I wanted to kiss her again. Wanted it with an intensity that had bypassed want entirely and become something closer to need. But I’d promised this would happen on her terms. I was a man of my word. Even when keeping it was the hardest thing I’d done in years.
So, I stepped back.Picked up the toolbox. Looked at her against the wall with her hair wrecked and her face wearing an expression of disbelief.
“Kitchen faucet,” I said.
She stared at me as if she couldn’t understand what I was saying.
“You said it drips,” I said.
She pushed off the wall, smoothed her shirt, and walked past me toward the back with her chin up and her color high.
I followed her and thought about patience and how good it would feel when it finally paid off.
CHAPTER THREE
Charlie
I spent the early part of Sunday morning pretending not to be affected by the man I’d kissed the night before.
I wiped down the bar for the third time. The same ring of condensation got scrubbed harder than it deserved. I was restless and aching in a way that had very little to do with chores and everything to do with a certain gruff lumberjack who’d won a bet fair and square.
Late last night, after tossing and turning four hours, I’d touched myself not only thinking about the bet kiss, but yesterday’s down payment kiss. I’d wanted to give in then, drag him into my bedroom and pay up tenfold. Of course, that was information I was going to take to my grave.
The bell above the door chimed at nine on the dot and I gripped the edge of the bar to keep from running toward it like a woman with zero dignity.
He walked in with his toolbox and that same controlled expression, dark hair still slightly damp from a shower, wearing a grey t-shirt that was doing nothing to conceal the kind of shoulders that made most women sigh. The morning light hit him, and I decided that whatever I’d done in a past life to deserve this kind of problem, I was choosing not to resent it today.
“Morning,” he said, his voice doing that thing to my insides.
“Morning. Coffee?” I was already reaching for the pot.
“Thanks.”
I poured him a cup and pushed the sugar and creamer tray toward him. He took his coffee black, which somehow didn’t surprise me at all.
“What’s first?” I asked, like I wasn’t painfully aware of him standing there in all his muscular glory.
“Ceiling fans. Then the back door lock.” He looked up at the fan over the pool table, already assessing. “After that we’ll see what else needs doing.”
I wanted to move myself to the top of that list. I needed doing.
By noon he had his shirt off.
He’d fixed the back door, giving me a stern lecture on safety and then moved to the ceiling fan over the pool table — the one that made a noise like a dying animal. Somewhere between the second and third trip up the step ladder the grey t-shirt had come off and been tossed onto the pool table.
The bad girl in me wished he’d toss me on the pool table. Or bend me over it.
I thought about the bet. The one that really mattered. Was I confident enough to be taken by this lumberjack? Brave enough? I’d dated. Had some one-on-one time with guys that didn’t quite make the cut so to speak. It wasn’t as if I was clutching my v-card like a string of pearls. No. It was more honest than that — I’d gotten close, twice, and both times something in me had pulled back at the last second. An old reflex. The particular wariness of a woman who’d learned that wanting someone was easy and trusting them with your body was a different thing entirely. I’d never found a man I trusted enough for the second part.
Colt was the right man.
He was tall, muscular and made me feel feminine just by standing beside him. Apparently being a lumberjack was a sure way to build muscle all over your body. His thighs, his ass. Hisshoulders, his arms, and his back. Muscle that came from hard work, not from a gym.
And the scars.
I’d spent the morning trying not to stare. Of course, I was taking in the golden flesh, and hard muscles first, but then, I noticed the scars. A long curved one below his right ribs. Something smaller on his left forearm, the kind of scar that looked like it had been stitched in a hurry. And on his left shoulder, a tattoo. A military insignia. Precise and formal and clearly meaningful.
I looked away before he caught me.
