Page 33 of Screwed (Dad Bod Contracting 4)
I smile. “I know.”
“Nova, I…” He trails off, shaking his head. “I don’t know what the hell to say, to be honest.”
“I don’t either. We kind of messed up our agreement, didn’t we?”
He laughs. “Yeah. No more pretending we’re not attracted to each other, huh?”
“That was a pipe dream, I think.”
He nods. “Yeah, it was.” Another long silence. “So, um. The remodel.”
“James—”
“It’s not a favor,” he cuts in. “Yes, I like you. Yes, I’m fucking crazy attracted to you. I just…I want to do this for you. I’m not sure I can give you a reason that makes any sense. It’s not because you’re hot, or because of what we just did… It’s…everything. It’s you. I want to remodel your house because I like you, because of all the reasons I said I wasn’t doing it, and because I just…I’m a builder, and it’s what I do, and I’m a man attracted to a woman and we do crazy shit like high-dollar remodels for cost when we like a woman. I don’t know what else to say.”
“The obstinate, stubborn, independent part of me is screaming at me to say no.” I laugh. “But I guess being selfish is winning. Because the vision you described for my house? James, I want that.”
He stands in front of me—we’re in the center of my bedroom, and he’s towering over me, six inches taller and staring down at me with those intense, wild brown eyes. “There is one other reason I want to do the remodel.”
“Why’s that?”
“So I can see more of you.”
I laugh. “Funny. That’s the other reason I’m saying yes, and I’m glad you voiced it first.” I sober, then. “Are we…we’re not going to try and pretend this didn’t happen, are we?”
“I don’t think I can.”
“Neither can I.”
“But…just being totally honest—”
“You’re not sure you can emotionally handle a repeat,” I guess. “Or anything more.”
He sighs, nods, and rubs his beard with one hand. “Yeah.”
“But you still want to see me again?”
He nods. “Yeah.”
“So things are going to continue to be awkward, weird, and complicated.”
“I don’t know how to make it different.”
“Me either.” I put my hands on his shoulders. Lift up on my toes. Kiss his cheekbone, just above his beard line. “Then it’ll just be awkward, weird, and complicated.”
He accepts my kiss on his cheek, and then twists his face and suddenly we’re kissing again, and I’m on fire and tasting his tongue and whimpering—
“Dammit, dammit, dammit.” He pulls away abruptly. “Complicated. So fucking complicated.”
I touch my lips with two fingers. “Very complicated.”
“I have to go.” He growls this from across the room.
“Yeah, you do.”
Without another word, without a backward glance, he leaves. Out of my room, out of my house, out of my driveway. I stay in my room, sit on my bed, and try to figure out if I want to laugh or cry or do both.
That just happened.
I put my hands over my mouth and let myself have a girly moment—I scream, kick my feet, and laugh hysterically. Because that’s better than crying.
I need a shower: I’m still sticky…he missed a few spots when he was cleaning me up.
Never in any of my wildest, dirtiest wet dreams of James, ever, did I picture us doing what we just did. Even as a teenager, even in my promiscuous period, I never did anything that hot. That messy. It wasn’t sex, so what was it? Dirty. Hot. Impetuous. Like we just…didn’t have any chance of resisting the need to just touch each other.
God…
I need a shower, and then I need to talk to Audra.
Chapter 7
Audra shows up twenty minutes after James leaves, parking her slick little white Mercedes convertible in the driveway behind my truck, letting herself into my house. She’s dressed in shimmery, sparkly purple skintight workout shorts that only just barely cover her actual buttocks and give her mad camel toe. The shorts are paired with a violently yellow sports bra that looks painfully tight but still doesn’t do much to contain her naturally massive mammaries. Her shoes are an eye-watering barrage of bright colors, and her hair is twisted back in a scalp-tightening French braid. She’s coated in a sheen of sweat, and if I weren’t a completely and utterly avowed straight woman, I’d have a hard-on for her, to be honest.
I’m still in my bathrobe, or rather, in my bathrobe again because I took a shower. My hair is damp and brushed straight back, sticking to my neck. Audra rummages in my cabinets until she finds a glass, fills it with ice and water, and drains it, refills it, and then arches an eyebrow at me.
“So. The doctor is in, my dear,” she says. “Talk to me.”
I shake my head and sigh. “I don’t even know where to start.”
She smirks. “It’s the middle of the day and you just took a shower. Plus, you called me instead of Imogen or Laurel.” She takes a sip of her ice water. “You fucked James.”
