“Thank you.” The delivery boy was still talking to her tits.
Lainey stared at him, wondering whether or not she should let him live.
She closed the door without even taking the parcel inside. The heat of the shower was going to be turned up significantly.
Washed,fed and caffeinated, Lainey felt slightly less salty. She’d noticed that Jake’s jeep had turned back up, and she’d no doubt that he’d be round for his parcel at a time that would seriously inconvenience her, so she’d decided to take it round herself. Now.
Her scruffs from before had been replaced with smart dark grey jodhpurs and a plain navy-blue hoodie, unbranded and without a logo. Her riding boots were even relatively clean, and her blonde hair was braided into a fish plait, coming over her shoulder. She looked professional – as professional as she should when her next three clients were all children under twelve who’d undergone traumas that didn’t bare thinking about.
The package for Jake was small, unbranded and fairly light. She tried not to think about what was in it, although curiosity was killing her. Was it for a girlfriend? She was pretty sure Jake was single – if he’d been seeing anyone it would’ve been the talk of the town, because this town liked to talk. A lot.
Making sure she had her keys, she closed the door behind her and turned out of the back door through the yard to the gate that separated the two properties. In the last few weeks she’d heard more about why Jake had wanted what she’d managed to buy; his plans for expansion were huge and ambitious, but what he’d already achieved had been impressive. Lainey wasn’t going to argue with that. She knew how hard it was to grow a business and to develop an existing one. Gran had already told her in great detail about how Jake had taken on his uncle’s farm – which had been more than holding its own – and built it up so he was becoming something of a legend in the local communities. He’d diversified, looking at what he could do through tourism and staycations, as well as through tapping into the whole farm to table scene.
His door was unlocked, a fact she discovered after banging on it at least twice. No one had answered, and the general code in Severton was that an unlocked door could be entered.
Jake’s kitchen was dramatically different to her own. For a start, it understood that it was now the twenty-first century, unlike her own that still had the original bread oven built in and a very dodgy eighties cooker installed in the corner. The joinery was first class, the design sleek and masculine, the tidiness suggesting that the kitchen was never used and the pizza boxes stacked up reinforced this idea.
Lainey called his name and heard nothing. She left the parcel on the kitchen island, curious as to what the rest of his home looked like. It was part of her that she couldn’t turn off, the need to analyse parts of a person to find out who they were, and that included their homes.
She slipped through to the lounge, a large open planned space with sofas that looked just right for sleeping on. A huge TV took up the corner of one room, but the centrepiece was a wood burning stove that gleamed. A battered copy of a spy thriller was the only thing to litter the floor; everything else was tidy, even a dark grey throw that was over the back of one of the sofas.
This was a bachelor pad of the first order. It oozed masculinity, including the scent that washed down the stairwell that was to the side of the lounge.
Jake was taking a shower.
There was something delightfully ironic that her shower had been interrupted by Jake’s parcel and now she was interrupting his. Lainey walked up the stairs, the tread of the carpet sumptuous under her toes, having kicked off her shoes before she even went into the kitchen.
Jake’s bedroom door was open wide, the silver-grey carpet stretching from the landing into there. A huge bed dominated the space; the headboard was charcoal velvet and the bed was unmade. For a second she paused and sniffed, the same scent that had drifted downstairs more potent here.
Lainey checked herself. Whatever cologne that was, it was having a rathertighteningeffect on her. Maybe it had been the same scent an ex-lover wore – she couldn’t remember.
Shower water dancing against skin sounded through the first floor, a hint of steam rising from a door that was cracked open. The farmhouse was a traditional build, a narrow hallway running through the top floor with rooms coming off either side, the same as hers, almost identical, in fact.
She was curious about what his bathroom looked like; whether he’d had a chance to renovate that or whether it was still like how she imagined his uncle had it. The door was ajar, and it was easy to prod so it opened just slightly further.
The room was full of steam, poofs of clouds inhibiting her view. A freestanding bath took up the middle of the room, empty and dry, the water solely in the shower. It was a huge, glass walled thing with a couple of jets coming from the wall and a waterfall head.
Jake Maynard stood in the middle of it, concealed by the steam and condensation, but that didn’t stop Lainey from seeing things she knew she’d never be able to unsee.
She was used to seeing male bodies that were honed from life outside. Muscles accrued from shifting bales of hay were different from those earned in the gym. Jake’s body told of days outside, his biceps and tris thick and hard from lifting and carrying, his thighs defined from hours on horseback.
But it wasn’t on any of those muscles where her eyes lingered.
It was the one between his legs.
Even through the steam and the condensation around the shower, Lainey could see the outline of what she hoped for the sake of his lovers’ vaginas, was a shower and not a grower. She swallowed, the lump in it almost making her splutter.
There was no sound that alerted her to the fact that Jake Maynard was now staring at her through the billowing clouds of steam. No warning that his blue eyes were on her and his grin was broad, as if he’d just caught her doing exactly what he wanted her to.
She backed away like a cornered animal, her heart starting to pound. It wasn’t that she’d seen him naked: he knew he was gorgeous, that was clear in how he moved, spoke, breathed even. It wasn’t the fact that she’d nosied into his house – if he didn’t want people looking he shouldn’t have left the door unlocked. It was that he knew she liked what she saw. If she could see the outline of his cock, then he could work out the expression on her face.
Jake Maynard would not see how he affected her.
Lainey closed the bathroom door, then noticed the antiquated security measure that old houses sometimes had – locks on the outside of the door. It was a simple hook and eye thing, high up near the top, stopping small children from getting in and burglars from breaking out of the room into the main part of the house. She flicked it in, locking Jake in his own bathroom, and moved.
No doubt she would hear about this later. Much later. When she had a gin and tonic in her hand.
Lainey didn’t thinkabout how Jake would get out of his bathroom without breaking the door. She knew he was a man of means and would find a way out of there without causing too much damage; at the very least, he could climb out of the bathroom sash window and abseil down – she’d heard plenty about his prowess in that department. Her afternoon consisted of her three clients, opening up situations that enabled them to feel comfortable to begin to talk about whatever they wished, or in one case, to talk to the horse with her nearby grooming Laurel, a mare she’d taken in a few days before. She was interrupted by three of Jake’s alpacas; all of her clients had now become accustomed to having the cute, furry creatures turning up randomly to see what was going on. They were safe in Severton from any predators, and they weren’t stupid, knowing exactly where they slept and where the food was, so no one worried about them getting out of where it was they were meant to be contained.
