“Hate to break this to you,” I said. “But if you give me a hammer and a nail there’s a better than even chance I’ll end up nailed to the wall.”
Dad smiled wryly. “I meant as a project manager. That’s what you do, isn’t it? Could use someone with enough brains to get things in the general ballpark of correct. I’ve had to make frantic phone calls four or five times this month to get supplies that were never ordered delivered in time to save us losing weeks on a build. Honestly could use a reliable hand.”
Huh. Dad had never offered me a job before.
Probably because he was forbidden, something in the back of my mind told me.
Dinner arrived at that moment, and my stomach growled in anticipation. I made a mental note to text Aiden before I went back, make sure he’d eaten something and didn’t need me to bring him anything back.
It was just as well I had something to put in my mouth to stop me talking, because I could have said a whole lot of stupid things right now without thinking them through.
Things I needed to really think about before I gave them voice, even to my dad, who I knew I could trust.
The only person who had all the answers was me.
18
Aiden
I wokeat the sound of the cabin door opening, blinking at the blurry figure of Carter coming inside, wiping sleep away from my eyes to look at him.
There was snow on his shoulders as he shrugged his coat off, sighing with relief as he approached the fire. It’d died down a bit, and I watched in a sleepy haze from my spot on the couch as he rolled his sleeves up to bring it back, forearms flexing as he tossed a new log onto it, strong shoulders moving under that touchable sweater.
I licked my lips, warm arousal trickling down to my belly.
Get a grip.
Apparently all Carter had to do to turn me on wasexist, which was incredibly unfair. But I’d had a taste now.
Literally.
And I couldn’t get him out of my head. This was so much worse than when I was a teenager because I knew now that I liked having sex with him and I wanted to do it again.
Normally, I didn’t worry about this kind of thing. If I was into someone, I justtoldthem so, and took either acceptance or rejection as it came, had a little fun—or found someone else—and then moved on.
This was different and I couldn’t even have said why. I didn’t understand it.
All I knew was that I was staring at Carter’s ass with my tongue practically hanging out of my mouth.
“Did you have a good time?” I asked, forcing myself to sit up on the couch.
Carter turned to me, face thrown into dramatic shadow and light by the newly-revived flames in the fireplace. “It was… enlightening. Good. Not exactly fun, but…”
“Cathartic?”
Carter smiled at me. “Good word, yeah,” he said, and then yawned widely, covering his mouth belatedly and showing off the cute little points of his canines in the process. “I amsotired,” he added, collapsing onto the couch beside me, the back of his hand brushing against mine.
When he didn’t move it after a few seconds, I gathered up all my courage and curled my fingers around it, looking down at the contrast between us, Carter’s soft, manicured hands and the chipping black polish on my bitten-short nails, gnarly fingers covered in nicks and scars and ink, too.
I joked sometimes that I got ink on my hands often enough that I never had to worry about the tattoos there fading. Even now there was a stubborn spot of blue-black on my index finger that’d soaked into the hard skin of the callus there that I couldn’t really scrub off without taking half my skin with it.
Carter, in comparison, was so fuckingneatthat I felt like I was making a mess of him just by sharing space.
“Did he tell you he has a boyfriend?” Carter asked, shifting his weight as he stared into the fire.
“Yeah. That was what I wanted him to tell you. Figured all he needed was a nudge.”
Carter huffed softly, shifting again, hesitating, and then letting his head fall onto my shoulder.
