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She frowned at the tweezers, then at me. I had the ridiculous, nonsensical urge to reach over and run my thumb over her brows to smooth out the line between them. Shoving the thought aside, I waited for her answer, knowing she’d fling vitriol at my face the way she had since she’d dropped through my ceiling. As the moment stretched, I found myself half looking forward to the furious flash in her eyes that would surely come.
Instead, her gaze softened. “Fine,” she said, then hesitated. “But only if you promise to be gentle.”
Now I was the one who’d been thrown off-balance. My heart thumped as I approached her, inhaling her freshly bathed lavender scent. “I can be gentle,” I told her.
Her chest rose as she breathed in, and that urge to touch her grew stronger. Maybe one of those broken floorboards had knocked me on the head without me noticing, because my thoughts were all over the place. I was convinced she was the hottest woman I’d ever met. I even liked it when she snapped at me. Wanted to make her do it again.
Her lips parted, and my gaze dropped to trace the shape of them. She had a perfectly formed cupid’s bow and a lush lower lip, stained with red that was a little smudged. I liked the look of them like that, mussed and undone. My pulse picked up. Thoughts of real estate and wills and splinters fled from my mind as my world narrowed to the shape of this woman’s mouth.
I jerked when she snatched the tweezers out of my grip. “Never mind. I’ll do it myself.” She pushed her way through my bedroom door and stomped out toward the small, open living area.
I shook my head and cursed myself. I must have looked like an idiot, staring at her mouth like that. Why would I care about some self-important chick’s lips? I was here for thirty days, and not a minute longer. Get in, get the deal done, and get out. That was how I operated, and I wasn’t going to change, no matter how good her mouth looked when her lips parted on a breath. Now was not the time to get distracted by angry, small-town redheads. I could do the gentlemanly thing and save her rump from splinterhood, but that’s as far as this would go. And even that hadn’t really been a serious offer.
And now she was stomping away from me like she was the one who owned the building. That got me riled up.
“Come on. Don’t get your panties in a twist.” I followed after her. “Oh, wait. You’re not wearing any.”
“Ha-ha. That’s hilarious.” Blue eyes cut to mine as she glared over her shoulder. “Do you really find this so amusing?”
“A strange woman falling through my ceiling naked with splinters in her tush? Yeah, I’d say that’s pretty funny.”
She stood still for a moment, staring at the tweezers like she was considering her next steps. I watched her, curious despite myself about how, exactly, she’d manage those hard-to-reach splinters.
She looked at the tweezers, then at me, then stared off into the middle distance for a few seconds. Finally, her shoulders dropped. “Well, if you wouldn’t mind being a decent person for five minutes to help me out, that would be great.” She shoved the tweezers back into my palm.
I blinked down at them. She’d actually agreed. A naked woman had fallen through my ceiling and now was expecting me to get up close and personal with her ass. What the hell was going on?
I gave her my best smile. “Sure thing, neighbor. Why don’t you hop up onto the table so I can get a better look.”
Her jaw clenched, but she did as I instructed, and I dragged the floor lamp closer. “Be careful,” she warned as I flicked the lamp on and shone it at her towel-covered curves.
The tweezers were warm in my hand. I stood there staring at the shape of her under the terrycloth, my mouth suddenly dry. “Should we, uh…” I nudged at the towel.
“Yeah. Sure.” She untucked it from beneath her and shimmied it so one of her ass cheeks was exposed to the light. And to my eyes.
I stood over her slender, prone frame and watched a droplet of water cascade from her shoulder to her spine. My gaze drifted down to her round rump, and I wet my bottom lip. Sure, her skin was red with specks of blood surfacing beneath the fifty or so splinters stuck to her. But my cock couldn’t help waking up to see what all the commotion was about. I adjusted myself over my sweats and tried to pretend this was what I’d intended to happen all along. Just me, my neighbor, and a pair of tweezers.
“Are you just going to stare at it all night?”
I blinked. Right. Splinters.
“Maybe,” I said and bent over to get a closer look at one of the bigger shards of wood. My gaze drifted to the perfect dimple on the side of her spine, just above the curve of her ass. I wondered if there was a matching one hiding under the towel on the other side.
“Is it bad?” Her voice was small.
“What?” I shook my head. “No, it’s fine. Hold still.”
“Ow!” she yelped, and my hands froze.
“Relax! I haven’t even touched you yet.”
“Excuse me? Unless you’ve ever been bare-assed in front of a man you’ve never met, then don’t tell me to relax.”
“Well, I have had a prostate exam so…”
She growled and squirmed just enough for her behind to shake, and I felt another quake in my sweatpants.
“Hold still, woman.”
