The fringe of Shauntie’s lashes brushed her cheeks as she glanced at his hand on her arm. “Why are you touching me?” she questioned in a low voice. “I don’t think I gave you permission to touch any part of my body Mr. Wentworth.”
His intense gaze came to rest on her questioning eyes like he was trying to figure out the correct answer to give her. “I couldn’t help it. Don’t you just get the burning urge to touch someone sometimes? I just had to touch you,” Nash answered as he dropped his hand. “But I apologize if I offended you. And I assure you that everything will be well taken care of with the remodel of your roof. All you need to do is trust me.”
“You still didn’t tell me how much it will cost,” she pointed out, waving the paper under his nose.
Nash could tell he wasn’t going to get anywhere with Shauntie until he gave her a price. He would rather be doing so many other things with her, but it wasn’t going to happen right at this second.
“I usually charge about seven thousand dollars for work like this, but since you came from a referral and since I didn’t find all of the problems with my first run-through, I’m going to give you a discount. So, I’m only going to charge you five thousand.”
Shauntie stared at him in utter astonishment. “It’s going to cost me five thousand dollars to have my roof fixed just for that little leak,” she asked, pointing to it over his shoulder. “Are you serious?”
“If it was just to fix the leak, it would a lot cheaper, but there is more wrong with your roof. I wouldn’t lie to you about this. You’re more than welcome to get a second opinion, but you won’t get a better deal than the one I’ve offered you.”
Nash waited while Shauntie stood there and he watched as the wheels worked inside her head. His mind was a crazy mixture of hope and fear as he wondered what her answer would be. He hoped Shauntie would accept his offer, so he could have that time to work on getting her into his life.
He feared that he might have ruined his only chance at getting to know Shauntie better. Today, money wasn’t the important motive pushing him, getting closer to Shauntie was. He couldn’t blow this a second time with her.
“Mr. Wentworth, I’ll hire you as my roofer since my best friend recommended you. Sapphire told me that you were the best roofer in town and I believe her. But let me tell you one thing, I’m not going to write you a huge check beforehand. You’ll get half now and the other half when the job is completely finished. Can you agree to my terms?”
Here was his chance and he wasn’t about to mess it up, Nash thought to himself.
“I can agree to those terms, but on one condition,” Nash said, watching as Shauntie placed her hands on her hips. “I think you might like this offer even better.”
“What is the condition?”
“Go out on a date with me and I’ll do your roof for free,” he answered without missing a beat.
A second hadn’t passed after the words left his mouth before Shauntie’s laughter filled the room. Why was she laughing at him? What was so hilarious? Nash knew he hadn’t said a damn thing amusing.
“May I ask what is so funny?” he demanded.
Taking a couple of deep breaths, Shauntie got her laughter under control as her hands brushed the tears away from her eyes. “How many women have fallen for that horrible pick-up line? Has it actually gotten you anywhere with any of your female clients?”
Shauntie actually thought he was trying to play a game on her? He was dead serious about going out on a date with her. This was the first time in a very long time that he had to ask a woman out on a date.
“I’ve never given that offer to any other client,” Nash replied. “Why would I?”
Shit!
What did he need to do to make Shauntie see what he was trying to do? He couldn’t be any clearer about his intentions. He wanted a date with her. Why was she acting like it was so surprising? Was Shauntie being difficult on purpose?
Shauntie shook her head as her beautiful smile pulled at the corners of her full mouth. “Sure you haven’t. My answer is no. All I need you to do if fix my problem and that is it. Now, can you accept my answer? If not, I can hire someone else. I need to go because I’m going to be late for another appointment.”
Did Shauntie actually just turn down his mind blowing offer? Nash was so thrown that he didn’t know what to think. Shauntie was like a puzzle he couldn’t figure out from first glance.
He wouldn’t consider himself an arrogant man by nature, but Nash knew that he was a good-looking guy. Ever since he’d turned sixteen the opposite sex had taken notice of him and he hadn’t looked back when it came to dating beautiful women.
“Care to tell me why you won’t go out on a date with me?” His curiosity was piqued. He needed to know where he was going wrong with Shauntie.
“I don’t have to give you any kind of explanation,” Shauntie told him. “No should be good enough.”
“Well, it isn’t. Are you telling me that you aren’t attracted to me?” Nash took a step closer. Shauntie took a retreating step back.
“Don’t you feel this thing between us?” he asked, watching the rise and fall of her breasts, a telltale sign Shauntie was attracted to him, but denying it.
“I feel nothing,” she denied a little too quickly. “How can I? This is only our second time talking to each other. I know nothing about you. We’re practically strangers.”
Shauntie sounded so logical and he hated it. Of course, she would consider him like a stranger to her, but he had remembered her. Hell, he had never forgotten her. Shauntie somehow had always held a place in the back of his mind even when he was dating other women.
Nash wasn’t logical and he wouldn’t stay now trying to be. He liked dealing with attraction and need. Since he wasn’t a patient man, which was one of his biggest faults, he never waited for anything to come to him.
He got an extreme rush from making things happen. Sitting around and waiting for anything or anyone to come to him wasn’t in his personality and he sure in the hell was glad it wasn’t.
“You’re right. Nothing about this makes any sense, but it doesn’t diminish what’s here either.” Nash waved his hand between him and Shauntie. “I’m a pretty straightforward guy. I believe honesty is the best thing,” he admitted. “From the second I spotted you I’ve wanted to know more about you. I think you want the same thing too, but you’re fighting your basic instincts.”
Shauntie’s beautiful eyes widened then narrowed at him in quick succession. “Mr. Wentworth, you know nothing about me and I would appreciate it if you kept our conversation strictly to business. And your opinion about how my mind works is off limits as well. Do you understand me?”
Fire! Shauntie was full of fire. But now Nash suddenly realized his mistake. She didn’t like he had moved so fast with her.
Nash thought he might have jumped the gun by speaking his mind so freely, but he couldn’t help it. Shauntie was just so alluring. He was having a hard time keeping his thoughts to himself. However, he would take a step back for now.
“I apologize. I shouldn’t have made those comments,’ he said, placing some space between their bodies. “I think it might be best if I leave.”
“Yes, it would be best if you left” Shauntie said.. “I think the next time you come back to my house, all of your attention should be focused in a different direction. I want this job finished as fast as possible.”
Nash couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Shauntie wanted him to get finished as fast as possible. Well, it was time Dr. Kane learned something very important about Nash Wentworth.
Moving back over to Shauntie, Nash blocked her with his body. She might be used to men who rushed through things, but he wasn’t one of those guys. Now, he loved moving fast with certain aspects of his life and much slower with other things. It was left up to him to show Shauntie how much more pleasurable the difference was. Sometimes working something or someone slow and easy was so much better than fast and hard, unless it was requested.
“Shauntie, I’m going to give you the best job you’ve ever seen, but it won’t be rushed just to get it finished. That’s what’s wrong now,” Nash said softly as he ran his hand down the side of her arm. “Someone in the past did a rush job on you. Now there are all sorts of problems I need to sort through.
“Since you have me now I’m going to take my time to get to the root of the problem and work on fixing it, so the issues will be gone forever. You only deserve the best and that is what you are going to get from me,” he bragged. “So, Dr. Kane, you better buckle your seatbelt since you will be in for a long ride with me. Sweetheart, I can promise you will love it after its over.”
Shauntie’s breath hiked in her throat. “Are you still talking about working on my roof?” she asked, watching him closely.
His next answer would make or break his chances at staying on this job. Nash had to make sure to keep his plans below the radar or Shauntie might not even allow him back into her house. If she knew how much he had been thinking about her since he first laid eyes on her, it would make her more than a little hesitant of him and his motives.
Her ability to brush off their connection continued to impress him. Her indifference must be something Shauntie had been practicing for a while, so Nash wouldn’t force his hand just yet. He was getting turned on with this tug of war between them.
Shauntie was handling everything that he was doing to her beautifully. The longer he spent around her Nash knew Shauntie had to be more than the reserved and closed off woman she presented to him. No woman as gorgeous as her should be alone.
“I’m talking about working on your roof right now, but it won’t stay that way for long. I want to get to know you better.”
The second Shauntie tried to open her mouth, Nash raised his hand cutting her off. He wasn’t going to deny himself what he wanted. He had never done it in the past and he wasn’t about to start now.
“Shauntie, how about we don’t go into this anymore. Just think about what I said. That’s all I want you to do. Think about going out with me on one date. What will it hurt? I’m going to be here for a while, so it will give you time to think about what I told you.”
Nash wasn’t used to taking a backseat, but he sensed it was something he had to do to get past whatever was holding Shauntie away from agreeing to one date with him.
He’d made a huge mistake by not going after Shauntie right after that asshole J.T. dumped her in front of everyone. Shauntie didn’t know that she wasn’t the first woman that asshole had used and then dumped to the side.
The hurt look on her face had broken his heart. Shauntie was too sweet to have been dumped so cruelly by a man she should have never been with in the first place.
Nash wanted to use this as his chance to prove that he could be the right man for her, if Shauntie only allowed him to get a little closer. She was going to let him past the security blanket wrapped around her heart like Fort Knox. She just didn’t know it yet.
“I can’t promise you anything because we aren’t in a relationship,” Shauntie informed him with her usual dismissive attitude that he found hot as hell and made his cock as hard as granite.
“Dr. Kane, you are correct. We aren’t, but I’m not giving up on changing that status of our relationship rather quickly,” Nash admitted then stepped away from Shauntie. He loved how her full lips opened in surprise before snapping closed.
“You are too arrogant for your own good,” she hollered after him as he walked back towards her front door. “It’s a very ugly quality to have.”
“For another woman it might be, but my arrogance is turning you on more and more because you can’t wait to see what I might do next,” Nash flung back at Shauntie before going out the door closing it softly behind him.
Chapter Nine
Sitting back in the booth, Shauntie tried to relax as she took a sip of her Long Island Ice Tea while waiting for Sapphire to show up for their usual Friday night girls’ night out. Since it was getting closer to the Christmas holiday, she wasn’t sure how much extra time she would have to do this with her best friends.
She still hadn’t decided if she was going home this year to visit her parents or not. The last two years she’d been too busy with work to get out of town, but she might change her mind this year and just do it.
After the cocky way Nash sauntered out of her house, she needed her two best friends to vent to but unfortunately Emerald got called into work, so it would be just her and Sapphire. Which wasn’t a bad thing since Sapphire was the person who dropped Nash Wentworth into her life. She had requested a qualified roofer...not a hot, sexy man who, as much as she hated it to admit it, was pushing all of her right buttons.
But there wasn’t a chance in hell that she would admit any of this to Sapphire, not until she found out more about Nash first. There was something familiar about him but Shauntie couldn’t put her finger on it. However, she wasn’t worried about it. She had all of the confidence in the world it would come to her.
“How long have you been here staring off into space?” Sapphire asked as she took a seat across from her, a drink in her hand.
“About ten minutes,” Shauntie answered. “I see you stopped by the bar before coming over here. Bad day at work?”
As long as she had known Sapphire, Shauntie had never seen her friend start off their night with a drink. Something was up with her and she wasn’t going to let Sapphire leave until she found out what her friend was hiding.
“I’ll tell you about it later. What’s up with you? You sounded totally pissed off when you called me on the telephone. Did something happen at work?”
Placing her drink back on the table, Shauntie pushed it away from her. “I called you to get information about Nash. What do you know about him?”
A smile tugged at the corner of Sapphire’s mouth as she leaned across the table. The sounds of the newest smash hit by Lady Gaga blasted around them in the popular night club. Shauntie wasn’t a huge fan of most of the singer’s songs, but this one did have a pretty good beat to it.
“Tell me how things went with Nash. Is he going to be able to help you?” Sapphire questioned. “Are you asking me about him so you can learn more about his work ethic? Or is there another reason you want to know more about him?”
“You know why I’m asking about him,” Shauntie answered as her fingers played with the condensation sliding down her glass. “I knew you sent Nash over to my house for more than business.”
Shauntie watched as different couples ground their sweaty bodies against each other on the semi-crowded dance floor. She wondered what happened to the part of her who used to get pleasure from getting up and dancing when an attractive guy asked her. Now, all she focused on was her job and nothing else really mattered anymore.
Shauntie wasn’t dumb. She knew she was allowing herself to get into a slump and it scared the hell out of her. She desperately wanted a way out of it.
“Yes, I did,” Sapphire finally admitted. “You might not want to join me and Emerald on our hunt for our adventure, but you know Nash is just what you need in your life. All I’m saying is if he asks you out on a date, don’t get so caught in who you think you are that you’ll tell him no.”
Sapphire had to realize sooner or later they weren’t the same person. Her best friend might want to get down and dirty with a guy who got his hands covered in dirt for a living, but she didn’t. When were Sapphire and Emerald going to leave her alone?
“Sorry, I’m not even attracted to Nash,” Shauntie lied. “Why would I be?”
One perfectly manicured eyebrow arched over Sapphire’s light brown eyes. “I think you’re protesting a little too much about the handsome Nash Wentworth. Besides, stop with this snobby attitude of yours. Don’t forget I remember you working at those fast food restaurants while going to college.”
No way! Sapphire didn’t just go there with her.
Shauntie wasn’t going to let Sapphire trick her into saying something she shouldn’t
. Nash was a complication that she wasn’t expecting. He was almost too much for her to handle. Shauntie wasn’t sure if she was more irate at him or intrigued by him, it was too close for her to call at the moment.
“How are things going with you? Have you found the hunky man that gets your body all hot and bothered?” Shauntie asked, changing the subject. It was time for her girlfriend to be in the hot seat preferably with the flame turned up to high.
The beginning of a smile tipped the corners of Sapphire’s mouth. It was a look Shauntie knew all too well. Sapphire was keeping something juicy from her. Would it be hard or easy to get her best friend to confess to her what was going on?
“Stop giving me the I-know-something-you-don’t-smile,” Shauntie complained, leaning forward in her chair. “Tell me who he is. I should have known that you would already have an attractive guy picked out.”
“You’re half right,” Sapphire finally admitted. “I have found the guy, but I have no clue what his name is. I only see him from the side or from behind as he’s leaving the dentist’s office. He’s still a mystery to me.”
“Why haven’t you seen the front of him?” Shauntie asked, confused.
What was going on with Sapphire? She didn’t understand why she hadn’t gotten a chance to ask this guy out on a date yet. Being shy or taking her time about something wasn’t Sapphire at all. Sapphire was very outgoing.
“I’m with my patients most of the time and I’m only able to catch glimpses of him here and there as I move from one dentist appointment to another,” Sapphire replied. “Shauntie, he has to be the sexiest mailman I’ve ever seen in my life. His body alone is something that would have a woman rushing to her front door just to get a better look at him as he goes from door to door. He’s beyond good-looking. He’s sizzling hot!”
Ever since Shauntie could remember Sapphire never had a problem attracting the opposite sex. So this guy probably would take Sapphire out on a date during his shift or after whichever one Sapphire wanted him to do.
Hunks Too Hot To Touch Page 6
