Page 35 of Designed for Disaster

I looked into her eyes. “Better than here?” I huffed. “If I did, I wouldn’t have offered.”

She ducked her head, pulling her safety glasses on as she picked up a jigsaw. “I need to cut the circular design drawn into the board. If you could sort of rotate it as you’re bracing it, that would be great.”

I nodded. “Sure.”

I braced the board with both hands, shifting it slowly as Natasha cut through the wood. When she’d finished the circular cut, she had smaller shapes she needed to cut out of the center.

“Maybe better if I stand over here,” I said, coming around beside her. “Board’s wobbling too much over there.”

“Thanks,” she said as I stood close enough to smell her perfume. Or was it her shampoo? Either way, it was damn intoxicating, and my heart sped as I imagined pressing my face to her hair and inhaling the scent. At that moment, I was aware of everything—the little bump in her nose, the dimple beneath her lips, the fluttering of her dark eyelashes. And judging by her sharp intake of breath and the flush that blossomed across her face, she was aware of me too.

My mind went back to the church, wondering again what would have happened if Ihadkissed her there. I hadn’t been able to forget her body pressed against mine. And judging from that picture I’d caught her drawing in her office days ago, her mind had traveled similar paths. If we both wanted this, would it really be so wrong to see where it might lead? God knew ignoring my feelings wasn’t doing a damn thing to make them go away. My heart thundered in my chest.

“Ah!” I cried as I put my hand down on the table.

Natasha gasped. “What happened?”

I lifted my hand. In my daydreaming, I’d accidentally put it down on her spare jigsaw blade, the serrated edge cutting into my palm. “Damnit!” I swore under my breath.

“You’re bleeding.” She removed her safety glasses and put the jigsaw down.

“Not much,” I said. It did hurt like a son of a bitch, though.

“I have a first aid kit,” she said, already walking away.

Ugh, how mortifying. Now she’d think I was no better than a child who didn’t know when to not touch things. “Don’t bother,” I grumbled. “It’s fine. Really.”

“Don’t bleed on the project!” she called over her shoulder.

I rolled my eyes but curled my hand away from the wood, my palm throbbing.

“You don’t need stitches, do you?”

“It’s not that deep.” At least I didn’t think it was. “Seriously, I’ll go and get it checked out. You don’t have to worry.”

“So you can turn around and sue me?” she teased. She inclined her head toward a stool, carrying the first aid kit under her arm. “Sit down.”

I plopped down on the stool, laying my hand face-up on my knee. Natasha flipped open the kit and balled up a wad of gauze, pressing it against my palm. I winced.

“Hold that,” she said. “Keep the pressure till it stops bleeding. Then we’ll get it disinfected.”

A tiny smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. “Done this before?”

“Let’s just say there were growing pains when I decided to make power tools my hobby.”

I laughed, envisioning a young Natasha with bandages on every finger. When the bleeding stopped, she cleaned it up with some disinfectant wipes, then applied a fresh piece of gauze and wrapped it to keep everything in place. The sensation of her hands on my skin was addictive, as were her slow, delicate ministrations as she wove the fabric, her fingertips brushing over the back of my hand. It was almost worth getting injured. The space between us was suddenly charged, like we were like two magnets, opposite ends drawing close. I wanted to reach out and pull her to me.

Then my phone started buzzing. I grimaced. It was like the church all over again. I fished the phone out of my pocket with my good hand, ready to get truly annoyed if it was one of my parents pestering me again. But this time, Jimmy’s name flashed across the screen. I answered immediately.

“Jimmy, hey! I’ve been trying to reach…What’s wrong?” I asked, hearing him sob on the other end of the line.

Natasha frowned at me.

“Wait, hold on…just take a breath.” I got to my feet, looking for the keys to the truck. Where the hell had I put them? “Everything’s gonna be fine, okay? Whatever it is, it’s not the end of the world.”

That might have been the wrong thing to say because his sobs just got louder as he launched into a spiel that was mostly panicked noises and gurgles.

“I’m gonna be right there, okay?” I promised. “Just…wait for me at your dorm.”

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