Inappropriate by Vi Keeland
Chapter 26
Ireland
God, I like that toolbelt.
I leaned against the doorframe, watching Grant work in the front yard. He had a piece of sheetrock set up on two sawhorses and was running a saw over it to fit into an area of the bathroom he’d just measured. He had on a pair of jeans, work boots, a T-shirt, and a ratty old toolbelt. And he looked ridiculously hot. I mean, I loved him in a well-fitted suit, and I loved him with a pair of board shorts on his boat, but this… This made me want to get sweaty and dirty.
“Keep looking at me like that, and nothing is going to get finished.”
His head had been down, and I hadn’t even been aware that he knew I was watching. I sipped water from a plastic bottle. “Pay attention to the saw in your hand. I wouldn’t want you to cut off anything important.”
Grant lifted the cut sheetrock upright, pulled the goggles from his head, and hung them on the end of one of the sawhorses. He carried it up the steps and stopped in front of me, in the tight space of the doorway, to plant a chaste kiss on my mouth. “Let’s get finished. Every time I pass the frame where the kitchen counter will be, all I can think about is how it’s the perfect height to fuck you.”
Despite my confusion about our future, I seriously had it bad for this man. One kiss and the mention of sex, and I could feel my nipples harden and a tingle between my legs. I had to clear my throat to not show how affected I was. “Better get back to work. Or I won’t pay you later.”
His eyes darkened. “Try not to pay me later, sweetheart.”
While Grant went back to the bathroom, I sat down on the steps of the porch. I wanted things to truly be as light and easy as they’d felt for the last few minutes. I’d avoided Grant since my discovery that he didn’t want children. I’d given a lot of thought to breaking things off with him. I already had strong feelings, and spending more time together would likely just make it worse when the time came. But that was logical, and the heart doesn’t do logic. So for now, for the short term anyway, I’d decided to stay in the moment.
I wasn’t ready to give up Grant, and I wasn’t ready to accept that I might not have a family someday. Basically, I’d decided avoidance was my current tactic. I also needed to understand why Grant was so adamant about not having children, and if there might be some compromise on that someday.
On that thought, I went back to the bathroom to be in the moment with my sexy construction worker. Grant was screwing in the drywall he’d cut.
“What can I do?” I asked from the doorway.
“If you’re good at measuring, you can take that tape measure over there and figure out the dimensions of the last piece we need to cut.”
I smiled. “I can do that.”
He looked over his shoulder at me. “You’ve measured before, right?”
“Of course.” I actually hadn’t, unless you counted slipping the tailor’s measuring tape around my waist when I was on a kick to lose an inch. But how hard could it be?
After I measured and typed the dimensions into my phone, I waited for Grant to finish. He lifted his chin to the area that still needed drywall. “Want me to double check what you came up with?”
I put my hands on my hips. “Do you think I’m incompetent because I’m a woman?”
Grant raised his hands in surrender. “Nope. I’m sure you did fine. It’s just that we only have one piece of sheetrock left, so if we screw it up, we’ll have to make another run to the store.”
“I didn’t screw it up.” I really, really hope I didn’t anyway…
Back outside at the saw, I enjoyed the way Grant’s muscles bulged as he held the sheetrock in place. “How often do you work out?”
Grant looked up at me. “Five days a week. More if I’m frustrated and need to burn off some steam. Needless to say, it was seven days a week for a while there after I ran into you at that coffee shop.”
I tilted my head. “So now I don’t frustrate you?”
He smirked. “Didn’t say that. But now I have a much better way of working that frustration out—on you.”
He finished cutting, and I followed him to the bathroom to put up the last piece. Only when he raised the sheetrock to the wall, it was a few inches too small. My eyes bulged. “You cut that wrong.”
Grant’s brows shot up. “Me? Pretty sure it’s your measurement that’s off.”
I squinted. “It is not.” Uh-oh…
Grant looked up at the ceiling and mumbled something, then took a deep breath and exhaled. “Care to put a little wager on who’s right?”
“What did you have in mind?”
He looked down at the kneepads he’d been wearing all day. “My cut matches your measurements, and you’ll be wearing these.”
Oh. Well, it wasn’t like it was a hardship if I lost. I reached out to shake on the deal. “Fine. But if I win, you’re going to take off all your clothes, except the toolbelt, when you’re on your knees.”
Grant reached around me to grab the tape measure and lowered his face to mine for a kiss. “You like the toolbelt? I’ll wear it every fucking day.”
I smiled. “Pretty sure people at the office would think you’d lost it.”
Grant measured the open space on the wall and showed me the width. “Thirty-two and three quarters, do you agree?”
I leaned in and checked. “Yup. Thirty two and three quarters.”
He pointed to my phone. “Read me the dimensions you called out.”
I held my breath as I swiped my cell alive. I hated to be wrong, but the way Grant was all bossy in his construction worker outfit really worked for me, and I secretly hoped I was this time. Dropping to my knees sounded pretty good right about now. I looked at my phone and smiled broadly as I turned it around to show him what I’d typed in.
Grant’s face wrinkled. “You do know that says twenty-two and three-quarters, right?”
“I know.” My smile widened.
“That means you lost the bet.”
I bit my bottom lip and dropped to my knees. “I know. You can keep the knee pads on…and the toolbelt.”
***
An hour later, Grant was a lot more relaxed as we walked around Home Depot. Since we were here anyway, I wanted to show him the two tiles I was considering for the bathroom. But the aisle was closed off while they used a forklift to take a pallet down from the top shelf, so Grant said he’d go get a cart in the meantime. When they opened the aisle, a construction worker struck up a conversation with me.
“Trying to decide between the two? Go with natural stone, rather than the ceramic.”
“Oh really? Why?”
“Ceramic chips easily. Stone doesn’t. And if you like that one in your left hand, they make it in a tumbled version, too. Stone doesn’t chip easily, and tumbled stone you can’t even tell when it does chip.”
“Oh, that’s great to know. Thanks.”
He smiled. “No problem.”
“Are you a tile contractor?”
“Nah. Not by trade. I’m a drywaller.”
Grant walked up the aisle, pushing one of those tall carts you put big items on. He stopped next to me and eyed the guy like a suspect.
“I was actually looking for a drywaller. Never thought of trolling the aisles at Home Depot to find one.”
The guy dug his wallet from his back pocket and slipped out a business card. Offering it to me, he smiled. “If you need help again, give me a call.”
I took the card. “I will. And thanks for the education on tile.”
When the guy walked away, I looked at Grant. “I found a drywaller.”
He plucked the card from my hand. “Who wants in your pants. I’ll file this for you.” Grant crumpled up the card.
“Oh my God. You’re jealous?”
“No, I’m not. I’m territorial.”
“That’s the same thing.”
“Whatever. Show me the tile.”
I grinned and sing-songed, “Gra-ant’s jeal-lous.”
He shook his head. “You’re a pain in my ass, you know that?”
I pushed up on my tippy toes and brushed my lips with his. “You’d be bored with easy.”
After looking at the tumbled-stone tile, I still couldn’t decide. Grant loaded a box of each onto the cart and told me he’d lay them out on the floor when we got home so I could decide, then return the one I didn’t pick. Outside, he had to leave his trunk open and tie the big piece of sheetrock in place so it didn’t fall out. It was a pretty funny sight—Grant’s expensive Mercedes with a piece of rope keeping construction materials inside.
“Something tells me this is the first time this car has ever had sheetrock in it.”
“I hire people because I’m busy, not because I’m incapable of doing it myself.”
“I know. And the fact that you made time for me means a lot.”
Grant looked back and forth between my eyes and nodded. “Come on. Let’s get this stuff back, and this time, we’ll use my measurements.”
