“K.” Harry mumbles, too enthralled with my rat pack to even look up at me.
I slide up onto the kitchen counter next to my Superman. “I didn’t think I could like you more than I do in a suit.” I cross my legs, eliciting a quick glance from my dishwasher. “But when you roll up your sleeves and get all domestic on me, it’s kinda hot. Like Gardener Flint, the dirtier you get, the dirtier my thoughts get.”
He tips his chin down, staying focused on the pan and sink of sudsy water, his teeth digging gently into his lower lip.
“I have him set up with obstacle courses and snacks for my babies. I bet we don’t see him for a while. What do you think about a quickie in the bathroom?”
He gives me the slightest chuckle, handing me the pan to dry. “You think this is fun?”
“Dishes?” I rub the towel over the pan. “No. I hate doing dishes. But I think a quickie in the bathroom could be quite fun.” I hop off the counter and take the pan to the drawer under my stove top. “Ouch!” I drop the pan in the drawer with a clunk and straighten my back, my hand reaching for the back of my leg, just below my butt cheek. There’s a stinging welt.
Flint holds the end of the twisted damp towel in his hand like a whip.
“Oh my gosh! Did you seriously just whip me with a towel?” I say in a loud whisper. “There’s a welt. You marked me.”
“Your skirt is too short. When you bent over to put that pan in the drawer, I could see black lace.”
“So you whipped me?”
He stalks toward me until I’m forced to crane my neck to maintain eye contact. “No,” he whispers. “I whipped you because you’re a fucking tease.”
“You’re a terrible role model. Would you want Harry whipping some poor unsuspecting woman on the ass?”
His eyes focus on my cleavage for a few seconds before returning to meet my gaze. No signs of apology that I just caught him staring at my boobs. “He’s twelve. So I think that might not be a good idea at this point in his life, but if the day comes that he finds a feisty, sexy, playful woman in need of a little reprimanding, then I’d have to say the idea of him giving her a little nip on the backside would make me pretty proud. Much more proud than whispering to rats.”
“You’re stubborn and infuriating.” I narrow my eyes.
He glances in the direction of the bedrooms and presses his lips to his middle and index fingers. Bending over, he slides his hand up my leg until the fingers he just kissed cover my welt. “And you’re the first breath of oxygen that’s touched my lungs in ten years,” he whispers in my ear.
Tears instantly sting my eyes. I thought I’d forgiven Alex. But when Flint says things like this to me, I feel this surge of pain all over again, stirring the anger to life. I should have always been the oxygen in Alex’s lungs.
Flint’s hand slides out as slowly and seductively as it slid to my welted leg. His brows draw together. “It hurts that bad?”
I blink back the tears and smile. “Yes. But not my leg.”
His dark eyes search mine.
“What’s this?” Harry calls.
I wipe the corners of my eyes and follow his voice to my bedroom.
“Harrison you can’t snoop around in her bedroom without permission.”
“I’m not snooping. I followed Mozart in here. What’s this?” He points to my turntable.
“It’s a record player, a turntable. My mom found it and bought it as a graduation gift for me along with a bunch of vinyl records.”
“This is how you listened to music when you were my age?”
I laugh. “Not really. I used cassette tapes and eventually CDs. But my dad has a vinyl record player and he still uses it.” I grab a record off the shelf below the turntable. “‘Abbey Road.’ The Beatles?”
Harry stares blankly at me. Flint takes a seat on the edge of my bed.
I grin, sliding the record out. “I’ll play you my favorite song off this album. My mom and dad used to dance to it late at night when they thought I’d gone to sleep. I’d sneak halfway down the stairs and watch them dance.” I wrinkle my nose. “And then they’d kiss and I’d run back up to my bed and bury my head under the covers.”
Harry’s cheeks turn a little pink. I’ve not seen him blush before. It’s sweet.
“Something” starts to play.
“Show me your dance moves, Harrison Hopkins.” I hold out my arms.
He shakes his head. “That’s not the kind of dancing I know.”
I take his hand. He stiffens as I place it on my lower back and bring his other hand out to his side, latched to mine.
“Have you had a school dance? Slow dancing with a girl?”
“No way.” He shakes his head, stiffly letting me move him side to side.
“Well, if you go to homecoming or prom someday, I’ll give you dance lessons on slow dancing. Girls like a guy who knows how to lead.”
“It’s too weird.” He releases me, stepping back a few feet while shaking his head.
I laugh a little and twist my lips, focusing on the sexy guy perched on the edge of my bed. “Does your dad know how to dance?”
“Doubt it.” Harry watches the turntable like he’s trying to figure it out.
“Mr. Hopkins. You got any moves?” I hold out my hand and wink, knowing damn well he has some moves.
He glances at his preoccupied son in the corner of my bedroom. Standing, he takes my hand. I try to control my breathing as he slides his hand around my waist, pulling me close to him while bringing my other hand to his chest.
His gaze falls to my lips as he leads me around the small space between the end of my bed and the door. Something about this stolen—forbidden—moment feels more intimate than the last time we were in my bedroom together.
“Wh—” I stop to even out my voice. God, I sound so breathy.
Flint smirks, doing really inappropriate things to me with just a single look.
I try it again. “Who taught you to dance?”
“My mom.”
“Really?”
“Really,” he says like it’s no big deal.
The song ends and he releases me with his hands, but damn! He has to stop looking at me like he’s imagining me naked. I pull my top away from my chest a bit to hide my hard nipples.
Flint grins. Of course he saw them.
“We should go, buddy. Why don’t you make sure Ellen’s rat babies are all put back in their cage.”
“K.” He turns.
I smile, hoping he’s too young to see how incredibly flushed I am because his dad has my body in a tizzy from one sexy look.
“You feeling okay?”
“Shut up,” I whisper.
He takes a step toward me.
“Don’t.” I shake my head, taking a step back.
He watches me like he did in the office at his house, just minutes before he did wicked things to me on the spiral staircase.
My gaze falls to his hands. They’re strong hands that hold a football and win fights, not delicate manicured hands of a stuffy guy with a desk job. That’s what makes him so damn sexy in a suit. He’s the perfect clash of sophistication and ruggedness. It accentuates his broad shoulders and defined chest. And when he sits down in a suit, I can see the delineation of his quadriceps.
“You’re humming.”
My gaze snaps from his hands to his face. “I’m nervous.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re too close, and I’m …”
“Regretting wearing such a short skirt and flimsy lace panties?”
I swallow hard. “Maybe.”
He works his teeth over his bottom lip, staring at my legs for a few seconds before meeting my eyes again. “Harry can be home alone for a few hours, but I only leave him by himself during the day. How about lunch and a matinee tomorrow?”
“A date?” My head cocks to the side.
“A date.” He grins.
“No skywriting?”
His grin grows a fraction more.
I shrug. “I suppose. Where are we going to eat?”
As his grin morphs into something quite wolfish, his gaze drifts down my body, the tip of his tongue easing out to slide across his lower lip.
I cross my ankles. Yeah, wearing flimsy panties and a short skirt was a terrible idea.
“This place I recently tried. It’s quite delectable.”
Gulp.
“Ready?” Harry peeks his head in the room.
“Yeah, I’m ready.”
I pull my shirt away from my chest again and clear my throat. “I’ll walk you out.” Taking in a deep breath, I hurry past him, praying he doesn’t make some sly move to touch me. I’m one slide of a finger—any finger—away from convulsing. “Thanks for coming.”
“I haven’t … yet.” Flint says just above a whisper that only I can hear.
Fucking hell! Kill me. Just kill me now.
“What are you going to do with the rest of the apple crisp?” Harry asks, shoving his arms into his hoodie.
“Oh. Gosh … I don’t need it. You take it.” I walk toward the counter.
“We don’t need all of it,” Flint says, shadowing me.
“No. Take it.”
I pull out a sheet of foil and cover it.