“Good. There are several guards who will be patrolling the premises regularly. Stay on task or your service card won’t be signed, and you’ll have to make today up. If you need help, come to this office or give a holler.”
She shoos me away with a wave of her unmanicured, jewelry-less hand, and I go around the corner and to the left.
The door is open and there’s a radio blaring. I can hear the rhythmic sweep and clack of a paint roller. I guess I’ll be working with someone else.
I walk in the doorway and a huge drip of light blue paint blobs on the dropcloth at my feet. I step over it and almost crash into…him.
“Oh! What are you doing here?” I demand stupidly as he stops rolling paint on the walls and stares at me, shock naked all over his face.
“What am I doing here? What are you doing here?” His mouth pulls tight, a bowstring just before the arrow flies. “Un-fucking-believable, Kevon,” he mutters, and he eyes me from the top of my ponytail to the tip of my inappropriate footwear with a look that is definitely pissed-off and annoyed.
“Excuse me?”
I feel stupidly over-dressed and unprepared for even this simple day of painting, and now the one person who was slightly nice to me on one of the most embarrassing days of my life is being a complete and utter ass, and it’s caught me off guard.
I immediately hate myself for having had a crush on him, and I hate him with instant, total fury. If he couldn’t bother to be nice when he saw me, he could have at least been neutral and not made me feel like an out-of-place idiot.
Anger settles on my tongue like a hot pepper, and one bite is all it will take for me to access the spicy heat.
“I just, uh, didn’t expect you. Didn’t expect to see you. Again.” He tosses the roller into the tray and paces, running a hand over his short, black hair. “This is…” He looks up at me, those deep blue eyes scanning my face the way honor students speed-read a book a minute before an exam. He clenches his teeth so hard his jaw ticks, and then announces, “I should sign up for another duty station.”
I crunch down on the pepper of my anger and my temper flares. I want to keep cool, but I lash out blindly, my emotions too overwhelming to hold in check. Every insecurity about this crazy day bubbles to the surface and leaves me raw.
“Sorry it’s such a huge issue to work with me. You know, where I come from, judging someone based on their clothes is considered a really shitty thing to do. I may dress well, but that doesn’t mean I’m useless.”
I stalk a few feet closer to him, so angry I should be able to jump right in his face. But something about him stops me.
He’s perfectly still, perfectly quiet and cool, but there’s a dangerous edge in those warm blue eyes. Like the outside of a volcano, dormant for so long you forget how vicious it can be until it explodes.
“It’s not your clothes. It’s not that I don’t think you can work.” His voice is low and deceptively sweet, candy from a stranger I know I shouldn’t take. “It’s just not a good idea if we work together. Nothing personal.”
But his eyes, half deep blue velvet, half dark blue diamond, tell me loud and clear that his declaration is a bald lie. This is all only personal, and I decide to throw my stubborn pride out the window and plead my case.
Which is weird for me.
I don’t plead my case to anyone. Ever. And especially not to guys.
But there’s something about Winchester. Something that makes me run boiling then frigid, something I’m attracted to and can’t stand at the same time.
And part of me wants him around, needs him even. Here. With me. For practical reasons.
And for other, less practical reasons.
Reasons that have to do with the energy that crackles between us in this room. Energy that’s waking up something in me that’s been dormant since way before I axed my ex.
I put one hand on his wrist and our eyes both snap down to it before I pull away, the tingle of his skin’s warmth still on my fingertips.
“Look, I’m in enough trouble right now. I’m just trying to keep my head down and get through this damn day. If you hate working with me after today, feel free to talk to the warden or whoever the hell manages this stuff. But please don’t make me look bad right now. I promise, you won’t even know I’m here.”
To prove my point, I walk over to the tray, pick up the roller, sop up some paint, and roll it along the wall.
Paint gushes out of both ends of the roller and leaves long, sloppy dribbles on either side, but I play it cool and act like that’s what I meant to do all along.
I roll another long stripe of paint as far up as I can reach and bend down to get all the way to the bottom. The paint isn’t going on as thick, so I dip the roller again and make another squishy line.
I feel his heat when he walks up behind me, like I have my own personal human-sized sun radiating warmth against my back.
“You’re making a mess.” I can hear his smile curved against his words.
I push the roller back up and down the wall, and it sputters with an uneven gush of paint. “Why don’t you do your thing and leave me to do mine?”
My heart thumps, quick and hard as the slap of a two kids’ hands playing Miss Mary Mack.
“Because if I let you keep going like that, my ‘thing’ is going to be ‘redoing your paint job.’ Give it here for a second.”
He holds one hand out, and I stare at the long, strong fingers that I imagine doing a whole slew of absolutely naughty, amazing things before I hand the roller over.
He squats down in front of a tray and points. “The idea isn’t to soak up as much paint as possible and smear it on the walls.” He rolls the tool in the tray with an easy dip, giving the roller an even coat. “You want to reapply more often and make uniform coats. Also you want to paint in a big W-shape. Like this.” He picks a wall and rolls a clean, effortless W.
I should be watching his technique, but it’s hard to focus when the coiled muscles of his back bulge against the stretch of his threadbare t-shirt. He repeats the lines, saying something about even pressure and blend, but I’m a little obsessed with the way his arm muscles stretch and contract.
When he turns back to check on me, it’s like he can read on my face how completely I was not paying attention to his instructions. He shakes his head and directs a reluctant smile at the grisly blue paint. My mouth goes a little dry. I love that smile.
I want more of that smile.
I want it centered on me.
For me.
“You want to try?”
He holds the roller out and breaks through my thoughts, which have stayed on his mouth, but strayed to way less innocent actions than smiles.
That mouth could do so many incredibly hot things to me.
I take the roller from his hand and make a W that must meet his approval, because he gives me a nod and starts on his own wall. We work in silence for a few minutes, but soon the paint on my roller is almost gone, and I need more. He made the whole thing look so damn easy, but I slop way too much paint on it again, and soon the wall that had been coated with even strokes of blue is back to being a runny mess.
I’m chasing trails of blue paint with my roller and attempting some damage control when I feel him close behind me. I go completely still and wait until he’s shadowed at my back, just inches away from me.
“Can I show you?”
His voice twines in my ear, and his breath moves a piece of my hair that came undone from my ponytail, tickling a shiver up and down my spine.
I nod and his arm wraps around me, his hand closes over mine on the roller handle, and his chest presses to my back. My heart is the star jumper in a double-dutch tournament.
“Like this. Easy, okay? There’s no pressure. You keep trying to press the paint into the wall. Relax and let the roller do the work. Like this.”
He leads me through the process one more time, and this time I can feel the exact amount of pressure he uses and how lightly he applies the pai
nt.
Or I should be able to feel those things.
What I really feel is the hard wall of his chest, the way his hand envelopes mine, the steady, strong thud of his heart at my back. He still has that clover smell that makes me think of spring and sex. Sex outside, sex under the stars, sex with someone strong and confident and honest as hell.
My hand shakes under his, and when he pulls away, I make a jerky lunge to the paint tray so I can inhale the chemical smell of the paint and push back these insane thoughts about this boy and me and sex so good it’s making my knees knock just imagining it.
Winch 2
I need to get outta this damn room and away from this chick before I get both our asses in trouble.
But she asked me not to make a big deal about our assignment, and it’s not like they wouldn’t ask what the problem was. And then I’d have to tell them…what? That the girl they assigned me to work with is giving me a hard-on, and I want to take her on a date then get her naked in my backseat, but know damn well what a bad idea that would be?
So I kick the crackly old-as-dirt radio up a notch and paint like there’s a gun to my temple and keeping the roller moving is the only way to still the trigger. The effort of staying away from her pumps so much adrenaline through me, I don’t give a shit if she makes a total slop mess of her walls. I can repaint them, no problem, in a few minutes with all this excess energy.
And she is making a mess. I’m not annoyed.
I’m turned on, I’m desperate to be by her, and just as desperate to get away. So I snap a little, even though I don’t mean to.
“You’re doing the same thing as before, and now you’re dripping paint all over the place. Hey, why don’t you try edging? I’ll do the rolling, okay?”
I point over to the paint bucket and smaller brushes, and she curls her lip at them in a frustrated grimace, showing the sharp, white points of her teeth.
“I don’t think I’ll be any better at edging.” She puts the roller down and heads to pick up the can.
I try to ignore how perfect the curve of her ass is as she bends to pick up the can and brush. I want her. Bad. The realization hits me like a fresh wave of paint fumes, making my head blur and spin.
But I have no business wanting this girl, and I’m well aware that I just can’t have her, so I say what I need to say to give her a hard shove in the opposite direction from me before I make a huge mess when I know better.
I seriously know better.
“Well, there’s no way you could possibly be worse.” I roll my eyes at her shitty job, even though I know she’s working as hard as she can. I feel like an asshole, but I push through. “No doubt about that.”
The sharp clatter of the brush falling to the floor whips me around. Her lips are all trembly, maybe like she’s about to cry. I feel like a jackoff for being unnecessarily cold to her, but it’s what I have to do. If I don’t hold this girl at arm’s length, I’ll pull her so she’s tight against my body, start kissing that sweet mouth, and won’t be able to stop until we’re both naked and panting.
No girl’s made me think anything so out of control in a long time, and I roll faster to get this damn job done and get my ass as far away from the sugary smell of her as I possibly can.
I just hope she doesn’t cry. I’m not good at handling tears from a girl.
But there are no tears.
“Fuck you.”
The words are clear out of her mouth, and I realize now that the wobble on her lips is all about fury.
“Excuse me?”
Even if I have been a little bit of a dick, I’m not big on being told to fuck off by anyone, especially not girls who are born and bred thinking they’re better than I am.
“Maybe you got paint in your ears?” she suggests, her voice as sugar-sharp as her smell, like candy just about to burn. “I told you to fuck off.”
She pops one paint-flecked hand on her hip and gives me a pursed-lip, raised-eyebrow pissy face that pings my irritation.
I let out a short, hard laugh, but I know damn well my smile isn’t hiding the aggravation pumping through me.
“Look, I’m not one of your prep school tutors, alright? My job isn’t to tell you how perfect every damn thing you do is. You suck at painting, and I get it. I’m sure it’s hard to do physical labor when you’re worried about keeping your nails and hair perfect. But if this room doesn’t meet spec, we do it again. Meaning I do it again, since you obviously can’t. So get back to work, and try not to do such a shitty job this time.”
Harsh, I know, but this girl isn’t from my world, and it will all be easier if I let her see what a dick I can be and how completely wrong we are for each other, no questions. Next session, she’ll be the one who requests we don’t work together, I’ll get the work done twice as fast, and I can go back to life as usual, without ridiculous thoughts of this sexy, out-of-my-league girl clogging up my brain.
That perfect mouth is hanging open, her cool blue eyes are totally round, and her breathing is so erratic, I can see her chest rise and fall. The urge to yank her over to me is strong as hell, but I put a lid on it and get back to business, determined to do my job and ignore her as much as I can for the next few hours.
My ears register the whip and spatter a few seconds before my skin feels it. I reach one hand to the back of my neck, and my fingers are coated in light blue paint that’s leaking in a slow line down my back and pooling at the waistband of my boxers. Paintbrush fisted in her hand, eyes hurling me a dare I can’t resist, this girl is upping the stakes quick.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” My voice is soft and smooth, and I hope she doesn’t take that to mean I’m above getting her wise ass back for throwing paint at me.
“Putting you in your place. Were you raised in a barn? Where I come from, men don’t talk to women the way you just talked to me.” She points at me with the paintbrush. “You know what’s really hysterical? That day in court, it was your good manners that made me like you.”
I can instantly tell she regrets going that far by the way she bites her bottom lip and darts her eyes to the side.
“I’m to the point, and I’m not gonna apologize for telling you the truth, especially when it affects how long I’ll be in this hell hole. By the way, I have very good manners. But I only use them when I need them.”
I pick up the roller and nonchalantly walk her way. She backs up one step, two. “And I only need them around people who earn them, not snotty spoiled brats who expect everyone to worship at their thrones.”
She holds her small hands up and her scowl deepens.
“Don’t. You. Dare.”
Her eyes flip to the roller in my hand, and she turns to run the few feet she can away from me. I take aim and smack the roller right against the sexy curve of her ass, leaving the entire seat coated in baby blue paint.
She whirls on one heel, eyes ethanol-flame blue, and I expect more paint flicked my way, but she smiles at me instead.
“Thank you, Winchester. You’re right. I do need to cut in closer to the ceiling.”
I nod and back up, finally sensing the presence of someone else in the doorway. I’m pissed I was so preoccupied with her, I didn’t keep my guard up.
“What’s going on in here?” The female officer who checked us in narrows her eyes at me. “Everything okay?”
She directs the question right at Evan, and she doesn’t care if I catch her implication…which is ‘is he messing with you?’
I can guess exactly how much those designer jeans I just ruined cost, and I’m getting ready to have my ass thrown under a speeding bus all because I let myself act like an idiot. Not that I don’t deserve it. Just because I have a thing for her I don’t want to own up to, doesn’t mean I have to provoke her like I did. But that’s the thing: this girl makes me lose control, and losing control isn’t an option.
“Everything is fine.” Her smile is bright and toothy, the kind of smile that commercial producers would kill for. That s
mile could sell huge amounts of shampoo or toothpaste or cans of lentil soup; it’s that hot.
When the officer looks directly at the paint on her ass, Evan giggles. “I sat in paint. I’m such a klutz. Luckily Winchester has been helping me out, so I’m not making a total mess of things.”
There’s a long couple of seconds when I’m sure the officer is going to call our bluff, and I’ll have Kevon chewing me a new one for causing shit on my first day on site, but it doesn’t happen.
“I’ll be back to check on you two.” The officer gives a jerky nod, then leaves us alone.
I pick up the roller, and, for a few minutes, there’s just the sound of her brush sliding across the wall and my roller clattering as I make giant W’s.
She didn’t have to cover for me.
The music blares, and some lame summer dance song comes on. I glance over my shoulder, and she’s swaying her hips from side to side, bopping her head to the tune, just chilling when she could have been pouting in a royal little temper tantrum.
“Evan?”
She stops rocking her hips at the sound of my voice and turns slowly, her face gorgeous, but clear of any emotion at all. I miss the glow she got when she was about to lose it.
“I, uh, want to apologize. I lost my temper. I shouldn’t have talked to you like that. I deserved to get hit with paint. And I deserved to have you throw me to the wolves. I have no idea why you didn’t, but thank you. I know you don’t want more trouble. And I should be thinking the same way.” The words choke and sputter out.
The corner of her mouth lifts in the tiniest trace of a smile. “I’ve got a pretty shitty temper myself. Don’t worry about it. We gotta get through this, and I know you just want this room painted and it looks like crap, but I’m doing my best.”
She shrugs her shoulder and one sleeve of her t-shirt slides down. Her shoulder is tan. Her bra strap is red. And I stop my brain from going too wild imagining what she’d look like if I peeled that shirt off, unhooked the bra and let it slide down off of her arms.
“Winchester?”
The sound of my name pops me out of my dirty daydream.
Fall Guy Page 3
