Page 13 of Hammered (Dad Bod Contracting 1)
I hesitate at the door of my room, insecurities bubbling inside me.
I should put on underwear.
And makeup.
And do my hair.
Forget underwear—I should put on Spanx.
I shouldn’t let this man I don’t know from Adam—this hot, sexy, funny man I’m super attracted to—see me like this.
I rarely wore something like this around Nicholas, and I was married to the man for ten years.
Anyway, that’s old news.
This outfit was my little secret. Well, one of my little secrets. My other was that I read erotic romance and pretended I was the heroine, and daydreamed more frequently than I liked to admit about plot lines from those stories happening to me—a secret I’d indulged in even when married, because Nicholas had stopped even trying to fulfill me after the third year of our marriage, and had started cheating by the fourth or fifth year, I think.
I shake myself. Why am I thinking about stupid asshole Nicholas? I’m done with the bastard. Let him have his silly secretary and her fake tits and annoying giggle. Let her have him—god knows I got little enough use out of him even when we were married.
Downstairs is a sexy man who seems, despite all odds, to be interested in me. Attracted to me to at least some degree. Enough that he flirts with me and offers either thinly veiled or open insinuations and innuendos.
A man who would be perfectly at home as the hero of one of my romance novels.
So.
Am I going to go down there dressed like this?
Yep.
You bet I am. And I’m going to pretend with all my heart that I’m not terrified out of my mind, that I’m not intensely self-conscious about the size and sag of my ass, of the fact that even though they’re relatively perky still, my tits are definitely showing signs of gravity—swaying a lot closer to my navel than they used to. I’m going to act like I traipse around in this outfit all the time, regardless of who’s around.
I’m going to make myself some dinner, and watch Jesse work, and I’m going to flirt back with him, and pretend I have the courage to do more than flirt.
That’s a joke. I definitely don’t have the courage to do more than flirt.
But I can do that much at least, right?
Chapter 4
I swallow my nerves and summon my courage. My knees shake as I descend the stairs, and butterflies flutter wildly in my stomach. I pause on the bottom of the stairs, just before I turn the corner and become visible from the kitchen.
“I’m crazy,” I whisper to myself. “This is crazy. I should go put real clothes on.”
But I don’t.
Why?
Some urge, some instinct, some surge of daring. I don’t know. I don’t know what I hope to accomplish. If nothing else, perhaps I’ll feel brave. At worst, foolish.
No, at worst he’ll take one look at me and show zero interest—actually, the worst would be for him to show disgust or disapproval, and then I’d be crushed.
But this is nuts, though. I mean, the first time a man shows even the slightest hint of interest in me, I’m prancing around my house in front of him in a skimpy outfit, hoping for confirmation that a man can still find me even remotely attractive.
I let out a shaky breath and enter the kitchen, raking my fingers through my loose, damp hair.
Jesse is outside, doing something to the newly widened opening. There’s sawdust everywhere, a pungent, pleasant smell. Bits of wood and plaster and paint litter my sink, and the new opening seems enormous, stretching from cabinet to cabinet on either side of the sink, and from countertop to ceiling.
Jesse looks up through the open window as I enter the kitchen, and freezes in the act of whatever it is he’s doing. His eyes lock on me, and then rake slowly, deliberately downward, pausing at chest and hips, and then rake upward just as slowly—openly ogling me.
“Have mercy,” he murmurs under his breath.
The open, honest heat in his gaze arrests me as I pause in the doorway. The intensity in his voice freezes my muscles and heats my blood. He still hasn’t looked away, and the tool in his hand drops, forgotten, to the ground at his feet with a thump.
“Uh…hi,” I mutter.
He blinks, remembering he’s staring, and bends to grab his tool from the ground—and whacks his head on the wall on the way down. “Ow—shit!” He straightens, rubbing his head with one hand and clutching the tool with the other. “Hi. You, um. You changed.”
“Yeah, I needed a shower, you know?” Awkward, awkward, Jesus, so awkward. “I hope that’s okay.” Why wouldn’t it be okay for me to shower and change in my own home? I’m acting like a twelve-year-old.
“Okay?” He licks his lips, his eyes raking over me yet again. “Yeah, I don’t mind. At all.”
