“Is that a challenge?”
He smirks. “Of course not.”
It’s totally a challenge.
But if he’s expecting me to try to prove something right off the bat, he’s wrong.
I know Ican.
I also know I need to learnhowbefore I can.
“Any tips or tricks I should know before I start swinging?” I ask with a nod toward the axe.
He grabs it at the end, then flips it in the air and catches it just beneath the head. “Don’t hit yourself with this part.”
“Don’t maim myself. Got it.”
“Don’t get cocky.”
“Have tologa few hours at the chopping block first?”
The man blinks at me in slow motion. “Did you just?—”
Make a terrible joke? Yes, and again, Daph would be proud.
I smirk at him. “I’m smart, I’m pretty, I’m rich,andI’m funny.”
He pinches his lips together.
And then he does something far worse than telling me I’m not any of those four things I just smugly proclaimed to be, and he lines his body up behind mine.
He wraps his thick arms around my shoulders and slides his hands down my arms until he’s guiding the axe into my hands with me, gripping the handle at the bottom with one hand and near the top with the other.
“This is a maul,” he says, his voice low and silky in my ear. “Goal is to get the sharp, pointy side square in the middle of the log with enough force to split it.”
No, I’m fairly certain the goal is to use his body to intimidate me into not making any more bad puns about logs.
And it’s working.
My mouth has gone drier than the desert and my pulse is inching intoso this kind of wood is sensual tooterritory.
I make a noise of acknowledgment.
“You can use various techniques. Beginners will often do this, here.” He lifts my arms straight above my head, so the maul head is high, but not in danger of falling onmyhead if I drop it, sliding my higher hand lower as we raise the axe—the maul, I mean. “You want to be holding it like this when it reaches its pinnacle. Then swing it down hard. But first, let’s make sure you’re lined up properly.”
We lower the axe—maul—and test how far I am from the log that needs to be split. The heat radiating from his body cuts through the chill of the night and makes me warm everywhere.
And I do meaneverywhere.
“Good, just like that,” he murmurs.
My nipples turn themselves inside out and my vagina pulses to life.
Not that she’s regularly asleep.
It’s more that she gets bored easily.
Don’t catch a crush for a man who’s using you, dumbass, my brain whispers.
