Page 16 of Show Me

I cross my arms, leaning back against the counter. “So?”

He crouches, running his hand along the seam, knocking on spots I didn’t think to check. “What were you planning to do?”

The man has the sexiest arms in the world, with a light coating of dark hair and veins that bulge along with the muscles. It’s stupid that he makes a rolled-up flannel shirt hot. But he does.

I hesitate, then point to the section I’ve been staring at. “Take this out. Open it up a little.”

He exhales through his nose. “That would’ve been a problem.”

I wince. “Define ‘problem.’”

I’m assuming he’s referring to this support stuff and the ceiling ending up on the floor thing. That would’ve been a mess. I shudder. And I was minutes away from taking a sledgehammer to it and probably knocking myself out with sheetrock.

“This? You take this out. It all comes down.” He taps the section I pointed to, causing his biceps to flex.

My stomach drops at how close I came to disaster. “Great,” I mutter. “Love that.”

His mouth twitches, but he doesn’t say anything, shifts his hand a few inches over, knocking his knuckles into a different section. “This part.” He taps again. “You’ve got some room here.”

I step closer, following the line of his hand while ignoring that his fingers are as hot as the rest of him. Because, right now, there are more important things to consider. “So I can take that out?”

“Carefully. Not all at once.”

“Of course not.” This is excruciating. Maybe I shouldn’t have purchased a fixer-upper. It’s not like I have any idea what I’m doing. And it doesn’t help having Xavier here to point it out.

I pinch my fingertips into the back of my neck.

“You cut into it small. Check what’s behind it before you go any further.”

“That sounds like a terrible idea.” She lifts her shoulder. “I’m more of a jump first kind of girl.”

“In this case, you need to go slow because if you don’t, you’ll end up spending twice as much money and countless hours fixing the mess.”

I look back at the wall, trying to see what he’s seeing instead of what I thought I saw. “Okay. So where do I start?”

His sleeve rides up as he reaches past me for the pencil, exposing dark ink along the inside of his forearm. Thin black contour lines disappear beneath the rolled flannel cuff before I can make sense of what they're supposed to be.

I should move. I don’t. I’ve seen the tattoo before but never had the nerve to ask what it means.

His arm brushes mine as he draws a clean line along the drywall and my skin pebbles with awareness. He draws another line below it. Quick. Precise. Like he knows exactly where everything goes.

“Here.” He stands back as if he’s admiring his handiwork. “You mark it first. Then you cut enough to see what you’re working with.”

I watch his hand instead of his face. It’s easier that way. Xavier Cole is too good-looking to stand this close to and stare at without drooling. “Check how?”

“Small opening,” he says. “Nothing aggressive.”

“That feels like a suggestion I’m going to ignore in about five minutes.” I trace my fingers along the lines he drew. How does he know these are the right places to start cutting? And what’re we looking for when we’re looking inside the opening?

His mouth twitches. “That would be a mistake.”

“Good thing I learn from those.”

He steps behind me to look at the line from another angle. And that’s when it gets worse. Because now he’s closer. Standing behind me, one hand braced against the wall near my shoulder.

He smells like spices and wood. I suck in a breath, holding it so I don’t inhale again. His chest is close enough that if I lean back even a fraction….

I don’t. I snatch up the pencil he used and grip it as if my life depends upon it.