Oh boy.
“Can you grab the light?” I asked, shoving down the sensation.
Tig’s friend. Delia’s friend.
Not mine.
Not—
She froze, stepped in front of me, and crossed her arms, circling back to the topic at hand—the bags and box. “You’re not going to let me carry any of this, are you?”
Yes, focus on the carrying of plumbing items and not the fact that I’d been dreaming about her for the last four days . . . or that’d I’d jerked off to the image of her wet, see-through T-shirt and those gorgeous dusky nipples peeking through more than once.
I shifted the box higher, the bags’ contents rattling. “Nope.”
A sigh.
Then she moved by me.
“And it’s not because you’re not fully capable,” I said as she turned on the light in the back room and held the door wide for me. “Because I think you’ve proven you’re very capable.”
A roll of her eyes. “Except for carrying heavy things, apparently.”
I stopped, nodded at the items in my arms. “How far did you carry these?”
Her nose wrinkled. “Two blocks.”
“How long did you work today?”
A beat. “Since seven.”
“In the morning?”
“Yeah, so?”
It was nine-thirty at night now. “So you’ve worked all day then”—I was guessing now—“rushed over to the store before they closed to buy stuff for tomorrow then stopped by here and hauled them two blocks to the shop—”
“It’s better that than up three flights of stairs to my apartment,” she muttered.
“That’s it.” I set the box on the ground, settled the bags next to it. “Show me.”
Her brows pulled together. “Show you what?”
“Show me the guns,” I said, pretending to squeeze her bicep. I respected her hustle and wasn’t going to make her feel bad for it. I also wasn’t going to stop myself from trying to ease that burden a little bit.
And why, Thompson? Why do you care?
A legitimate mental question and one that made my stomach churn. But I pushed that aside and kept my tone light. “That shit is heavy, and you hauled it two blocks. Your arms have to be bigger than Arnold’s.”
“If we’re making pop culture references, I prefer Hemsworth’s.”
I laughed outright.
“I guess I should start pumping iron to keep up with you.”
She snorted. “Or maybe join the rest of us doing real work instead of playing with needles all day.”
I grinned. “Why do I feel like you’ve said that to Tig and Delia a time or hundred?”
Her lips quirked. “Maybe because I have?”
“And then Tig replies with something snarky about pipes?”
That quirk turned into a full-blown smile. “Usually it’s Delia with the snarky pipe comment.”
I laughed aloud. “Well, for once I’ll be a grown-up and pass on the pipe innuendo.”
“Too bad.”
It was the barest breath of a sound, a whisper of a noise.
But I heard it.
Just as I saw her eyes drift down toward my dick, the tip of her tongue dart out to moisten the corner of her mouth.
And yup. Hard.
Just like that.
“Charlie?”
Her eyes were still on the southern half of my body, but when I called her name, they slowly drifted up and, damn, but I was right about the blue growing darker when she was turned on.
It would be so easy to just close the distance between us, to haul her close, to slant my mouth across hers. I wondered if she’d taste like the tropics or if that scent was just embedded in her skin. Her lush body would feel incredible under my hands, and I could imagine how good the hard nipples I could see poking against the cotton of her T-shirt would feel brushing against my chest.
But . . . I was leaving in a few weeks.
All the better, my mind said. Fewer ties. Less risk when I leave.
Except, Charlie wasn’t just a girl I’d met on the street. She was Tig and Delia’s friend and deserved better than just a quick itch being scratched.
Lie.
Well, not about the deserving better part. It had taken barely ten minutes spent in her presence to tell me that she was the kind of woman a man instinctively should take care with. She was special—a special that didn’t come around too often.
And that was the lie.
Because I saw that special and yet, I still wanted to pretend the draw I felt toward her, the chemistry that seemed to bubble in the air between us was just sexual attraction.
I’d met her twice.
And I already knew it was more than that.
She was interesting—a juxtaposition my brain wanted to figure out, a puzzle I wanted to solve.
“It’s late,” I said gently. “You should go home and get some rest.”
Blue eyes lightening, cooling. A face going from relaxed and warm to closed down and frosty. Shoulders stiffening, a jaw tightening, lips pressing flat.
“Yeah,” she said. “I should.”
And then she spun and walked out of the room, footsteps hurried as they moved across the wooden floor, the open and close of the heavy glass door making me jump. I dropped the hand that had lifted in a silent plea for her not to leave, one she wouldn’t see because I’d made sure to distance us, the one I didn’t have the courage to pair with words, to my side.
I couldn’t do this.
I. Could. Not. Do. This.
Not ever again.
Five
Charlie
I had my earbuds in and was deliberately ignoring the hustle and bustle in the main part of the studio.
It had been quiet when Delia had let me in with blurry eyes that morning, waving once before leaving me to my work and heading back home. She hadn’t wanted Garret inconvenienced again and I got it, he was just an employee, not the owner. Early mornings and late nights shouldn’t fall to him. But I had suggested she get me a key to save her the same early mornings. Then I’d set about my work alone for several hours until the clients and artists had begun filing in around eleven. I’d stacked what I could from the storeroom in the hallway so the artists would have easy access to it, but some of the heavier supplies I’d left in the built-in cabinet along the back wall.
Which had made sense at the time, but now I’d spent a good portion of the last hour making small talk with Tig, Delia, and the other artists.
And not listening to my podcast about a woman who’d married the Eiffel Tower.
Man, my life was rough.
Missing out on my series of people who’d fallen in love with inanimate objects.
I bent to the side, leaning close and attempting to make sense of the tangle of pipes. Half were functional, half were dummies. I’d been doing plumbing for more than a few years now and hadn’t seen anything quite like this.
Frankly, it was a miracle the shop hadn’t flooded before now.
A knock on the door had me glancing up. Tig stood in the doorway. “Food?” he asked.
I shook my head, ignoring the conflicting emotions coursing through me. I’d had a steady flow of people through the room, but none of them were Garret. Which should be a relief. Instead . . .