Page 31 of Imagine Me and You

Yes. It had been a busy week.

And she didn’t feel any closer to getting out of the woods. Worse, she was forgetting why she wanted out.

Things were getting tangled. Jace her friend and Jace her lover weren’t really staying as separate as she would have liked. Because sometimes they were talking and laughing, and she would picture him naked. And then sometimes they were naked and he would say something very Jace and make her laugh.

Muddled. It was muddled.

And her mind was muddled at the moment because of those jeans. Because of the sexy shift and bunch in his muscles as he stirred the pot of spaghetti sauce on the stove.

What she really wanted to do was walk up and kiss his bare shoulder. Trail her fingertip down the curve of his spine. Slide her fingers beneath the waistband of his jeans. Squeeze his butt.

But this was the problem with their little arrangement. She felt compelled to find the line during the times they weren’t getting it on. Which meant acting like his friend and not his bed partner when they weren’t hot and heavy.

Which meant no random shoulder kisses or proprietary ass grabs just before dinner.

But she wanted to.

That was sort of disturbing. It was line-muddling. And stuff.

But it might not hurt, either. Especially not if it was considered fore-foreplay. Because they would have sex later, of that she had no doubt. Because if every night over the past week was an indicator, they couldn’t keep their hands off each other.

She crept up behind him and put her hand on his shoulder. “Hi,” she said. He went stiff beneath her fingertips.

“Hi,” he said.

She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his skin, just like she’d imagined, before tracing his spine, also like she’d imagined. And then she edged her fingers beneath the waistband of his jeans, skimming the top of his butt. She stopped short at squeezing, even though she wanted to.

“How was your day?” she asked, pulling away.

“Good.”

“Did Poppy behave?”

He shrugged a shoulder, the one she’d kissed, and turned to face her. “Yeah, she was fine. She rode in the truck and did my errands with me. Then we did some ranch work. The hands like her a lot. I think she might have gotten a little spoiled with lunch scraps.”

She made a face and looked down at the dog. “Greedy thing. They’re going to make her fat.”

“Her fur will cover it.”

“Ah, yes, black hair is very slimming.”

Their eyes met and he smiled. And her heart did some kind of weird melty thing it had never done before. Ever. In her whole life. It was strange and she didn’t like it at all.

She cleared her throat and turned away. “Can I set the table?”

“Sure,” he said.

She busied herself with the task while he finished cooking and dished their plates. They ate in relative silence with more small talk about their day passing back and forth. But mainly her eyes were glued to his chest. Why was he shirtless anyway? It was snowing outside. It was warm in the house, but she didn’t feel the need to strip off her top.

It seemed like gratuitous male nudity. Which, if it also counted as fore-foreplay, was allowable.

She would just enjoy it then. Let it kindle her flame. Light her fire. Make her go up like a match thrown into a tank of gasoline.

Yeah, more that last one.

Because the man had the most perfect chest ever. And while she’d definitely noticed it before, even before the morning she’d smacked him with pancake batter, she was really, really noticing it now.

Now that she knew just how those muscles felt under her fingertips.

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