The wind whips her hair across her face, and she brushes it aside. “Well? What are you trying to say?”
“That I don’t know how to always organize my thoughts before I speak when I’m around you. I get tongue tied sometimes.”
“Oh…I see.”
“I missed the clues back at your place, but I wanted to stay.”
She shrugs like too late now.
But I don’t want to let her go. “Since you’re here, stay the night with me.”
Chapter 6
Stormy
“I’ll stay,” I agree only because I’m tired and don’t like driving when I’m that way. I also don’t like feeling so confused by Kannen.
“Come on in then. The place is a wreck because I’m in the middle of renovations, but at least the bedroom is set up.”
I walk toward his house by his side and wait while he opens the front door.
“Watch your step,” he says.
The walls are stripped to the studs and where part of the living room ceiling should be, there’s a tarp coving a gaping hole.
“They really let this place go,” I say. “That’s sad. It used to be beautiful.”
“Their adult kids let it fall apart after the owners moved into assisted living.”
“Anything that’s been damaged can be restored with enough time and patience.”
I glance at him to see if his words are hinting that I’m what’s damaged, but he’s walking toward the kitchen.
I pick my way through the tools and stacks of hardwood flooring waiting to be set in place.
He gestures to one of the stacks with the bottom of a water bottle he holds out to me. “One of the neighbors put in new flooring, and they were tossing those out. I was in the right place at the right time.”
I yawn and he motions for me to follow him down the hall to an impressively huge bedroom. “You’re keeping those as is?”
He glances at the beams on the ceiling. “Maybe. I have to get up there and check the condition of everything. There was a wet circle that showed up the last time it rained. I patched that but I want to make sure there’s no rot anywhere.”
“Makes sense.” I hate how awkward I feel. I’ve shown this man every inch of my body and now I’m acting like an old maid braced for a wild penis stampede? I really am bad at intimacy. I have a hard time trusting because I don’t know when that trust might come back and kick me in the teeth.
“You okay? You’re quiet,” Kannen says.
I don’t want to lay my wounds bare. They’re mine to deal with. “I’m just tired.”
“Then go ahead and get in bed. I put clean sheets on this morning. I want to shower after my stint as a felon.”
“A felon.” I can’t help but laugh as he moves around the room gathering a pair of drawstring shorts and a T-shirt.
He hands them to me. “It’s all I’ve got right now.”
I accept the clothes and he chooses another T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants for himself.
Sweatpants. My downfall. That’s right, Stormy. Think about his body. Think about sex. Think about how good it was. Focus on that and keep your heart safe.
I’m still wide awake when he returns from the bathroom. His hair is damp and tousled. The T-shirt clearly shrunk from the steam of the shower because it clings to him, outlining every part of his six-pack.
