Lord, it is too warm in this room.
Loretta was adamant he was a Viking in a past life—and she’s right. He’s just rowed across the Baltic Sea and now he’s standing here, chest rising and falling under my stare.
“Okay.” I try to not look at the skin and the legs and the hair. And is he kidding with that stomach? I see big slices every time he twists and readjusts his T-shirt. My mouth is so dry I’d drink from Patty’s bowl. I’ve shot models and I’ve never seen anything like this.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“You look fine,” I say in an encouraging soccer-mom voice. I tap the ground with my boot. I will spare him the shame of making him take off his T-shirt altogether. He needs some dignity. “Turn your back to me. Pull your top up high. Higher. Yep.”
I can’t say it. I will explode if I don’t say it. “You’ve got the best butt on the planet.” I put the camera on high speed and begin to paparazzi his ass.
“Is Tom there?” Colin’s voice is terrifyingly close. Jamie’s mole, for sure, and he’s about to bust us goofing off in the weirdest possible way. Tom and I freeze.
“He’s just having a … talk, with Darcy.”
“Tell him to come out front. They’re unloading the timber, but he hasn’t hired a forklift so we can’t move it.” Colin says that in a loud voice, so that Tom can hear.
“Shit,” Tom says. “One second. I will be one second. Hurry, Darcy.”
“It’s okay, he’s gone.” Truly opens the door a fraction and the drapes twitch. “Oh, they look good on you, Tom.”
I love her, but I get up and fix the curtain, banishing her. The rabid female timber wolf inside me doesn’t want anyone else seeing this body. The worksite noise recedes.
“No one but me gets to see,” I grumble to myself. “I can’t believe you were brave enough to do this. Especially after … what I did.” In the kitchen, when I tried to maul you.
“I couldn’t stay away from you anymore. I thought having you around was bad for my concentration. But not having you where I can see you is actually worse.”
“I assure you, I’m not fucking up anything in here.”
“I missed you.” His head shakes. “What do you call … what you did? In the kitchen?”
“From memory, I told you to get in me.” I try to keep my tone light and amused. “I think you got a scary look at what happens when DB nearly loses control.”
“That was you with some control left?” He’s incredulous.
I flash back to the breaking wood, the pointing at the bedroom door, the crude honesty. But the truth is, it could have been worse.
“Well, yeah.” I lower the camera. I’m breathing heavily enough to fog the display. At this rate, I’ll destroy the lens. “If I lost all control, I would have—” I click the camera, just to make noise. “I probably would have—” I cover my mouth like I’m trying to hold in a burp. I can’t say it. I cannot.
“Tell me,” he says over his shoulder in that bass voice from the first morning on the worksite, when he said Unpack the equipment and the guys tucked tail and ran. It’s a voice that you can’t say no to.
Fuck it. If he wants honesty, I’ll give it to him. “I would have undone your belt and got down on my knees, and made you pray to God.”
“Jesus,” he says with no air.
“Yep, you’d have been calling his name, all right.” I cross one leg over the other so I can stifle the telltale heaviness I’m feeling. A sick little rush is spiking my shame. I could say almost anything to him and he’d have to stand there with his back to me and hear it. “Lucky for you, I’ve got a little control left. Just a little.”
His massive shoulders roll and he sighs in misery.
“Come on, turn around and we’ll finish up. You can go back to your flock.” I swivel, side to side, and it doesn’t help my aroused situation. It would serve me right if I accidentally orgasm on a stool from Kmart.
“I don’t get it though,” he says after a moment. “Why?”
“What do you mean ‘why’?” I hear the disbelief in my voice. “You’re phenomenal. You know that.” When he glances over his shoulder at me, his eyes are raw and unsure. “You do know that, right? I can’t even tell you how hot you are. I’d have to show you.”
He shuffles foot to foot but doesn’t turn to face me.
“Just the front now, and we’re done. Thirty seconds. Come on, Tom, whip around.” He does nothing. “Tom. Earth to Tom.”
He says on a faint sigh, “I am having a personal issue.”
“Yeah, you and me both. I’ve got a pack of double-A batteries with my name on it.” My jeans feel like they’ve shrunk ten sizes, and the seam is nearly cutting me in half. “Let’s just get through this.”
“Just give me a second,” he says in anguish.
“Turn around,” I order him, desperate to end this. With reluctance heavy in his face, he obeys, twisting the T-shirt up. His stomach is quilted into six beautiful blocks. “Hoooooly shit.” My mouth drops open and I can barely lift my camera.
“You see what I mean,” he says through a clenched jaw. His underwear looks different from how it should in the front. All bent out of shape. Uncontainable. An angle that should be ending, but it just … doesn’t. My insides clench up; yes please.
“No wonder you weren’t impressed by my dirty box of merchandise,” I blurt out even as I steady my hands and zoom. “I don’t think I could get the lighting right on you.”
“That’s hilarious,” he says in fury, reaching down and grabbing at his pants. “You just have to keep talking, don’t you.”
“No, wait, I need one shot for Truly.” I lower my camera. “Just don’t worry about it. This has actually happened before. I once did a boudoir shoot for a couple’s anniversary, and—”
His hand is pressed over his eyes. “Just stop talking for one goddamn second.” Horror lights up inside me. Jamie never stops talking. Ever. Then he adds, “Your voice is so hot, I can’t bear it. Obviously.”