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The hum of a vibrating phone has all three of us patting our pockets to find whose is responsible. Tasha looks at her screen and then locks eyes with me, desperation filling her silent plea. I know she expects me to take one for the team—she wants me to distract Beck. I have no problem doing this. I’m eager for time with him in any way I can get it. If only Tasha knew how much I would suffer by keeping her hottie of a dad’s eyes focused on me. By suffer, I mean that ache inside while I try not to have my way with him on the garage’s futon in the time it takes Tasha to take her call…
She bats her lashes at me, holding the phone against her chest as she bounces from foot to foot. Desperation and the passion of new love have changed her. It is heartwarming to see her so wrapped up in someone.
“You owe me,” I mouth to Tasha. Really, I owe her. Looking up at Beck, I ask him about work. “Tasha said you are getting ready for a business trip.” As soon as he turns his attention to me, Tasha slips in the door to the house, leaving us alone. I hope ten minutes will be enough; I don’t know if I can trust myself with him longer than that.
I slide back under my project and install another of the mirrors, listening as he tells me about how he spent a week in India, delivering a shipment to a business partner there and volunteering some of his time in repairing an orphanage.
“You always were good with your hands.” I can’t stop the teasing huskiness to my words and am glad my heating cheeks are out of his view. I would love to see if he is as good with his hands in person as he has been in my dreams for the past decade.
“Beck, can you hand me another of the mirror plates from the box on your workbench?” I don’t wait for him to bring it before I grab the screws I’ll need to hold it in place. I scoot further back so that I’m in position and hold out my hand. It’s an effort to not stroke his fingers with mine as he settles the glass into my palm. For a wealthy CEO, he has not lost the hands of a man who worked his way to the top.
“Would it be rude of me to ask what the hell this is going to be?” Beck’s voice is rich with his smile, and I must admit I would ask the same if I weren’t the designer.
My fingers close around the grip of the electric screwdriver, and I fight to get this mirror shard into place. “I started off calling it ‘Disco ball, deconstructed.’ Now, though, I am leaning more towards ‘Eye of the Beholder.’ With the mirrors and everything, it’s something about how you see yourself is different than others do, because reflection and…” I trail off, having lost my train of thought as Beck strips off his jacket. His biceps strain the fabric of his button-down.
I clear my throat and continue, “I need to mount it on the plaque I already have hanging on the wall over there.” I use one foot to point at the painted canvas and wooden plaque I have hanging up with holes already drilled for the screws.
“This is the backside?”
I nod, then realizing he cannot see the motion, I confirm it verbally.
His chuckle is warm, and I imagine him making that sound again between my thighs before I can direct his mouth to my pussy. “Thank you for reassuring me that while I may be getting older, I’m not losing my vision or sense of design.” Beck squats down beside me, his hands resting on the nearest sawhorse to steady himself. “You’ve not changed much from the young girl who would disassemble broken appliances and turn them into water sprinklers.”
For a statement so full of nostalgia, the mixture of emotions rising in my chest prickle my eyes and surprise me. It is one thing to know that the man of your dreams is probably too old for you; it’s another to have him throw it in your face that you’re just a kid to him. I bite back the urge to cry or lash out in a temper. Those are not the ways to show him that I have grown up.
“That little girl,” I say instead, “grew up to take classes in mechanics, engineering, and art so that most of her art is also functional.” Slipping my fingers inside a hidden groove of the piece, I flip the switch of the hidden audio recorder. “Say something,” I prompt.
Beck is just low enough for me to see his eyes flash with mirth before he says “something” and smirks. His squatting position falters, almost landing on his well-formed ass, when he hears his voice playing back to us.
“That’s why I am going with a name referencing beauty being in the eye of the beholder. I thought I could fill the recorder’s storage space with affirmations about appearance as well as just existing.” I give the piece a once over, and deeming this stage done, I slide out.
“Do you need a hand up?” he asks.
I shake my head, roll off onto my knees and start to get up. The movement has my hair hiding my face at first, and I catch a glimpse of what looks like Beck peering down my gaping shirt. He turns his head away from me, cheeks flushing, and I let it slide. If he is going to play like that, sneak glimpses while hinting that I’m too young, I will make it into a game and see who wins.
I grab the nail gun and bend over to plug it into the power strip, wiggling my ass just a little in the process. A fast intake of breath from behind me gives the first point of the game to me.
“Where is your next business trip taking you?” I make my way back to the workspace and line up the nail gun tip with the dots I marked earlier. “Somewhere interesting?”
“Nowhere is that interesting when you’ll be surrounded by coworkers and strangers for several weeks. I’m making a few stops, but the bulk of my time is going to be spent with two larger clients and helping them straighten out some deals. It’s all boring stuff.”
Assuring him that I could never find what he says boring, least of all about a job he has so much heart in, I go back to my art. I want to finish it before going back home. The gun misfires on the fifth nail, the air compressor making a feeble puff before it goes dead.
“Fuck!” Instinct forces me to clap a hand over my mouth and apologize. “Sorry. I—”
He pulls my hand away, and I can almost taste his skin. “Fuck is most definitely an appropriate word choice. Is there any other way to do what you need without that? I can try to fix the compressor, but you’d be out a few hours of work most likely.”
The way he swore… I feel my panties getting damp at the sound of the word dropping from his lips. Warm, wet, and swollen from just his presence, it is an effort to not reach down and pull my jeans down a bit to avoid crushing my clit.
It takes me a minute, maybe two, to come up with a solution to the lack of a nail driver that doesn’t involve me using a hammer. “I managed to get all of one quadrant in before the compressor died. I can do something else for the other three. These are going to become flower petals. I’ll just use other things or be a bit more careful and use a hammer for the remaining ones. I have to hang this up on the base now, though. Do you mind if I use your ladder? I’m not quite tall enough to reach it and have the strength to manipulate it around from the ground.”
“Go ahead, Lia. I’ll get started on the compressor. I don’t know the last time I cleaned this off. It’s covered in grease.” He says it like I would mind watching him get all dirty.
I turn to reach for the step ladder and… Wow. The button-down has joined his jacket, and Beck is so muscular I cannot imagine the hours he must spend to keep that sort of physique. There is a faint scattering of hair across his pecs, and his nipples are rosy against his suntanned skin. My mouth waters, and I am an achy mess with the desire to lick and kiss my way down his body. There is a trail of slightly darker hair beneath his navel, disappearing behind his belt, and without the jacket I can see that he hangs to the left and is definitely not small.
“I thought you artist types were used to seeing shirtless men.” Beck sits down on the creeper board I had been on and tugs at the power plug for the air compressor.
“We are, but most of the male models we get in have a ‘dad bod,’ not umm… well, fashion magazine male model bodies.” I try not to stammer out the words, but I know I’m blushing. I think he’s earned at least two points in our game for this exchange.
To hide my embarrassment, I climb up on the ladder and finish readying the board to connect to the base of the sculpture. I will need to tweak the painting to fit the changed design, but that’s how art goes.
