Handcuffed in Housewares: Tulle and Tulips, Book 3

by Nikki Duncan

  Chapter Eight

  Metallica rocked the earbuds that did a passable job at blocking out the noise from the sander. The rock did nothing to stop the vibrations shaking Burton’s hands, arms and shoulders. Until he’d found the escape of loud music and earbuds they’d even reached his head, taking over until every hair tingled at the root. It wasn’t such a horrible sensation until he stopped working and a headache set in as the vibrations subsided.

  His dad and brother argued that he wouldn’t get the headaches at all if he would take a few more breaks. Unlike his brother and father he didn’t have anything, anyone, around to serve as a worthwhile distraction.

  For a few moments with Leigh he’d thought she might be the kind of woman he could settle down with. After the rush of office sex they’d moved to his room where they’d taken their time with each other. Hours of perfection had passed.

  He’d planned on asking her to spend the night, something he never did, but her plans were different. She’d gotten dressed and made him take her home. When he’d dropped her off she thanked him for a fun night and made a hasty retreat—not giving him the chance to walk her to her door.

  He’d never seen a woman retreat with regret as fast as Leigh had. It was his problem that he was still thinking of her a week later. He thought of her when he went to Jace’s to work on Misty’s office. He heard her laugh in the aisles of the hardware store. Her scent—soft sex—taunted him when he went into Hearth and Home to follow up on a few final touches. His body felt hers as vividly as if she were in touching distance when he went bowling.

  The woman had been a brief light in his life, but every moment had stuck with him. They had him thinking about her and wanting to call her. Several times he’d reached for the phone. Each time he’d put it down, because why torment himself with a woman who wanted no part of being with him.

  The softness of her scent mixed with the sharp odor of dust from the floor. The impression was so real a flash of Leigh spread naked on the newly sanded floor snapped into his mind. His gut knotted and his skin heated in a way that had nothing to do with manual labor and everything to do with desire.

  Burton flicked off the sander and sat back on his heels. The driving wail of heavy metal blasted his ears. It had drowned out the sander, but it was worthless against the images of Leigh. Nothing he’d tried had been enough to drive her memory from his mind. She invaded his thoughts almost entirely, and each invasion increased the idea that he was missing out on something important. Something too important to miss.

  She wasn’t like his ex. She was more conservative—considerably so—but she’d also been willing to shed her proper attire and cut loose at the bowling alley. She had friends who clearly loved her, which said a lot about her as a person, and she made him laugh. He hadn’t laughed with a woman in a long time.

  Whatever made her run, he couldn’t make himself stay away any longer. Leigh was different in every way that was good, and he wanted to get to know more about her. If he were lucky he could talk her into another date. If he were very lucky she’d allow herself to be seduced to his bed.

  Plucking the earbuds from his ears with his left hand, he used his right to reach into his back pocket for his phone. Maybe she didn’t want to hear from him again, but he wasn’t going to leave it to chance.

  Since he’d last seen her, an hour hadn’t passed without her crossing his mind. He’d thought of her touch, her smile, her laugh, her kiss. She’d saved him, then intrigued him, then slipped into his mind more solidly than she’d gotten beneath his skin.

  He pulled up her number and hit Talk before he could chicken out. She answered quickly.

  “Hello.”

  “Leigh, it’s Burton.”

  “Um… Hi.” Her tone stumbled. She cleared her throat. “What’s up?”

  My libido. That probably wasn’t the best approach to take with the woman who ran away from him after sex, so he tried for something less direct. “I wanted to thank you for putting me in touch with Jace.”

  “Oh. No problem.” She cleared her throat again. “He says you’re doing a great job.”

  “Thanks.” Silence strained the line as neither of them moved to take the conversation to the next point or to end it. He could practically feel her waiting on him to say something, but he’d resorted to the blank mind he’d always suffered in high school when he called a girl. Phone calls were not his thing.

  A dog’s bark broke the silence. He wasn’t sure if it was on her end or his, because the neighbor’s dog was always barking. He had to say something before she hung up. It couldn’t be too pathetic either. He used to be smooth. Clearly those days were over. “Listen, Leigh.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’d like to see you.” That didn’t suck too bad. “I can’t seem to stop thinking about—”

  A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts, not that he’d really had anything great to say planned. “Damn. Someone’s at the door. Can you hold on?”

  “Sure.”

  With as late as it was, it was probably a neighbor coming to complain about the noise of the sander. Mr. Michaels—the one with the barking dog—because he was the block complainer. Or Mrs. Finelli.

  As long as it wasn’t Mrs. Finelli he would be able to get back to Leigh quickly. If it was Mrs. Finelli he worried he’d find himself spending an hour in the kitchen eating too-hard cookies and listening to the old lady talk about her grandkids.

  He dusted his hands on his jeans and then opened the door. It wasn’t Mrs. Finelli.

  “You can’t seem to stop thinking about what?” Leigh asked with a smile as she leaned against the doorframe.

  Instead of her typical bun, her hair was in a ponytail with a few soft strands falling against her face. Her normal makeup, at least her lipstick, had been given an extra layer of gloss that teased him when she smiled her shy smile.

  “Leigh. What are you doing here?”

  She slipped her phone into the back pocket of her snug-fitting jeans. “Testing a theory.”

  “Yeah?” He slipped his phone back into his pocket and reached for her hand. He didn’t pull her inside right away. For the moment he was happy to just look at her and hold her hand. “What theory’s that?”

  Her smile slipped and her gaze slid to the floor. He’d glimpsed her uncertainty a few times before, yet this more closely resembled all-out shyness. She wasn’t the kind of woman to go to a man’s home uninvited, yet she stood on his doorstep. Choosing to show up at nearly eleven at night suggested she was torn between wanting him to answer and wanting him not to answer.

  “Were you trying to see if I’d be out on a date? Maybe you wanted to see if I’d have another woman here?”

  “What?” She lunged back. Burton tightened his hold on her hand. He wasn’t ready to let her go. “No!”

  The blush staining her cheeks made a liar out of her and knowing that made him smile. She’d thought about the possibilities and didn’t necessarily like them if the frown pinching the corners of her mouth were any indication.

  “Well—” he leaned against the doorframe and played with her fingers, “—then why are you here?”

  She said nothing, maybe because she wasn’t sure how to answer or maybe because she was afraid of her answer. It didn’t really matter. He’d thought about her for days. She was back. He was going to keep her around long enough to figure out what it was about her that pulled him to her.

  “Since you’re here—” he stepped back and tugged on her hand, “—why don’t you come in?”

  She nodded and stepped inside. Sawdust coated her black flats, but she didn’t seem to mind. She sneezed a sneeze that looked like it would be hard enough to send spasms through her entire body but ended in a dainty little squeak. Then she sneezed again. And again.

  Each one had him smiling bigger, because damn if they weren’t the cutest sneezes he’d ever heard. She looked around as she ran her hand along some of the molding he’d installed. His skin tingled with the remembered brush
of her fingertips.

  “You’ve gotten a lot done.”

  “Pent-up energy has to go somewhere.”

  “I just seem to live at work.”

  He opened his arms to indicate the house around them. “And I can’t get away from mine.”

  “It doesn’t look like you really want to.”

  Rather than respond, he pulled his iPod from his pocket and wrapped the earbud chord around it. Setting it on the banister, he stepped in closer to Leigh. As much as he enjoyed working on the house and watching it take shape, and as simple as the last year without a woman in his life had been, having Leigh show up had him realizing how quiet the last week had been. Making love with her had rocked, but more than that he’d enjoyed talking to her. She brought a spark of life into his house, making it feel a bit like a home.

  “Are you going to stain the floors or clear coat them?”

  “Good question.” Leading the way to the kitchen, he picked some sample blocks of wood up from the bar. “I’m debating between the lighter, more natural-looking pine or a deeper, darker cherry, mahogany or ebony.”

  “You strike me more as a mahogany kind of guy. You’re not light and open, but you’re not dark and secretive either. This mahogany—” she lifted a sample strip, “—is a happy medium and you could make things darker or lighter with your choices in furniture and finishing touches.”

  “Is decorating another one of your talents?” he asked, shifting so his bicep rubbed her shoulder. Warmth and comfort slipped through him. The softness of her scent floated beneath the lingering smell of sawdust.

  “If it involves shopping I’m good at it.”

  “Oh, so you have a standing love affair with your credit card.” After years with his ex he should have recognized the signs. He would have if it weren’t for her conservative appearance.

  Even conservative, there was a polish to her that came from shopping. From the top of her perfect bun to the tip of her pricey shoes. Between top and tip were perfect makeup, crisp clothes, erect posture and an insight into fashion shared with her friends. He’d been blinded by the sensible side of her and by her willingness to rearrange plans to go bowling, an evening that should have been harmless.

  “We’re friends, but I prefer it when someone else gets the resulting bill.”

  “Predictable behavior for most women.” Another thing she had in common with his ex. It wasn’t a shining quality.

  She sat the wood blocks on the counter and looked up to meet his gaze. Her brows curved a little more than normal. It was the same way she’d looked at him when they first met, like she was worlds away from approving of him. That he wanted her approval was a new thing for him. He’d given up on worrying about what women thought of him, but he wanted Leigh to see only the goodness in him. Even if experiences had him looking for the negatives in her.

  “You say that like you think I’m leading people into debt.”

  “Really?” He wasn’t sure if it surprised him more that she sounded offended or that it upset him to hear her sound like he offended her. He wasn’t used to thinking so much about what others thought and felt. “You’ve never once encouraged someone to buy something just because it would look good? You only suggest things that serve a purpose?”

  She turned and looked at him with her head cocked a little. Her voice, when she spoke, carried a bristly tone that said he’d raised her hackles. “By your logic no one would have things like art on their walls or colorful knickknacks. You wouldn’t have gone for the decorative wall sconces in your office when a normal light bulb in an overhead light would have sufficed.”

  “Except that the more decorative sconce is an enhancement that makes the house worth more.”

  Her lips curled. “If your next buyer likes muted light more than direct overhead lighting. It’s all personal preference.”

  “You’re saying you help people define their preferences?”

  “You guide your clients when it comes to updates and building projects. You help them decide what will work in a space and what won’t. And I’m fairly certain your suggestions are sometimes at the higher end of their budgets. I do the same thing for my clients.” She shrugged and turned toward the front door. “Had I known you’d find what I do, and me by extension, so distasteful, I’d have never come here.”

  It shouldn’t have taken an argument to reveal the truth of her character. Being burned was never a good enough reason to mistreat someone. He should’ve known she was different.

  She was halfway to the front door, muttering something about knowing why he hadn’t called, when his brain and body had gotten on the same page and caught up with her. “Leigh, wait.”

  She stopped and pivoted slowly. Her eyes were colder than he’d thought capable given her generosity. He hadn’t thought he had the power to hurt her, either. She made making a liar out of him look easy.

  She’d been dead accurate in the comparison between them. She’d proven how good she was when she made the suggestion about turning the room upstairs into a media room instead of a guest bedroom. It was the kind of thing he’d have considered if he wasn’t more concerned with flipping the house, or if he’d been planning the job for a client.

  If she was guilty of leading people into debt then so was he. She was no more responsible for keeping people from overspending than he was.

  “I’m sorry.” He shrugged, knowing there weren’t enough words to convey how sorry he was. “For a minute I allowed your pleasure in shopping to mean you were a shopaholic who’d use people to get ahead. I should’ve known better. If you were like that you’d never have helped me.”

  Her brows popped up again in acknowledgement. “She really did a number on you.”

  “Who?”

  “Your shopaholic.” She crossed her arms, guarding herself. Her gaze met his, looked into his head and heart, saw the truths that made him tick. “I’m guessing an ex who tossed you over because she found someone with deeper pockets.”

  He bowed his head in agreement. “My ex-wife. The more money I made the more easily she allowed the definition of things like budget and delayed gratification to slip away.”

  “And the other man?”

  Leigh saw even deeper into him than he was entirely comfortable with, but she wasn’t giving him a reason to hide the truth. Hell, if anything her questions were making her more desirable. They showed an interest his wife had never managed.

  “We went to Disney World. Let’s just say the happiest place on Earth wasn’t so happy for me.”

  “What’d she do, wait until you were in line for Stitch’s Great Escape and ask for her own?”

  “Something like that, only I was holding our place, and her stuff, when her lover called her phone.”

  She winced. “So you took your escape before she asked for hers.”

  “Leaving her to find her own way home was… I’m not sure how I resisted.” His muscles tingled with the remembered rage. As he talked about the worst time in his life, he led the way to the bedroom where they could sit comfortably. Leigh followed and silently kicked off her dusty shoes to sit Indian style on his bed.

  “It was probably the hundreds of kids surrounding us that kept me from telling her what I really thought of her.”

  He mirrored her position, almost close enough for his knees to brush hers. The temptation of the touch shoved against the burn of the betrayal he spoke of. He wanted to reach out, yet at the same time he didn’t want the ugliness of his ex anywhere near Leigh.

  Chapter Nine

  Leigh listened as Burton talked about his ex. Everyone had baggage. Some bags weighed more than others. She especially knew that, just as she knew how important it was to not hold the past against people. Logic didn’t stand a chance against the chokehold of jealousy, even jealousy that shouldn’t be hers to feel.

  The more Burton talked the more closely his words resembled a spewing release of old hurts. Paula had done a number on his ability to trust. She’d used him and cheated on him, and
according to his version she barely blinked when he confronted her about the affair.

  “I’d thought about staying to get my money’s worth out of the trip. The fun was ruined though.”

  “You left early?”

  He nodded. “I waited until we got back to the hotel to say anything. She didn’t try to deny it and I couldn’t deny how pissed off I was. I packed my stuff and left.”

  “Did she leave with you?”

  “No. Turned out her lover was there too. They spent the rest of the week together.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding! What a bitch.”

  Grinning wasn’t something he did when he thought about Paula. Leigh had a knack for making him smile, though, even when talking about his ex. “Yeah. As soon as I got back to town, I met with my attorney and filed for a divorce. By the time she got home I’d packed the things I cared most about and moved out.”

  “Did she contest?”

  He shook his head. Resignation pinched his lips and eyes. “I made her a settlement offer she couldn’t resist.”

  “You gave her everything.” Leigh scooted across the inches separating them until their knees bumped. She flattened her hands on his knees, though she wasn’t sure if it was to offer comfort or reassure herself that he was with her for the moment rather than his ex.

  She’d always hated the uncertainty that came from jealousy. Hated the way the irrational emotion made people behave. Hating it did nothing to keep her from feeling it.

  “Minus enough for me to start my new business.”

  “Did you give in so easily because you’re just that nice of a guy or because you wanted out that badly?”

  “It must’ve been the latter, because I was not feeling like a nice guy.”

  “Understandable.” He slid his hands over her thighs like she was doing to him. It was a reaffirming kind of touch she didn’t fully get. They weren’t in a relationship she should feel insecure about, so her need to touch him, to feel him touch her in return, held no logic. “Did she marry the other man?”

  “Almost as soon as the ink was dry on the divorce papers. He didn’t even ask for a pre-nup.”