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He snorted. “Then don’t touch it.”
He went back to banging nails, and I kept looking at that ridge of muscled flesh until I couldn’t help myself.
I reached out and touched it.
He stopped midswing, his hammer poised midair, as I slowly walked my fingers along the line as far as I could go. Up and down. Up and down.
I wished that I could…
“If you go any lower, then we’re going to be doing something while I have plaster dust all over me. And I know you have a thing with textures,” he supplied helpfully.
I felt my lips twitch at his words.
Then I felt my face flame as his words finally sank in and started to make sense.
“You want to do those kinds of things with me?” I asked, following the ridged line until it disappeared into his jeans.
He was wearing a tool belt.
Normally, I would think that’s not the kind of thing that would turn me on, but there I was. The belt was definitely doing it for me.
“And dirt, sawdust, and that kind of thing don’t bother me. Normally, it’s something that’s on an inanimate object, like a piece of board, or a pipe, or a car with a messed-up back fender. That kind of thing. Not dirt and debris,” I admitted.
“So you’re saying”—he holstered his hammer into the loop at his waist—“that if I wanted to take you right now, you’d be okay with it?”
By the time he’d finished his sentence, he was all but turned sideways on his ladder, allowing me to see everything at eye level.
His abs. His entire Adonis belt. His bulging jeans.
Yeah… about that orgasm I almost gave myself this morning in his bed… I should’ve done that.
What was I thinking?
“Umm,” I replied intelligently. “What was the question again?”
I reached out for the other side of his stomach, this time running my finger along the other outer edge until it reached his jeans.
This time, though, I snuck it down just a little bit.
And all but gasped when my finger encountered something soft and spongy.
I closed my eyes as I yanked my hand back.
I knew what that was.
I wasn’t an idiot.
I just hadn’t expected it to be so big… or squishy.
Oh, fuck. I wanted to touch it again.
I squeezed my eyes shut even tighter.
“I know that look,” Etienne laughed jovially. “You want to touch it again, don’t you?”
I did. I really, really did.
If I could get a replica of that spongy material and carry it around all day squishing it between my fingers, I would.
I’d carry it in my pocket. I’d pull it out and squeeze it so much…
“I’ll let you. For a price,” he teased.
A price? What kind of price?
“What kind of price?” I asked carefully.
I’d never had sex.
I’d never wanted to have sex.
People didn’t want to have sex with weirdos, no matter how pretty they were.
And I wasn’t deluding myself. I was pretty. But that prettiness didn’t negate the weirdness in people’s minds.
I’d fooled around with people. I’d considered having a one-night stand. I’d thought long and hard about going out to a bar somewhere, hiding my weirdness for a night, and just doing it. Like ripping off a Band-Aid.
But then, I thought about how I wanted my first time to go. How I wanted it to be with someone I trusted. Someone who would look at me and think that I was the best thing in the world. Not a pity fuck that would one day leave me just as fast as he’d entered my life.
And at this point, I wasn’t able to see where Etienne would take this.
I wasn’t sure if Etienne was just someone I’d built up in my head, and the real him wasn’t that great at all.
Because I’d done that before.
Like my father, for instance.
For years, I’d told myself that my father was the best person in the world.
Then I slowly started to realize that, just because he took responsibility for me after my mom died, didn’t make him a great person. It made him a father, and he was responsible for his actions.
I didn’t want to be anyone’s responsibility.
I wanted to be their passion. Their first choice. Their main reason for breathing.
What I did not want to be was the person that they hung around because they were forced to.
Not that I’d noticed any of that going on with Etienne.
I more or less didn’t want to notice any of that.
Didn’t want to see him as anything but the perfect person he’d turned out to be.
“I don’t know what you’re thinking,” Etienne said softly. “But whatever it is has to be bad. And I’d never force you to do anything bad, despite the way it looks.”
I blinked. “The way it looks?”
“Me being an ex-con,” he answered. “I wasn’t in prison for that.”
That being forcing a woman, I assumed.
I looked at him, waited until he was looking into my eyes, then rolled mine.
