“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She watched him for several mo [forments, then said, “You don’t seem all that upset that ‘everyone’ knows your ‘personal business’ with Lydia Ferrari.”
“First of all, I doubt that’s even her real name.” He sucked in a breath and let it out. “Second, women say stuff like that all the time. Even if I’ve never met them.”
Chelsea was just about to point out that he had met Lydia when he added, “I’m used to it.”
“And it doesn’t bother you?”
He shrugged. “People are going to say and write whatever they want and they don’t care if it’s the truth. Everyone has an agenda. When I said I didn’t want to talk about my personal business… I meant I don’t want to get into it while I’m naked and about to get busy. It can ruin the mood.” He took a deep breath and blew it out. Chelsea thought the subject of Lydia Ferrari was over but then he added, “Considering what that woman was into, I just thank Jesus for what she didn’t write.”
She chewed her bottom lip, fighting the battle not to pry. She lost. “What?”
“None of your business, Ms. Nosy Toes.” He moved his hands closer in on the bar. “We’re talking about my business again and you still haven’t told me yours.”
“Why, when I ask questions, am I prying and a ‘Ms. Nosy Toes’?”
He sucked in a breath and let it out as he worked the weights. “The second thing women don’t generally want to talk about,” he said instead of answering her question, “is plastic surgery. A lot of women have it, but none of them admit it.” He looked at her over his shoulder. “Are you saving to get your nose done?”
“What?” Chelsea gasped. “There’s nothing wrong with my nose.” She raised a hand to her face. “What’s wrong with my nose?”
“Nothing. My ex got her nose done but she wanted to keep it a big secret.” He returned his gaze to the mirror. “Like everyone who knew her wouldn’t take one look at her face and figure out the obvious.”
She dropped her hand to her side. “No. Not my nose.”
“Your butt? Karlsson’s wife had fat sucked out of her thighs and shot into her butt.”
“It’s called a Brazilian butt lift. And no, I don’t want that.” She stood and moved to a rack of free weights. What the hell? What did she care if he knew? It wasn’t like she cared about his opinion or that he could take any sort of moral high road. Not after he’d admitted to having sex with a woman even after he feared she’d turn him into a human pin cushion. She ran her hand across the top weight. “I want to save enough to have breast surgery.”
The weights crashed down, and his gaze lowered to her chest. “Don’t you think you’re big enough?”
She frowned and shook her head. “I want breast reduction surgery.”
“Oh.” He looked back up into her face. “Why?”
Typical. She knew he wouldn’t understand. Heck, her own family didn’t understand. “I don’t like having large breasts. They’re heavy and get in the way. It’s hard to find clothes that fit me, and I get back and shoulder pain.”
He stood and reached for the towel still around his neck. “How small would you go?”
She folded her arms across her chest. “I’m thinking a full C.”
He nodded and wiped the side of his face. “C’s a good size.”
Geez. Was she really talking about her breast surgery with Mark Bressler? A man, and he wasn’t howling about the travesty of going smaller? “You don’t think it’s a bad idea?”
“What do you care what I think? If your back hurts, and you can do something about it, you should.”
He made it sound so reasonable.
“How big are you now?”
She stared at the floor between his shoes. “I’m a double D.”
“On someone taller that might not be a problem, but you’re a small girl.”
She looked up. At him standing a few feet away. Big and bad and half naked. His damp hair sticking to his head and chest. If she didn’t know Mark, didn’t know what a surly jerk he could be, she might be in danger of falling in love with him. Of throwing herself against his hot, sticky chest and kissing him full on the mouth. Not for how he looked, which was pretty damn good, but for understanding how she might feel.
“What?”
She shook her head and glanced away. “My family doesn’t want me to do it. They all think I’m impulsive and will regret it.”
“You don’t strike me as all that impulsive.”
She looked back at him, and her lips parted. All her life she’d been told she was impulsive and needed direction. The urge to kiss him full on the mouth just got a little stronger. “Compared to everyone else in my family, my life is chaotic. Out of control.”
He tilted his head to one side and studied her. “Things around you might be chaotic, but you’re in control.” One corner of his mouth lifted a little. “My life used to be like that. Now it’s not.”
“You look in control to me.”
“That’s because you didn’t know me before.”
“Were you a control freak?”
“I just liked things done my way.”
Of course he had.
“I lost control of my life the day I woke up in the hospital hooked up to machines and strapped down to a bed.”
“Why were you strapped down?”
“I guess I was trying to pull the tube out of my throat.”
Even seeing the scars, it was hard to look at him now and see how si [andck he’d been and how close he’d come to dying. He was strong and in control more than he thought.
“Have the surgery if that’s what you want.” He shrugged one bare shoulder. “It’s your life.”
“Bo thinks it’s mutilation.”
“You’re not Bo.”
“I know but… ” How could she explain it to someone who wasn’t a twin? “When you live your whole life looking like someone else, changing that is scary. Weird.”
“You’re talking about boobs. Not your face.” He reached for his cane leaning against the weights. “But maybe I’m the wrong person to give my opinion. I’m a thigh man.” The cane fell from his hand and landed on the carpet with a soft thud. “Shit.” He grabbed on to the weights for balance and slowly lowered himself.
Without thinking about it, Chelsea moved forward and knelt on one knee. She grabbed the cane and looked up. His face was just above hers, and something dark and intense entered his brown eyes.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” he said, his voice a rough whisper against her cheek.
“Do what?”
He rose and towered over her. “Rush around treating me like I’m helpless.”
She stood also, so close that nothing but an inch of air separated the front of her lacy blouse from his hard chest and fine dark hair.
He stared into her face as he reached for the cane. His hand wrapped around hers, and his warm, strong grasp sent a tingle up her wrist to her elbow. “I’m not a child.”
She was so close she could see a darker line around the edges of his irises and all the little variations within the deep brown of those eyes surrounded by those thick, enviable lashes. “I know.”
His hand squeezed around hers. His gaze lowered to her lips. “I’m a man.”
Yes. Yes he was. A half-naked man with big sweaty muscles and smoldering eyes. Suddenly she felt kind of hot and light-headed. Probably from all the testosterone she was inhaling. “I know.”
He opened his mouth as if he was about to say something. Instead he dropped his arm to his side and walked around her. She had a feeling that if he could have run, he would have sprinted from the room.
“Don’t you want to see the real estate listings I’ve put together for you?” She grabbed the papers off the workbench and took a few steps toward him.
“I don’t need to. You know what I’m looking for.” He stopped in the doorway, practically filling it with his broad shoulders. “Set something up and call me.”
“You want me to call you about real estate showings?”
“Yes.” He placed a hand on the white door frame and turned his face to one side. Light and shadow cut across
