“Why don't you go wash that stuff off?” she asked, raising a brow at him.
His fingers stopped rubbing the paint and he straightened.
Did that sound like a come on?
“Do you have any coffee?” she amended.
“It's in the pantry,” he said with a quick nod toward the tall, paneled door. His shoulders rippled, and he eyed the hallway leading to what she presumed was a bedroom and bathroom. He seemed to lean in that direction.
“Why—” She paused. Fifteen years of curiosity and she was wasting her questions on a costume.
“Why am I dressed like a green giant?” he asked, his eyes twinkling with mirth.
“Well, you don't seem very comfortable.” In fact, he seemed ready to get out of the body paint. She could remember every costume he'd worn from five to fifteen. Skin tight had never been his thing. He'd made a really cute cowboy when they'd been six, though.
“Seemed like a good idea at the time. And Celita had a new body paint she wanted to try out.”
Sabrina liked the makeup artist but the idea of her being so close to David, painting that gorgeous chest...her temperature spiked. It was her turn to be painfully uncomfortable. And torn between bolting for the door and climbing him like a telephone pole.
She'd bet her favorite Louboutins that he was strong as an ox and perfectly capable of holding her against the wall for a long session of sweaty sex.
Uneasy at the runaway lust storming through her, she stepped past him and yanked open the pantry door. “I'll get started on the coffee.”
The words came out in a jumble and she practically stuck her head into the cabinet. She had to stop looking at him long enough to get her hormones under control.
It'd been so long since she'd been with a man. Well over two years, in fact, since she'd even held hands or felt a man's skin against hers.
Call her a wanton, but she desperately missed that intimacy. She missed feeling desirable, she longed to be cuddled. There was just something about being held tight against a man's chest, to feel his gaze on her lips, knowing that right then, they were completely absorbed into each other. She yearned to lose herself.
But more than sex, she wanted connection. She'd experienced it once and before everything had gone so wrong, her world had been so right.
She tipped her head against the cabinet door and sighed. Through the thin walls, she heard the shower turn on. Once again, she glanced around the cozy, neat-as-a-pin interior and wondered at her friend.
David Jameson. In the flesh.
Don't go there.
She certainly didn't need to be thinking about his flesh.
Focus.
Coffee.
Glancing in the pantry again, she saw the container plain as day. Sighing at herself, she plucked the red jar up and turned to the coffee maker. Luckily, she never had to worry about caffeine, no matter what hour.
Would David get the jitters?
Sabrina pried open the lid and inhaled the sweet, roasty aroma. A tingle ran up her spine and a smile lifted her cheeks.
This would work. They could have the talk they'd needed to have for more years than she wanted to count. She needed to come clean about a few things. To tell him how conflicted she'd been in high school.
Mostly she wanted to hear what he'd been up to. Had he ever gone bungee jumping, did he still love haunted houses and scary movies?
She steepled her hands and pressed them against her lips, scarcely able to believe the turn of events. Was it just an hour ago that the tail on her costume had dropped into the toilet at Jill’s coffee shop? It seemed like so much longer.
Taking a deep breath, she let her hands drop. A black smudge along the sides of her pointer fingers caught her attention.
The makeup.
Sabrina swiped the tip of her nose with the flat of her hand. The black eyeliner she used smeared across her skin.
“Oh great.”
She turned to the sink and grabbed a paper towel. Using the camera on her phone as a mirror, she wiped off as much of the kitten whiskers as she could. But the black grease didn’t want to budge. Feeling more frantic by the second, she wet a fresh paper towel, added a squirt of dish detergent and breathed a sigh of relief as the makeup disappeared.
After checking herself one more time, she wasn’t going to win a modeling competition but that was okay, she slid her phone back into her pocket and poked around the kitchen until she found the trashcan.
The shower clicked off and she snatched up the carafe. What a mess she was, letting her mind run away with her.
That was better than hormones, she supposed.
She'd poured the water in the reservoir and loaded a few heaping teaspoons of coffee when the bathroom door opened. Unable to stop herself, she glanced back.
Amid a swirl of moist air, David emerged into the narrow hallway, all brawny shoulders and gorgeous pecks. A fluffy white towel hugged his hips almost indecently. Water droplets clung to well defined abs. His skin was tanned to perfection and dotted with intricate jet-black ink.
Sabrina's stomach tightened, and air froze in her lungs.
He was gorgeous.
Her gaze continued north until she met his eyes. The connection she'd felt between them in the coffee shop sizzled. He drew her like the world's strongest magnet. Her entire body leaned in his direction, but something kept her feet planted.
Sex wasn't why she was here, but it sure as hell was what she wanted. From the flush of heat rushing across her shoulders, to the sizzle in her blood, she recognized the instant attraction that'd only happened to her once before.
The memory of how that turned out made her turn and search the upper cabinet for coffee cups. She'd be smart to remember that she hadn't seen this man in almost fifteen years. And just because he was hotter than hell
