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“If you would have just waited another thirty years, that wallpaper might have come back in style.”
Kenna’s head came up and she shot me an out-of-breath smile. “I already talked to the sixties and they don’t want their wallpaper back.” She stepped inside the house and I paused.
“Need an extra hand?”
She grabbed my arm and pulled me inside, both of us letting out a soft sigh as the air-conditioned air hit us. I tried my best not to notice the way her nipples reacted to the arctic breeze through the T-shirt she wore. “Don’t we need to leave for the boat club soon?”
We’d been spending every afternoon there, getting familiar with how everything ran and what needed fixing. Kenna mostly stayed in the office, harassing Irene to the point that the old woman was spending most of the day chain-smoking outside in the heat.
“Yeah, but we have another hour or so. And I’m free labor.” I spread my arms wide and Kenna’s gaze dipped down for a split second before she spun away.
“If you’re up for it, I’m stripping wallpaper in all the bedrooms.”
I followed behind her, appreciating the way her hips swayed as she climbed the stairs. It wasn’t my fault for staring. The height of the stairs put her gorgeous ass right in my field of vision. Kenna hadn’t been here long, but she was already starting to fill out from when she’d first arrived in Sunshine Key. Her pale skin even had a faint hint at a tan.
There were other changes too. The woman I’d met in Mel Cheatum’s office had been pricklier than a cholla cactus wrapped in a nun’s habit. This Kenna, the one who wiped her dirty hands on her T-shirt and reached up over her head in the first bedroom we came to and yanked a strip of paper off the wall, acted nothing like her. She’d warmed up to not only me, but Char and Harley and even Mel.
I grabbed the corner of the next piece and gave it a steady yank down the wall, getting my own strip of paper. We moved in companionable silence, each of us ripping off what we could and leaving the more heavily glued pieces for later. When we had a large stack of ripped wallpaper between us, I scooped down to pick it up, Kenna grabbing the smaller strips that fell out of my arms.
As we walked back down the stairs to the dumpster, I cleared my throat. “Hey, huh, would you want to go out on my boat tomorrow? Harley can get the day off and we can float around some of the keys you haven’t seen yet.”
I didn’t know why I was nervous. It wasn’t like I was asking Kenna out. Hell, I couldn’t remember the last time I asked a woman out. Maybe before fame hit and women threw themselves at me without me having to make an effort? This definitely wasn’t a date. This was just some friends getting together on my boat. I did that all the time with Harley and sometimes that included whatever woman he was dating at the time. This would be no different.
Kenna opened the front door so I could walk out ahead of her, strips of wallpaper trailing behind me. She jumped over the paper and followed me to the dumpster. “Sure. That sounds like fun. It’ll give me a day off from house renovation.”
I dumped my load into the dumpster and waited while she threw the smaller pieces in too. When we headed back inside, she shook her head and laughed.
“What?”
She closed the door and turned toward me. I. Would. Not. Look. At. Her. Nipples. They played a game of peekaboo, disappearing when we went outside and then flaring again when we stepped back into the arctic air. They were driving me to distraction.
“My mom always tried to get me to play hooky with her instead of going to school. Not once did I agree.”
I frowned. “You liked school that much?”
Kenna folded her arms across her chest and I used every muscle in my body to pull my eyeballs upward instead of down. “It wasn’t that so much. I just didn’t trust my mom. If she had her way, I would never have gone to school and instead become a hippie with her. Of course, we would have ended up on the street without a penny to our name, but that never seemed to scare her into keeping a job.”
Damn. I thought I had it rough growing up with a single parent, but Kenna hadn’t even had one responsible parent. I put my hand on her arm, intending to console her, but once I got a feel of her silky skin, I found my hand rubbing up and down her arm. Kenna’s eyes flared and I was highly aware it was just the two of us in the house. Alone.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, meaning I was sorry she didn’t have a parent to count on. Sorry that she had to grow up way before she should have had to. Sorry her ex-husband had just been another person in her life who didn’t treat her right.
Kenna flashed an overly bright smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “I turned out okay. I mean, look at me! Divorced, home falling apart around me, unemployed, and riding a bike to the grocery store.”
I gripped her arms with both hands, pulling her into me. She dropped the smile instantly and inhaled sharply as our bodies collided. She felt so slight against me, the top of her head not even coming to my chin. She was so small but she was bravely building a life out of the wreckage. There was nothing about that to make fun of and I couldn’t listen to her beat herself down.
Her face was just inches from mine, all that thick auburn hair streaming down her back as she gaped up at me. “Let’s skip the boat club today so you can get more done on the house. I’ll pick you up tomorrow at eight. Wear sunscreen.”
And then I let her go, exiting the house and swearing under my breath while I climbed over the hedges. I should have stayed to help her with the house, but I didn’t trust myself. Because right then, with her soft skin under my hands and her breasts smashed against my chest, I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to claim that mouth and taste what made her so resilient. I wanted to bend her over my arm and kiss away every single memory of her asshole ex-husband.
And that would only lead to trouble.
I spent the entire night talking myself out of whatever the hell I’d been thinking yesterday when I yanked Kenna against me. There was zero room in my life for a relationship with my next-door neighbor. My head understood it but other body parts of mine weren’t getting on board with it. I spent most of the night awake and pissed off, which didn’t bode well for my mood today.
So when Kenna came bouncing out of her house in a pair of tight cutoff jean shorts with frayed edges dancing around her bare thighs instead of the shapeless Sunshine Key tourist shorts, I almost turned right back around to go inside my house. There was no way I could be out on the boat with her all day in those shorts and not stare at her ass. Did that make me an asshole male with impulse control problems? Most likely. And yet I knew myself. I’d simply have to wear reflective sunglasses and hope Kenna couldn’t see where my gaze was directed.
“Hey! Should I bring a cooler with drinks?” Kenna called out from her porch, oblivious to the little problem I had brewing. She sported thin swimsuit straps peeking out from under an emerald-green tank top. Her hair was piled on top of her head and she carried a straw-colored wide-brimmed hat in her hands.
“Already packed,” I tossed back, getting into the truck and refusing to look at her. “Fuck me,” I whispered to the inside of the cab.
