False Start - Jessica Ruddick Page 0,41

the wrench. If I dropped it on my foot, I would likely end up with a broken toe. I could just imagine having to explain that injury to Coach Coyle. No, thank you. I screwed the wrench onto the showerhead and gave it a light tug. The sucker was on there good and tight. The apartment building was at least twenty years old, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the showerhead was the original.

“Can you get it?” Becca asked impatiently. She had a tendency to micromanage, but I was used to it.

“Give me a second. I don’t want to break something and cause a bigger problem than a crappy showerhead.”

She sank down onto the toilet seat so I could work. It took a fair amount of torque to get the thing loose. There was no way Becca would have been able to do it herself. I handed her the old piece of junk and quickly installed the new one.

“There.” I stepped out of the tub and reached for the shower spigot to test it out. “Good as—shit.”

Becca had chosen the exact second I turned on the spigot to step into the shower to check out my handiwork. She gasped as she took a direct hit from the cold spray. “Turn it off!” she shrieked.

“Shit!” I fumbled with the spigot, my hands suddenly having trouble grasping it. When I finally got it off, she turned to me, her eyes wide and wet strands of hair clinging to her face. My gaze traveled south, and I swallowed. Becca’s shirt wasn’t white, but it might as well have been. The thin, pale-blue material was see-through when wet, and she looked like she’d taken first place in a wet T-shirt contest. The material clung to her, outlining the gorgeous curve of her breasts. Her nipples were fully erect, and the sight of them made me fully erect.

“Cold,” Becca managed to say through chattering teeth.

“Shit,” I said, which was obviously my word of choice for the last minute. I yanked a towel off the rack and wrapped it around her, rubbing her arms and pulling her against my chest.

Bad idea. Because even through the towel, I could feel her hard nipples against me. I had to angle my lower half away from her so she wouldn’t be able to feel that I was hard. Christ.

She shivered. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were getting back at me for being mad at you.”

“Passive-aggressive isn’t my style,” I said absentmindedly. It was a miracle I was able to form any coherent thought with her wet body pressed up against me. But my words were true—I was more likely to get up in someone’s face and tell him to fuck off like I’d done with Stossel.

“Well, I guess we know the new showerhead works.”

I let go of her just enough so that I could look at her face. She grinned, and her eyes twinkled. Thank God. It had been an accident, but I still felt bad about it. And now that I knew she wasn’t upset, I could admit it was funny. Maybe not as funny as the clown incident, but again, we didn’t talk about that.

I lifted her out of the tub. It had seemed like the gentlemanly thing to do, but I sure as hell didn’t feel like a gentleman. Not when I wanted to peel the layers of wet clothing off her body and dry her skin inch by blessed inch.

Becca clung to me, still shivering. Using my thumb, I smoothed a wet tendril of hair away from her face. Her gaze met mine. Her beautiful brown eyes were open wide, but I couldn’t read them—I had no idea what she was thinking.

But I knew what I was thinking, and it wasn’t right. I was thinking that I wished to God she were someone else, not Roman’s sister, but just a perfect girl I’d met. Because I wanted nothing more than to put my mouth on hers, to strip off her wet clothing and warm her body with mine.

I wanted her, more than I’d ever wanted anyone. I’d never admitted it, even to myself, but I couldn’t deny it any longer.

Abruptly, I released her before I did something she would hate me for. “I’ve got to go.” I left the small room, afraid to meet her gaze, afraid she would be able to read me like a book. But mostly, I was afraid of her reaction if she figured out the truth—that I