Page 34 of Shifting Gears

Eleanor resents how much it’s working for her.

“Come on in,” Eleanor says, trying to keep her voice even.

Dani whistles as she steps inside. “Wow. Nice place! Fancy.”

“I mostly rent it for the location,” Eleanor replies, leading Dani toward the kitchen. The whole sunny bay opens up outside the big windows, and Dani drapes her flannel shirt over the back of a kitchen stool.

“No kidding. Beautiful view,” Dani says, stepping up to the windows and peering out toward the river. The natural light makes her glow as the rays catch in her hair and make her sun-soaked skin look golden.

“Yeah,” Eleanor says weakly. Her mouth has gone dry. “Beautiful.”

“You must do pretty well for yourself in that corporate job of yours. Maybe I should switch fields,” Dani says, grinning.

“I wouldn’t recommend it unless you really like being tangled in bureaucracy and not getting to pursue the projects you care about.”

“Like what?”

“Biofuels, carbon reduction, more sustainable product lines,” Eleanor lists, sighing heavily. “The tech sector tends to favour easy products. Quick to make, quick to break. Try to pitch anything else and they act like you’ve asked them to declare bankruptcy.”

Dani leans against the kitchen island, folding her arms. “Wow. So you’re trying to save the world.”

There’s something soft in her smile—Eleanor is used to Dani’s big, slightly crooked grin, but this one is gentler. It crinkles at the corners of her eyes.

“God, no. Nothing as exciting as that,” Eleanor says, laughing a little. “Just trying to make a dent.”

Dani’s smile stays soft. “Still pretty cool. I hope you get to do all those projects someday.”

“Me, too,” Eleanor sighs, thinking of the document with her solution in it currently sitting unfinished on her computer.

Dani gets to work soon after, opening the cupboard underneath the sink and sliding in on her back to fiddle with the pipes, and Eleanor tries very hard to maintain a conversation instead of staring blatantly at the sliver of Dani’s stomach peeking out the hem of her shirt.

“How’s it going down there?” Eleanor asks, cringing the moment the words leave her mouth. It makes her glad that Dani’s face is obscured by the cupboard door.

“It’s good! I don’t think this has been serviced in a while,” Dani remarks, grabbing blindly at one of the scattered tools on the floor.

“Are you a handyman as well as a mechanic?” Eleanor asks, nudging the wrench toward Dani’s grasping hand. Dani truly seems to be a jack of all trades.

“Cars aren’t the only thing I’m good at fixing up.”

Heat blooms embarrassingly quickly in Eleanor’s abdomen, zipping immediately down to settle between her legs.

It was benign, Dani’s statement—she definitely wasn’t referring to all the ways her talented hands could be put to work fixing every ache in Eleanor’s body. But Eleanor’s traitorous brain runs with it like a dog let loose, sprinting into the distance.

Without warning, something bursts under the sink.

Dani swears loudly. Water starts spraying out at an alarming volume, and Eleanor’s inappropriate thoughts are literally and figuratively hosed down.

“Shit!” Dani sputters, trying unsuccessfully to stop the flow with her hands. “Forgot to turn the water off—”

“What do I do?” Eleanor asks loudly, all thirst forgotten in the wake of her kitchen flooding.

“There’s a valve under here somewhere!”

Eleanor rips open all the cupboard doors and finds it beside her stock of cleaning supplies. She cranks the knob with slippery hands until the water finally stops, then steps gingerly over the puddles now covering her floor to find Dani still lying under the sink, now soaked completely. Her pale-blue tank top is almost see-through now but probably the cleanest it’s ever been.

Eleanor has to look away again to hide what she’s sure is a flush creeping up her neck. The fabric clings to Dani’s skin, leaving little to the imagination—Dani’s muscular frame very clearly extends beyond her arms. Her midsection is just as solid, firm muscle under an appealing layer of softness over her belly.

Eleanor wants to press her hands against that softness, to feel the strength beneath. She wants to dig into the swell of Dani’s hips peeking over the waist of her cargo pants to pull her forward. Use them like handles to keep Dani close as the blonde settles between her thighs, flashing that confident grin, thrusting forward—

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