bountiful breasts. Damn if the creamy swells spilling from her halter-top didn’t tempt him to bury his whole face between those firm globes. Suck the protruding tips greedily, slowly, to hear her whimper, feel the arch of her spine…
“Nathan?”
He snapped back to attention. Ah hell. He’d been so busy mentally licking her nipples that he’d missed the conversation. “Sorry. What did you say?”
“Do you have dinner plans?”
“Guess I hadn’t really thought about it.” He wadded the bandana and stuffed it into his back pocket.
“I could whip up something edible if you’d like to stick around.”
“Sounds good.” As he stood, his back and legs screamed in protest. “I’m knocking off about seven.”
Her mouth opened. “You’re working three more hours? Don’t you call twelve hours excessive?”
His spine stiffened automatically. Not another discussion about the amount of time he spent working. “No. Twelve hours is a normal day.”
“So you always exert yourself this much?” she asked skeptically. “On every project?”
He could confess right now that this situation was special. Tell her about the contest and earn her support. Instead he bent down to retrieve his hard hat and muttered, “Yep.” It embarrassed him, the suspicion in her eyes and his answering shame that he had no life besides work. He was aware of the opinions most people held on Native American work ethics. He’d been called a lazy Injun more times than he cared to count. Every time it happened, it stung his pride and made him determined to prove himself an exception.
Tate softly called his name.
When he reluctantly met her gaze, she stepped forward and gifted him with a flirty kiss.
“Then I feel incredibly lucky you’re working that hard for me.” Petal-soft lips brushed the shell of his ear, invoking his unexpected shiver. “I certainly hope I’m worth these long hours. I don’t want my teaching skills to be a disappointment.”
“Unlikely.” Nathan was lost in the face of her sweetness. Didn’t matter he’d spent the day covered in dust and the black fallout from diesel fuel as he jerked her against his body. He gorged himself on her mouth, tasting warm, willing woman. His stubbled cheek scratched the temptingly tender skin beneath her jaw. She smelled like ambrosia. He smelled like the sulfur pits of hell. “Sorry. You probably don’t want to get near me when I’m covered in dirt.”
Tate wiped a shaky hand over her mouth and tipped her head back to look at him. “Why would I care about that?”
“Most women do.” He studied her baffled expression.
“You keep forgetting I’m not most women. Dinner is at seven thirty. If you want, you can shower here.”
“You offering to wash my back?”
“No. There’s a loofah on a stick for those hard-to-reach places. But I wouldn’t be opposed to scrubbing any other place you might need a little extra attention.” Her eyebrows wiggled. “Or a lot of extra attention.”
Nathan wiped the sweat beading on his forehead with the heel of his hand. “You are killing me, you know that?”
“I’m trying.”
Three hours later, after reloading his equipment, Nathan dragged through the back porch door. He sagged against the doorframe, his energy level at rock bottom. He watched in quiet fascination as Tate rinsed a head of red lettuce at the deep enamel sink. Rock music drifted from her cell phone. The aroma of fresh herbs hung in the humid air. This domestic scene was rare, and all the more potent. What would it be like, what would it take, to have this setting waiting for him every night?
She smiled at him over her shoulder as if sensing his melancholy. “Hey. You look beat. Want a beer?”
“Sure.”
She crossed to the fridge, pulled out a bottle and handed it over.
“Thanks.”
“No problem.” She returned to the sink.
The cold bottle soothed his tired hands. His gaze zoomed in on her nicely rounded butt, dropped to the white strings of her cut-off shorts teasing slender thighs. Then wandered back up the curve of her back to the long sweep of her neck and her nape exposed below her sexy haircut that begged for the bite of his teeth. The heat of his mouth. The wet glide of his tongue. He’d usually dated women with long locks. How would it be to grasp that short hair and direct that pink mouth wherever he pleased?
“Stop staring at me,” she said.
Chastised, he asked, “Does that offer of a shower still stand?”
“Sure. Use the guest bath upstairs.” Tate gestured to his filthy clothes with the butcher knife clasped in her left hand. “I’ll toss those in the washer. I found an extra pair of sweats and a T-shirt. Might be a little snug, but I set them on the counter just in case.”
Her thoughtfulness was his undoing. He wanted a minute to hold her, taste her, absorb her. Her eyes widened as he pressed her against the counter. He nibbled the corners of her lips before slipping his tongue inside her mouth. The taste of her sent desire ripping through his blood. Nathan wanted to plunge into her body, touch her everywhere at once. Devour her secrets, feel her bucking and moaning beneath him. Somehow logic reasserted itself. By small degrees, he lifted his head. It was a halfhearted effort to remove his passion-dampened lips from hers to end the kiss.
Her eyes fluttered open to reveal a dark, expectant look that whumped the air from his lungs.
“Why’d you stop?”
Because I’m an idiot. “I need a shower. Probably a cold shower would be in my best interest.”
A tiny scowl crossed her face. “What about my best interest?”
He kissed her wrinkled nose. “That is your best interest because once I get my hands on you, we won’t surface for hours.” The warmth spreading over her cheekbones held particular interest, and he nuzzled them until she whimpered. “Days, probably.”
Whistling, he headed out of the kitchen through the swinging door.
The old pipes rattled when the water kicked on. Tate wondered if she could breach Nathan’s gentlemanly act if she crawled in the shower with him. Would he push her away when she lathered her hands with soap and thoroughly stroked every inch of his remarkable body?
Whoo-yah. She fanned herself with the dishtowel. He’d earned every one of those rippling muscles the hard way. Witnessing him hauling and stacking the slabs with his bare hands, muscles straining from all that backbreaking work, her mouth—and another part of her anatomy—had watered. That firm body was something.
Yet when Nathan had been standing in her kitchen, looking vulnerable, a funny tickle started in her stomach that owed nothing to lust. The urge to comfort him overwhelmed her. She wanted to just grab him and hold him tight until the shadows in his eyes disappeared. Although he had protested his ripe state, she’d been drawn to it.
Tate sighed. Thinking about Nathan’s scent and physique wasn’t helping her revved-up libido.
She wandered into the dining room. She eyed her Aunt Bea’s crystal wineglasses, bone china and silver candlesticks. Was this what Nathan had in mind when he said he wanted to get to know her? An intimate, romantic dinner for two?
Her vision of an intimate dinner was entirely different. She saw him stalking her, ripping her clothes to tatters as he arranged her nude, quivering body as a main course on the dining room table. Probably not going to happen, but one could dream.
The shower shut off and Tate hustled back into the kitchen to start the pasta. She opened the wine, turned the Alfredo sauce down to simmer, tossed the salad and sliced the French bread. Another thought struck her. The scene wasn’t too domestic, was it? God forbid she gave him reason to bolt again.
Nathan snuck up behind her and kissed her bare shoulder. She closed her eyes to savor the rasp of his damp beard abrading her skin. Gooseflesh prickled her entire body.
He murmured, “Smells good.”
“Thanks. It’s nothing fancy,” she said softly. Her heart tripped and her blood seemed to warm.
He turned her into his ar
ms. A dangerous, dark fire lit his eyes. “I wasn’t talking about the food, Tate.” Dropping his mouth over hers, he coaxed her tongue to tangle and retreat with his. Wet. Warm. Hungry. He kissed her the single-minded way she’d longed for all day, like she was the appetizer and he was ravenous.
His hair flowed around them and she twisted her fingers through the silky strands. A man with long hair was a novelty. She imagined that satin curtain falling over her, caressing her neck, her breasts, their tangled bodies. Nathan slicked his tongue over her teeth, under her top lip, exploring every slick inch of her mouth. She trembled at the unfamiliar sensation, impulsively moving her hips closer to his.
The water boiled over on the stove, popping and hissing on the burner. Grudgingly, she released him. “Sounds like the pasta is done.”
“Good. I’m starved. But first, where is your washer?”
“Around the corner on the porch.” Tate grabbed the chili pepper potholders and dumped the contents of the pot into the colander in the sink. “Why don’t you sit down and I’ll bring everything out?”
Nathan hesitated in the doorway, large hands dwarfing the blue bottle of laundry detergent. “You don’t have to service me.”
She twisted toward him. “What did you say?”
“Just what you heard.” He cleared his throat and offered her a sheepish grin as he set the soap on the floor. “But what I meant was, you don’t have to serve me. I can help.”
“Fine. Grab some salad dressing from the fridge and light the candles.” Placing the pasta on the Fiesta-ware platter, she poured the thick, fragrant white sauce over the spinach noodles. “However, I do believe that was a Freudian slip.”
“Probably.” He held a jar of ranch dressing in one hand and Green Goddess in the other as they trooped into the dining room. “Can you blame me for being leery of you?”
Hah! She’d love it if he leered at her just once tonight. Yet she couldn’t ignore the fact that Nathan-the-magnificent was scared of golly-gee-whiz-All-American-girl-next-door Tate. A thrill raced through her as she gripped the wine bottle. “Why?”
“Lots of reasons.” His quick shrug fell short of nonchalant. “Mostly because you’re a sophisticated city girl.”
“Not really,” she said. “Remember, I spent summers in this small town you still call home.”
He lit the wicks and settled in the ladder-back chair. “I’d forgotten that. Anyway, fear of disappointment runs both ways.”
The wine glugged as she poured. She peeked at him through lowered lashes. “Are we talking about disappointing me with the landscaping project?”
“No.”
“The sex lessons?” she asked hopefully.
Nathan reached for his wine. “Yes. I’m talking about the sex lessons.”
She resisted the urge to shout Hallelujah! and launch herself straight on his lap. Too bad Aunt Bea’s rickety chairs would collapse under her exuberance. She traced the rim of her wineglass with a single finger. “Hmm. Maybe we should get that awkward first time over so we can relax and set higher expectations for round two.” With a wicked grin she added, “Got any after-dinner plans?”
Nathan choked on his merlot. “Like tonight? After supper?”
Tate’s eyes went wide. “You taking off right after we eat?”
“No. But because I got called away during our original discussion, we didn’t get into specifics on certain details of these ‘lessons.’”
He piled a gigantic helping of steaming pasta on his plate and three slices of buttered bread. She savored the smoky wine and watched the colors change from maroon to magenta in the facets of the crystal. “We didn’t discuss frequency either.”
“Frequency?” The silver fork loaded with noodles had stopped halfway to his mouth.
“How many times we’re going to…have lessons.”
He managed to start chewing, albeit very slowly. “Since I’m working here on Saturday”—he paused to wipe his mouth on the linen napkin—“we should plan on spending that evening together. You know. To work on our lessons.” He took another bite of pasta, which he chased with a healthy swig of wine. “This is really good.”
Tate frowned, ignoring the compliment. He only wanted to spend one night out of seven with her? If she was supposed to make time to get to know him via his need for romance, when would they have time for art lessons? Or more importantly sex lessons? Especially when the crazy man worked himself into the ground and was unavailable during the week?
“You never scowl. What’s wrong? Can’t be the food since I didn’t cook.”
She twirled her pasta through the thick, creamy sauce, but she didn’t glance up. Nor did the fork approach her mouth. “I thought we’d…never mind.”
He sighed. She could almost hear him counting to ten. “How often did you have in mind?”
Every day. At least once. “Definitely more than once a week.”
Nathan’s answering laugh was low and dangerous. “Can you see why I’m frightened of you?”
“Why? Because I speak my mind?”
“No, because you’re trying to change mine.” He squeezed her hand in that chivalrous, it’ll-be-all-right manner.
Tate wanted to stab him with her fork just to get some kind of passionate reaction out of him. Talk about depraved behavior.
“Come on, eat,” he urged, putting an end to her violent thoughts. “Your dinner is getting cold. Can we talk more about this later?”
Hooray. More talking. She downed her wine and reached for a refill. Planted a fake smile on her face. “Sounds good.”
The rest of the meal passed pleasantly. And if it hadn’t been for the fact they weren’t exploring the nuances of each other’s naked bodies, Tate would have considered the evening a rousing success. Nathan LeBeau was a funny, well-rounded, interesting man.
So why was she far more interested in watching that well-rounded rear end of his pumping in and out of her?
“Earth to Tate. Why the dreamy expression?”
The desperate-for-action part of her wanted to confess the steamy direction her thoughts had taken just to shock him. She refrained and awarded herself a mental pat on the back. See? She could act completely unaffected. “Finished?”
“Yes. Thank you.” He shoved his empty plate aside and scooted his chair back against the wall when she stood and gathered plates. “Are we gonna do this right here?”
Tate froze. He’d had a change of heart? Were her fantasies finally about to come true? She scrutinized his face for an answer, but he was surprisingly calm for a man about to shed his clothes. “Umm. Don’t you think we’d be more comfortable in the living room?”
Nathan ran his hand along the flat plane of the table and gave it a resounding smack. “Wouldn’t you prefer a harder, more sturdy surface?”
Oh mama. What did the man plan on doing to her that he required such durability? The dirty dishes in her hands almost crashed to the floor. She stuttered, “S-sure. Whatever you think will work best.”
He frowned and glanced through the paint-taped archway separating the dining and kitchen areas from the rest of the house. “Where do you normally do this?”
Tate deliberated on a breezy reply of everywhere or offering the sad truth that her sexual exploits had always begun and ended in a bedroom.
While she pondered her answer, he hefted a ratty cardboard box on the table. “Ah. Your art supplies are right here, you must do this in the dining room.”
“You were talking about art lessons?”
“What did you think I was talking about?”
She saw the moment the light bulb clicked.
Nathan gaped at her. “You thought I was gonna nail you right here on this wobbly table?” He shook his head. “Give me some credit, Tate, for planning our first time to be a helluva lot more romantic than that. Besides, we just finished eating!”
She snatched up the empty wineglasses. “I don’t think the ‘wait for an hour after you eat’ rule for swimming applies to sex, Nathan.”
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br /> “I wasn’t talking about sex.”
“That’s apparent.” Cheeks burning, she inclined her chin toward the box sitting way too close to the candles. “While I soak the dishes, why don’t you spread everything out on the table so we can get started?”
He gave her a dubious look. “Get started on what?”
“Making lo…” she couldn’t resist teasing, “lots of art, of course. You want coffee?” Tea? Or me?
Dammit, Tatum Cross, knock it off.
Dirty Deeds Page 8
