Chapter 9
Presley
I’d just taken out all the pieces of my assembly-required bookshelf and spread them around me in my temporary second-story home office when I heard the construction guys drive off Thursday afternoon.
I glanced at the time and was surprised it was going on five p.m. I’d been assembling my new office furniture for hours.
I tried not to be disappointed that the crew hadn’t checked in before leaving. Yeah, who was I kidding? West was the one I was disappointed about and not for professional reasons.
That kiss yesterday in the boathouse? It’d been more than twenty-four hours, and I still got light and fluttery inside whenever I thought about it.
The feel of his strong hands on me, the way he lifted me as if I weighed nothing, and the kiss itself…
It was commanding and decisive yet somehow tender at the same time.
It’d been a tantalizing taste of what West could do to me.
I wanted more.
I’d left the ball in his court as we exited the boathouse, but it appeared he wasn’t going to take me up on my offer. Wasn’t even going to discuss the offer. There’d been a good morning and a project update first thing when he’d arrived but nothing personal.
We’d been business as usual ever since, with me looking hard for signs from him but seeing none. I would respect his wishes, but I could’ve sworn the connection between us was incendiary. I’d never had such a reaction to a man before, and all we’d done was kiss.
Maybe it was just that he was different from my usual type, which according to Chloe was more of a metrosexual, suit-wearing intellectual than a burly guy who worked with his hands.
I couldn’t lie. Those hands of West’s intrigued me and heated up my middle-of-the-night fantasies as I imagined what he could do to my body with them.
These thoughts weren’t helping anything right now, so I shut them down.
As I took inventory of the multiple mini plastic bags of screws and pieces on the floor in front of me, the inside door to the garage below shut loudly. I sat up straighter, trying to discern whether someone had come in or gone out.
“Presley?”
At the sound of West’s voice, my pulse raced. He hadn’t left after all.
“I’m upstairs,” I called, glancing at the mess of slats, screws, and instructions between me and the door. “Come on up.”
When his footsteps reached the top of the stairs, I said, “I’m in here.”
He filled the doorway, his brows popping up as he took in the three pieces of furniture I’d already assembled, as well as the mess I was sitting in the middle of. “Hey.”
“Come on in. Sit down if you want.” I pointed at my brand-new desk chair.
He shook his head. “I’m dirty and sweaty. Don’t want to ruin anything.”
An image flashed into my head of taking him into the bathroom, peeling off his clothes, sticking him under the shower, and stepping in with him to slowly, thoroughly scrub him clean…
“Is this what you’ve been doing all afternoon?” he asked, snapping me out of my thoughts. He walked over to the L-shaped desk I’d assembled and placed in front of the small window that looked out on the driveway. “Putting furniture together?”
“Yes. I didn’t realize it was so late.”
“That seems to be a recurring theme with you,” he said with a chuckle. “I’m surprised you didn’t hire someone to do this for you.”
“I love putting furniture together,” I said. “Chloe thinks it’s the weirdest thing, but I find it soothing. And rewarding.” I gestured at the desk and the two side cabinets.
“How come you didn’t get the good stuff that doesn’t need to be assembled?”
I shrugged and grinned. “Maybe this is my hobby.” Once I had the bags set out so I could see the labels, I stood and stepped over the piles of various-sized wood pieces until I faced him.
“And you thought you didn’t have one,” he said, peering down at me with those compelling green eyes, laugh lines appearing at the outer corners.
Something about the way he looked at me made me feel like he really saw me, saw parts of me others didn’t. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
“I’m trying to find ways to occupy my time that don’t count as working.” I let my gaze flit to his lips, thinking once again I could pass a lot of time getting naked with him.
He apparently read my mind, because he shifted his weight from one leg to the other, seeming nervous. “Presley, you tempt me like I’ve never been tempted before, but I can’t mix work with pleasure.”
“You said you wouldn’t lose your job over something like messing around with a client.”
“It’s not that simple.” He paced a couple of steps away, looking as if he was searching for the right words, words I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like.
“My girls are everything,” he said. “Everything I do is for them, to give them the best life I can. If I mess this up, I let them down.”
Remembering how involved he’d been with his daughters, how obviously loving, I couldn’t help but smile. “You’re a really good dad.”
“One of our guys at Dawson Construction is retiring due to a bad back,” West said, ignoring my compliment. “He’s been second-in-command under Levi.”
“You want his position,” I guessed.
He nodded once. “It’s between me and another guy. This summer is our audition, I guess you could say. Nick’s overseeing a big outdoor project, and I’m overseeing this one. Levi’s gonna pick based on how we do.”
“I have no complaints about the work you and the guys have done so far. I’ll give you a glowing review whether you kiss me again or not.” I shot a flirty grin at him.
“I appreciate that.” He didn’t smile in spite of my light tone. “No offense, but I don’t think someone who can pay cash for a big house can understand what it’s like to live paycheck to paycheck. I don’t have a cushion or a backup. It’s all me. Those girls are depending on me.”
The conviction in his tone, the dedication to his girls… That was so…hot.
It didn’t make sense to me. Nothing about my attraction to him made sense. I wasn’t looking for a long-term guy, never mind one who came with kids. I just frankly wanted to have a good time. It’d been too long since I’d been with a guy.
And yet I needed to make something clear to him.
“I totally understand living paycheck to paycheck,” I said quietly.
“We were dirt poor growing up, even before my parents split. I started working at fourteen to help my mom and sister pay for groceries and rent. My mom didn’t get promoted to manager until I was seventeen, which helped a little, but we had no savings.
My dad never paid a cent of support. So I get it, West. I remember. ”
My childhood, the financial insecurity, those were what had driven me to go into finance, to work my butt off, to make as much money as I could, invest it, be set for life. I never wanted to feel like if I called in sick when I legitimately had the flu, I wouldn’t be able to pay the utility bill.
I’d sworn from the time I was a teenager I would never rely on someone else the way my mom had during her marriage.
Their traditional setup—where the husband made the income, and the wife stayed home with the kids—did not work for me.
I didn’t judge anyone who chose that way of life, but it would never be me.
I needed to be in charge of my own life, financial and otherwise.
“You had a deadbeat dad too, huh?” he said, his tone a lot gentler.
“Deadbeat, controlling, abusive, all the good stuff,” I said.
An icy look entered his eyes. “Did he put his hands on you?”
I shook my head. “Only on my mom. He was more of the emotionally abusive type to me and my sister.”
He growled low and shook his head.
“Did yours?” I asked carefully.
West
I scoffed. “My father, and I use that term only in the biological sense, disappeared when my mom told him she was pregnant with me. I never met him. No desire to.” I looked at her intently. “Last I knew, he was in prison.”
Her brows rose. “That’s a lot to process.”
I shrugged. “Not as much as if he’d ever been in my life. We didn’t need him. My mom and I made it just fine.”
She nodded. “I get that. My dad damaged my mom. There’s no way to prove it, but I’ve often thought all the abuse and stress she went through with him shortened her life. She would’ve been better off if she’d never married him.”
“Some men aren’t worth the oxygen they breathe,” I said.
“I guess we have single moms and deadbeat dads in common then,” she said. “And you thought we were so different.”
“We’re different,” I said with conviction. “I won’t be buying a boat anytime in the near future.”
“I haven’t decided to buy a boat yet,” she said stubbornly. “I understand your point, West. I’ll just say it. I have a lot of money. I worked my ass off for it and sacrificed my health. I won’t apologize for it or feel bad about it—”
“Hell no, you shouldn’t feel bad about it,” I said. “I respect the hell out of what you’ve done for yourself. Don’t you dare apologize.”
After watching my mom sacrifice sleep to work two jobs, be paid less than she was worth, and work twice as hard as everyone else, I knew how unfair the world could be because of gender.
I was more than familiar with female willpower and determination.
My mom had them in spades, and those qualities had gotten us through my childhood.
Presley had them as well. She was the kind of woman I wanted my girls exposed to—on an acquaintance basis, not something more personal, like the woman I was involved with.
I didn’t want my girls exposed to anyone I was involved with.
Been there, done that, didn’t like the T-shirt, and neither did my daughters.
What I wanted for my girls was for them to know in their hearts they could do whatever they set out to do, just like Presley had.
Didn’t matter if their mom was a flake or their dad was just a construction guy.
I wanted them to believe in their unlimited potential the way Presley obviously did in hers.
“Something you should understand,” Presley said. “I might’ve spent a lot of money lately, on this house and starting up my business, but normally I’m sort of thrifty.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Somehow I suspect your definition of thrifty and mine are different.”
“I don’t splurge very often,” she insisted. “These big things lately? Those are important. I refuse to cut corners on my home and business, but normally the only thing I overspend on is shoes.”
“Which explains why you want an entire wall in the master closet to be shoe storage,” I said. “I’ve been meaning to ask you if that was right.”
“It’s right. Shoes are my weakness.”
I glanced at her bare feet. “I haven’t seen you wear the same pair twice.”
“Follow me,” she said, gesturing with her index finger.
She went out the door and took a left. The door opposite her office was open, allowing me an eyeful as we walked past what looked like fluffy, soft, rumpled bedding in pink and white.
I almost missed a step when I spotted a puddle of silky-looking sky-blue lingerie on the floor on this side of the bed.
To my relief, she kept walking. I already knew the sweet, feminine bedding and the sexy-as-fuck underthings were going to appear in my dreams whether I wanted them to or not.
She turned into yet another bedroom and stopped not far into the room.
“This is why I need the shoe wall in the closet,” she said, waving at stacks of shoe organizer shelves along one of the walls.
She laughed and spun around, taking in the whole room, which seemed to be serving as a closet and a place for half-unpacked boxes.
“I donated twenty-seven pairs before I moved too.”
My brows climbed even higher on my forehead as I tried to think what to say.
“This is my vice. Shoes are my weakness. But otherwise, West, you and I aren’t all that different.”
I met her gaze, took in her soft, pretty features, allowed myself a glance at those lips that begged to be nipped and kissed. We were different all right. Different in all the right ways.
I did an internal head shake at myself. We weren’t going there.
“I won’t question the shoe wall anymore,” I joked as if my pulse wasn’t pounding through my veins with lust.
She grinned, then went serious. “I’ll respect your decision. About us, I mean. I don’t like it, but I’ll honor it. The last thing I want to do is make you uncomfortable.”
It was a little late for that, as my erection was making my pants damn uncomfortable.
I turned away with a nod, needing to get out of her personal space, where everything gave me ideas, most of them X-rated.
Once I was out in the hall and beyond the door to her bedroom, where I could breathe a little easier, I said, “I came up to tell you we’re done for the day. Do you need me to lock anything?”
“No need,” she said, following me to the stairs. “Thanks, West.”
“Night, Presley. See you tomorrow morning.”
As I jogged down the stairs, putting more space between us, I couldn’t help but wonder, now that I’d made my stance about us clear to her, whether I was the dumbest man on the planet.