Page 9 of The House on Waterfall Hill

He looked up and smiled. ‘Thank you.’

‘You have a wonderful talent.’

‘It’s something I love doing, I get lost in this for hours.’

‘I totally get that. Do you always work here?’

‘Pretty much. Sometimes I work outside in the summer or if the weather’s nice, especially if I’m using a chainsaw or any other machinery.’

‘I’d imagine people would get a big kick out of seeing you use a chainsaw to carve your sculptures. That’s an attraction right there. The women especially would love it: rugged man using a chainsaw to carve wood, that’s got sex appeal written all over it.’

Luke burst out laughing. ‘I’ve never heard anyone say that about me before. I suppose you’d want me to be topless, wear a tight pair of jeans?’

‘What can I say, sex sells.’

Luke laughed and shook his head. ‘Apart from the very obvious health and safety problems with using a chainsaw while topless, well, I’m not sure if you noticed my body when you saw me naked, but there’s a definite lack of a six-pack to impress the women.’

‘You have a nice body, you might not have a six-pack but you have nice muscles.’

‘I’m not sureniceis the compliment you want it to be.’

‘Sometimes a man doesn’t have to be some GreekAdonis to be sexy or attractive, you could be doing something sexy like cuddling a baby or a puppy or carving some wood with a chainsaw.’

‘So the only wayIcould be sexy is by cuddling a puppy with one hand and chainsaw carving with the other.’

‘I didn’t mean that… I’m making it worse, aren’t I?’

‘A little bit.’

‘You have very attractive qualities.’

‘Qualities?’

‘You have nothing to be shy about, that’s all I’m saying.’ There was an awkward silence between them. ‘I don’t mean… that.’ She gestured to his crotch.

‘So I should be shy about my… tackle?’ Luke asked, a smile twitching on his lips.

‘Can we stop talking about your… manhood? I’d really prefer not to remember it.’

‘Why was it offensive? Hideous? Malformed?’

Flick laughed. ‘Will you stop?’

Luke held his hands up to show he was stopping.

This man made her smile so damn much. ‘You know, funny men are very attractive too.’

His eyebrows shot up at that. ‘I don’t think that’s true.’

‘Oh it is. We like to laugh.’

‘So while we’re making love, you’d like me to crack a few jokes?’

She stared at him her eyes wide.

He cleared his throat. ‘Hypothetically.’

‘Umm, I don’t think laughing during sex isnecessarily a bad thing as long as we’re laughing with each other not at each other.’

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