The tape measure slipped from her fingers.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
She shook it off. “Yes. Just fine.”
It wasn’t fine. It was every memory she’d tried so hard to erase, except she couldn’t move in and press her br**sts to his chest. He wouldn’t slide his lips across her neck, kissing his way across her throat. He wouldn’t touch her br**sts, awakening her sexuality to raging life.
Not that her sex drive was having any problems at the moment. Her breath came out ragged and heavy as she fought with the tape measure, feeling flustered, this normally easy task taking longer than it should.
Best to get it over with as quickly as possible so Drew could put his clothes back on. Then everything would get back to normal again.
She sized both arms, jotting the measurements down, ignoring that tattoo even though she wanted a much closer inspection. She wanted to ask him when he’d gotten it, and why. But that would be a personal question, and she wasn’t going to get personal. Not now. Not ever.
“Lift your arms out a little so I can measure your chest.”
He held very still, the room so quiet all she could hear was the sound of his breath, feel the rise and fall of his chest as she wrapped the tape measure around him.
She drew in closer, breathing in his scent. Some soap he used that made him smell just as she remembered. It was crisp and clean, reminding her of wintergreen and the outdoors. She wanted to linger, to slide her lips over that spot on his neck that had given him goose bumps that night. She’d spread her tongue over his neck to get a taste of him, and it had made his c**k pulse.
And now she was the one with goose bumps. Her ni**les hardened, her sex quivering as she recalled how he had surged forward when she’d shyly wrapped her hand around his shaft and stroked him. He’d given her instruction, had told her how good it felt when she touched him, put her mouth on him.
He’d been her education that night.
And her downfall.
Drew cleared his throat. “Everything going okay, Carolina?”
No. It was a disaster. She let the tape fall from his chest. “Just fine.” She wrote down the numbers.
“What’s next?”
A hard shot of whiskey, maybe? Followed by a double shot of regret?
“You’ll need to spread your legs apart a bit so I can get your legs and inseam.”
“Sure.”
She couldn’t look at him. He had to know how uncomfortable she was. No, uncomfortable wasn’t even the correct word.
Lost in the past, and utterly and completely ready to throw herself at him and repeat the same mistake all over again.
She held the tape measure at the top of his hip, then ran it down his leg, quickly standing to make the note on her pad before doing the outside of the other leg.
Almost done. All she had to do now was his inseam. This time, she started at the bottom, sliding the tape measure up toward his thigh.
“I’m going to have to . . .”
She lifted her gaze to his and he smiled down at her. “I’ve been measured before, Carolina. I know what you’re doing.”
He was so nonchalant about it. So why was it suddenly so damn hot in here?
Because she brushed his balls and his c**k as she measured. And because he wore tight boxer briefs, and the unmistakable bulge grew noticeably bigger.
She decided to ignore it, jotted the measurement down and moved to his other leg.
She could get through this. One more time, and she’d be done. They’d be done. He could get dressed and leave.
And then she was going to have one hell of a glass of brandy to calm her shattered nerves.
She laid the tape down at his feet, lifting it slowly upward, conscious that the bulge hadn’t dissipated. In fact, it had grown larger. And when she reached his inseam, once again brushing her knuckles against him—against it—she shot him a glare.
He gave her a smirk. “What? You want me to apologize for getting hard? You’re touching my dick.”
“In a purely nonpersonal way.”
“Honey, any time you touch me it’s going to be personal.”
She whipped the tape measure away, finished the last of her notes, and took a step back.
“We’re finished.”
“That took awhile. Were you nervous?”
“Of course not.”
He crossed his arms and grinned at her. “You sure about that? I’m pretty sure your hands were shaking.”
How nice of him to notice. She glared at his penis. “Is that ever going to go down? It’s hard to have a discussion with you when you’re . . . like that.”
He laughed. “Yeah. It’ll go down. Eventually. But seeing you all flustered, your cheeks pink and your ni**les beading against your sweater, isn’t helping.”
She crossed her arms. “Damn you. This is all your fault.”
“How could it be my fault? You said undress. I undressed. You said hold still. I held still.”
“I did not tell you to get an erection. So do something about that.”
“Okay, fine.”
He took two steps toward her and pulled her into his arms. She opened her mouth to object, but his lips covered hers, his tongue sliding inside to tangle with hers.
As if they had a mind of their own, her arms twined around his neck, his hand gravitated toward her butt, and every hot fantasy she’d had about him all these years came rushing back to her.
EIGHT
DREW HADN’T EXPECTED THIS TO HAPPEN, BUT AS soon as he felt Carolina’s surrender, as soon as she kissed him back, his dick got harder, his heart pumped faster, and he was fully in the game. He wrapped an arm around her, his fingers sliding down to find that sweet spot just above her butt. He didn’t want to scare her off, but it felt damn good to hold her again after all this time.
She tasted as amazing as he remembered, the softness of her lips brushing over his a reminder of just how long it had been since he’d held her and kissed her. Only it was different now—they were both adults, and he was going to try really hard not to screw it up this time. She might have been reluctant, but the way she kissed him told him she wanted this as much as he did.
And he really did. Having her hands on him as she measured him, the soft glide of her fingertips along his skin, had been torture. He’d tried to be good, to treat it as her doing her job, but his dick had other ideas.
He’d planned to ignore it, but apparently Carolina couldn’t.