“Grab the vac and clean the dust that didn’t stay on the drop cloths.”

“Um … okay.” I jumped to attention and did what he asked me to do while he loaded his tools in the trailer parked in their driveway.

“Are you done?” I handed him the vac.

“Almost. I’ll finish up tomorrow afternoon.” He closed the trailer and locked it.

“Think you can teach me something?” I asked with my hands in my pockets.

Fisher closed his tailgate and walked to my side of the truck, standing uncomfortably close to me. “Oh, Reese … I think I can teach you a lot.”

Choking on my words for several seconds, I coughed and shook my head. “A-about construction. Can you teach me how to cut and nail things?”

The grin that climbed up his face made me melt like M&Ms on a hundred-degree day. “We might wait on the cutting, but I think I can show you how I nail things.”

Another gulp clogged my throat. “I’d … um … I’d like that.”

“Oh…” his grin did the impossible and grew even bigger “…I have no doubt you’d like it.”

Oh my gosh …

I didn’t think he was talking about construction. And I wondered if he understood that I was talking about it.

“Well…” I lifted my shoulders and shoved my hands even farther into my pockets “…time to call it a day?”

He eyed me with his signature predatory, ready-to-pounce-on-its-prey look for several seconds. “Definitely.”

* * *

When we pulled into the driveway after a ride home with no conversation, only music—his sexually explicit music—I jumped out before he got the truck into Park.

“Goodnight. See you tomorrow.” I ran—sprinted—to the back of the house and fumbled the key with shaky hands. Rocks crushed under big boots—Fisher following me.

“Open!” I begged the key and my hands to work together.

Just as he turned the corner, it opened.

“Are you running from me?”

“Nope.” I slid inside and shut the door behind me, locked it too. On a sigh of relief, I turned and made a straight line to my bedroom.

Click.

The door unlocked and opened. Of course he had a key. It was his house. The door clicked again when he shut it behind him.

“Whatcha need?” I asked with the last little bit of breath left in my lungs. His proximity made breathing so hard. It made my heart work even harder. It made my thoughts cross lines that should not have been crossed.

“Why are you running from me?” He was right at my back.

I forced myself to turn toward him, and it took superhero strength. He stepped toward me.

I stepped back.

We did this dance until a wall stopped my retreat.

He pressed his hands to the wall above my head, and my heart rate spiked a thousand percent. The air exchange in my lungs sounded like that of someone finishing a marathon.