Page 6 of The Handy Men
Dean Reynolds pushed his empty plate away from him and unbuttoned his pants. "I swear Paige makes the best lasagna ever."
Jack nodded but was brooding into his wine. "I thought she'd come home with us. Are you sure she was watching us in the pavilion?"
Dean grinned. "She was there, just like we planned. I timed the moan perfectly."
"I swear we were going to get caught bare-assed by Mrs. Sundby and her yappy Yorkie." Jack refilled both their wineglasses.
"Paige was enjoying the show. I saw her playing with her tits while you were blowing me." Dean smiled in remembrance. He always had a thing for redheads, and even though Paige was more of a strawberry-blond, her sweet dusting of freckles and green eyes made her an honorary redhead in his eyes.
"Fuck," Jack spat out. "I don't know how you didn't haul her inside to join us."
"I had my hands full at the time."
"Damn it. Then why didn't she come home with us when we asked?"
"I don't know." Dean tapped on the table in annoyance. "There's something else going on there. I can't put my finger on it."
"You don't think she's seeing someone, do you?" Jack took a swig of his wine and scowled.
Dean shook his head. "Who? Mr. Carver at the bait shop? Or one of the eligible bachelors on the trawler?"
Jack snorted. "Not likely."
The locals still saw her as a tourist, even though she had been living on the island for almost two years. Then again, it had taken them a few years to warm up to Jack and Dean, but they were still either sinners in the eyes of heaven or debauched perverts, depending on which old biddy you listened to.
"Well, I'm getting sick of all this beating around the bush. I've had a hard-on for her for months now." Jack slapped the table. "Let's just ask her outright. Do you want to fuck or not?"
Dean placed a hand over his heart. "Careful, you might make the lady swoon."
"We both want her and she wants us."
"Are you sure?"
"Oh yeah. No doubt in my mind."
Dean sighed. "We can't initiate anything until the third floor is done, because if she decides it's too kinky or too weird, she won't want us working on the inn. I care about her too much to leave her in the lurch."
"We wouldn't do that," Jack said.
"It might not be our choice. Until the inn is done, it's got to be her idea to screw around. After the inn is done, all bets are off," Dean said. "I'll carry her into the pavilion myself."
"Do you think it would be easier on her if one of us seduced her?" Jack gathered up the plates and put them directly into the dishwasher.
"No. Not after she caught her husband cheating on her. She wouldn't have a fling with a married man."
"Then what makes you think she'll have an affair with two married men?"
Dean wrapped up the leftovers in foil and handed Jack Paige's dish to put in the dishwasher. "Because we're going to make it perfectly clear that we want her in our lives as more than a friend. That she will complete us." Dean made a circle with his fingers.
Jack winced. "We're not going to say it like that, are we? Because that sounds like total new age bullshit."
"It's from Jerry Maguire."
"The 'show me the money' movie?"
"You're hopeless with the classics," Dean said.
"No. The classics are movies that happened before we were born. Casablanca and Somewhere in Time."
