Still, it was the fact that Charlie was Tig’s friend that had me ignoring my dick.
“I’m sorry I was a jerk,” he said.
She’d bent to start packing up her toolbox, but at my apology, she glanced up at me, eyes wide. “A sorry, just like that?”
Spine.
Yeah.
I liked this one.
My lips quirked. “Yup. No excuses. I was an asshole.” I shrugged. “Not out of the ordinary for me.”
The lid on the toolbox closed with a clank and she picked it up, started toward me. “The asshole or the no excuses?”
“Excuse me?”
Her chuckle, raspy and soft, slid down my skin. “Which isn’t out of the ordinary, Garret? Being an ass or not making excuses?” She stopped a couple of feet away, and I was suddenly glad I was in the doorway and blocking her exit, because this woman was more than curves and spine, talented hands and a pretty face. She was funny and smart and . . . I could see why she and Tig were friends.
I wanted to be her friend.
Okay, no. I wanted to strip her jeans off, lift her onto that displaced cabinet, and eat her pussy like it was my last meal, but I’d already been enough of a jerk. I wasn’t going to make a pass.
Even though I could almost taste the sweet tang of her on my tongue.
She’d smelled like coconut when she’d walked in and—
Charlie took another step closer, indicating with her toolbox that she wanted to get by, but I pretended not to see it. Longing was surging through me and not just through my cock. She was the most interesting person I’d met in ages and—
“Well,” she said, inching nearer. “I’m going to go to bed.”
The tropics hit my nose.
Even wet from the burst pipe, the air heavy and damp around us, the multitude of fans blowing that scent toward us, I could still smell her.
Uh-oh.
“It’s both,” I blurted.
“What?”
“It’s both,” I said. “I don’t make excuses, and I’m often an asshole.”
Red lips tilting up at the edges. “Noted.”
Fuck, I wanted to kiss that mouth.
“Garret?”
“Hmm?”
“I want to go to bed,” she said. “And I’m guessing you do, too.”
Yeah, I did. With her. I clenched my hands into fists to keep from reaching for Charlie. “Yeah.”
“Um, I kind of need you to move so I can do that.”
Yeah, she did.
“Oh, shit, sorry,” I muttered, straightening off the doorframe so she could get by. But as she zigged, I zagged, and the end result was her jabbing me in the thigh hard with her toolbox. “Ow,” I gasped, grabbing the aching limb.
“Shit!” The toolbox hit the floor. “Oh, no. Now I’m the one who’s sorry.” She dropped to her knees, I was guessing to get a closer look at the damage, but the moment her lips came that close to my cock, I wasn’t feeling any pain anymore. Or at least, none that her mouth couldn’t solve.
“Are you bleeding?” she asked. “That corner is sharp. Actually, I just cut my hand on it yesterday.” Her words were fast and furious. “I need to buy a new one, but I haven’t wanted to spend the money, and—”
She froze, hands spanning my thigh, my cock just inches away from her lips.
Fuck, it would be so easy to just unzip and guide her forward—
I reached down, put my hands under her armpits and tugged her to her feet. “I’m fine. Stand up already.” So maybe the words were a little gruff and yanking her up wasn’t the most chivalrous move, but I mean, I was trying not to be an asshole here, and it was already well-established how difficult that was for me.
“I—” She bit her lip. “I’m going.”
“Yeah.” I nodded.
She started to bend again, but I stopped her. “I’ve got it.”
“I—” Her words broke off in a short exhale, and that was the moment I knew she felt it, too. Because I’d been trying to save my own self-control by not allowing her to fall to her knees in front of me again—and no, at that moment, I didn’t think to just shift to the side to prevent it. I didn’t have enough blood left in my brain to be that rational. However, while I stopped Charlie from kneeling in front of me, I’d inadvertently reversed our positions.
And, frankly, it was a hell of a position to be in.
Especially, when she was glancing down at me with hooded eyes.
I wrapped my fingers around the metal handle and stood with the toolbox in my hand. Charlie’s breathing hitched. “You’ve . . . um . . . got . . .” Her fingers brushed my temple, and she held up a piece of lint.
My pulse picked up, that smallest bit of contact a lightning rod through my body.
“Thanks,” I murmured.
Her lips parted. “S-sure.”
But neither of us moved.
Instead, I stared into those pretty blue eyes and imagined how they’d darken if I kissed her, how her mouth would feel against mine, how soft her skin would be, how her scent would wrap around us both—
“Charlie!”
In unison, we both whipped to face the voice in the hall. Tig was walking in, wearing a much nicer shirt than I’d seen him leave the tattoo parlor in earlier. Delia was a few strides behind him, body encased in a killer dress, a worried expression on her face.
I clenched my free hand into a fist, opened my mouth, and—
“Hey,” Charlie said, slipping past me and closing the distance between us and Tig. “That pipe decided to give way a little sooner than either of us expected, huh?” Her voice was relaxed, no sign of the heat and sexual tension I was feeling. So, I was either imagining things, or she was just really good at throwing a mask up and deflecting.
For obvious reasons, I preferred to believe the second.
“Good thing Garret was here,” Tig said, lifting his chin in my direction. “He saved us from coming in tomorrow to a huge mess.”
“Dumb luck.” I shrugged. “For once, I’m glad I forgot my cell at my station.”
Tig grinned. “I’ll take lucky over good any day.”
“So says the tattoo artist,” Charlie quipped. “Maybe not what a prospective client wants to hear.”
Delia scoffed. “Yeah, right. You’d never deface that virgin skin with a tattoo from Tig.”
Charlie laughed.
“Rude,” Tig said, tugging on the end of Charlie’s ponytail. “You know I’ll wear you down one of these days.” Charlie just shook her head with a smile. “And you”—narrowed eyes at the woman he loved—“that was—”
Delia kissed Tig on the cheek. “You know I love you.”
Slice.
Fuck. I’d had that once—or thought I had, anyway—and now I had . . . a boner and an empty bed.
Cool.
Cheers to happy memories.
Stifling a sigh since I was suddenly feeling way too emo for my own good, I slipped by the happy couple and started picking up the remaining wet towels. I’d had a year to get over this, a year to move on with my life and not be so fucking pathetic.
“Oh,” Delia said, reaching out as though to stop me. “Garret, you don’t have—”