chest.
She rolled her eyes. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”
My grin widened. “Normally women have to sleep with me to figure that out. You should count yourself lucky.”
She clambered up the other side of the ladder and dipped her brush into the black paint, fixing me with a doe-eyed glare. “The luckiest.”
Ouch. Was the thought of sleeping with me really that repulsive? Man, this chick really got in my head. When she bent over to paint the lower portion of the wall, I found myself admiring her ass. It was a bubble butt, which I was a sucker for. She had the perfect body, all booty stacked atop lean muscular legs and curvy hips.
I blew the air out through my teeth and cleared my throat, dipping the paint brush back in the can for the third time. There was a reason I had hired Cruise and not some chick to work with. Business and pleasure didn’t mix and I was getting distracted from my goals by this siren with the tongue of a viper.
We made quick work of painting the rest of the wall, though it was four a.m. when we stood back to observe our work.
“It’s gonna be great.” She grinned and the hope in her eyes reminded me so much of the passion my sister had for this place that it made me physically sick to my stomach.
“Night, Millie.” I put the cap on the paint and just left the ladder and tarp out. I’d deal with it in the morning, I couldn’t look at this girl anymore tonight. She was breaking down walls I didn’t even know I had.
With a frown, she nodded. “Night, Ashton.”
It was a long time before I could fall asleep.
Chapter 10
Millie
The next morning, I piled into his old powder-blue pick-up truck. There was rust on the hood and the door was dented.
I raised one eyebrow. “This thing runs?”
He glared at me from behind the wheel. “Do you want to walk?”
Dammit, he had a point.
“Touché.” I got in and shut the door.
“Buckle up,” he told me, eyes on me like a hawk. I clipped in and only then did he pull out of the parking garage.
We rolled through downtown and then out onto the interstate and I quickly realized the truck didn’t have A/C.
“We should have rented a car. I can’t breathe.” I rolled down the window, gasping for air.
He grinned, side-eyeing me. “Awe, princess needs her air conditioning?”
I flipped him the bird. We had this weird banter where we were constantly at each other’s throats while simultaneously checking each other out. His gaze was on my bare legs and mine was on his biceps.
Lord help me.
“What’s in that?” He pointed to the cupcakes I’d made his gran. I couldn’t sleep after all the weird sexual tension pinging through us last night as we painted the wall together. Him with his shirt off, me bending over a little too far to give him a view of my ass. What was I doing? Did I want that kind of attention from him? Was I ready for it?
Yes. The straight up answer was a big fucking yes. With all the guys I’d tried to date after Colin, it was a disaster. I compared every single one of them to him and was legit repulsed at the thought of kissing anyone but Colin. But with Ashton, he was so far from Colin there was no point in trying to compare them and he was so good looking I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to kiss him.
The only problem was … he had my dead husband’s heart in his chest. The first guy to make me come alive in a year and it had to be him.
I covered the cupcakes with my bare leg. “Nothing for you.”
“I’m hungry.”
“You eat all day long. I’m amazed you have that body.” I realized the moment it left my mouth what I’d said.
A slow smirk crawled up his face but he didn’t say a word. Fiddling with the radio, he turned on some country music.
Ugh. I hated country with a passion. It grated on my nerves like a dying cat, but I was determined not to show him my weakness, so I just balled my hands into fists and sang the ABC song in my head.
I lasted a whopping three songs before the dude belting a ballad about beer and shotguns made me snap. Reaching out, I flipped to a rock station.
Ashton side-eyed me and leaned forward, flipping