The Bluff (Love Stories in Sheet Cake, Texas, #2)

by Emma St. Clair

I’m working to scrounge up words to thank her when she starts to take off my work gloves with her teeth. All my thoughts die right where they are. I swear my head is about to explode. First, because those things are filthy. She’s been hauling rusty, old equipment and sweeping broken glass and picking up rotted pieces of wood for hours. My dirty gloves shouldn’t be anywhere near her mouth. But also … watching Winnie’s teeth close around the finger of my glove has me imagining her mouth biting down on my fingertip. What would a little nip from her feel like? “James? Are you still with me?” “Yep.” The problem is I’m a little too with her. I shake my head to dispel my errant thoughts. There’s nothing I can do, however, to shake loose the inexplicable attraction to a woman I don’t like. And the resulting frustration because Winnie’s draw only seems to be growing, not diminishing. No, now I’ve devolved to the point of imagining Winnie nipping me with her teeth. This is not like me. Tank made words like consent and respect a part of our early education, saying he refused to raise a house full of men who behaved like teenage boys in a locker room. I am not a man who imagines women—much less my employee—biting me. And yep—now I’m picturing it again.