You Promised Me Forever (Forever Yours #1)(28)

This sucks.

So bad.

My phone is sitting on the counter, taunting me. I could just…send him a text. That’s lame, though, right? How am I supposed to go about this?

Grabbing my phone, I open up our conversation and start typing. I have a question to ask you.

He answers in seconds. What?

I have no clothes to wear.

This time he takes a little longer to respond. You literally have nothing to wear tonight?

I smile despite my embarrassment. I have clothes to wear. But they’re out in the living room. In the dresser sitting against the wall on the right.

A photo is my reply, and it’s of my armoire. You mean this?

Yes, I tell him. So maybe you could go out onto the patio for a minute? Or five?

He takes literally two minutes to respond, and his lack of a response is making me anxious. When he finally answers, I’m relieved. How about I pick out your outfit?

Um, nooooo. No way. I unlock the bathroom door and peek my head out, ready to yell a response when he magically appears, clutching a dress on a hanger—the very dress I wanted to wear—in his left hand and a delicate pair of lacy panties dangling from his right hand. He stops short when he sees me, and winces.

“You think this is creepy,” he says.

I burst out laughing, ducking my head as I lean against the bathroom door. Kind of creepy, kind of sweet. Really sweet, actually. “That’s the dress I wanted to wear,” I admit once I lift my head, our gazes meeting.

He takes a few steps until he’s standing directly in front of me, his gaze dropping to my chest, probably wishing he could mentally undo my towel. It’s slipping, I can feel it, and I tighten my arms, trying my best to keep the towel from falling. “I guess I still know what you like, huh?”

In more ways than one, I want to tell him. “You didn’t get me a bra, though.”

This conversation is sort of embarrassing, but I’m a grown ass woman, he’s a grown ass man, and we were in a relationship for a little over a year. As in, we had lots of sex and adult discussions and he’s seen me naked before. Plenty of times. He’s helped me pick out an outfit before too.

“Don’t wear one.” He hands over the dress and I take it, the door swinging open, revealing me completely, standing there in just the towel. He has the panties clutched in his fingers, and he starts to hand them over, then hesitates. “Maybe you shouldn’t wear these either.”

Oh God. My knees wobble, and I’m thankful I’m still holding onto the doorknob. Otherwise I’d melt to the floor. “Jordan…”

He quirks an eyebrow. “Too soon?”

I laugh again, and so does he. This is the most non-awkward awkward conversation I’ve ever had. “What are we doing?”

“I don’t know,” he answers truthfully. I can feel the honesty in his words, the way he looks at me. “Tell me to stop, and I’ll stop.”

“Don’t stop,” I immediately answer.

He smiles, and his face—God—he is the sexiest thing alive. “Tell me to go, and I’ll go.”

Our gazes lock. Hold. “Please don’t go,” I whisper.

Jordan takes the panties and holds them behind his back, that smile still on his face. “Put that dress on, Mandy, and then let’s go to dinner.”

“Okay.” I nod frantically, excitement bubbling up inside of me like a shaken-up soda can, ready to explode and fizz everywhere. All we can do is look at each other like two dopes with matching goofy smiles.

We are ridiculous.

“Shut the door and put on that dress,” he commands me, his smile fading, his voice deathly serious, “before I tear that towel off you and we end up staying in tonight.”

Oh. That sounds like a better option…

I slam the door in his face instead.





I am in Jordan’s fancy Range Rover, sitting on the passenger seat with a black, floral-print dress on that I love, wearing no bra and no panties. Oh, and I have on my only pair of stiletto sandals, shoes I rarely wear because I always feel like a too-tall amazon in them.

But not with Jordan. Not when he’s six-foot-three and those shoes increase my height to five-eleven. Standing next to Jordan in these heels makes me feel downright dainty.

God, I forgot how much I love a big, tall man.

The interior of his car is like a Jordan Tuttle trap. As in, it smells like him. As if he rolled all over the leather seats, the dash, the center console, and imprinted his scent permanently. I try my best to be discreet as I inhale his essence. The forest on a warm summer day. A sunny morning by the beach. That mysterious spicy drink my grandmother serves every Christmas. These are all the things I think of when I breathe in the fragrance of Jordan’s car.

“Are you okay?” he asks, and the amusement in his voice makes me want to sink into my leather chair and pretend I don’t exist. I’m clearly losing my mind.

“I’m fine,” I assure him with the most normal sounding voice I can muster, but inside, I am shaken and stirred. We are sitting dangerously close to one another. He just picked out my outfit for me to wear on this date. I threw a denim jacket over it so I wouldn’t freeze to death, but otherwise I am only wearing the clothing Jordan chose for me.

Is that weird? Maybe it’s a little weird, but deep down I like it. His behavior is so very…primal.