Page 26 of I Need You Tonight
Chapter 10
Mason
“Are you ready?” I asked.
“Ready,” Nicole replied.
“Okay. On the count of three.”
We were standing in her kitchen late Monday afternoon, ready for Operation Wallpaper Removal. Bernie had been recently walked, so we were good to go for a few hours. Following the directions I’d Googled yesterday, we had already prepared the kitchen with plastic and towels to protect the floor and floorboards from the water needed to strip the walls bare.
“One…two…three,” I said from the stepladder. With the putty knife, I loosened the wallpaper near the ceiling and peeled it downward. Nicole was on the other side of the room, dealing with the paper between the countertops and the overhead cabinets.
I managed to pull a foot of paper free from the wall before it ripped, the rest still clinging to the wall like its life depended on it.Fuck. And based on the grunt from Nicole, she hadn’t had much luck either.
“I was really hoping the article had lied about old wallpaper,” she said. According to it, the longer the paper had been up, the tougher it would be to remove. And given that this paper had to be from the 1970s…
“Me too,” I said as I pried another strip of paper from the wall with the putty knife.
Over an hour later, we were still battling with the reluctant-to-be-freed wallpaper. Various-sized bits of it lay scattered over the floor and counters.
“Wallpaper should be permanently banned from the planet,” Nicole said, shoving back a wayward strand of hair that had fallen from her ponytail. Between the hair, short shorts, and tank top, she was easily the sexiest woman I’d ever seen. My arms were about to fall off from the effort of removing the wallpaper, but the sight of her like this made the pain worth it.
“Obviously whoever created it never had to remove it,” I said. Or maybe he did and that was what had killed him.
I ripped off the last remaining piece from the section of wall I’d been working on and turned around…to find Nicole staring at where my ass had been.
“See anything you like?” I asked. Her face turned red, and I laughed. “That would be a yes?” I joined her by the counter and plucked out a few tiny shreds of paper lodged in her hair. I knew I was pushing the boundaries of the easygoing friendship that had developed between us—well, the easygoing friendship that involved a few hot kisses—but that didn’t stop me. “You know, you look adorable with wallpaper in your hair. It’s a great look for you.”
She snickered. “You really do know how to charm the panties off girls, don’t you?”
“Is it working?”
Her smile shifted to one side and she glanced down at her shorts. “Nope, still there.”
“Oh, really?”
Even though I knew I probably shouldn’t, I took a step toward her. She backed away, her ass banging squarely into the counter behind her. I parked my hands on either side of her, caging her in. “Guess I must be losing my touch.”
The smile that grew on her lips was neither a sweet smile nor a smile aimed to seduce. It was a smile meant to disarm a man, to play his game—and to win.
She placed her hands on my chest and gave me a small shove. I didn’t budge. “Guess that must be so. So since you’ve lost your panty-dropping touch, let’s get back to the wallpaper. It’s not getting any more in style.”
Disagreeing with her assessment, I leaned in to kiss her. But as I was making my descent toward her luscious lips, the fucking doorbell rang. Whoever it was, I thought, had better have a damn good reason for interrupting us—like the house was on fire. Nicole gave a quick what-can-you-do shrug and left the room to answer the door.
While she was gone, I resumed the task of removing the final bits of wallpaper on the wall where she’d been working.
Footsteps approached the kitchen. Turning to the door, I said, “What do you say—” But I bit off the final words when I saw Amy, the teen we’d met while walking Bernie yesterday, enter the room, along with a little girl Logan’s age.
“Hi,” the little girl said. “My sister likes you.”
“Bree!” Amy’s tone was sharp, but she looked as though she wished the floor would conveniently open up and swallow her whole.
I walked over to them and crouched in front of the little girl. “Hi, I’m Mason.”
“I’m Brianna, but my sister says you’re famous, so you can call me Bree.”
Amy groaned. “Just ignore her. Her goal in life is to humiliate me.”
