Page 18 of Hammered (Dad Bod Contracting 1)
“Shit!” I glance down at my leg, which is already welling with blood. Damn it. “Okay, hold on. Let me get the broom.”
Jesse finishes removing his tool belt, sets it on the counter, and reaches for me, stopping me from moving. “Just stay where you are. You’re bleeding and you’re barefoot, and there are pieces everywhere. You take a step in any direction and you’ll cut your feet all up.” He keeps hold of my arms with both hands, smiling reassuringly at me. “Just tell me where the broom is and I’ll handle it.”
I point at the little closet between the stove and the far wall. “In there.”
He retrieves the broom and dustpan. “Paper bag?”
I point at the sink. “Under there.”
He finds a paper grocery bag, opens it, tosses the largest chunks into it, and then makes swift, efficient work of sweeping the floor from side to side, corner to corner. After dumping the shards into the bag, he sweeps again, just to be sure, and then sets the bag aside and puts the broom away.
He turns to me. “Now you.”
I frown in confusion. “Now me, what?”
He gestures at my leg. “Gotta tend to your war wound.”
I laugh. “You mean my utterly insignificant little cut I received from my own clumsiness?”
He shrugs. “Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.”
“Nobody, not even an English person, says po-tah-to,” I point out.
He indicates the counter beside the sink. “Hop up there.”
I shake my head. “It’s fine, really. I just need to wet a paper towel. It doesn’t even hurt.” That was a lie—it stung like a bitch, but I didn’t want to seem weak or squeamish on top of all the other dumb shit I’d done around this guy.
I’m moving toward the sink as I say this, but I only get a few steps. And then I feel a pair of big, strong hands on my waist. He spins me around and backs me up to the counter. Before I have any clue what he’s intending to do, he dips down, wraps those powerful, huge, callused hands around the backs of my thighs—and with only the slightest hint of effort, he lifts me up and deposits me on the countertop. I gasp, a shrill in-breath of surprise, and then my lungs squeeze and my heart slams in my chest and my core tightens and heats, and my thighs clench, and heat pools and desire seeps through me. Jesse is inches away from me, standing between my thighs, his hard, broad chest and massive shoulders a wall in front of me, his trim hips wedging my legs apart. His hands are on my waist again, just above my hips, and his eyes are warm and Labrador puppy brown and twinkling with humor and sparking with what I desperately want to believe is desire.
“I—okay. I guess I’m sitting on the counter,” I say, trying not to sound breathless.
“Yeah, guess you are.” He backs up, leaving the enclosure of my legs—I’m sorely tempted to hook my feet together around his back to keep him there, but I don’t. “You have any first aid stuff?”
“I don’t need first aid, Jesse,” I breathe. “It’s barely even bleeding.”
He cradles my foot in his hand and lifts my leg to take a look at the cut. I’m not breathing. I’m shaking all over. The gusset of my shorts has nowhere near enough fabric to provide any decent modesty, not with my leg lifted like this. Oh god. If he looks, he’ll see my hoo-ha. When was the last time I shaved? Oh yeah, just a few minutes ago, upstairs. I keep my eyes on his, watching him, watching where his eyes go.
I try to swallow but my throat is dry, unlike certain other areas.
Will he see that? Will he smell it? Oh fuck, he probably smells me.
And holy mother of all hells, am I aroused right now.
Jesse’s eyes start at my face. Watching for demurral or any hint that I’m upset—which he won’t find. Then, seeing nothing but my lip caught between my teeth and my eyes wide, he drags his eyes downward. I’m sporting a serious pair of headlights—my nipples are, shall we say, not small, and have a tendency to react aggressively to the slightest provocation or drop in temperature. And this shirt is, as I’ve said, so thin from age and wear and washings that it’s nearly sheer. With Jesse’s touch and attention and my own arousal, my nipples are the hardest they’ve ever been, standing out so thick and long and hard that I could cut twin holes in a pane of glass.
He groans again. It’s a growl, a low, almost inaudible rumble, so deep on the register that I feel it more than hear it. “Have mercy,” he murmurs to himself rather than to me.
After spending a moment blatantly ogling the protruding nubs of my hardened nipples, and the round weight of my breasts straining the fabric of my tank top, Jesse’s gaze rakes downward. Pauses at my navel, my belly. His gaze there is a brief blast of cold water on my libido as self-consciousness slices through me—I’ve always been weird about my stomach, and never more so than this stage of my life, when stress makes me eat more than usual, busyness keeps me out of the gym and into the unhealthy aisles of the store. My belly used to be flat and toned. I never had visible abs or anything, but I could rock the hell out of a midriff-baring crop top back in the day. Nowadays? Not so much.
