I kneeled on the hard concrete floor in the back kitchen, a stack of tiles beside me and a trowel in hand. I’d already laid the first two rows, they weren’t perfect by any means, but they were mine.
Steady and square.
The front bell jingled from the other room, and I didn’t need to see who it was to know it was Tanner.
My skin tingled with awareness as his boots sounded heavily across the new hardwood floor in the front. They were purposeful. Calm. Even.
When I was anything but.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what he said right before he left the community center a few hours ago.
I’m going to relieve some pent-up sexual tension before I go spend the evening at the bakery. I’ll see you there, Goldie.
My dirty mind couldn’t focus on anything but the mental images of Tanner Brooks, stroking himself, thinking of me and coming so he could be level-headed before he showed up to work with me tonight.
Why was the idea of that so damn hot?
When he rounded the corner and saw me bent over on all fours, his lips quirked up into a smirk that nearly undid me. He looked so damn good. His worn jeans fit his long legs just right, paired with the tattered pair of work boots that meant he not only looked the part, but did the work. Don’t even get me started on the way his black shirt stretched across his enormous chest and biceps, making me wonder if he could pick me up and throw me around easily or not. “I figured you’d be halfway done,” he said, rolling up his sleeves. “You always work like someone’s chasing you.”
“I am being chased,” I said, setting another tile. “By deadlines. Insurance adjusters. Lost revenue. Lost wages for my employees. The list goes on.”
He crouched next to me, brushing my wrist as he reached for a tile. I felt that touch in places that had no business reacting to something so casual.
“Then let me help,” he said. “I came to work.”
I bit my lip, “Work. Got it.”
He said nothing else for a while, and neither did I. The silence felt so unbelievably natural and easy with him. I was a chatty chick by nature, but working these long hours at Tanner’s side, we’d fallen into a peaceful ease that I didn’t feel with anyone else. Not even Jasper.
We tiled close enough that our shoulders bumped occasionally, and his leg brushed mine more than once. The first time was probably an accident. The second? Not so much. The third—he didn’t even try to move away, though.
“I liked your smart mouth tonight,” I said eventually, back buttering a tile, “With Rhea.”
He chuckled low. “You mean when she called me out for getting hard for you.”
My pussy throbbed at his dirty words. “I meant the part where it seemed like you liked her looking.” I teased.
He didn’t deny it.
We kept working in tandem, and slowly the energy shifted. The kind of slowness that felt like the air thickened with it. Heat pooled in my belly, and every breath felt weighed down with everything we hadn’t said out loud yet.
Then, his hand slid over mine.
Not by mistake. I looked over and found his eyes already on me. Dark. Focused. Waiting.
“And if I did?” He asked, going back and mentioning Rhea’s comment about his erection. “It’s not very gentlemanly.”
I licked my lips, and his eyes zeroed in on them. “I don’t think I mind you not being a gentleman all the time, Tanner. I think I like when you get hard for me in public and tell me that you’regoing to jack off for me.” My heart hammered in my chest from my boldness, but I kept going. Tanner was safe, and I knew I could be honest with him. “I like it even more when you act like you don’t hate Rhea all that much either.”
He didn’t hesitate or balk at my confession.
Tanner surged forward, one hand on the back of my neck, the other sliding over the back of my thigh as he lifted me off the floor in one fluid move. Before I even registered the move, he set me down on the cool surface of the stainless-steel prep table against the wall.
I gasped as the cool metal chilled my ass through my overalls. And then he was kissing me.Reallyfreaking kissing me. He kissed me through my gasps, as if he could swallow the sound and make it even better.
His mouth was everything I imagined it would be, exactly like in my dreams. Soft lips, demanding tongue, rough hands. It was the kind of kiss that saidyou’re mine, right now,even if nothing past this moment was promised.
“Tanner—” I breathed between kisses. “There’s something I have to tell you.”