“You’re not?” she said, feigning innocent surprise. “What’re you good for, then?”

He laughed and lifted her, walking a few steps and dropping her onto the bed. “Other things.”

“Psssht,” she teased, but she was already scooting backward, making room for him to climb between her legs. “I heard what you said about your hand-eye coordination.”

He paused, one knee on the edge of the mattress, one palm pressed flat beside her hip, and smiled wickedly down at her. Then he ducked his head, nudged up the hem of her shirt, and pressed a hot, openmouthed kiss low on her stomach. Good direction, she thought, reaching to tug her waistband down, and he followed it, licking along each new stretch of exposed skin. Best direction.

“Maybe I can practice another kind tonight,” he said, his voice low, his breath warm.

And for the next little while, Nora only had to lie back in her bed, and go to the places Will took her.

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

“It’s your turn, Dr. Sterling.”

Will looked up from his phone screen, where he’d been staring down at a little gray bubble that told him Nora was currently replying to his last message. He cleared his throat, embarrassed, shoving the phone back into the front pocket of his scrubs before stepping up to the counter.

“Sorry about that, Janine,” he said to the familiar barista. “I was . . .” He trailed off, waving a hand. Wouldn’t do any good to lie to her, and telling her the truth—that he was waiting for a text message from a woman whose bed he’d left only a few hours ago—didn’t make any sort of sense, either.

When his phone chimed with a notification a second later, though, he had to force himself not to reach for it again. He stared up at the menu, but basically only saw a big stretch of gray text bubbles in his brain.

“How about I keep it simple today?” he said, smiling across the counter at Janine. “Large black coffee, no sugar.”

This time he at least remembered to hand over his mug before he stepped to the side to wait for his order. Once he was out of the way, he gave up resisting, pulling out his phone again.

Paint makes total sense, it read, and he smiled, relieved.

That was settled, then—another occasion to see her, and soon, too.

Last week, on the night they’d both bypassed the light fixture project, Will wondered whether they’d simply go forward and drop the pretense—if he wasn’t only coming over for these increasingly simple household projects, why bother continuing to come up with them? Even after they’d finally gotten that light fixture installed, though, Nora had stuck to their script: the next afternoon, she’d sent him a link to a massaging shower head, and obviously he was not going to argue with that as an idea.