Nicole glared at Suzanne, who pressed her lips together and wisely refrained from so much as smiling.

“Hey,” Taylor said, lifting her hands. “Just thinking out loud here.”

“Why in the world would I want to do such a stupid thing as buy a set of breasts?” Nicole asked. “To catch a man? I don’t want a man.”

Taylor lifted a brow. “If you tell me you’re interested in women-”

“I’m not a lesbian, you idiot.” Nicole stepped out of her pants. “I’m just happy being alone, that’s all.”

“Yeah.” For a moment Taylor looked inexplicably…sad. Because that was so unusual, Nicole almost asked her about it, but Taylor held out the green material. “Luckily, as I’ve always said, you don’t have to be celibate to be single.”

“Who said I was?” Nicole looked at the dress in her hands, and realized she had no idea how to get into it.

“So you’re telling me you’re getting some?” Taylor snatched back the dress, straightened it out and slipped it over Nicole’s head. “You’re too uptight and grumpy to be getting any. Unless you’re giving him his and not getting yours.”

Nicole pulled her face free. “What?”

Suzanne cleared her throat. “I think she means maybe you’re giving him orgasms but he’s not giving them to you in return.”

Nicole divided a glance between the two woman, each watching her with such pity in their eyes, she had to laugh. “You’re both nuts.” She yanked the dress down her hips and quickly ran out of material.

“I see Ty looking at you,” Taylor said casually, tapping a well-manicured nail on her perfectly painted lips.

Nicole pretended not to hear that.

“Ty?” Suzanne fussed with the straps of the dress at Nicole’s shoulder. “Who’s Ty?”

“My architect,” Taylor said. “Remember? I told you about him. But since you were kissing Ryan at the time, you might have missed it.” Taylor never took her eyes off Nicole. “He’s tall, dark and sexy as hell. Not to mention his delicious, eat-me-alive accent.”

“An accent can’t be delicious,” Nicole said, and both women laughed at her. “What? It can’t.”

“She’s ga-ga over him,” Taylor decided with delight.

“We’ll have to invite him to the engagement party,” Suzanne agreed.

“What?” Nicole got a bad, bad feeling as she smoothed down the dress. “Now why would you go and do that?” Both women were staring at her. “What now?” Self-conscious, she crossed her arms. “What are you staring at?”

“My God.” Taylor shook her head. “I can’t believe it.”

“Wow.” Suzanne sighed dreamily. “Just wow. You’re beautiful, Nicole.”

Nicole just stared at them, then laughed.

“You are,” Taylor said softly.

Nicole shot them a last fulminating look, then stalked over to look into the antique stand-alone mirror Taylor had in one corner. What she saw made her jaw drop.

It wasn’t often she slowed down enough even to look in a mirror. She dressed for comfort, wore little makeup and had her hair cut short for convenience. If she had to think about her looks, she saw herself in a white coat. Sexless, really.

She didn’t look sexless now. The emerald color made her skin glow and brought out her eyes. Even her hair, usually worthless in the way of obeying or looking good, seemed…well, decent. Maybe more than decent. And her body…she actually had one.

“You have to wear it.” Taylor said of the dress that clung to every inch of Nicole’s form. The spaghetti straps held the snug bodice up in front, crisscrossed over her slim spine in back, where the dress dipped sinfully low. The hem came high on her thighs, and slipped higher with her every movement.

“You almost look like you’ve got boobs and hips,” Taylor noted.

“You look gorgeous,” Suzanne said, with a long look at Taylor. “You have such a beautiful body, Nicole.”

“A little skinny.” Taylor sniffed, but then smiled. “But some men go ape for a toned body like that.”

Someone knocked at the front door, and while Taylor went to answer it, Suzanne said quietly, “You really do look amazing. This is going to be so much fun.”

How to tell her she’d rather have a root canal? “I’m not wearing stockings or heels.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it. I-”

“You’ll never guess who I found,” Taylor said, coming back into the room. “A man. And just when we wanted a man’s opinion, too. He just wanted to drop off some papers, but…” Smiling the smile of a cat with the canary’s tail still hanging out of her mouth, Taylor moved aside.

Ty stood there, looking sweetly baffled. Until he saw Nicole, then all that sweet bafflement turned to heat as his eyes slowly took in the crazy dress she wore.

“What do you think?” Taylor asked Ty innocently. “Good enough for an engagement party?”

“Good enough to eat,” Ty said, the Irish heavy in his voice.

5

THE LAST TIME Ty had seen Nicole she’d been walking away from him, and the taste of her had still been on his lips. He’d watched her go and decided not to do that to himself again.

No more watching.

Well, he was looking plenty now, wasn’t he? Looking so hard he could see her every little breath, which seemed too quick and shallow for her to be half as calm as she was pretending, standing over there in that killer dress.

But hot as that bod was, it hadn’t been the dress that nearly brought him to his knees. No, the look in her eyes had done that. The look that said “back off” and “want me,” all in the same flash of those gray, gray eyes.

Suzanne and Taylor were grinning at him proudly, as if they’d personally created the vision standing before him.

“She does look good enough to eat, doesn’t she?” Taylor said, clapping her hands. “Just wait until we get on the thigh-high stockings and do-me heels.”

“Okay, I’m done.” Nicole pointed a finger at Ty. “You. Stop staring. And you.” She whirled on Taylor. “No stockings. No high heels that say do me or otherwise.”

Ty did his best to stop staring as she turned her back on him to chew out Taylor, but as he caught a good sight of the rear view, he nearly swallowed his tongue. Now he could see why the stockings would have to be thigh high, the dress dipped so low he caught a peek-a-boo glimpse of her peach, silky-looking panties.

Nicole, rough-and-tumble ready, tomboy, warrior of her world…and she wore peach silky panties. If that didn’t completely destroy him, he didn’t know what did.

“I have got to get to work,” she grumbled, bending for her discarded clothes and showing more peach silk.

Not that he was looking. Nope. Not looking-

She caught him looking. With a furious glance that singed the hair right off his arms, she stalked by, giving him a quick scent of shampoo and clean, very angry woman.

“Hey, I thought you decided to cut back your hours,” Taylor called out to her. “So you don’t kill yourself before you hit the big three-oh.”

“No, you decided I should cut back my hours. I decided to stop trying to convince you I’m just fine.”

“You’re not fine.” Taylor stood beside a nodding Suzanne for unity. “You live and breathe that job, without time for anything or anyone else. It’s not right, Nicole. You’re hiding out from life. Tell her, Ty.”

Nicole dared him to say a word with stormy eyes.

He lifted his hands. “I don’t-”

“Oh, please.” Taylor pointed to Nicole’s face. “See those dark circles under her eyes? Lack of sleep.”

Ty hadn’t slept well either, mostly from the memories of Nicole’s mouth on his, from the feel of her body beneath his hands, from the little needy sounds that had escaped her throat before they’d broken apart for air.

Under the circumstances, with his own dark circles beneath his eyes, he didn’t really feel he had the right to say anything.

“If I want a mother, I’ll call mine,” Nicole said.

“Which reminds me, yours came by.” Taylor lifted a brow. “Checked me out. I must have passed muster, as she told me to make sure you get your sleep, eat your veggies and don’t take extra shifts at the hospital.”

Ty lifted his own brow at Nicole’s impressive and colorful opinion of that. Then watched her very fine ass sashay to the door.

“Don’t ruin that dress yanking it off,” Taylor told her. “And use a hanger!”

The door slammed, and Taylor snickered.

Suzanne sighed. “You shouldn’t have baited her that way.”

“Are you kidding? If I didn’t, she’d never have put the dress on, much less agreed to wear it. And she really does need to eat more veggies, you said so yourself.”

“She didn’t agree to wear the dress,” Suzanne said.

“Oh, she’ll wear it.” Taylor tossed them both a positive smile. “She’ll wear it with bells on.”

Ty was just thankful he wouldn’t have to see it. In fact, he was still thanking his lucky stars when Suzanne turned to him and said, “You’ll be invited to the engagement party, of course.”

“Me?” Panic was a taste he hadn’t eaten in a good long time.

“Yeah. I think you’re going to be around a while.” Suzanne gave him a little smile.

Oh, boy. There were matchmaking plans in those eyes. Unintentionally, he backed up, making both women laugh.

“Don’t tell me a man who wears clothes as well as you do has an aversion to dressing up like Nicole’s?” Taylor said.

“No, but I do have an aversion to being set up.”

“Set up?” Taylor cocked her head to the side. “Most men would be drooling to go out with a woman who looked the way Nicole just did.”

“Not me. I get my own women, thank you. Didn’t you want to show me your contractor bids? You wanted my opinion, right?” He could hear the desperation in his voice. “Can we get back to that?”

“We’re not talking marriage here, Ty.” When he didn’t relax, Taylor just sighed. “Fine. I’ll let you in on a little secret I think will help the situation here, all right? Nicole and I? We plan on remaining single. Forever. No white dress, no white cake and no diamonds on our ring fingers. If there’s any hooking-up going on, it’s of the one-night variety only. Follow?”