“See?” I teased. “It’s a win-win.”
“Okay,” she said. “You can turn around now.”
As I swung my chair around, I was prepared to be wowed by her amazing textile creations, but I was not prepared to be so wowed by her.
I sat in my chair for a few moments without saying anything. Hell, I didn’t even think I was breathing for a minute there. I literally just stared at Hensley with my mouth open and my eyes wide.
She was wearing a dress that looked as if it had been made out of magic. The fabric was so sheer that it was nearly translucent, and I could see her bra and panties beneath it. It was like looking through a dragonfly wing to her skin underneath. It was so delicate and so thin that it was barely there. The bottom of the dress fell down around her in strands that were seemingly both connected and not. I couldn’t even fathom how she had stitched it together.
When she turned around to showcase how the dress moved, the skirt opened up to reveal her legs all the way up to the top of her thighs, and then fell back together when she stopped like delicately feminine pieces of overlapping armor. The bodice resembled a manuscript lettered V that plunged nearly to her navel in the center and then curled up into cupped circles that covered her breasts. I had no idea how it was even staying on her body without falling, aside from the fact that it was so tightly fit that it seemed to be hugging against her. The off-shoulder poet sleeves that draped gently along the middle of her arm below her shoulders were soft and small, and they had the tiniest of opalescent rhinestones that seemed to be dripping from the bottom of the fabric.
I was completely and utterly caught off guard by how beautiful Hensley looked. So much so that I couldn’t stand up yet because of the immediate visceral reaction my body was having toward seeing her body in this dress. In the four years that Hensley and I had been friends, I had seen her in several of her edgy designs that were cute and trendy. But I had never seen her in anything like this before. She was a sensual nymph who had stepped right out of Middle Earth.
“Well,” she said as she tried to judge my silent reaction. “What do you think? Do you like it? I was going for a sort of paradox with this one. Kerynne is such an otherworldly beauty, and most of the pieces that I created for her are darker and edgier. I wanted there to be one that stood out as being so completely contradictory for her aesthetic that it would make the audience really think.”
I could tell that she was getting nervous about the fact that I wasn’t answering her or commenting on the design. But I had to take another couple of seconds to try to regain my composure before speaking and blowing the fact that I was so turned on by her right now that I felt myself wanting to fuck my friend right here on the floor of my office.
“I love it,” I said as I tried to steady my voice. “I absolutely love it.”
Hensley smiled in relief.
“I love everything about it,” I continued. “The idea of such a contrast in the other pieces for Kerynne, the fabric choice which I have never seen used to make a whole dress like this before, and the way that you constructed it to move with such innovation and delicacy. I couldn’t be more impressed.”
“Yay!” Hensley squealed as she clapped her hands together in front of her. I could tell that she was equally as excited about her work, although not in all the same ways that it was exciting to me. “Now it will look much different on Kerynne, of course. She won’t have anything on underneath, so you’ll be able to see everything through the fabric. I was thinking a nude thong for the bottom, but nothing for the top. I think her nipples should be visible from beneath it; it will add to the sensual loveliness of the design, especially with her long, dark mane of her kept down loosely around her for this one. Do you agree?”
“Yes,” I said, although all I could think about now was what Hensley would look like in this dress if she hadn’t kept her bra on underneath. “Totally agree, it’s perfect.”
“Cool! Ready for the next one?”
God, I didn’t know if I can handle the next one if it was anything like this one did.
“Yeah, hit me with it!” I went to swivel my chair back around, but she interrupted my turn before I made a complete half-circle.
“Can you help me unzip the back of this before you turn around?” she asked. “It’s got a hidden zipper that runs off-center down the back so that it’s practically invisible to the eye. I was able to get it zipped up to get into it, but I’m afraid of trying to pull it down without accidentally ripping the fabric.”
“Sure,” I said as I got up to walk over to her. I stood behind her as she reached her hand around to point to where the top of the zipper was. She was right; it was nearly impossible to find.
“Hold the top of the dress while you’re pulling the zipper down so that it doesn’t tear,” she said.
I put my hand on the fabric just below her shoulder blade and gently tugged the zipper all the way down to the small of her back. Once the zipper was at the end of its track, I stalled my hand there for a moment against her tailbone. What was I doing? I froze.
Hensley turned her head around over the top of her shoulder to look at me and see why I hadn’t lifted my hand from her back. For a very brief moment, there were a few uneasy seconds of sexual tension while my palm lingered against her. I thought that she might have felt it too by the way her eyes were looking up at me without lifting up her head as her chin rested against the top of her shoulder.
“Arlo?” she said softly with a slight lilt at the end of her word.
3
Chapter Three (Hensley)
That simply had to be in my imagination. There was no way that Arlo had those sorts of feelings about me.
When I got back to my apartment after having spent the day at Arlo’s office, showing him the ten designs and modeling each one of them—even the male designs that Cai would be wearing—all I could think about was the way Arlo’s hand had lingered against my back. I knew it was only a few seconds and that I was probably being totally ridiculous. But it seemed like there was such palpable angst in the air for that tiny moment, and it was hard not to wonder about it at least a little bit. Of course, I knew that I was just indulging a fantasy, much like the clothing designs.
Arlo and I were just good friends, and there was no way that he could be interested in me in that sort of way. I wasn’t even his type, and he was constantly surrounded by beautiful models all the time that I was sure he hooked-up with. I was more akin to be his “awkward, artsy, designer friend,” than I was to be a contender as one of his love interests. Still, I couldn’t help but allow myself a few moments to be swept up in the ridiculous and appealing thought of it.
Ever since I had first laid eyes on Arlo, I had thought he was one of the hottest men I had ever met. He looked like he could be a model himself. Getting to know him made him even more attractive because he was such a good guy—at least he was always a good guy with me. He constantly seemed like he was looking out for me, although I realized that was more characteristic of a good platonic friend or a big brother than someone who wanted to spend the night having amazing sex with you.
Arlo would probably drop dead if he knew I was still a virgin at my age. I honestly didn’t know any other twenty-three-year-olds who hadn’t had sex. Although then again, I really didn’t talk to many people, so maybe there were some. All the guys I had dated turned out to be complete assholes by the second or third date, so I chose to dump them rather than sleep with them. That meant that not only wasn’t I Arlo’s type, to begin with, but I was way too inexperienced to even be in the same league as the women he was always around. Most of the women in the fashion industry were seeped in sex-appeal. I was only seeped in blue hair dye and the ramblings of creativity that I mostly kept inside my head.