Page 19 of Badd Daddy
I grabbed his hand and tried to stop him, but it was like trying to stop a hydraulic machine. “Lucas, donotget so much as another speck of paint on me, I swear—”
He just grinned, and brought the brush straight down my chin, my throat, and my breastbone to where the coveralls zipped up. “Oops.”
“Oops?” I wrenched free of him—meaning, he let me. I stomped over to the paint tray, which I hadn’t yet emptied back into the paint can, and before he could stop me, upended it over his head. “Oops.”
Pale green paint glopped thick into his hair, dribbled down his ears and the back of his neck and onto his shoulders.
He just stood for a moment, staring at me in disbelief. “Wow. You really go from zero to a hundred in nothin’ flat, don’t you?”
“Itoldyou not to,” I said, my voice prim and arch.
The paint had glopped down his chest and arms and all over his torso, and when another mischievous grin slid across his paint-coated face, I backed away from him.
“Oh no youdon’t!” I snapped. “Lucas, donot—”
He did.
He grabbed me, wrapped me up in his long arms like iron bands, hauled me inexorably toward himself and, ignoring my breathless pleas, smeared pale green paint all over me—rubbing his cheek against mine, his forehead against mine, until I was almost as paint-smeared as he was.
I gasped in shocked disbelief…and something else fluttered low in my belly, indicating that I didn’t at all mind his proximity, or the way his arms enveloped me and his heat pressed against me. I didn’t mind at all. Despite being covered in paint, I was grinning, laughing breathlessly. I dragged a fingertip through the paint coating his cheekbone.
“I think we better call a truce,” I whispered.
“Yeah?” His voice was a deep, quiet rumble that shivered through me. “Not sure who won.”
“Me neither.”
He let me go and backed away, scraping paint away from his eyes. “You oughta rinse off here. I imagine your place is a mite nicer than mine, so getting paint in my bathroom ain’t no big deal.”
I thought of trying to clean off enough to even get into my truck without ruining the upholstery, much less tracking a mess through my nice clean condo with the teak-stained bamboo floors and exposed brick walls. I winced at the very thought.
“I think I agree.” I tried to clean paint away from my eyes and mouth, but really only succeeded in smearing it even worse. “If you don’t mind.”
He harrumphed. “Wouldn’t’a offered if I minded.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re not going to make this a…athing, are you?”
He arched an eyebrow, although it was hard to tell that’s what he was doing through the thick layer of green paint. “I do declare, Miss Goode,” he said in a thick, syrupy exaggeration of his southern accent, making “declare” sound likedih-clayah, “I haven’t the slightest notion what you might mean by that statement.”
I laughed. “Of course you don’t, Mr. Badd. You are the very picture of gentlemanly innocence.”
“In all seriousness, Liv, go ahead and rinse off. I’ll stay right here and clean up this mess.”
I felt my heart thumping like a snare drum. “I’ll be quick.”
He waved a hand. “Don’t worry about it. I got nowhere else to be and nothing else to do, so take your time.”
“But you’ll need to rinse off too, so I don’t want to use all the hot water.”
His eyes fixed on mine. “Don’t worry about that, Liv.” Under his breath, then: “I might just need a cold shower anyway.”
I almost didn’t hear him say it. And combined with the way his eyes fixed on mine, then flicked down and back up…
I was covered in paint and wearing baggy coveralls, and he couldn’t take his eyes off me.
It felt good.
Too good.