The Naked Fisherman by Jewel E. Ann

Chapter Eleven

I spentSaturday in shameful regret, not venturing out once.

Sunday morning I bolted to the Outback to go to church and pray … lots of prayers. And when I returned, God had answered at least one of my prayers: Fisher wasn’t outside.

Monday morning, around five-thirty, my luck ran out.

Fisher: You’re with me today. We’ll leave in twenty minutes.

Someone might as well have said, “You’ve been found guilty. We’re executing you in twenty minutes.”

I wore my hair down to hide my face as much as possible. With not a second to spare, I dragged my feet up to the driveway and climbed into the truck, keeping my backpack between my legs on the floor instead of tossing it in the back where I might have accidentally made eye contact with Satan’s son.

“Morning.” I could feel his gloating expression. His amusement.

“Morning,” I mumbled, keeping my head down.

“Listen, there’s no need to drag your weekend to work with you on Monday. What happened, happened. No big deal. We move on.”

My head snapped up, jaw open. “No big deal? You molested me with your eyes! I wouldn’t call that no big deal.”

Fisher’s molesting eyes flared, a new kind of shock I hadn’t seen on him before. I may have spent the whole weekend letting my emotions build into something a little … explosive.

“You know what your problem is?”

My chin tipped up as my eyes narrowed. Yeah, I knew what my problem was … him.

“You need to get laid. And so help me, if you even think of telling Rory I said that, I will tell her everything.”

“I …” My jaw flapped a few times. I couldn’t believe he said it. If I would have had a hundred guesses as to what I imagined he thought my problem was, lack of sex would not have been on that list. “That … you …” My head wouldn’t stop shaking side to side. “I do not need to get laid. You need to stop being so crude. Some people take sex seriously, not like a game to play with anyone willing to have it with them. It’s supposed to be something beautiful between two people who love each other.”

“You’ve clearly never had an orgasm.”

“I have too.” Once, by accident. And it irked me that he had a way of keeping me on the defensive. I wasn’t proud of my accidental orgasm, but I felt the need to own it with him accusing me of needing one.

“Liar.” He smirked.

“You can’t call me a liar about this when you’ve known me for a few weeks. You don’t know anything about me and my past.”

“Did you give it to yourself or did someone else give it to you?”

“This … this is a stupid topic and really inappropriate. You’re my boss, driving me to work.”

“I’ll be your boss when we get there.”

“Then let’s go.” I faced forward and folded my arms over my chest.

At the first job, he inspected the previous day’s work and talked to a few of the workers. The second stop was a meeting with potential clients at an empty lot. I waited in the truck. We grabbed a fast-food lunch (unfortunately not Mickey D’s) and headed to the final stop of the afternoon. It was a staircase he’d been working on for a client, but they weren’t home.

“Did you buy these?” I asked, running my finger over the intricate details of a spindle.

“Nope. I made them.” He slipped on his tool belt.

Although I kinda hated him from our morning conversation, I couldn’t not appreciate how sexy he looked in a tool belt.

The scruff on his face a little longer.

His shirt nice and snug in the chest but loose over his tight abs.

“Are you serious?”

He glanced up, gathering the spindles in his arms to haul them inside the house from the garage. “Why are you constantly doubting my skills?”

Because he was the most amazing man I had ever met, but I couldn’t tell him that. I couldn’t hand him the last drop of my dignity because I didn’t trust him with it.

“I’m just used to seeing you walk around staring at other people’s work or barking orders. I have yet to see you in action.”

“Well, grab the rest of those spindles, and I’ll show you some action.”

I carried the spindles into the house.

I handed him tools.

I ran and grabbed stuff from his truck.

I got him ice water.

I answered his phone when people called for him.

I watched Fisher Mann feed my obsession with him to the point where I knew no other man would compare, which meant I’d die a single and barren virgin. Occasionally, he’d lift the front of his T-shirt to wipe the sweat from his face. And on more than one of those occasions, he caught me gawking at his abs while wetting my lips.

“I’m going to start deducting pay from your check if you keep stealing free peeks at my body.”

I cleared my throat and glanced at his phone. “Hailey just texted you. She said Brad’s crew is done. She wants to know if you’re coming by the office before you go home.”

“No.”

I risked a glance up at him. “You want me to just say no?”

Sliding a pencil behind his ear, he lifted his gaze to me from three steps down. “To Hailey, yes, I want you to say no.”

“Who else would I say no to?”

He shrugged. “I’m hoping that’s your last no of the day.”

What did he mean by that?

I replied with a “no.” Then I watched Fisher finish the railing. At some point I started nibbling at my fingernails; I wasn’t a nail chewer.

“Grab the vac and clean the dust that didn’t stay on the drop cloths.”

“Um … okay.” I jumped to attention and did what he asked me to do while he loaded his tools in the trailer parked in their driveway.

“Are you done?” I handed him the vac.

“Almost. I’ll finish up tomorrow afternoon.” He closed the trailer and locked it.

“Think you can teach me something?” I asked with my hands in my pockets.

Fisher closed his tailgate and walked to my side of the truck, standing uncomfortably close to me. “Oh, Reese … I think I can teach you a lot.”

Choking on my words for several seconds, I coughed and shook my head. “A-about construction. Can you teach me how to cut and nail things?”

The grin that climbed up his face made me melt like M&Ms on a hundred-degree day. “We might wait on the cutting, but I think I can show you how I nail things.”

Another gulp clogged my throat. “I’d … um … I’d like that.”

“Oh…” his grin did the impossible and grew even bigger “…I have no doubt you’d like it.”

Oh my gosh …

I didn’t think he was talking about construction. And I wondered if he understood that I was talking about it.

“Well…” I lifted my shoulders and shoved my hands even farther into my pockets “…time to call it a day?”

He eyed me with his signature predatory, ready-to-pounce-on-its-prey look for several seconds. “Definitely.”

* * *

When we pulledinto the driveway after a ride home with no conversation, only music—his sexually explicit music—I jumped out before he got the truck into Park.

“Goodnight. See you tomorrow.” I ran—sprinted—to the back of the house and fumbled the key with shaky hands. Rocks crushed under big boots—Fisher following me.

“Open!” I begged the key and my hands to work together.

Just as he turned the corner, it opened.

“Are you running from me?”

“Nope.” I slid inside and shut the door behind me, locked it too. On a sigh of relief, I turned and made a straight line to my bedroom.

Click.

The door unlocked and opened. Of course he had a key. It was his house. The door clicked again when he shut it behind him.

“Whatcha need?” I asked with the last little bit of breath left in my lungs. His proximity made breathing so hard. It made my heart work even harder. It made my thoughts cross lines that should not have been crossed.

“Why are you running from me?” He was right at my back.

I forced myself to turn toward him, and it took superhero strength. He stepped toward me.

I stepped back.

We did this dance until a wall stopped my retreat.

He pressed his hands to the wall above my head, and my heart rate spiked a thousand percent. The air exchange in my lungs sounded like that of someone finishing a marathon.

Was I reading him wrong?

It wouldn’t have been the first time I got it wrong and felt like a fool. But that moment felt different.

The look in his eyes wasn’t the same.

The part of his lips.

The increased intensity of his own chest rising and falling.

“You can’t have my virginity,” I whispered.

It took him a few more breaths to respond. And when he did, it blew my mind.

“What can I have?” he whispered back.

In that most unexpected moment, my foolish, adult teenaged heart cracked open and made room for Fisher Mann. And I immediately wondered how long it took to fall in love.

Years?

Weeks?

Seconds?

Did common sense and timelines rule emotions?

“What do you want?” My words were weak when I wanted—more than anything—to sound brave.

Something so very tiny shifted along his face, like he was smiling without actually smiling. His right hand slid off the wall and cupped my jaw, his thumb teasing my bottom lip that trembled like the rest of me.

“A-are you g-going to kiss me?”

His lips pulled into a hint of amusement. “I was thinking about it.” Fisher’s patience killed me, completely slayed me. It was as if he had to solve the world’s problems in his head before he kissed me.

But I didn’t want to be a problem of the world. I wanted to be the girl—the woman—he kissed on a Monday night for no good reason. Not everything in life needed an explanation. Couldn’t we steal a few seconds, a kiss, without accountability?

“Will you be done thinking about it anytime soo—”

Fisher kissed me.

It wasn’t hard or rushed. It didn’t make me feel inexperienced. And it didn’t feel wrong.

After a few seconds, he pulled back an inch, maybe two. I sucked in a quick breath, and he kissed me again. It was just like the first kiss.

Perfect.

And just like the first one, he pulled back, but this time he smiled. My own smile came to life too, big and embarrassing.

Every imaginable “what-if” dominated my thoughts. What were we doing? Did those two kisses mean the world to me and nothing to him?

Seventy-two hours earlier, he’d been upstairs showing Teagan the house he built. And she loved it. She didn’t question his abilities with a “seriously” because she was too mature for that.

What was he doing kissing me?

“I’m going to shower and grab dinner. I’ll see you in the morning. Five-forty-five?”

I nodded, still wearing that impossibly huge smile.

He disappeared from my bedroom, his footsteps fading as he climbed the stairs.