Clothing Optional by Virginia Nelsom

Chapter One
     
    Licking at the sticky, white sweetness, Brie closed her eyes in blissful ecstasy. Swallowing reflexively, she allowed the creamy liquid to roll down her throat in a flood. Opening her eyes, she took another long slurping lick, and then rubbed the remains of the white stuff from her lips with an eager tongue in what had to be obvious rapture.
    “If that is how you eat ice cream, maybe I am batting for the wrong team.”
    At his words, Brie laughed and her gaze landed on one of the most delicious men she had ever known. He’d also happened to be her best friend for the past ten years and one hell of a dresser. Murphy Lawrence, sadly, was also strictly into men.
    Shame . She swirled her tongue around the spoon drenched in ice cream again. The things I could do with that bulge in your jeans would make you rethink that life choice .
    Realistically, her longtime crush on her gay best friend was something that would never be fulfilled. Especially since, like so many of her friends, he enjoyed a successful relationship.
    Whereas she only succeeded in molesting ice cream.
    Brie’s most recent relationship, or bungle as she tended to think of it, had ended in her ex threatening to take her shop away. How exactly he proposed to do that was beyond her, but the fight turned nasty and she hoped Golfer Boy got exactly what he deserved in life. If karma was a real law, the man was screwed.
    Speaking of screwed , she punctuated the thought with another long lick of the cold, sweet treat; it’s something I have not done in far too long, months really. No way abstaining from sex helped the crush on her best friend or latent ice cream perversions. She ran a hand across her thigh as if to wipe away the disturbing thoughts before she focused on Murphy’s blue eyes and smiled.
    “You love your team, and if they had a mascot it would be you, anyway. What is with the pink shirt?” Poking a finger at his rock hard abs, Brie bit back a sigh at their firmness.
    “Pink is the new black,” Murphy advised and took a lick from his own spoon. The sundae they shared was buried under a sea of chocolate syrup, and he stabbed into it with gusto. “Besides, Andy likes me in pink. He said it shows off my tan, or some other nonsense. If you come on vacation with us, you will see tons of boy toys sporting pink.” Waving his spoon and rolling his eyes suggested the idea sounded silly but Murphy still blushed slightly, the color change hardly recognizable under his dark skin. “About vacation—”
    Smiling at his attempted change of topic, Brie dipped her spoon into the ice cream again. “So, how are things with Andy?”
    At her friendly question, Murphy frowned and seemed to be thinking.
    “Fantastic.” His quick answer made her wonder if he was lying or not telling her the whole truth. “But you know me…love ‘em and leave ‘em.”
    Brie frowned, and swirled her spoon through the ice cream in random whorls. “I thought maybe Andy was more. You two really seem to have something special. Guess I was wrong.”
    Probing him with her gaze, Brie noticed as he shrugged that it seemed an attempt to mask whatever bothered him.
    “It’s all in the hips and lips, baby girl. A man like me has to keep his options open.”
    “I guess.” Brie studied him and sighed. “Why do I feel like someday we are going to be two old maids, with about a zillion cats, sitting around trashing fashion magazines rather than rocking on our porch swings with that one true love?”
    Murphy snorted. “You can have the true love, baby girl. I want the true passion.”
    “What if you could have both?” The male voice had both their heads snapping up. Dark-haired with olive skin, his appearance so decadently Italian he made Brie want to take a lick to see if he tasted like parmesan. Brown eyes so dark they appeared nearly black, even in the well-lit ice cream parlor, met hers, and Brie sucked in a breath as the sheer masculinity of his presence caused a zing