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.”

“Oh.” I swivel around on the stool and put my back to him. “I didn’t know that.” The room rings silent.

“Of course you know that,” he replies with temper. “I have never heard a woman talk the way you do.” There’s an audible swallowing sound. “You’ve got to be more careful with what you say to guys.”

“I have never in my life said anything like this to another guy, and I resent the insinuation.” I peek over my shoulder. Can this excruciating moment end now? One more tiny micro freeze frame and my brain’s got it forever. It’s now in the vault. It’s a really big vault.

“This is humiliating.” He tuts and huffs. “Are you this filthy with any half-decent-looking guy that catches your eye?”

“I’m this filthy with you. Only you. And you’re not just ‘half-decent.’ I’ve seen Michelangelo’s David in Florence. You make him look like a pin-dicked garden gnome.”

“Done, guys?” Truly calls out.

I wave my hand in panic. “Nearly! Let’s talk about something really neutral. Like, the house renovation. How’s that going? Tell me all about it.”

“Okay,” he says, sounding encouraged.

“Talk about the guttering or the vents. That big water stain on the kitchen ceiling, how’s that coming along? Or the …” I dig deep. “The trellis. The pipes. The architraves and the finials and the—”

He cuts in, despairing. “I think you saying vaguely architectural terms is making it worse.”

“You weirdo.” I hear myself a little differently now. Is it really a sexy voice? I’m pretty sure the most response I’ve ever elicited from Tom has been dilated pupils. Now I’m in a room that contains his hard dick.

Safer. Keep him safer.

Another minute ticks by. “Okay,” he says, strained. “Do it.”

I take about ten shots and before I even tell him we’re done, he’s bending over, jamming his legs into his pants, still wearing the Underswears. He explodes out of the room, almost knocking over Truly.

“You owe me more than a steak dinner,” Tom says to her as he departs at speed. “You owe me a steak dinner on a cruise ship.”

Truly comes back inside. “What did you do to him?”

“I’m really not sure,” I say, patting sweat off my brow. “But I don’t think we’re getting those underpants back.”

Chapter 14

Status update: So tired I’m possibly dying. And it’s only Thursday.

I stand in the bathroom with my hands on my hips and look at the wall. I’ve never intentionally demolished a room before. “Ben, can you give me an outline on what I’m supposed to do?”

The strangest words trigger me back to the Underswears photo shoot. Like outline.

Ben’s the one I can trust to give me advice that won’t result in my fucking something up. Alex only knows how to carry heavy things and laugh at jokes. Colin’s still on my shit list and I am almost certain he’s Jamie’s mole. I’ve been feeding him bogus information in an attempt to flush him out.

“Getting the tiles off the walls would be a good start. Use … this.” I try not to look at Ben’s shiny dome while he rummages in a box of tools. He gives me a short crowbar. “Carefully, now. It’s easy to put a hole in the wall if you just start smashing.”

He toes an empty cardboard box over to me. “They’ll be sharp. Wear goggles, too. There’s a bin outside, but Alex will do the lifting. Then after that, take up the floor tiles.”