Come to me in my dreams.
Her heart threatened to melt. It was a line from a Matthew Arnold poem, one she adored. Then, words from Smith.
These nights have been amazing. To “Another Time” very soon.
Okay, now a flock of butterflies swarmed her insides, turning her to mush. Damn him, with his double whammy of sweet words from a poet and sweet words from his own pen. Triple points for the dog paw since he knew she loved dogs. The grinding of a drill echoed through the bar, and, oddly enough, it thrilled her. Smith was here and she would be able to see him.
Wait. She wasn’t supposed to want to see him for more than sex, so why was she so dang excited for the possibility of a few minutes with him? She didn’t have time to contemplate, though, because Becker hung up and said a quick hello. He sounded frustrated.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
He scrubbed his hand across his jaw. “Just want this construction to be over soon and get things back to regular around here.”
“It has been a while, hasn’t it?”
“It’s taking longer than I thought,” he said, reaching for a glass and filling it with water from the sink as the drilling ended, replaced by hammering.
Jamie winced; the sound of the hammer seemed to reverberate in her skull. She could feel a headache start to take root from the noise. “It is getting a little annoying.”
“I know. What I would give for some silence in this place when the customers aren’t here,” Becker said, shaking his head and looking like a man longing for solitude. Odd that he’d chosen to run a bar when he seemed to crave quiet rather than crowds. But she wasn’t going to play amateur shrink. Instead, she honed in on how she could help him with the matter at hand, because she wanted to keep proving her value as his manager. An idea started to form. She flashed back to something Diane said a few days ago about adding some new hires at the winery, and how they’d worked out well.
“Well, let’s just move the project along then,” she said to Becker, a cheery tone to her voice.
“How so?”
“Smith needs to hire some help and I know how he can do it,” Jamie said, and marched to the unfinished section.
Smith’s back was to her and he had on headphones, singing along to some country song as he hammered nails into the wood.
He could carry a tune, and she added that to his list of positive traits. Good voice, head full of poetry, sinful body. And his heart in the right place, from his volunteer work to the sweet way he’d looked out for her when Diane had showed up crying the other day—quickly giving her the space she needed to talk to her sister. She stopped in her tracks momentarily, letting her mind wander. She could imagine herself in his house, him maybe working on some fix-it project, her tiptoeing over after breakfast and softly running her fingers along his skin. He’d turn around, plant a devastating kiss on her mouth, then carry her up the stairs two by two to the bedroom.
Pin her down, hold her close, make love to her.
Oh, crap.
She could not start thinking of him that way. It was sex, only sex. They weren’t making love, and certainly not in some imaginary house in her fantasies.
Because if it didn’t work out—and of course it wouldn’t work out—he’d eventually end it because they wanted different things—then she’d be saying sayonara to a friendship she didn’t want to give up.
He hammered once more, and the sound crashed into her head, sending off a new pang. She pressed her hand to her forehead as Smith turned around. “You okay? You got one of those nasty migraines again?”
“Yeah,” she said in a strained voice because it was coming on fast.
He reached for her shoulders, turning her around. He said nothing. Instead, he let his hands do the talking, his fingers kneading gently into her neck, then the dip of her shoulders. She sighed deeply and leaned into his touch. He lifted her hair so he could press his thumbs against the base of her scalp. The whole time, she moaned, but not the way she had in his truck or the storage room or his bedroom. The sounds came from relief, from the fact that he was taking away the pain, bringing her body back to the way it should be.
“You have magic hands,” she said softly, as the tension poured out of her, replaced only by the soft, noodly feeling of a massage well done.
“You feeling better?”
She nodded into his hands.
“Don’t stop, please.”
“Never,” he whispered, and she wasn’t sure if he was even talking about the massage anymore. But she knew this much—she didn’t want this thing between them to stop. Any of it. She inched her whole body closer as he moved on to her shoulders, rubbing her tight muscles between his fingers. Her back was nearly pressed against his chest, and she could feel his erection against her backside. She wriggled playfully against him once.