Page 29 of Man Hands
After I sendmy RESCUE ME text to Sadie and Ash, Tom grabs my hand and motions for me to follow him across his shiny marble floors and into the basement. It occurs to me to wonder whether there’s some kind of Fifty Shades of Dungeon down there, but thankfully,there’snot.
Although I wouldn’t mind having Tom as a slave, rubbing my feet. While wearing nothing but a tie. That. Would.Be.Hot.
We whip by some unfinished rooms. This house may be a mansion, but it’s all cold. Not just the floors, but the walls and the ceiling and the perfect accessories and the perfectly placed splashes of color. It’s like walking quietly through the pages of a magazine. It’s a little bit eerie, to tell thetruth.
After an hour, and maybe that’s an exaggeration, he takes me into this tunnel. I shit you not. And we end up in the boathouse. Yes.TheBoathouse.
I start tohyperventilate.
“Are you hyperventilating?”heasks.
Fuck.
He digs around and hands me a paper bag. Tom is an absolute boy scout. I control my breathing while remembering that night when we fucked at first sight. It’d be a purely amazing memory if I couldn’t now envision the creeper outside the window with their phone. To make sure there isn’t an actual creeper there now, I peek out, but we’re safe. And while I did all of that, Tom has rattled around a bit and tosses something slightly damp and bulky over my shoulders. Then he starts zipping me up and tying me into it. See? FiftyShades!
Or a lifejacket.
“After the night we’ve had, I just want to be extra safe,” he says. I agree. If ever there was a night when I’d be struck by lightning in a watercraft, it would betonight.
I look at the sleek wooden boat or yacht or what have you, and my eyes get a littlemisty.
“Is that—?” I can’t finish the sentence. He’s going to whisk me away in that? Hell yes! It’s all my wildest BBC fantasies come true, but first I need to toss water over him so his shirt is sticking to him and I can see his Man Chest through the wonderfully transparentshirt…
“Ah, no,” he whispers. “That.” He points. To an actual blow-updinghy.
And naturally I giggle at the phrase “blow-updinghy.”
“It’s not very romantic,” he says, “but honestly, I’m a prettypracticalguy.”
He’s practical, gorgeous, and he can lift a dinghy with his barehands!
I giggleagain.
We tiptoe to the beach and he gently slides the dinghy into the water. He offers me his hand and I gingerly step in, then almost fall over because me and coordination do not mix. “Whoa!” he says and steadies me with those Man Hands of his. Then he says, “Shhhhh,” and we both go still and quiet, listening for any prowling paparazzi, but there aren’t any. Or if they’re prowling, they’re upstairs peeking into windows. There are a lot of windows at his mansion, so we should be good for a while. I sit down, and he gives the boat a shove and nimblyjumpsin.
For a moment we just glide across the water, then he begins to paddle, the oar dipping into the water with a plop. Then there’s a slight whoosh of water and the lapping of the waves. The stars twinkle in the sky above us, and any minute I am certain there’s going to be a crab popping up and singing to ustokiss.
Too much Disney in my life. No wonder I’m not the practical one in thisdinghy.
I sit there quietly, trying to wrap my head around the night’sadventures.
I should be feeling all sorts of things right now. And I am, just not the things you’d expect. I should be mad at him for the video and pissed at whoever posted it and terrified that I’m looking for a job while my ass is getting splashed all over theinternet.
But what I really feel? Right now in this moment, in the center of the lake, with Tom rowing me to safety? I feel…content. Ifeelsafe.
I never felt safe with Steve. With him, I felt like I was a weight clinging to his legs, trying to pull himunder.
I clear my throat because I’m sad again all of a sudden. And this lifejacket ischafingme.
We make it to the other side of the lake without sinking, and really, without saying a word. When we pull up, an SUV flashes its lights twice. There’s a pause, and then Ash does that whisper-shout thing of “WE’REHERE!”
“GOT IT!” I whisper-shout back. Then they flash the lights three more times in case I’ve had a brain injury in the last tenseconds.
“Okay, then,” I say. I’m not sure what to do. We’d had a fun time, he got me all heated, I was traumatized by that video, and now I’m on the beach of Reed’s Lake making my quick escape. “See ya,” I offer lamely and turn toward Ash, Sadie, and thebabies.
“Hey! Wait!” he says, and my heart does alittlejump.
I turn to himandwait.
