And I really do. Always have. He’s in a deliciously tight white muscle shirt, his toolbelt over his faded old jeans. He’s got a baseball cap on. Construction boots. Even the red carpenter pencil tucked behind his ear is sexy.
Watching him concentrate, make decisions, watching those muscles move as he stretches, squats, bends over, and carries heavy stuff…yum.
It’s extra fun watching him do this, because he’s making me bookshelves for not only my book collection, but also the additional twenty-odd books that he gifted me. I’ve always thought he was good with his hands and now I know what he can do with them on an intimate basis, giving me an even deeper appreciation.
“Since your parents didn’t give you a middle name when you were born, I think I’m going to give you one. Dexter.”
He frowns. “My middle name is Robert, babe.”
“Is it?” I ask. “Hm. I can’t believe I never knew that. I think Dexter makes more sense.”
“Because?”
“Dexterity.”
He gives me half a smile while writing something on a piece of wood with his pencil and tucking it behind his ear again. He’s missing my point, I guess.
“You are dexterous,” I point out, wiggling my eyebrows. “Quite dexterous.” I wiggle my fingers.
He throws his head back and laughs.
“Finally, he gets my meaning.”
My new chair is in the master bedroom right now. It’s way too large to fit out here with the amount of building materials and tools required for this project.
He’s already gotten my input on his plan, which I absolutely love. The shelving will be built all around the front window, going straight up to snug into the outline of the roof peak so we’ll have some partial and shorter shelves right up to the ceiling. He’ll be putting my chair in front of that window and since the foot of it will nearly touch the banister overlooking the stairs, blocking the way to the other rooms, he talked about upgrading the window to make it a bump-out, giving us more space. We don’t really need easy access to those rooms for the time being, but I like the way he thinks. And this quickly escalated to Jase offering to also put a small second floor balcony off that window so I can opt to read inside or outside.
I told him he didn’t have to go through such an enormous project, especially since we have a front porch and a back deck already, both of which are excellent outdoor reading spaces, but after seeing how excited I got at the notion, he insisted and admittedly, I’m stoked.
“What color do you like the most?” I ask, examining the wood stain palette in my hand.
“Told you already, doesn’t matter to me. Pick the stain you like the most.”
“But what if the one I like today isn’t the one I’ll like in a few years. I should pick something timeless. Something that matches the stain on the banister. Or some washable white paint like I have on the bookshelves at my parents’. Then I can do it myself and white goes with everything.”
“Not unless you want them white. Then I’ll do the painting. And if you want to change it later, I’ll strip and re-stain them, paint them, I’ll even be-fucking-dazzle them if that makes you happy.”
He uses his circular saw to cut another piece of wood.
I laugh at the notion of bedazzling. I got a bedazzling gun for my tenth birthday and bedazzled the heck out of my room, clothes, shoes, and even my backpack. Jase gave me so much shit for it back then.
When the machine stops buzzing, I say, “That’s an awful lot of work.”
“Not if it’s something that’ll make you happy. That makes it my honor.”
I know I’m now wearing a goofy smile, but with the way he’s looking at me, I don’t even care. I can be my goofy, dorky self all the time with him. I can be entirely justmewith him. What a feeling.
“This is a big job. You should call some of the council guys. Save some time.”
“Nope,” he denies. “These shelves are one of my mating gifts to you. They’re being doneentirelyby me. I’ll have it all together as fast as I can while making sure I don’t half-ass it.”
“You don’t half-ass anything, Jase,” I tell him with honesty.
And the burning look in his eyes has me thinking he’s fighting the urge to abandon the project and show me just how thorough he can be.
He let the delivery guys carry my chair upstairs but trucked the wood up the stairs himself. He made way too many trips and didn’t even get winded. Of course I told him to call Grey or one of the other guys for help, but he refused. He also flatly refused to let me carry a single thing up the stairs. He wants this project to be 100% all him for me and it’s so flippin’ sweet I could just melt.
“You don’t have to rush,” I tell him.