LITMIR.BIZ

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done. Two sets of clean, dry, pink hands, the big, strong pair cradling the smaller, work-hardened pair.

      “Much prettier,” he said softly.

      “They’re not,” she stammered. “They’re not proper girl hands at all. They have cuts on them, sometimes, and scars. I use creams and stuff, but—”

      He cut her off. “They’re sexy as hell.”

      “Yeah?”

      “Yeah. Because they’re real. Sexiest girl hands I’ve ever seen.”

      As if to prove it, he lifted them and kissed them, then took his lips away, laced his fingers through hers and kissed her mouth. It was the second time in three days that she’d found herself in Jack Davey’s arms, only this time no one was crying.

      He kept his fingers threaded in hers, dropping their arms to their sides. His lips brushed her mouth, taking it slow. “Is this okay?” he muttered.

      “Yes,” she whispered back. Because it was most definitely okay, so why pretend differently?

      The single word was all it took. He deepened the kiss at once, pulling her hard against him, parting her lips with his, tasting her, turning her mouth delectably numb and tingling. He kissed like a dream, kissed from the heart, kissed as if the world might end tonight, and that was just the way she wanted it. Good, and unashamed.

      Instinctively she lifted one hand into his hair and caressed the clean, silky strands. She’d done this four days ago. Different reason. Just as good. They knew each other better now. How did that happen to two people? It was strange. Making coffee for each other while they worked. A few casual lines about measurements and cabinets and paint colors.

      But somehow, thanks to tears and embarrassment and coffee and paint colors, she knew him and he felt right. Right beneath the touch of her fingers, right to her sense of taste and smell, the right heat radiating from his strong body, the right words whispered in her ear.

      “On Monday morning…” he said. Kisses and words. She could barely tell the difference. “Even when I was…” his breath touched her lips. His mouth was like poetry “…sobbing like a baby on your shoulder, I loved how you felt. I hit you with all of that emotion…”

      “It was okay. I could see how it just washed over you.”

      “You were great. The fact that you didn’t run screaming…”

      “I’ve had some practice.”

      “Yeah?”

      “Family.”

      “Why are we talking about this?”

      “We’re not.”

      “Good…” he said, and the word drowned itself against her mouth.

      He kissed her hard, ran his hands down her back and over her rear end, shaping her curves, coming up to lift her hair from her neck and make sensual touch patterns against her nape and behind her ears. She felt the press of her breasts against him, and the growing ridge of his arousal against her stomach. They were the wrong size for each other but it didn’t matter a bit. They still fit, somehow. He bent and she stretched. It was just…right.

      And then it was interrupted.

      Carmen heard the pop of car tires on the tarred driveway at the side of the house, right next to the windows above the old sink.

      Cormack and Rob, with the cabinets.

      Jack muttered something under his breath, and if it was a curse word, then Carmen fully agreed.

      She didn’t want this to stop. How could she stop?

      But the sound of the arrival had cut jaggedly into their kiss like a knife cutting tough steak, and she felt Jack start to let go. His hands showed his reluctance. So did his mouth. She felt his hot touch, first against her back then dropping to her hips. His kiss trailed across her jaw and down her neck, warm and giving and alive, promising more, promising later.

      It was only the promise of later that allowed her to let go now. How crazy was that?

      “This must be Cormack,” she said, breathless.

      And maybe his timing was fortunate because the implications of kissing Jack were looming larger by the second. That other part of her was talking louder, the part she hadn’t listened to before, the part that said nothing about how this could possibly work, when Ryan came first in his life, and Kate’s current problems came first in hers, and what Carmen wanted most in the world right now was to be free of such a heavy weight of respon sibility.

      “I guess,” he said, about Cormack.

      “Finish cleaning the roller?” she prompted him. “We’ll be a while, unloading.”

      He grabbed her hand and squeezed it and they looked at each other helplessly for a moment.

      “Jack, maybe we should…”

      “Go,” he said. “We can’t talk now.”

      “No. I know.” Her body throbbed and burned as she hurried up the stairs. She smoothed her hair and her shirt, knowing Cormack would have questions about her flushed face and bright eyes. He’d probably think Difficult client, not Kissing by the basement sink, because difficult clients were far, far more common than clients who even looked as if they might touch a woman the way Jack Davey did.

      Would her brother ask her about it?

      Cool down, she coached herself. Don’t let him see that something happened.

      She went directly to the side entrance, where Cormack and Rob should just about be standing by now. There was no one there, so she went to the front of the house, yanked the big, ill-fitting door open and found a petite, blue-eyed blonde standing on the porch with her mouth already pursed in impatience at how long she’d had to stand waiting.

      Oh. Right.

      “You must be Terri,” Carmen said, sounding a little too abrupt.

      Jack’s ex.

      She saw a boy with Jack’s dark hair and a slight but wiry build coming up the saggy old steps with a backpack slung on one shoulder. Ryan—number-one priority in Jack Davey’s life. To both mother and son she said, “Come in.”

      The purse on Terri’s lips gathered tighter, as she looked Carmen up and down. “Jack didn’t say he’d have someone here.”

      She said someone as if it meant call girl, or at the very best, sleazy new squeeze, but Carmen understood how a mother might have concerns about a possible unknown new girlfriend in her son’s father’s life. She explained quickly, “I’m not someone. I’m completely not anybody at all. I’m just remodeling his kitchen.” And if my cheeks are on fire, then they’re lying! “I actually thought you were going to be the rest of the team, bringing the new cabinets.”

      Terri didn’t seem interested in the new cabinets, let alone Carmen herself, now that she’d turned out to be the hired help. “But he’s home?” She didn’t wait for an answer, just marched into the house. “Jack?” she called sweetly. “This is a little inappropriate, isn’t it?”

      Inappropriate. Such a falsely sanitary word. It came out of Terri’s mouth with vinegar flavoring, and Carmen already understood quite a lot about why Terri and Jack were divorced.

      She focused on Ryan, instead. He looked so much like Jack, down to the same expression on his face—a mix of anticipation and wariness. It melted her heart. This was a fresh start for him, too, in his relationship with his dad, and he was a little wary. “Hi,” she said brightly. She knew about fresh starts in families. “I’m Carmen. Want to put your backpack by the stairs or something? It looks heavy.”

      Terri turned back to her. “Didn’t you say you were from the construction crew?”

      “Yes, that’s right,”

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