Chapter 8
DESI
“I promise you pickles and almond butter don’t go together, Em,” I say into my cell as I pull into the driveway.
“This baby has to be a boy. I swear. This pregnancy is different than my others. I craved nothing with Gwen and Taylor. No weird foods. No constant sex. No—”
“No wonder Grant’s walking around tired all the time.” I laugh. “Let the poor man get some sleep.”
“He’s not complaining by any means.”
“What man would?”
“Am I going to get to see you soon?” she asks, and the sound of her voice has me listening closely. Hormonal pregnant woman versus something is really wrong.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m just worried about you—”
“I’m fine, Em.”
“But you’re avoiding me. Ever since the creeper in your house—you’re dodging coming over, because you don’t want me to look you in the eye and know you’re scared,” she says, and I don’t say a word in response. “I’ve known you too long, Des.”
“I’m fine,” I say in exasperation.
“Then tell me the last time you let loose. What wild party did you crash or which bar in town did you shut down while dancing on the tables? Come on, give this old married and pregnant lady someone to live vicariously through.”
I smile but it’s vacant of all happiness as I think of the woman I usually am. The one who has stories to tell and men to confuse. Instead all I do is chuckle in response.
“There aren’t any, are there? And you tell me not to be worried about you?”
“I’m just in a funk is all.”
“No, you’ve put yourself in a funk. You tell me that you’re fine when you’re not.
You tell me this creep being in your house hasn’t affected you, and yet you’re afraid to leave your house.
You tell me you know you’re not to blame for this, but you’re afraid to be the you I know and go dance with some stranger in a bar just because he can sing the lyrics louder than you. ” She tsks.
“That’s not it.” But it is it. The damn man in my bedroom has scared the shit out of me. He’s made me fear that I’ll meet him face to face, maybe even share a drink with him, and I wouldn’t even know it.
“That’s bullshit and you know it.”
“Em.” Her name is a sigh. A plea.
“Then come have lunch with me.”
Fuck.
“Okay. I’ll find a light client day and let you know.”
“And there you go hiding again.”
“It’s just…it’s just hard to explain is all.”
“No one said you had to, but ferreting yourself away in hibernation isn’t good for your soul either.”
“I promise you I’ll let you know a good day,” I say to get her off my back.
“You better...or else I’ll come there and watch you shave dogs and then throw up when you do all the gross stuff you have to do with them—”
“I should have never explained to you what expressing an anal gland was like.”
She gags on the other end of the phone and I laugh. “You burned my memory forever.”
“Goodbye, Emerson.”
“Don’t avoid me, or else I’ll sic the cops on you.”
“Oh, please.” Her husband already has.
“I’ll make up a reason—a well check or something—because we all know how much you don’t want that to happen.”
“I’ll send you a day that works. Happy?”
“Very.”
“Love you.”
“Love you too.”
I open the garage door and get out of my car, preoccupied with the bags of groceries I’m carting inside. Once the rustling of the plastic settles as I set them on the counter, I hear it.
It’s a distinct sound. One I can’t place, so I stand completely still with my heart lodged in my throat to see if I hear it again.
It happens. The thunk of metal against dirt. The squish of sodden mud.
The curse muttered under a breath.
“What the hell…” My words fall flat when I fling open the back door to see Reznor in the backyard with a shovel in one hand, on his knees in a slew of mud, and said mud covering so many parts of him I can’t see them all.
“This pipe is really a bitch. Whoever laid this sprinkler system needs to change careers.” He looks over at me for a split second and then goes back to digging like it’s completely natural that he’s in my yard fixing my sprinkler system.
And I don’t know how it makes me feel. On one hand, that means he noticed the plumber never showed—so that means he was watching...and I kind of like that he was watching. On the other hand, he just stepped into my life and took over, and I’m not sure I like that—the domesticity of it.
“What are you doing?”
“Fixing your sprinkler system,” he says with a grunt as he shovels a scoop full of mud onto a tarp that’s blanketing a corner of the back patio.
“But why?”
“It’s broken, isn’t it?” He’s fiddling with a pipe, with the piece that connects them—or that looks like it connects them—and is putting some blue goop around the inside before joining them together.
“I already fixed the damn thing once and then when I turned it back on, your pressure regulator wasn’t turned right so it blew another fitting off.
It’s as if the guy forgot to glue the pieces together. ”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault.”
“But, Reznor...why would you do this?”
“Because I’m a nice guy? Because you had your water off, and I didn’t want your flowers to die?”
I snort, not buying it for a second.
“What? You don’t believe me?” he asks as he takes a second to look my way behind his tinted lenses. He has mud smeared on his cheek and sweat running down his temple as he holds the pipe, but the slight smirk tells me my hunch is right.
“Why are you fixing my sprinklers?”
“So you wouldn’t have an excuse to miss class next time.” The smile he flashes me is as bright as the sun beating down on him and without saying another word, he turns back to the muddy trench and glued pipe and everything that is not me.
I should be pissed at him. I should tell him that no one tells me what to do or where I need to be. Instead I watch him. I stand and study him from my back stoop as my mind whirls over what to do about this man who has single-handedly pushed his way into my life and thoughts.
I have groceries on the kitchen counter that need to be put away. I have bills I need to pay. I have clients to call back, and yet I don’t move, unwilling to tear my eyes away from him.
“It’s a lot easier to talk to me than to have me try and read your mind, you know,” he says, breaking through my thoughts.
“Maybe I don’t like to talk.” I lie.
His chuckle tells me he doesn’t buy it. “The first time we met you talked a mile a minute without much prompting, so sell me a lie I might actually believe.”
“How about you’re irritating?”
That grin is back, and so is the damn flutter when he stands to full height from his spot in the mud.
“That’s not a lie.” He looks back to the pipe, and without saying a word, strips his sodden shirt over his head and balls it in his hands.
My eyes go to his chest. How can they not when I clearly remember the feel of those muscles etched in his torso as they moved against mine in class the other day?
Whew. They sure know how to make them good in the SWAT team.
When he turns to me, I’m sure he catches me taking a look—what woman wouldn’t?
Besides, I missed my chance to stare at him before. This time I’m going to enjoy the view.
His whole left shoulder, pec, and arm down to his wrist are covered in a dizzying array of designs and images.
Color fills some, while others are shaded or left outlined.
I take in the taut stomach muscles, the various scars hinting across his torso, and then the intensity in his eyes when I scrape my gaze back up his torso to meet his again.
“Yes?” he asks.
“What are your tattoos of?”
“A little bit of this. A little bit of that,” he says nonchalantly as he takes a few steps my way. “We all have our stories to tell. Some of us choose to put them on display for those who look close enough to decipher.”
“Hmm,” I murmur. Strangely, I want to look closer to know his story and yet don’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that I want to.
He’s pushy, arrogant...but he’s here fixing my sprinkler because he cares whether I’m in class.
He cares. “I figured you were trying to cover up old war wounds.”
His chuckle is soft. “I’ve got too many of those to cover up.” He moves beneath the patio cover, leaving a muddy trail with each footstep, and his undeniable energy sucks up the air in the small space between us. I slide my eyes back to his.
“I didn’t notice.”
His smile toys at the corner of his mouth. “You noticed.”
“No, actually, I didn’t.” My spine stiffens as the flutter reappears when he reaches out without any thought to the mud covering his hands and places his finger under my chin to lift it so he can study me.
“What I can’t figure out about you, Desi Whitman, is why you keep trying to pretend you’re not interested when you clearly are?”
“That ego of yours is going to be sore tomorrow.”
“Why’s that?” he asks.
“It’s working out right now, flexing its muscles and doing some heavy lifting.” It’s pretty damn hard to be sarcastic when the man still touching you is making you want to lean in and kiss those sexy lips of his and prove just how right he is.
And just how wrong you are.
A sheepish smile paints his lips. “Ah, but you like the muscles.”
I like a whole lot more than the muscles.
“Mmm.” It’s all I trust myself to say.
He leans in closer. I can feel his breath feather over my lips and the look in his eyes—one that says his interest is as strong as mine: hungry and aroused as hell—is enough to make every part of me want to step forward and into him.
But I don’t.
I want to.
But I also want to slow down whatever the hell this is.
“Hey, Desi,” he murmurs as he leans in close enough that both of our eyes flicker down to the other’s lips as we breathe the same air.
“Hmm?”
“You look gorgeous in that color.”
Oh shit.
I just swooned.
First flutters.
Now swooning.
Both are things I never do.
“Thank you.” My voice is barely audible when I finally swallow around the lump of desire clouding in my throat.
“For?” he asks, the rumble of his voice a seduction all in itself.
“For fixing my sprinklers.”
“And?”
“And for the compliment.”
His tongue darts out to wet his lips. “No need to thank me.”
Time feels like it slows as we stand like this in the afternoon sunlight on my patio—me in a bright yellow sundress and him in mud-soaked jeans. The birds chirp above. My heart pounds in my ears. My nipples harden in anticipation.
Jesus, just kiss me already, will you?
“Desi?”
“Yeah?”
Just as I get my synapses to fire and lean in and take the initiative myself, he takes a step back and says, “I need to take a shower.”
I draw in a shaky breath as his eyes remain on mine and their corners crease with his smile.
“It’s a good look for you though.” Nice recovery, Des. At least outwardly it is, because inside I’m kind of a wreck with more want than I care to admit to.
“I don’t need to have mud on me to get dirty.”
He winks, gives me one last once-over with eyes that relay every single thing they want to do to me, before he turns on his heel and heads in the direction of his house.
Unlike last time, though, I don’t walk inside and sneak a peek at him. Instead I walk to the side of the house and watch him as he retreats. The strong lines of his back. The broad span of his shoulders. The sexy swagger that says he’s a man who knows what he wants.
Jesus, take the wheel, because if I’m the one steering it, I’m going to drive right up on that stick shift and see how good he can change gears.
“Later, Desi Whitman,” he says as he rounds the fence without looking back.
“Later, Reznor Mayne,” I mutter to myself. I stare at where his very fine ass turned the corner to his house.
I shift to abate the ache everything about him has brought to life between my thighs.
He already has me feeling spent when we haven’t even kissed yet.
But we will.
No doubt about that.
There’s nothing wrong with admitting it to myself. We’re two healthy adults. Two sexual beings. Two people who just made come-fuck-me eyes at one another so I’d say are definitely attracted to each other.
Christ, Des. Sleep with the man and get it over with already.
If it were only that easy. Because a part of me feels like sex with him wouldn’t be enough.
I wouldn’t be satisfied. Hell, I pushed Jeff away to spare his feelings—I didn’t want more.
I’ve sworn off men altogether. Yet I’m sitting here thinking about Reznor.
About his easy charm and cocky attitude and hot body.
And how he seems to see beneath the surface in a way I don’t let anyone else and yet he doesn’t push or call me on my bullshit facade of courage. But he still seems to want me.
Sleep with him. Then you can move on.
The problem is I don’t think moving on would be starting something I’m not certain I’m ready to handle.