Clarissa. However, she glared at me the entire time I was there. Gideon and I had never discussed her. There was no need. She was simply a nasty piece of work who would now reside in my past… not my future.
“Could you have done this with magic?” I asked Gideon, referring to the painting of the office.
“Yep,” he replied. “But I don’t want to. This is fun.”
The past two weeks had flown. My days were filled with helping Heather get the new office space ready and my evenings were filled with Gideon. We still hadn’t slept together, but I felt closer to him than if we had.
“Fun for you,” I muttered, glancing up at all the paint he’d gotten on the ceiling. I’d taped the room and he’d somehow painted out of every line that I’d meticulously created. “How about you stick to the middle of the walls and let me do the edges?”
“Sounds like a far better plan that what we’ve got going right now,” he agreed with a grin that made me smile. “How’d you learn to paint so well?”
“Practice,” I told him as I began to re-tape the areas he’d destroyed. “We didn’t have a lot of money growing up and Gram loved to redecorate. Wall painting became my specialty. I painted every room in my farmhouse.”
“You didn’t,” he said, impressed.
“I did,” I shot back, grinning. “Steve chose the colors and the décor and I did the dirty work. I can even do some light plumbing.”
“I have no clue why this is turning me on, but it is,” Gideon said, chuckling.
“Same way I feel when I watch you cook,” I told him, feeling my face heat up a little. “A man who knows his way around a kitchen is some serious hot.”
“And a paint-covered beautiful woman in overalls is my fantasy,” he replied, giving me a look that made me tingle all over.
I’d been ready to throw the no-sex rule out of the window for a week now. There was no pressure from Gideon at all. It was all me. I wanted him so badly I was having trouble sleeping at night. However, my enormous fear of failure held me back.
I’d discussed it with Steve and he’d suggested porn again. I told him absolutely not, but maybe it wasn’t such a horrible idea. Embarrassing myself with the man who consumed my thoughts and had moved into a place in my heart was terrifying.
Walking over to the door and closing it, I sat down on a can of paint and summoned my lady balls. “Can we talk about something?”
Gideon eyed me warily, pulled a stepstool over and joined me. “As long as you aren’t going to tell me there’s someone else, I’m all ears.”
His vulnerability was what gave me the confidence to let her rip. He treated me with the same fragile care I treated him with—the way people were with each other in the beginning of a relationship.
“I want to sleep with you,” I said, staring at the brush in my hands.
“I’m over here,” he said with amusement in his tone. “That is, unless you’re talking to the paintbrush.”
I groaned and flicked it at him. Tiny cream-colored paint splatters were now in his blond hair. He already had a bunch of paint in his hair. A little more wouldn’t make a difference.
“You suck,” I told him, making a face. “You know what I mean.”
“I do,” he said, removing the brush from my hands and taking them in his. “This is very good news. Why are you upset?”
“Not upset,” I promised. “Worried. Terrified.”
Putting his arms around me, he pulled me close. “You’re not the only one,” he said quietly. “I’m pretty sure once I see you naked, it might be over before it even starts.”
“Seriously?” I asked with a giggle.
“Deadly,” he replied. “Sex is just like painting—practice makes perfect.”
I sighed with such audible relief, Gideon laughed. His laugh made me laugh. I’d had no clue that communication and honesty were so sexy and freeing. I was tempted to bang him in the half-painted office. However, getting caught by my friends was enough to put a kibosh on that plan.
“Tonight,” I told him as his smile grew wider. “My house. I’ll tell the squatters to disappear for a while.”
“What about Steve?” Gideon asked.
“He’s been staying with Gram all week in hopes I would come to my senses and bang you,” I said, shaking my head. “He loves us together.”
“As do I,” Gideon said.
Someone so beautiful shouldn’t be so good