Page 31 of Single-Minded
“I liked it,” she said confidently. “But I don’t want you to lose your job?—”
“I wouldn’t lose my job.” Levi would have something to say about it, but he wouldn’t can me.
I thought about explaining the promotion I was working toward, but I kept it to myself. A raise of a few thousand bucks a year might be life-changing to me, but that money wouldn’t mean a thing to her. Not to a woman who’d paid cash for a lakeshore home.
She stepped closer, putting us mere inches apart. I held my ground. Hell, I was dying to pull her into me and do it all over again, but I was a grown damn adult. I could control my urges. Most of the time.
“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” she said, “but it seems like we could have fun together.” Her brows shot up with the word fun. “Off the clock, of course. And no one would have to know.”
She hit the garage door button to close it, then opened the door we’d come in through. She flicked a flirty smile at me, and it was all I could do to keep my hands at my sides and not yank her back into me.
“The decision is yours, West,” she said as she headed out into the sunshine.
I stood there, stunned for a few seconds, then went up the last two steps and out the door. I knew damn well what the right thing to do was, and I was determined to do it—to keep my hands off her.
But I sure as hell was gonna have problems keeping my mind on the job for the rest of the day as I tried to wipe away the memory of what it felt like to kiss her.
Chapter Nine
Presley
I’d just taken out all the pieces of my assembly-required bookshelf and spread them around me in my temporary second-story home office when I heard the construction guys drive off Thursday afternoon. I glanced at the time and was surprised it was going on five p.m. I’d been assembling my new office furniture for hours.
I tried not to be disappointed that the crew hadn’t checked in before leaving. Yeah, who was I kidding? West was the one I was disappointed about and not for professional reasons.
That kiss yesterday in the boathouse? It’d been more than twenty-four hours, and I still got light and fluttery inside whenever I thought about it. The feel of his strong hands on me, the way he lifted me as if I weighed nothing, and the kiss itself… It was commanding and decisive yet somehow tender at the same time. It’d been a tantalizing taste of what West could do to me.
I wanted more.
I’d left the ball in his court as we exited the boathouse, but it appeared he wasn’t going to take me up on my offer. Wasn’t even going to discuss the offer. There’d been a good morning and a project update first thing when he’d arrived but nothing personal.
We’d been business as usual ever since, with me looking hard for signs from him but seeing none. I would respect his wishes, but I could’ve sworn the connection between us was incendiary. I’d never had such a reaction to a man before, and all we’d done was kiss.
Maybe it was just that he was different from my usual type, which according to Chloe was more of a metrosexual, suit-wearing intellectual than a burly guy who worked with his hands. I couldn’t lie. Those hands of West’s intrigued me and heated up my middle-of-the-night fantasies as I imagined what he could do to my body with them.
These thoughts weren’t helping anything right now, so I shut them down.
As I took inventory of the multiple mini plastic bags of screws and pieces on the floor in front of me, the inside door to the garage below shut loudly. I sat up straighter, trying to discern whether someone had come in or gone out.
“Presley?”
At the sound of West’s voice, my pulse raced. He hadn’t left after all.
“I’m upstairs,” I called, glancing at the mess of slats, screws, and instructions between me and the door. “Come on up.”
When his footsteps reached the top of the stairs, I said, “I’m in here.”
He filled the doorway, his brows popping up as he took in the three pieces of furniture I’d already assembled, as well as the mess I was sitting in the middle of. “Hey.”
“Come on in. Sit down if you want.” I pointed at my brand-new desk chair.
He shook his head. “I’m dirty and sweaty. Don’t want to ruin anything.”
An image flashed into my head of taking him into the bathroom, peeling off his clothes, sticking him under the shower, and stepping in with him to slowly, thoroughly scrub him clean…
“Is this what you’ve been doing all afternoon?” he asked, snapping me out of my thoughts. He walked over to the L-shaped desk I’d assembled and placed in front of the small window that looked out on the driveway. “Putting furniture together?”
“Yes. I didn’t realize it was so late.”
