“I guess.” My attempt at a laugh is sickly. “Not like you can help but see me in daylight.” Swallowing hard, I walk over to where he’s made space for me between his spread legs, and stand, feeling awkward and pale and absurd.
“What if,” Jake says, taking in my half-clothed body with lascivious interest. “I said I wanted the shirt off?” He leans backon straight arms, body hard and somehow lazy all at once. On display, too, which I think might be purposeful. There’s so much of him that I’ve got no idea where to look.
“It’s against the ru?—”
“Is it?”
No. He’s right. I didn’t put clothing in the contract.
There’s an evil light glinting in his eyes. Like he got a plan and wants to play. “Contracts get renegotiated, right?”
I pause, breathing quick and light through a mouth that’s slightly open. “Um. Yeah?”
“What do you want in exchange for taking the bra off?”
“Nothing.”
“I’ll take a pay cut. At work. Twenty-five percent.” His eyes narrow to shiny slits.
“What? No. Stop that.” As I start to step back, he grasps my hand and holds it, lightly enough that I can break away if I want. I don’t. “No, that would involve money and that’s not…I’m not. No. That’s firm.”
A hint of humor lights up his glare.
It takes a second for me to realize that his hold on my hand’s changed. No longer intent on stopping or holding me, but slowly, imperceptibly caressing my thumb, my knuckles.
“Take off the top.” His voice has gone hoarse. “Show me those tits and I’ll…fix that front walkway outside.”
I try to pull away and he tightens his hand again. “No! God, that’s so?—”
“Nice? Handy?” His hold shifts so we’re palm to palm, then he eases his fingers between mine. “A good way to make sure you don’t trip and fall coming home from work late at night?”
“I don’t want anything from you. I’ll just do it. Okay?” With an irritated huff, I drag myself away from him, reach for my top and yank it up and off. “No trading. None of this?—”
“Tit for tat?”
A surprised laugh forces its way up and out of my throat and before I know it, I smack him with my T-shirt. Heof coursegets a hold of it, wraps it in his fist and pulls me toward him in a slow tug-of-war I haven’t a chance in hell of winning. I let it go and continue undressing, ruing my choice of a sports bra when he has to help me untwist it and wrench it over my head.
Suddenly, I’m half across his lap and we’re both in nothing but our underwear, breathing like we’ve just run a sprint. His hair-rough thighs are doing things to my sensitive, naked breasts.
“There.” There’s that lion playing again, in the depths of his gaze. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Which certainly can’t be said about the erection prodding my belly. The desire to bear down is almost stronger than me. Which is exactly what prompts me to jump back up to standing.
But of course, this is way worse, because now I’m here, planted in front of him in nothing but my underwear, on display with my breasts out and my thighs in full view.
It’s a body I love. A body I’m proud of. But nobody has seen this body naked—aside from my asshole ex—since I was in my twenties and, truly, forty is a whole new ballgame.
“Jesus, Katarina,” he whispers, while those wildcat eyes eat me up.
I guess Jake likes it.
If anything, his erection’s more prominent than a second ago, his cheekbones flushed darker. “Touch ’em,” he says, staring at my chest. A chest I’m fine with, but my boobs are big and heavy and always—always—hoisted up by underwire.
My brain’s running circles in my skull, but somehow my body’s bypassed all these doubts. I swear my hands were locked and loaded before he uttered a word. Every argument I might have come up with seems to have disappeared into thin air andI’m touching myself in no time, the feel of doing this under the heat of his gaze like nothing I’ve experienced in this lifetime.
“Looks so good, Katarina.”
I shiver at the sound of my name and tweak myself harder.
