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“I would agree to eat dirt in order to get you naked. That doesn’t mean I’m actually going to remember later, or that I’ll eat the dirt.”
“Duly noted. So will you go up on the roof today and look at the pop-out over the Sarasota room?”
“Sure. It’s supposed to rain later on, so I’ll get up there after I meet with Leo this morning.”
Carson and Leo had made a lot of headway on the shoe factory over the winter. If everything went the way it was supposed to, Carson would start shoring up the foundation in the fall, handle the renovations on the interior over the long winter, and wrap up cosmetic improvements in the spring. By this time next year, the place might have tenants, all of them part owners with an investment in the community. Leo’s girlfriend, Samantha, was talking about opening a second location of her successful Albany restaurant, and there was talk of studio and gallery space for local artists.
“Are you on the dome at all today?”
“No, I have to give that test patch a few weeks to see what it does in the weather. I’m supposed to take the historical-society ladies up to look at it next Friday, and if they approve, the bank will let me finish the restoration.”
“I can’t believe they’re being so fussy. It’s not like it looks good now. How much worse do they think it will look if you screw it up?”
“I’m not going to screw it up.”
“I know that.” She kissed him. “But not everybody has as much faith in you as I do.”
“They should when it comes to this kind of stuff.”
“They should when it comes to every kind of stuff.”
He gave her a crooked smile. “I’m glad you think so.”
His hands fell to her hips, and he tugged her between his legs on the barstool and kissed her again, soft for a moment, then more seriously as one hand smoothed over her butt. More urgently as he began to stir in his jeans, hardening in time with the throbbing between her legs.
“I bought you a present last time I went to New York.” He nipped her ear.
“What kind of present?”
“The kind we have to keep on the top shelf of the closet where the kids can’t find it.”
They didn’t have any kids, but she got his drift.
He thumbed her nipple through her bra. “What’s your day look like? Got an hour for me?”
She had fifteen people eating breakfast and waiting for her to bring out muffins and butter. Not to mention that Martin could walk in at any moment. He treated her kitchen like his own.
She had rooms to clean and guests to talk to, a delivery of donated baby layettes to take to the hospital, and leftover fudge and brownies that she was supposed to drop off at the VFW.
She had an insanely hot husband who had bought her a sex toy.
A woman as busy as Julie knew how to set priorities.
“Two o’clock.”
“Sooner.”
“Your meeting—?”
“It’s not ’til ten thirty. Come upstairs at nine.”
“All right.”
When she stepped back and away from him, lest he talk her into sneaking upstairs and abandoning the guests midbreakfast, something about the posture he settled into caught her eye.
He had both feet hooked in the rung of the stool. One elbow sitting on the countertop, his hand resting under his chin. He was smiling at her, and he looked gorgeous and familiar and deeply, astonishingly dear.
But that wasn’t it.
