Chapter Fourteen

Chelle

It had been sixteen hours since Nash had told her that he wanted to seduce her, and she was still thinking about it. In fact, it was pretty much all she was thinking about.

Seriously. She was three self-induced orgasms—THREE!—into the day, and she was still coasting along that edge of I’m-gonna-go-fuck-my-fake-husband. It was so bad that she’d abandoned her book and was about to go take the dogs on their third walk of the day when she sniffed the unmistakable smell of fresh paint in the air.

It had to be in her head. Maybe she’d finally crossed that deadly line between reality and fiction her dad had always lectured her about when he caught her reading late into the night as a teen. She’d half convinced herself that the paint fumes were all in her head when she realized the dogs were sniffing the tiny sliver of space between her bedroom door and the floor.

No. Way.

She marched over to the door, flung it open, and the undeniable stench of semi-gloss slapped her across the face.

Yes. Way.

She found Nash in her tiny kitchen. The cabinets were taped off. The countertop was covered in plastic. The bistro table they’d eaten their cheeseburgers at the other day was tucked into a corner of the living room. Two wide stripes of paint covered a good-size swath of space above her kitchen sink. One was cornflower blue and the other was a gorgeous, mossy green that really fit with the dark, eclectic vibe of the rest of the apartment and made her fantasy book–loving soul give a happy sigh.

To be honest with herself, she wasn’t sure if she was mad because she loved that color so much or because she hadn’t had the ovaries to just paint the kitchen the shade she wanted. Who was going to know she’d done it? Also, it was a stupid clause in a dumb control-freak will and she owned the apartment now. It was hers to do what she wanted and—

She fisted her hands and let out a frustrated growl of a pissed-off groan.

Nash’s shoulders drooped. “You hate it.”

“Worse,” she muttered. “I love it.”

Nash shot her a double-dimple grin as he crossed over to her, pivoting so they stood next to each other, staring at the paint stripes on the wall. He didn’t tower over her, not completely, but being this close to him was enough to scatter her thoughts in the direction of wondering what else he could do with those strong hands of his.

“I started talking to the graphic design team at Beckett Cosmetics as soon as I realized you wanted to change it.”

What? “I never said that.”

“Sure you did,” he said as he crossed his thick arms over his chest. “You said you hated the color but that you yourself couldn’t change it.”

Something inside Chelle’s chest shifted at the realization that he had listened to her. It wasn’t that he nodded and added the uh-huhs at appropriate times like her dad had or offered meaningless platitudes like her mom had. He’d really listened and had given her words weight and value.

And that’s when it clicked.

Nash wasn’t seducing her by putting the moves on her. He was seducing her brain and appealing to her with acts of service at the same time.

Fucking A. How am I supposed to resist that?

“I, however, can paint it. Problem solved,” he continued. “Now, the question is, blue or green? The graphic designers agreed both are soothing colors, and the green is the hot new shade for kitchens. The blue feels more traditionally kitchen, but the green makes me think of an enchanted forest. I don’t know. It just sorta seems to fit the rest of your place with the sword and all.”

Chelle would be lying to herself if she tried to act as if he wasn’t right. He was. Her insides went all gooey at the realization that it was the exact shade she imaged the canopy of trees would be that Hermia walked under before her fateful first meeting with Bacchus in her books. She swallowed past the surprise of emotion that clogged her through at that and turned her head away from him so she could blink the sudden tears out of her eyes (damn pre-menopausal hormones).

She was just getting her shit back together when Nash’s phone started buzzing. He picked it up off the plastic-covered countertop and grimaced at the screen.

“Your cousins?” she asked, because who else would it be?

“Yeah, they are having way too much fucking fun with this.” He looked up and shot her a sheepish grin that only showed off one dimple. “You up for an underground tabletop board game club?”

Okay, that was not the date she expected. Did his cousins not believe in dinner and a movie? “We’re going to play Monopoly?”

“No.” He shook his head. “We’re gonna win Monopoly.”

She couldn’t help but laugh. This man. He really was nothing but trouble—which she needed to remember, because nothing about this situation was real, even if standing in her paint-prepped kitchen felt like it.

“So what about the kitchen color?” he asked. “Do you want me to change it back to yellow?”

Chelle’s first instinct was to push back against the change just for the sake of proving that she could. However, the truth of it was that she hated the yellow—and, no, hate wasn’t too heavy of a word for how she felt. It really was eye-searing.

She gave in with a happy sigh. “I love the green.”

He brushed a kiss across her temple, which sent a lightning bolt of awareness through her.

“You won’t regret this,” he said as he started back toward the paint cans.

Yeah, he was sure of that, but as she snuck a peek at Nash’s muscular forearms as he pulled up the sleeves of his already paint-splattered Henley, it sent her thoughts right back to Midlife Crisis Younger Husband Horny Town, and she wasn’t so sure about that.