Calleigh wasn't entirely sure that this was not a completely ridiculous plan. After all, she and Eric had only been…. whatever they were now… for a little less than a week. Since that night on her couch when they'd waged some very private biological warfare, and she'd atom bombed him with cold germs.
Okay, maybe that was a slight overreaction. They'd had sex. Swapped a lot of spit. And other biologicals. Truth be told, the snuggling on the couch while she hacked and sniffled and blew her nose probably would have been enough to infect him, but the burning kisses and mingled breath and coughing spasms in his arms had certainly sealed the deal. So now he was sick with her cold, holed up at home because he was willing to sleep off a cold and spare the office. (Valera had come down with it now, too, and had taken to calling Calleigh every night to update her on "Duquesne fever," in disgustingly graphic detail, as punishment for her sins.) And she had come to his place for the evening, with slightly sweaty palms and a bag of supplies.
She wasn't sure what had possessed her. She'd been leaving the grocery store after picking up soup and "Extra C!" orange juice and cough drops when she'd noticed that Party Town had their Halloween collection up already. And right there in the window was a row of mannequins in completely sexist costumes – the guys decked out as superheroes or horror ghouls or the latest popular movie stars. The girls tarted up as sexy vampires, sexy fairies, there was even a sexy border control cop outfit – which, wow, how un-PC was that? And then there it had been. Staring at her. White and crisp and ridiculously revealing. The good-old-standard naughty nurse's outfit.
What had made her go into the store, find her size, and buy the ridiculous outfit could only be called temporary insanity. She hadn't planned it. A crime of passion. Not at all pre-meditated. Of course, she'd found the gaudy Red Cross bows on the skirt's attached garter just way too ridiculous to actually wear and she'd driven home. To get her own garter. Her own, saucy red garter and push-up bra and thong that Jake had bought her and convinced her to wear for him just before he'd disappeared again. And then she'd grabbed her red stilettos. And her red lipstick. She was a cop. She knew damned well that this amount of preparation could never be played off as temporary insanity. She had prepped. She had plotted. She had stopped home for friggin' supplies, goddamnit!
And now she was in Eric's bathroom, hands actually trembling as she snipped the ridiculous bows off the costume. She studied herself in the mirror, lips siren red and eyes bright green with a terror she couldn't remember feeling in recent years. It was the terror of humiliating, mortifying rejection. What was she thinking? What was she doing? She looked down and smoothed her hands over the garter holding her white stockings up, studied the way her breasts were piled high and enticing over the lace edge of her bra. Jake had liked it, she reasoned. Hell, Jake had loved it. Jake had barely let her take it off for round two of the mind-blowing "Sweet Jesus, Calleigh, you're deliciously sexy, get your sweet Southern ass over here" sexcapades that had ensued.
But Eric wasn't Jake. And there had been no nurse's costume the first time. And while he was certainly a hot-blooded, sexy man who surely liked women in sexy things, he was not someone she'd been sleeping with for weeks. Months. What if he thought she was like this all the time? What if he thought she was some kind of sex kitten who would dress up and play nurse or naughty cowgirl or, hell, naughty fucking border partrol on a regular basis because that's how she got her rocks off?
"Cal!" His voice echoed from the bedroom, and made her pulse jackhammer so hard she could hear it in her ears as a thin layer of nervous sweat bloomed over her skin.
"Yeah?" she called back, cracking the bathroom door open slightly and thanking God his bathroom wasn't connected to his bedroom, because then she wouldn't have been able to back out of this without some serious explaining. As it was, she was sure he was wondering what the hell was taking her so long. She'd told him she just had to pee.
"Can you get me more juice when you come back?"
"Uh huh! Sure!"
"Thanks! You're the best nurse ever!" Oh, God. She shut the door again with a thunk and took a slow, deep breath. Her palms were damp as she reached for the outfit and shrugged into it. It was barely long enough to cover her ass, the lowest button just north of her crotch, the highest just south of her bra. Her fingers shook with nerves as she flipped the buttons shut, smoothed her hands down over the pockets with the bright Red Cross circles on them, adjusted the neckline so that a hint of red lace peeked over the edge. The belt came next, wide and the same red as her lipstick, cinching her waist in tight to emphasize her curves. And then the hat. The ridiculous – oh, sweet, Jesus was she really doing this??
He'd never let her live this down. She'd never hear the end of it. Why wasn't she just taking all of this off and putting her jeans and top back on. She could tell him she'd eaten a bad burrito or something, and that was what had taken her so long. It would be infinitely less embarrassing than walking out there in this and having him laugh at her. But her hands were still moving, apparently confident in her sexuality in a way she was somewhat appalled to find she wasn't. She had to pull half her hair up to pin the hat on properly, but she got it to stick. And then she slipped on her stilettos and gave herself a once-over, wishing Eric wasn't so stupidly male that he didn't even have a full-length mirror she could see herself in.
Okay. Okay. She could do this. She was strong, she was sexy, she was not terrified. No way. Okay. Here we go. Her hand gripped the doorknob and she took a deep breath. 3. 2. 1. Liftoff.