suit. “Been thinking about The Adventures of Mister Orgasm,” he says, wiggling his eyebrows. “I like to think I have several things in common with the hero.”

  I stifle a cringe and just suck it down, so hard I might choke on it. “That so?”

  He tugs at his tie. “I’m a bit of a ladies’ man myself.”

  “I bet you are, sir.”

  “And you know, I did create a show myself back in the day.”

  Of course, he has to mention his brief flirtation with the other side. “I heard it was fantastic,” I lie.

  He waves his I’m-so-humble wave. “It was a damn fine show. But here’s the thing. It wasn’t quite as racy as yours. Which got me to thinking,” he says, as he furrows his brow. His eyebrows are like two caterpillars riverdancing. “What if The Adventures of Mister Orgasm were more, say, family-friendly? I wonder if we could go broader, make it less naughty, and find an even bigger audience?” he says, giving me whiplash with his Mister Orgasm meets The Brady Bunch ideas. “Think about it.”

  He slaps my back and takes off, and I scratch my head as I leave to see my attorney. The Uber I ordered waits by the curb so I slide in, say hello to the driver, and return to my new favorite thing—my text messages. It’s like hitting the jackpot, because there’s a note waiting for me.

  * * *

  Princess: I thought of some other things I like.

  * * *

  Nick: Tell. Me. Now.

  * * *

  Princess: Pretty, lacy lingerie.

  * * *

  Dragging my hand over my face, I sink down in the leather seat. Like that will hide this problem. I breathe out hard. Like that will make this steel rod in my pants fucking disappear before I walk into my attorney’s office. There are certain words that flip a switch on a hard-on, and she just used one of them. Lingerie.

  * * *

  Nick: What kind? What color? What style?

  * * *

  Princess: White. Black. Purple. With a little bow. On the rear. Picture a lacy panty, with a pretty little ribbon on the butt that can be untied.

  * * *

  I raise my face, and stare out the window. Maybe there’s a store somewhere with a tub full of ice. Maybe I can just go sit in it for a couple of hours to make this lust dissipate. Bows on panties that can be untied? C’mon. No man is strong enough to withstand those words.

  Especially not a man who was sent a black satin bow with pink polka dots. A scorching heat wave crashes into me as I mouth holy shit. When Harper sent me the pencils tied with ribbon, it was like she left me a little hint before I even knew what it was. A clue to all her desires, to her secret fantasies. It’s like a woman undressing as she walks down the hallway, glancing back at you, her eyes saying follow this trail.

  And I will follow.

  * * *

  Nick: Like a black satin bow with pink polka dots?

  * * *

  Princess: Yes. Did you like it?

  * * *

  Nick: I’m not sure I’ll ever look at it the same way again.

  Princess: Did you enjoy untying it?

  * * *

  Jesus fucking Christ. I tug at my shirt. No way can I make it through this meeting. But there’s no way I can stop.

  Nick: I did. I love untying little bows. In fact, ‘untied’ is my new favorite word.

  * * *

  Princess: I like dirty words, too. That’s another thing I like.

  * * *

  Nick: Have I told you I’m a human thesaurus for dirty words?

  * * *

  Princess: You don’t have to tell me. I figured that out on my own.

  * * *

  Nick: Then you know me so well.

  * * *

  Princess: Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t. I also like letting go. And I like when a guy is just so consumed with making you feel good that you want to do the same to him.

  * * *

  I pinch the bridge of my nose as the car swings up the avenue. I swear Harper can read my mind. I lick my lips and tighten my grip on the phone.

  Nick: Do you watch porn?

  * * *

  Princess: Does Tumblr count?

  * * *

  Nick: Yes. What do you watch or like to look at?

  * * *

  Princess: That’s hard to describe.

  * * *

  Nick: No. It’s not. Try.

  * * *

  Princess: You just want me to tell you what type of gifs or photos I like?

  * * *

  Nick: Yes. That would be awesome. In fact, it would make my day. It would make my day fucking amazing.

  * * *

  Her answer will have to wait, because I’ve arrived at the offices of Nichols & Nichols, where a well-coiffed young blonde receptionist rises from behind a sleek desk and greets me by name.

  “Good to see you, Mister Hammer,” she says with a crisp, bright smile. “I’ll let Tyler know you’re here.”

  “Thanks, Lily.”

  Before I can even grab a seat on a plush cranberry-red couch in the lobby, the head of the firm opens the glass door. “Nick Hammer,” he says in his deep voice as he walks over and claps me on the back. I stand. The man is pure class. Clay Nichols wears a dark suit, a crisp white shirt, and a purple silk tie. “Tyler told me you were coming by. Couldn’t miss the chance to say hello and congratulate you on all your success.”

  “And you as well. Love the new digs. And tell your wife she does not have to give me free liquor.”

  He laughs and shakes his head. “Let me give you a piece of advice. The wife takes orders from exactly no one.”

  He guide
s me down the hall to Tyler’s office.

  “My favorite client!” Tyler says as he greets me. I met Tyler back in the day when I was at RISD studying animation, and he was a history major at Brown. He’s risen up quickly in entertainment law, and it’s not only because he has a mentor in Clay. He’s just really fucking good.

  “I bet you say that to all your clients.”

  He shoots me a grin. “Only the ones who make me laugh.”

  “Then I’ve got a funny story for you,” I say. Both men take seats on the couch. I grab the comfy chair, lean forward, take a breath, and give this the pregnant pause of ridiculousness it deserves. “Gino wants me to make the show more wholesome.”

  Tyler raises an eyebrow. The guy is the spitting image of his cousin—dark hair, brown eyes, square jawline. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was his younger brother. He’s suited up, too. “That’s insane. You don’t ask Seth MacFarlane to make American Dad less fucked up,” Tyler says, stretching his long legs in front of him.

  “Look, I’m not a prima donna. I’m all about giving the viewers what they want. But I just can’t wrap my head around what he wants from me.”

  “Leave it to us. It’s our job to figure out what he wants, and if that aligns with what you want,” Tyler says, and for the next thirty minutes we dive into their plan for how they want to handle the renegotiation at the end of this month, less than two weeks away. It all sounds reasonable to me, and frankly, that’s why I work with these guys. When we’re done, I ask what they’re up to tonight.

  Clay goes first. “I have a date with my two favorite girls. My wife and daughter are meeting me at the playground in a few hours. This man,” he says, patting his cousin’s shoulder. “He’s trying to win back an old flame.”

  Clay gives me a quick download on Tyler’s romantic situation, and it’s a tough one.

  “Ouch,” I say, shuddering and then meeting my lawyer’s eyes. “Good luck with that, buddy. Negotiating with Gino might be more fun.”

  Tyler laughs and shakes his head. “Believe you me, I know. What would Mister Orgasm do to win her back?”

  I stroke my stubbled jaw. “Aside from sending in your place a rich, hot, successful, well-endowed cartoonist to win her over?”

  Tyler narrows his dark eyes and shoots me a look.

  I flash him a smile. “He’d probably just let her know how much she means to him, then make her feel like a queen.”

  “Truer words,” Clay says, then I say good-bye, leave their office, and head into the crisp air of a late fall afternoon in New York City.

  But as I slide into the next train downtown, I’m not thinking about Tyler’s woman anymore. I’m thinking about the text Harper just sent me. Actually, thinking is the wrong word. Feeling is the only one that fits. As I open her new message and scroll through the pictures, I hit one thousand degrees Fahrenheit in seconds.

  I sink onto the train’s plastic seat, and my eyes are hostage to these images. Someone says, “excuse me,” as he walks past, and I barely pay attention. I can’t look anyplace else. Not possible. Not feasible. There’s nothing else in the universe but these photos, and I can’t wipe the naughty grin off my face.

  I’m cooked, roasted, and fried to a crisp. I’m seared all the way through. This text is the mother lode of Harper’s fantasies.

  They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but maybe that should be revised. A photo is worth a thousand heartbeats, because that’s what mine skipped looking at this insanely sexy series she sent me.

  The first shot is of a woman in black panties, which are tied with a tiny pink polka dot bow at the top of her ass. Her legs are smooth and sculpted. In the next one, a woman wears stockings with a vintage ruffled thing on the top of the thighs, and she’s bending, unsnapping a garter belt, her rear in view. I rub my hand across the back of my neck, and breathe out hard as the train rattles underground.

  It only gets hotter from there, and I’m already an inferno, baking in public transportation, surrounded by guys in suits and moms with toddlers, by hipsters and tourists, by anyone and everyone, and I don’t care.

  Because these photos are all I see. The shot that follows has a woman on her back, spread out across the bed, naked, her lips in an O, while the guy she’s with devours her pussy with his mouth. His hands are curled around her ass, squeezing it, as he buries his face between her legs. She is in some kind of wild bliss.

  But the next woman is in unholy heaven. She stands in nothing but heels, bent over a kitchen counter, and her lover kneels, spreading her cheeks open and licking her pussy, his fingers digging into the flesh of her rear as he laps her up.

  I close the text and shut my eyes, soaking in what Harper has just told me without words.

  In these pictures, I’ve just learned she has a total ass fixation.

  This might be a new dividing line in my life. There’s no way I can go back to not knowing this insanely arousing penchant of hers. I can’t return to a time in my life when I didn’t think about what it would be like to do this to her. To this woman who’s bold enough to tell me she doesn’t know what men want and also bold enough to show me what she wants.

  And what I want. Truly. Madly. Deeply.

  I barely know how I’m going to make it through dinner with Harper and her brother tomorrow.

  Then, my heart sinks as the train arrives at my stop with a jolt. She’s seeing Jason this week. And she hasn’t asked me one question, or told me a single thing about how she’s feeling about him, if she’s starting to like him, or whether she’s sending him photos, too.

  Or if I’m just the warm-up act to the date she really wants.

  On that note, my fingers curl around the screen, and I nearly crush it.

  14

  Harper is late, and I’m not pissed.

  I’m not irritated.

  I’m not annoyed.

  I’m just enjoying this India Pale Ale at Spencer and Charlotte’s favorite pub in the Village, not far from their home, and listening to Charlotte chatter about their wedding.

  “And the florist, get this, his name is Bud Rose,” she says, her eyes all lit up and lively.

  “And do his roses bud?” I ask, since I can’t resist.

  “I’m not even having roses. I was going to have cornflower bouquets,” she says, then places a hand on Spencer’s arm. She tilts her head to look at him. “Did I ever tell you that, Snuffaluffagus?”

  Every now and then they call each other that, and I’ve never asked why, nor do I want to know.

  “No, you didn’t tell me. Tell me now,” Spencer says, his eyes totally fixed on her. Damn, he is hooked, lined, and sinkered with Charlotte. But then, he’s marrying her, so that’s how it should be.

  “In medieval days, it was believed that a girl who placed a cornflower beneath her skirt could have any bachelor she desired,” she says, with a glint in her eyes just for Spencer. “And I got the one I desired.”

  “Yes, you did,” he says, then moves in to kiss her.

  The kiss goes on much longer than it should. I look at my watch; I check out the black-and-white photographs of old trucks on country roads on the walls; I study the menu. When I’m done their lips are still fused, and show no signs of separating.

  “It’s started already?”

  I straighten at the sound of Harper’s voice. She’s here finally, pulling out the chair next to me. This is the first time I’ve seen her in days, and she looks . . . edible. She’s wearing a red sweater with tiny black buttons down the front, and some kind of lacy black camisole thing under it. Her hair is down, long and silky, falling over her shoulders.

  I haven’t talked to her since I sent my response to those photos yesterday. I told her my phone had exploded from the hotness, and that was the last I’d heard from her. I’d forced myself to go cold turkey after that.

  I can’t keep rappelling down the cliff face of this untamed desire for her. I’ve got to reel it back in, stuff it into a trunk, lock it up, and then toss the
motherfucker to the bottom of the ocean. That’s the only way I can make it through this dinner and the wedding events this weekend, let alone help her learn the ways of being single in the city without wanting to simultaneously jump on her and throttle every guy she likes.

  I swallow and shrug casually. “Yeah, by all accounts it’ll be this way for the next”—I pause to stare at the ceiling—“five to ten years.”

  She smiles back at me, and at last her brother and his fiancée break their lip-lock.

  “Please, don’t stop on account of us,” Harper says. “I’ve got a lot of catching up to do with Nick, so you two should continue competing for the Newlywed Smooch of the Year award.”

  “Hey! We’ve got two more nights ’til we’re newlyweds,” Spencer points out, then he stands up and hugs his sister and in a softer voice says, “So good to see you.”

  In the span of those five words, my chest pinches, and a knot of guilt burrows inside of me. Sure, technically I have the moral high ground, since I’ve never officially touched his sister. I’ve never crossed a real line. But the guy loves her like crazy, and I can’t be encouraging her to send me photos of stockings, and bows begging to be untied, and . . . stop. I just have to stop. Even if those bows can bring a grown man to his knees.