Page 33 of Coach
“No way,” she said as the dog finally dropped her butt down to the ground. “I was sure she was going to go for your throat.”
“She probably would have if I were afraid. Here,” I said, reaching to take the leash from her hand. “Let’s walk. Get her used to me more so you don’t have to lock her up somewhere to eat.”
“About that?”
“Did it burn?” I asked. I had just enough self-control not to addWhile you were watching me from the window.
“No. I just really underestimated how long the potatoes were going to cook. So there’s a solid half an hour left. At least.”
“Perfect. We can walk Trix,” I said, noticing the way the dog kept glancing over at me, but the tension in her body was easing. “Then I can clean up a bit before. Got a change of clothes in the truck.”
“I have a newly painted and tiled bathroom just begging for someone to break it in. Though the water pressure in the house isn’t the best. And you have to promise not to judge the color too harshly. I got it for free, and I hate wasting anything.”
“What color is it?”
“The best way to describe it would be eggplant.”
“I think that could work in a house like this, though. The style kind of begs for bold colors.”
“I agree. It’s growing on me. I think with some art, it might be perfect. But I want your honest opinion.”
Once I got to see the work she’d done already to the living room and kitchen, I had no doubt that she’d pulled off the bathroom even before she was shoving towels at me and explaining that the hot and cold were somehow in reverse order.
I wanted to offer to fix it.
But I also didn’t want to come off as overbearing.
I already had another surprise for her coming in the next week or so. Too much too soon was going to make her start seeing red flags.
There was friendly.
Then there was obsession.
And while everything I knew about Este so far said she was a woman worth obsessing over, the last thing I wanted to do was scare her off.
Alone in her shower, surrounded by her bath products that carried that distinct rose scent that clung to her body, it took a fuckuva lot of effort to clear my mind, to not think of her in the shower, scrubbing the bubbles all over her body. Better yet, the two of us in the shower with me getting to wash every inch of her.
The last thing I needed was to be rock-hard in her shower. Because it was absolutely crossing a line to jerk-off in her bathroom, for fuck’s sake.
When I was sure I was under control enough, I climbed out, dried off, and slipped into the spare white tee and jeans I kept around just in case.
When I walked back out, Trix looked up from her bed, her hackles starting to rise, before she let out a harrumph and settled back down on her enormous round bed.
“That thing looks thicker than my mattress,” I said as I passed, making my way toward the scent of dinner cooking.
I had meals cooked for me all the time. Detroit loved to cook. So did some of the club wives.
That said, that was family.
This was different.
And I wasn’t sure I’d ever had a woman who wasn’t related to me in some way make me a meal.
“Smells great,” I said, walking in to find Este stirring something on the stove, a little waist apron on that had my mindconjuring up shit it had no business thinking about. “And I like the eggplant. It’s good to have something moodier to offset your brighter palate.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” she said, turning away to walk past me, then stopping and scrunching her nose up. “Oh, I don’t like that.”
Did I smell?
