Page 50 of Single-Minded
I held the box of donuts out for him to take while I set my phone and coffee out of the way. His eyes were still on me when I opened the box and took a chocolate cake donut.
He chose a maple-frosted, then set the box on the top of the nearby step ladder. “I suspected you were superhuman before. Now I have proof.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He took a bite. Once he swallowed, he said, “You don’t let anything stand in your way. If you want something, you go after it without a thought that it won’t work out.”
Was he talking about last night? When I’d tried to pull him into my bed?
I hid my cringe by taking another bite. I wandered to the side window and looked out at a pair of mourning doves hanging out in the grass near the bench as I ate the rest of my donut. Instead of savoring it, I was sidetracked by my thoughts, my embarrassment. I owed him an apology. He was helping me in so many ways, proving to be reliable to a fault, and how did I pay him back?
I shook my head, irritated with myself.
Once I finished my donut, I turned to West, who was leaning against the back wall. He popped in his last bite, watching me, as if he couldn’t quite trust me not to flirt or make another move.
I stepped toward him. “West?”
He peered down at me as he chewed.
Meeting his gaze, I said, “I’m sorry about last night. Drinking too much, needing help up the stairs at the inn, needing a ride home.” I closed my eyes momentarily, then opened them. “I’m sorry I tried to pull you into my bed.”
He swallowed and studied me intensely. Seconds ticked by, my body tensed, and I stopped breathing as I waited for him to say something.
He finally said, “I’m sorry I wasn’t in the position to let you pull me into your bed.”
His gaze didn’t waver, and my heart caught. Neither of us looked away for several seconds, our gazes locked. Was he saying he’d wanted to join me in bed? He had kissed the hell out of me in the boathouse.
He wasn’t in the position. Did that mean because of his job? Because I was drunk? Or something else?
Could I possibly overthink one single sentence any further?
I yanked my gaze away first, flustered as hell but trying not to show it. “Okay then,” I said. “So what’s the plan for the day? We’re doing the office first?”
West
More than twelve hours after Presley had shown up with donuts, I was ready to call it a day. The drywall was hung and the first coat of mudding done.
Presley had shocked me throughout the day with her determination and grit. I could tell the second she came in the door this morning that she was feeling last night’s liquor, but she hadn’t complained once. But I’d caught her taking Tylenol after lunch, and she had that morning-after disheveled, slightly off-kilter look to her.
Don’t get me wrong. She looked damn good in a thrown-together, woke-up-like-this way, with no makeup on her face and stray wisps of hair coming out of her ponytail. After a restless night filled with images of her in that pretty pink bed and regret that I couldn’t join her, I ached to run my hands all over her and dishevel her more.
Drywalling was hard-ass labor, but she’d been here the whole day, contributing in spite of the hangover she’d finally admitted to. I’d rented a lift yesterday, unsure how much help she’d be. She didn’t look particularly muscular, and I wouldn’t do a solo job without one.
To my surprise, she’d gone all in and turned out to be a worthy partner even though it was her first time drywalling. I’d taught her to measure for cutouts, to cut large sheets, and to hang them.
Presley had fed me well, going after carryout burgers from the diner for lunch and Humble’s pizza for dinner. We’d devoured a large pizza and a dessert of leftover donuts, sitting on the chairs we’d moved to the enclosed kitchen area, agreeing we didn’t like the fishbowl feeling of the front room once the sun went down.
Afterward, she’d stretched out on the floor, flat on her back, to relieve the back strain of drywalling for hours straight. I’d run across the square to the public restrooms and come back to find her still on the floor, sound asleep, her phone on her stomach.
I’d let her sleep and done the first coat of mud on the drywall. Mudding took experience to be able to use just the right amount, so I was content to take care of it myself while Presley rested. She’d more than earned it.
I mudded the office, the storage room, and the restrooms, saving the kitchen for last in case I woke her up. As I worked around her, the most she stirred was turning her head from one side to the other, allowing me unlimited views, from her delectable thighs I imagined wrapping around me, to her tempting belly button that I could just barely see where her tank crawled up, to those slightly parted lips I longed to dip my tongue between again.
My thoughts were consumed by her as I mudded, the culmination of last night’s dreams and working all day with her, on top of weeks of X-rated urges where she was concerned.
I’d hoped my desire for her would lessen as I got to know her, but it’d done the opposite. When I’d returned from the town square again, where I’d filled a bucket with water to clean my drywall tools, she finally stirred, sitting up drowsily, looking irre-fucking-sistible.
Maybe I just needed to give in to this incredible need pounding through me, spend a night with her, and get it out of our systems. A one-off to relieve the tension. What would it hurt if it meant I could move on with my life and stop losing sleep every damn night from erotic thoughts of her?
