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Hunter sniffed and inspected his fingernails. “What can I say? Early childhood trauma has devastating effects.”
Jesus. Why was I so damned attracted to this smart-ass? He was hot as hell and annoying as fuck, but somehow, being annoying just made him hotter. I imagined putting my hand over his face to shut him up while sinking to my knees to suck him off.
Maybe there was something wrong with me. Maybe the tight turkey costume had cut off blood flow to my brain. Or maybe my brain had been scrambled since the first time I’d looked at Hunter, back when we were kids, and thought, “Yes. Him.”
“Whatever. Let’s finish this.” I took a step away and peeled the costume off, leaving me bare to the waist. The cold air inside the cavernous barn hit the skin of my arms and chest, making me shiver… and reminding me I’d left my jeans, shirt, and hoodie in the side-by-side I’d borrowed from my uncle to drive over here this morning. “Ideally before I freeze to death. Would you mind getting my clothes out of the side-by-side?”
But Hunter didn’t move. His eyes were as wide as I’d ever seen them as he stared at my brown-tights-covered… giblets… which only served to make them mutually interested in his gaze.
“You’re wearing tights,” he said in a squeaky voice.
I dropped my hands down to cover myself. “Obviously! You’re the one who gave me this costume. If I hadn’t worn the tights, my legs would have frozen off.”
The heat of his gaze seared my ass, and a strange noise escaped his throat. “But you’re only wearing… and there isn’t… I can practically see your…”
“My clothes, please?” I huffed impatiently. “Anytime you’re ready.”
Once again, he didn’t respond, but this time, the sound of his boot heels striking the bare wood floor indicated his agreement. I waited for his return, trying not to shiver in the November air. When my clothes landed in a pile on the floor in front of me, I wanted to turn and scowl. Instead, I made a production of leaning over and displaying my ass in as sexy a way as stripping off thick brown tights would allow. When another strangled noise escaped his throat, I hid a smug grin.
Take that, turkey-freak.
As soon as I had my clothes on, I turned around in time to catch sight of Hunter’s ruddy cheeks. Knowing he was at least a little bit affected by me despite his anger was gratifying. It was nice not to be the only one in this predicament.
When he caught me looking, Hunter coughed and immediately became engrossed in the giant industrial sander, flipping switches and turning dials on the controls with all the frowning concentration of a man attempting a lunar landing.
“You do know how to use this, right?” I asked once he’d flipped the same switch off and on three times.
He glanced up at me, blinked, and then looked back down at the sander like he wasn’t sure how it had gotten there or why he’d been touching it. Then he frowned again and reached down to unplug it while his face went even redder.
“Uh. Floor refinishing novice here.” I hooked a thumb at my own chest. “But I think you need electricity to make it work.”
“Thank you, genius, but we’re not using this machine,” he said without looking at me. “Most of the floor’s already sanded. What’s left are all the edges and fiddly bits where the machine can’t reach. Those need to be sanded by hand.”
I looked at the giant space, this time noticing how many corners, columns, pipes, and other obstructions stuck out of the floor. The majority of the wood was a dull, grayish-white, but a two-inch border around each obstruction was dark with dirt and age.
I groaned. No wonder Hunter was willing to pay two grand to get a sucker to help do the job. “Do you have a cushion I can use? It’s the least you could do if you want me to spend an hour on my knees for you.”
My comment had been totally innocent, but when it made Hunter’s blush turn a truly concerning shade of red, I quickly realized how he’d interpreted it.
Before I could open my mouth to correct myself, he strode over to a folding table that held random piles of supplies and equipment before returning with a pair of knee pads and a cordless palm sander. He held them out to me, still not meeting my gaze. “Use these,” he said gruffly. “There are extra batteries on the table.”
I stared after him as he returned to the table to get his own pair of knee pads and palm sander. I’d never wanted to pick a fight as badly as I did right then, if only to make him look at me. A thousand snarky comments piled up behind my teeth, and my hands gripped the sander way tighter than necessary. But then I imagined my mother raving about the Waldorf’s cucumber water if Hunter “Bird-Obsessed” Jackson let it slip that I’d spent my afternoon fighting instead of working, and I managed to hold myself back.
