Page 35 of The Hook Up
“It’s to spread the pressure out,” he said. “The pipe is already corroded, so we don’t want it to collapse once I start tightening the C-clamp.”
“I’m not sure what a C-clamp is, but it sounds like something I’d sell at one of my parties.”
He snorted, appreciating her sense of humor. Plenty of women would be freaking out over a flooded kitchen and major plumbing damage, but not Ellie. She was taking it all in stride. God, what a woman.
Stop thinking about her.
He slipped the metal piece into place and began spinning the slippery screw, fumbling to get it nice and tight without thinking words like “slippery screw” and “nice and tight” and pretty much anything else that might make him want to bend Ellie over the kitchen counter.
Which was pointless, really. He could open a dictionary at random and point to any word at all.Aardvark. Kiwi. Valance.Any of them made him want to put his hands all over Ellie Sanders.
Or maybe that was Ellie herself. She was standing close enough for Ty to see up her dress if he turned his head at all, so he concentrated hard on not doing that.
He turned the screw one last time then checked the clamp to make sure it looked snug. Then he turned his attention to the spot where the pipe disappeared into the wall at the back of the cupboard. He frowned and touched a fingertip to the fitting.
“Damn.”
“What’s the matter?” Ellie asked.
Ty put his fingers around it and gave it a wiggle. “The nut is plenty tight, but it’s still dripping for some reason,” he muttered. “Can you hand me the tape?”
Ellie stooped down beside him and picked up the bondage tape. Placing it in his palm, she peered into the cupboard. “Oh. I see what you mean.”
Her shoulder bumped his, and lust blasted through him again. There was so much of it surging through his veins that probably flooded his organs. His skin hummed with heat, and he thought about stabbing his utility knife straight into the pipe to start another geyser.
Cold shower. Please.
“I might need a hand getting this wrapped around the male end of the fitting.”
“Whatever you need,” Ellie said.
“Here, can you hold this?”
Ellie grabbed the pipe, and Ty concentrated on wrapping the purple tape around the threads, careful not to twist it or overlap it or throw it aside to reach for her.
“There,” he said, spinning the nut back into place over the tape-covered threads. “That should do it.”
They sat back and admired his handiwork. “Unreal,” Ellie said. “You did it.”
“Yeah,” Ty said, surprised by the swell of pride bubbling in his chest.
“You fixed my kitchen sink with a condom, bondage tape, and my son’s building blocks.”
Ty nodded and wiped his hands down the front of his jeans. “Should we post it to the do-it-yourself page on Home Depot’s website?”
She laughed and brushed a damp clump of hair off her face. “Thank you so much, Ty. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
“Probably gotten a lot wetter,” he said.
The second he said it, he wanted to grab the words back and shove them down his throat.
What the hell is wrong with you?
But Ellie just laughed. “I don’t think it would be possible.”
She smiled again, eyes locked with his, those twin pools of blue shimmering with something familiar. His body buzzed with desire and affection as she sat beside him, damp and disheveled and so damn beautiful his heart turned to mush.
Her gaze dropped to his chest and she frowned. “Sorry about your shirt.”
