Gentry pulled something from his back pocket and handed it to her.
It was a paintbrush.
“Filthy, huh?” she asked in a dead voice.
“Oh, we’ll have paint all over the place,” he said in a phone-sex operator voice. His smile was obnoxious.
Blaire crossed her arms over her chest. “Perhaps I don’t want to spend my second night of vacation painting.”
The smile dipped from his lips as he pushed off the door frame. He shifted his weight and looked off into the woods. “Painting isn’t the point.”
“What is?”
He leveled her with a look. “Spending time with me.”
She inhaled sharply at what he did to her heartbeat. “Is this…is this like a painting date?”
“I don’t date.” When a soft sound came from his chest, he shook his head hard. “I can’t, but I want to spend time with you. I have a million things to do around here to get it fixed up to sell, but you’re only here for six more days, and I don’t want to waste our time together.”
She really liked the way he’d said our time.
Slowly, she took the paintbrush from his hand and ran her fingers across the soft bristles. “Let me get dressed in some old clothes, and I’ll be right out.”
Standing aside, she nodded her head for him to come in and hoped to God it was as smooth as she’d tried to make it. Gentry was really good at winks, head nods, and smexiness, while she still felt like an amateur with this flirting stuff.
Gentry strode in with the smooth gait of a lion as he stripped out of his jacket. She made a beeline for the bedroom so she could get dressed in a rush and stare at him again that much faster.
“Wear something warm,” he called from the other room.
“You’re telling me to put more clothes on?” Blaire stared into her drawer of old night shirts and pouted.
“Or you can wear nothing,” he suggested. “I’ll be happy, but you’ll freeze your perfect little ass off.”
“I like that you called my ass little, ya liar.”
A deep chuckle sounded from the other room, and then, “You read books?” The soft noise of paper rustled, and she imagined him skimming the manuscript that was sitting on the counter.
“Yeah, lots of them. Read page eighteen.”
More papers rustled as Blaire pulled her hair into a high ponytail, and then Gentry huffed a laugh. “Baby gravy?”
Blaire giggled and shoved her legs into a pair of leggings with a hole where her inner thighs had rubbed it threadbare. She called these her “easy access pants,” but Gentry didn’t need to know that. “I’m an acquisitions editor for a publisher. I read a lot of manuscripts and pick the ones to bring to my boss. I try to get the good ones contracts so they can distribute through the publisher I work for. Contracts, editing, marketing…there is an entire machine in my office. I’m just the first cog.”
“Do you read paranormal romance?” he asked.
His tone had gone serious and dark, so she pulled on the black, thigh-length tunic sweater she’d bought on clearance for four dollars and poked her head out of the room.
“Like vampires? Nope, not my department, though I wouldn’t mind reading something different. I mostly consider contemporary romances right now. Sometimes I look at motorcycle club romances if I’m getting antsy for a change, but then I’m right back on contemporary.” She sat on the floor next to the door and shoved her feet into her snow boots. Distractedly, she admitted, “I used to love to read. It was my passion, and I thought this would be the perfect job for me. But it’s different when you do your passion for a corporate setting, you know? Now reading is work, and I don’t read the books I want to anymore, just the ones the publisher thinks will sell in the current market.”
“Why don’t you read outside of work?”
“Because I’m exhausted. I was overdoing it, overworking myself, bringing my work home, obsessing with staying distracted after my marriage fell apart, and I just…I don’t know…lost the passion for reading a good book outside of work. It’s like, if I have any extra time outside of the office, I don’t want to be doing something that reminds me of my career anymore. It’s the part I miss most, getting lost in a story that I don’t have to pull out of to think about the plot, characters, believability, and whether my boss will go for the book or not.”
Gentry was bent over the counter, fidgeting with the corner of one of the pages, his eyes trained on her tight-clad legs. “How many manuscripts did you print out for this week?”
“Twelve.”
“Where are they?”
“My room,” she muttered, tying her laces.
Gentry strode into her room and returned shockingly fast with her work satchel. “You can print these out again?”
“Yeah, they’re saved on my computer,” she murmured, following his progress toward the fireplace with her gaze. “What are you doing?”
“Freeing you up to actually take time off.”
He dumped the manuscripts into the hearth and reached for a box of matches on the mantel.
A part of her revolted at the idea of burning manuscripts, but as the flames caught on the edges, she thought perhaps Gentry had a point. If they were in the house, she would work this week, and it would take away from the time she had off.
“My best friend would like you,” she murmured, drawing her knees up and watching the fire build. “She didn’t want me to work this week either.”