Melting the Ice(32)

            But he was here, and unclothed, so she’d just have to suck it up and deal with it.

            She ran the tape measure across his shoulders. For someone whose body was so . . . hard, his skin was smooth as she pressed the tape from one end to the other. She remembered that night when the two of them were in a room alone together, both of them naked, his arms coming around her as he tugged her close.

            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 breasts to his chest. He wouldn’t slide his lips across her neck, kissing his way across her throat. He wouldn’t touch her breasts, 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 cock pulse.

            And now she was the one with goose bumps. Her nipples 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 . . .”