"Yes."

"But… why would an adult have a toy duck? Wouldn't people think that was weird? And if you have kids in the house, wouldn't they want to play with it, and what if they accidentally unscrewed the head? Wouldn't that egg be a choking hazard?"

The look she shot him suggested she didn't know the answer. "Don't you have somewhere to be?"

She was trying to get rid of him, but he wasn't ready to leave just yet. It wasn't often he got a chance to see Ashley without her brother or without one of her best friends.

"No." He pulled out glow-in-the-dark condoms from the box.

"So, what's the point in these?" He spoke half to himself, genuinely puzzled. "I mean, they don't glow until they're out of the package, so it can't be meant to lead you to the nightstand. And the man is the one who needs air traffic control guiding him in, not the woman. In fact, I would think seeing a glowing pink penis would scare the shit out of most women, wouldn't it?"

"I'm assuming that's a rhetorical question." Ashley disappeared into the kitchen.

"Well, have you used these?"

"No." Her voice carried loudly and vehemently.

Products all arranged to his satisfaction, he tucked the empty box under the table and started browsing. "Why would anyone want edible underwear?" He shook the box and sniffed it. "I mean, it's not like you'd wear them all day. You would only put them on in the heat of the moment, and wouldn't that sort of kill the spontaneity of the whole thing? Like here, go put these on so I can eat them off… and how can these possibly be one size fits all? That doesn't make any sense."

Ashley came clicking back into the room and slapped a cheese and crackers tray down on the coffee table. "Lucas Manning, some things don't make sense, all right? They just don't. People do them because they're fun. F-U-N. Fun. Got it? Because it's silly and sexy and exciting to do something crazy and maybe even stupid when you're attracted to someone. Can you understand that?"

Oh, hell yeah, he could understand that. Because he was attracted to her and about to do something crazy and even stupid.

"So if I pulled up your shirt and smeared this peach powder across your nipples, it would be fun?"

Ashley closed her eyes for a split second. Oh, Lord, help her. He was so smart, yet so damn dumb when it came to common sense. He had no idea that you couldn't just run around discussing touching a woman's nipples and not expect them to harden. Like hers just had.

Which was ridiculous. Lucas was talking about her nipples in a purely scientific manner. He was trying to understand the logic behind romance enhancing products, and she was pretty sure there just wasn't any. And in the meantime, he had somehow managed to arouse her.

It must be all the aphrodisiacs in the room. The power of suggestion. It couldn't possibly have anything to do with Lucas, whose smiles were so infrequent as to attract notice, and whose hair looked like he'd forgotten to comb it for a week solid. But in all fairness, Lucas was a very good-looking guy. Who suddenly when she wasn't looking had sprouted to over six feet tall and broadened out a bit.

"In theory, yes, that would be fun, given the right circumstances." She put a hand on her stomach, as if she could press the alarming heat out of her womb.

"What would those circumstances be?"

She barely heard the question, frozen in place watching him unscrew the lid on the jar and pull out the little feather duster applicator. "Well, it would be if two people were settling in for a night of making love. I don't think you'd want to rush through this kind of foreplay."

His brown eyes pierced hers in concentration as he closed the two feet between them. "So, you wouldn't want to just smear it on the nipples then? You'd want to start maybe with the shoulder."

The brush touched her skin and she shivered. He moved it gently back and forth over her shoulder while she tried to find the willpower to step away. But before she could even think to react, his tongue was on her, sliding in little swirls around and around before his mouth dropped down completely over her in a wet embrace and he sucked.

She almost fell off her stilettos she was so shocked. "Lucas!"

"No, the shoulder isn't right?" The feather dabbed her neck, close to her collarbone. "Maybe here, then?"

And dang it if he didn't start licking and sucking there too, until she was curling her toes and fisting her hands and tilting her head back. He didn't touch her anywhere else, and her body started to strum and hum and ache for attention.

Which was just so wrong. This was Lucas. He had seen her with braces and acne and bad hair. This was Lucas, who she loved absolutely, in a pure sisterly sort of way. She'd do anything for Lucas.

Apparently even let him experiment with her body for the sake of sexual science.

A shaky sigh fell out of her mouth before she could stop it.

Maybe this was ecstasy envy. She hadn't had sex in eight months, since her last boyfriend had moved to Chicago for a better job opportunity. He hadn't suggested they keep in touch and she hadn't been all that broken up. Chad wasn't the brightest bulb in the pack and his jokes had become wearing after a while.

Not that she wanted to date someone smart, like a genius, who would make her feel inadequate, like she had her whole life, growing up with a super-intelligent brother. But she didn't want to date someone dumb either. She'd settle for a happy medium.

Since Kindra was engaged and her friend Violet was seriously dating someone, she knew they were both getting it on a regular basis. Maybe this bizarre arousal was just her body's way of reminding her that she was heading into her peak sexual years and this wasn't the time to neglect it.

Lucas dusted powder on her chin and sucked. She grabbed his arms for balance and tried not to be turned on. His whiskers rubbed against her cheek and his hair tickled her nose and his tongue started shifting upward and, damn, she was turned on.

Especially when his finger tapped her bottom lip, depositing powder on it. The peachy fragrance drifted up to her nostrils, and without thinking her tongue darted out and licked a tiny bit. It melted in her mouth in a juicy sweet river.

"No, I'm supposed to taste it," Lucas murmured against the corner of her mouth.

Then he was rolling his tongue across her moist lip, clear from one side to the other, making little sounds of approval at the taste. Ashley's fingers curled tighter in his shirtsleeves and her breath jerked out of her in little ragged bursts.

She wasn't sure what was happening, wasn't sure why she was letting Lucas lap at her like a dog with a bowl of water, but oh my, it felt so good, and no matter how loud her brain screamed, her feet weren't walking her away.

Suddenly he shifted, and he was kissing her. Just plain and simple kissing her, his lips locked over hers and his tongue doing reconnaissance in her mouth. The sweet peachy powder still clung to both of their tongues and the embrace was hot, wet, exciting, full of heat and passion.

When Lucas finally pulled back, she heard a great lusty sigh emerge from her own mouth. Lucas's eyes were dark, half closed, his lips shiny. But he simply said, "The peach is definitely better than the chocolate."

Ashley relinquished her death hold on his shirt and tried to take a step back. She hit the table with her backside, wobbling on her stilettos and upsetting the display of disco vibrators. Whirling around, she placed the yellow, blue, and red vibrators with flashing chaser lights back to the original position. Her cheeks were flushed and hot.

"So I should push the peach then?" she managed, hoping her voice didn't warble.

Here Lucas had just been curious, like he always was, and she had gone all weak in the knees and wet in her panties.