Page 17 of Dirty Work

“You won’t.” He takes my free hand in his and squeezes. I expect him to release it, but he laces his fingers with mine and holds tight, his thumb tracing distracting patterns on the back of my hand.

I lean against the vanity to steady myself and lift the razor to his face, running it slowly, carefully down one cheek. For the next few minutes, the only sounds in the bathroom are the soft scrape of the blade and our increasingly ragged breathing. It’s the most intimate, sensual, erotic thing I’ve ever done. Counting yesterday in his kitchen.

“Turn your head,” I order when the side of his face closest to me is clean-shaven.

He does, but on the way around his gaze snags mine again, piercing me with white-hot shards of desire. “I’m starting to think dislocating my shoulder is the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Nightingale.”

“Nightingale?” I’ve been called a lot of things but a bird known for its powerful and beautiful song isn’t one of them. I’m guessing that’s because I’m tone deaf. The only thing you’ll catch me singing is “Love Shack”on the occasional karaoke night with the gals in my darts league, and that’s only after a minimum of two drinks and a whole lot of prodding from my posse.

“As in Florence,” Jake explains, mischief waring with the desire in his dark eyes. “My own personal, private duty nurse.”

“Executive concierge,” I correct, my voice so thick with need I barely recognize it.

Tentatively, I rinse the razor, then silently slide it down his stubbled cheek. The air between us is hot and heavy with sexual tension as I continue the process—rinse, scrape, rinse, scrape—until his skin is smooth.

“There.” I trade the razor for a towel and hand it to him. “All done.”

“Not quite.” He pats his face dry and tosses the towel into the sink.

“Do you need my help with something else?”

“You could say that.”

He stands, and I try but can’t suppress a little gasp at the huge erection tenting the towel still miraculously clinging to his waist.

“So you see the problem.”

I’d have to be blind not to.

He hooks a thumb under the towel, and it slips down a little lower. Seriously, at this point it has to be divine intervention holding that thing up.

“Any idea what to do about it?” he asks, his voice as rough and needy as mine.

Oh, I’ve got a few. All of them delicious and dirty. The question is, will I stick around long enough to do any of them? Or am I going to chicken out and run away?

Again.

He must sense my hesitation, because his expression gets all serious and he takes a step back, putting some space between us. “Look, I don’t want to pressure you. But unless I’m way off base, I’m not the only one who’s horny as hell right now.”

I think about lying. But he’s not blind, either, and my body’s telling a different story. I glance down at my chest. My nipples are practically poking holes through my Keep Calm and Be a Unicorn T-shirt. There’s no way he’s missing that.

“You’re not way off base,” I rasp. “But...”

He closes the gap between us and touches a finger to my lips, silencing me. “If there’s one word I hate almost as much asno, it’sbut. We’re two consenting adults who want to jump each other’s bones. What’s wrong with that?”

I shoot a worried glance at his sling. “What about your shoulder?”

“The last time I checked, that’s not the appendage I need for what I have in mind.”

As if to prove his point, he uses his good arm to pull me to him, the evidence of his arousal pressing against my belly. I let myself relax into him, my reasons for resisting becoming dimmer and dimmer by the second.

“Does that mean what I think it means?” he asks, the hand on my back dropping down to cup my ass.

“That depends.” I’m hot everywhere, the ache between my legs sharpening into a persistent, almost painful throbbing. “What do you think it means?”

“I think it means you want me to do this.”

But before I can find out what “this” is, the tinny tones of Men at Work’s “Who Can It Be Now” ring out from the bedroom, making me tense in his arms.